John James Culbertson
Paris, Lamar County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(March 16, 1853 - September 27, 1932) Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, John James Culbertson grew up in large northeastern cities. He married Emily Lou Lee of New Jersey in 1882 and soon became a salesman for a cotton product company based in Alabama. During his southern travels, Culbertson saw the potential for profit from cottonseed oil. He moved to Paris and was instrumental in building the first Paris cotton mill about 1884. The company, Paris Oil Works, was sold to American Cotton Oil Trust in 1887, and Culbertson moved to Arkansas to manage a southern oil company plant. Four years later the Culbertsons returned to Paris, where he built a small cottonseed oil empire through the Paris Oil and Cotton Company, later known as Southland Cotton Oil Company. Culbertson was asked to participate in a master plan for the growth of Paris in 1913. As an influential Texas financier, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas when it was formed in 1914. His nationwide reputation as a cotton producer led President Woodrow Wilson to appoint him to the board that organized a bureau to oversee cotton and cottonseed products for the U. S. Food Administration in 1917. After Paris was ravaged by fire in 1916, John and Emily Culbertson were among leading citizens who rebuilt the city. Held in high esteem by the people of Paris, the Culbertsons gave many public spaces, monuments and works of art to the city and several local institutions, including the Paris Public Library and the fountain of imported Carrara marble on the city's central plaza. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John James Culbertson grew up in the big cities of the Northeast before a salesman's eye spotted profit in Southern cottonseed oil. Moving to Paris in the 1880s, he built the town's first cotton mill and eventually a small cottonseed-oil empire, gaining a national reputation that led to seats on the new Dallas Federal Reserve board in 1914 and a wartime federal cotton bureau under President Wilson. After fire ravaged Paris in 1916, he and his wife Emily helped rebuild, giving the city libraries, monuments, and a marble fountain.
Why it matters
Culbertson embodies the Gilded Age and Progressive Era industrialist who turned a regional crop into national influence and then poured that fortune back into his adopted hometown.
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Related people
- · John James Culbertson
- · Emily Lou Lee Culbertson
- · Woodrow Wilson
Related events
- · Paris Fire of 1916
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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