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DODDRIDGE COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Tina Hursh
Frog158@juno.com
December 9, 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II
Pg. 70-71
Russell Wright is consistently to be designated as one of the vital
and representative young captains of industry residing in the City of
Parkersburg, and he is not only a man of marked progressiveness and energy in
connection with business enterprise of broad scope, but is also one of the
loyal and vigorous advocates of measures and undertakings tending to advance
the interests of his home city and native state. Mr. Wright is president of
the Wright & Loper Oil Company, and also of the Shawnee Oil & Gas Producing
Company, important corporations identified with the oil industry in West
Virginia fields.
Mr. Wright was born on the homestead farm of his parents in Doddridge
County, West Virginia, and the date of his nativity was August 5, 1878. He is
one of the four children of William L. and Ella (Allen) Wright, who still reside
in Doddridge County, where the father was born and reared and where the Wright
family made settlement in the pioneer days. Russell Wright gained his youthful
education in the public schools of his native county, and continued his
association with the work of the home farm until he was sixteen years old.
He then began working in the oil fields of Doddridge and Tyler counties, and as
he had the versatility that made his services of value in all manner of work
and positions he gained a wide and varied experience. Eventually he bagan to
assume a larger share of independent activities and in this way he both made and
lost money, according to the results attending his various exploitations. He
extended his experience by association with oil-production enterprises in the
fields of Oklahoma, Indiana and Illinois, but after an absence of two years
he returned to West Virginia, where his operations have since been largely
staged, though he has had and continues to have interests in connection with oil
production in Ohio. He has maintained his residence and business headquarters
at Parkersburg since 1912, and since 1913 his business operations have been
confined to the West Virginia and Ohio oil fields. He well merits the
expressive American title of hustler, and has made himself known as a vigorous
and progressive factor in the great oil industry. He is a valued and
influential member of the Parkersburg Chamber of Commerce, is affiliated with
the Parkersburg lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is a
member of the Blennerhassett Club and is popular in both business and social
circles in his home city, where his name remains on the list of eligible
bachelors.
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