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HUGH L. HARRELL
Vol. 3, p. 1146, 1147

Definite contribution to the dynamic energy which has been potent in
the furtherance of the social and industrial development of Oklahoma
is to be accredited to Mr. Harrell, who has been a resident within
the borders of the present commonwealth from the time of his
nativity, who is a member of an honored and influential pioneer
family of the state and whose individual activities have been
manifold and productive, so that he is consistently to be designated
as one of the most progressive and loyal young men of the state, his
character and achievement fully entitling him to the unqualified
popular esteem in which he is held. He had the distinction of serving
as assistant secretary of state for Oklahoma when he was but twenty-
four years of age and such exceptional preferment in the new state
indicates special ability and fealty on the part of the incumbent.
Mr. Harrell maintains his residence in Oklahoma City but gives a
general supervision to his fine landed estate of several hundred
acres in Hughes County, his enterprise and energy being the forces
that are developing this into one of the model agricultural demesnes
of Oklahoma.

Mr. Harrell was born at Culla Chaha, Indian Territory, the place of
his nativity being near the City of Poteau, the present judicial
center of LeFlore County, Oklahoma, and the date of his birth having
been February 27, 1887. He is the son of Henry B. and Jessie M.
(ENOCHS) Harrell and his father is numbered among the successful
stockmen of Oklahoma, where he is a citizen of prominence and
influence, besides being a member of a family that settled in Indian
Territory in the early pioneer days. Henry B. Harrell was born in
Alabama and was a boy at the time when the family immigrated to the
wilds of Indian Territory, the journey having been made by the
Mississippi River and thence up the Arkansas River to Fort Smith,
Arkansas, before the establishing of the of railway facilities in
this section of the Southwest.

His father became one of the early exponents of the live-stock
industry in the Indian Territory , and finally established his
residence at San Antonio, Texas where his venerable widow still
resides and where he continued to be identified with the cattle
business until the time of his death. As a matter of enduring
historic interest it should be noted that the paternal great-
grandfather of him whose name initiates this article, became one of
the early missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in
Indian Territory, and was the founder of Harrell's Chapel, near
Poteau, this pioneer and crude church edifice having long been one of
the landmarks of that section of the present State of Oklahoma. The
maternal grandfather of Mr. Harrell was a prosperous merchant in the
City of Verona, Mississippi, at the inception of the Civil war, and
during the great conflict between the states of the North and the
South he was a gallant soldier of the Confederacy, besides which he
had served as a member of the Mississippi Legislature. His widow now
resides in the home of the parents of the subject of this sketch, at
Calvin, Hughes County, Oklahoma.

To the common schools of Indian Territory, Hugh L. Harrell is
indebted for his early educational discipline, and from 1905 to 1906
he was found enrolled as a student in the Oklahoma Agricultural &
Mechanical College at Stillwater. Thereafter he completed a normal
and business course in Indianola College, at Wynnewood, Indian
Territory, and in this institution he was graduated in 1906, with the
degree of Master of Accounts. Prior to this he had served as
secretary and treasurer of the Hundley Mercantile Company, at Calvin,
and he continued with this concern for some time after his
graduation. He next engaged in the land, loan and banking business.
In the meanwhile he had instituted the improvement of his ranch of
several hundred acres, in the vicinity of Calvin, and he is rapidly
developing this into one of the most productive and valuable landed
estates in Hughes County.

In 1911, whey but twenty-four years of age, Mr. Harrell was
appointed assistant secretary of state for the new State of Oklahoma,
and during his four years' incumbency of this important office he
proved a signally efficient and valued executive. He served for a
time also as an appraiser for the Oklahoma state board of public-land
commissioners, and he has informed himself thoroughly in regard to
the resources and advantages of the various portions of the state, to
which his loyalty is unfaltering and appreciative. Though he prepared
himself for and has received admission to the bar of the state Mr.
Harrell has not found it expedient to engage in the practice of his
profession, but his technical knowledge has proved of great value to
him in his various business operations.

In politics he is an active supporter of the cause of the democratic
party, and both he and his wife hold membership in the Presbyterian
Church. He has varied interest in Oklahoma City, where he formerly
held the office of secretary of the Broadway Loan & mortgage Company.
He manifest deep interest in all that tends to conserve the welfare
and progress of Oklahoma and here his circle of friends is virtually
coincident with that of his acquaintances.

In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Harrell has received the thirty-second
degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite and is affiliated with
Indian Consistory, No. 2, at McAlester, and is also a member of India
Temple Order of the Mystic Shrine. For several years he was secretary
of the lodge of Free & Accepted Masons at Calvin but his ancient
craft affiliation is now with Oklahoma City Lodge, No. 36. At Calvin
he served also as secretary of the camp of the Woodmen of the World,
and he is a member of the Oklahoma City Country Club. Mrs. Harrell
was graduated in William Woods College, at Fulton, Missouri, as a
member of the class of 1907, and she is active in church work in the
Oklahoma metropolis, where also she is a popular factor in
representative social circles.

At Oklahoma City, on the 2d of June, 1908, was solemnized the
marriage of Mr. Harrell to Miss Winnie SCALES, daughter of George W.
and Mattie (BOURLAND) Scales, her father having been a pioneer of the
Choctaw Nation of Indian Territory and having there married Miss
Mattie Bourland, who is a member of the well known Indian family of
that name and also a representative of the BYRD family, which
likewise claims a distinct strain of Indian blood and is one of
prominence and influence in the present generation in Oklahoma. Mr.
and Mrs. Harrell have one child, Pauline, who was born in 1910.

Mr. Harrell has three sisters, Mrs. Tupp L. GRIFFIN, whose husband
is a prominent merchant of Calvin; and Leona and Ada, who remain at
the parental home.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Marti Graham, April 1, 1999.