He wasn’t born here, never lived here, didn’t die here.
But he is buried here—and in some prime hereafter real estate: amid the mausoleums of the capitalists and cattlemen of Oakwood Cemetery.
Charles Allen Culberson was born in Alabama in 1855 to David Browning and Eugenia Kimball Culberson. The family moved to Texas in 1856. He graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1874, from the University of Virginia in 1877, and was admitted to the bar in Daingerfield, Texas in 1877. (Photo from Wikipedia.)
Meanwhile, his father in 1873 was elected the state Senate and served in the U.S. Congress from 1875 to 1897.
The younger Culberson began his law practice in Jefferson in Marion County in east Texas.
In 1880 at the age of twenty-five he was elected county attorney.
In 1882 he married Sally Harrison, daughter of William M. and Elizabeth Ann Epperson Harrison of Jefferson.
The couple moved in 1887 to Dallas, where Culberson was a partner in the law firm of Bookout and Culberson.
In 1890 Culberson was elected attorney general of Texas. He was reelected in 1892.
Upon election as attorney general, Culberson was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Culberson was elected the twenty-first governor of Texas in November 1894.
Not long after Culberson took office in 1895, Dan Stuart, an old political foe from east Texas, began raising money to stage a heavyweight world championship prizefight between champion Jim Corbett and challenger Bob Fitzsimmons. One of Stuart’s biggest challenges was finding a city to host the fight—several states banned prizefighting.
Texas was one of those states, although the Texas law against prizefighting was vague and made prizefighting merely a misdemeanor. Nonetheless, when Stuart selected Dallas as the site of the spectacle, Culberson vowed to prevent the fight.
Culberson’s critics said Culberson was just pandering to the religious element of the state. According to D Magazine, although Culberson had the public persona of a goody two shoes, he in fact knew his way around an expletive and was no stranger at cockfights, horse races, and poker games. A much more open secret was his drinking.
Proponents of the fight didn’t think Culberson would try to stop it, knew the Texas law was vague, and urged Stuart to stage the fight in Dallas to make it a test case of the law.
Dallas ministers urged Governor Culberson to prevent the fight.
In August Culberson exchanged a series of letters with Ben E. Cabell, Dallas County sheriff and future Dallas mayor, to determine if Cabell would enforce the law to prevent the fight.
In one letter Cabell wrote to Culberson:
“I am advised that the criminal statute defining prize fighting, etc., makes it a misdemeanor and not a felony. I would therefore respectfully ask you as the chief executive of the state, and as you say, it is your constitutional duty to see that the laws are enforced, whether I would be justified in using such force as may be necessary to prevent it, even if it required the shooting down of citizens, and would you advise me to use such force? An early reply earnestly requested.
Very respectfully,
(Signed) BEN E. CABELL, Sheriff Dallas County.”
Taking no chances, Culberson called a special session of the legislature to pass a law that (1) was legally airtight and (2) made prizefighting a felony.
Promoter Stuart threw in the towel. The fight was called off.
(On March 17, 1897 Stuart finally staged the fight of the century at Carson City, Nevada. As the film cameras cranked, challenger Fitzsimmons knocked Corbett to his knees with a blow to the solar plexus in the fourteenth round and became the heavyweight champion.)
Culberson was reelected in 1896.
On January 25, 1899 the Texas House and Senate sitting jointly elected Culberson to succeed U.S. Senator Roger Q. Mills, who retired. From 1907 to 1910 Culberson was Senate Democratic minority leader. From 1913 to 1919 he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But Culberson for years had suffered poor health—exacerbated by alcoholism. Periodic stays at health resorts earned him the derisive nickname “sick man of the Senate.”
In fact, when Culberson ran for reelection in 1922, he was in no condition to return to Texas to campaign. The Ku Klux Klan in Texas sensed that Culberson was vulnerable. The Klan was at its peak in Texas in the early 1920s. Richard H. Fair in “The Good Angel of Practical Fraternity: The Ku Klux Klan in McLennan County, 1915-1924” writes that Texas had “roughly 100,000 Klan-influenced votes” in the 1922 election.
In March 1922 four of the KKK’s most powerful men, including Brown Harwood of Fort Worth, met in Waco and decided to field three candidates in the Democratic primary against Culberson. The Klan would endorse the Klansman who made the best showing.
Robert Lee Henry was a former congressman and great-great-great-grandson of Patrick Henry.
Earle B. Mayfield was state railroad commissioner and a former state senator. He claimed that he had relinquished his Klan membership just before he entered the primary race against Culberson. But Mayfield admitted that he continued to attend Klan meetings.
Sterling P. Strong was a Dallas traveling salesman.
Rounding out the initial primary field against Culberson were these challengers:
Former state legislator Cullen F. Thomas, impeached governor James E. Ferguson, and future governor Miriam A. Ferguson were anti-Klan.
Clarence Ousley, former Fort Worth newspaper editor and assistant U.S. secretary of agriculture, was mildly anti-Klan.
The Klan prevailed: KKK darling Earle B. Mayfield won Culberson’s Senate seat, although Culberson challenged the validity of the election. It was Culberson’s first and last electoral defeat. He served twenty-four years in the Senate.
Two years after leaving the Senate, while still living in Washington, Culberson died of pneumonia.
His death was front page news from Los Angeles to Bangor.
Culberson’s body was brought to Fort Worth by train. The body lay in state in the home of brother-in-law William Benjamin Harrison. Tarrant County courts closed during his funeral, and flags were lowered to half staff.
Culberson had requested to be buried in Texas, the state he had represented since 1891.
But why Fort Worth?
His wife Sallie, who died in 1926, had at least three relatives in Fort Worth:
Brothers William Benjamin Harrison and James Harrison and sister Mary Harrison Schluter are buried in Oakwood.
Charles Allen Culberson is buried with wife Sallie Harrison Culberson in the Harrison family plot.
