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ROBERT BILLUPS PATTON
Vol. 3, p. 1175

Few enterprises have contributed more practical encouragement to
grain and general produce raisers of Woods County than the Avard
Mercantile Company, a business which since 1904, when it was
organized as the Gerlach Mercantile Company, has been the chief
commercial factor of this community. The credit for much of this
company's success must be given to its secretary, treasurer and
acting manager, Robert Billups PATTON, whose interests have been
identified with it since its inception and whose energies have been
devoted unceasingly to its development.

Mr. Patton was born May 6, 1876, at Alvarado, Texas, and is a son of
Isaac A. and Salome (BILLUPS) Patton. His father was born in 1846, in
Maury County, Tennessee, and received excellent educational
advantages in his youth, graduating at the age of twenty-two years
from the law school of Center College of Kentucky. At the outbreak of
the Civil War he was commissioned a first lieutenant of cavalry, in a
Texas regiment, and served with distinction until the close of the
conflict, under the flag of the Confederacy. When peace was declared
he located at Goliad, Texas, where he engaged in the practice of law
for many years, becoming prominent in the courts of Texas. He was
also not unknown as an educator in his younger days, and served as
principal at several colleges, thus earning the means with which to
pursue his legal studies. In 1875 Mr. Patton located at Alvarado,
Texas, and there has since been prominent in legal and public life.
While Mr. Patton has been successful in politics and has represented
his district and county in the Texas Legislature on several
occasions, the law has been his life work, a profession by which he
has been honored and which has been honored by him. Mr. Patton was
married in 1862 at Goliad, Texas, to Miss Salome BILLUPS, a daughter
of Robert Billups, who was born in Georgia. Eight children were born
to this union, of whom three sons and two daughters are now living:
A.B., now vice president and manager of a large mercantile company at
Winona, Minnesota; Isaac A., a prominent attorney of Alice, Texas;
Robert Billups; Lomie, who is the wife of J.D. CLAYTON, a merchant of
Amarillo, Texas; and Bessie, who is the wife of W.G. MITCHELL, a
wholesale lumber manufacturer of Alabama.

After attending the public schools of his locality, Robert B. Patton
enrolled as a student at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas,
and following his graduation therefrom entered the Masonic Institute
at Alvarado, where he received his degree of Bachelor of Sciences in
1894. He next attended the Texas State Normal School and was granted
a teacher's license, spending the next year in the public
schoolrooms, but in 1896 gave up the educator's profession for
mercantile lines, in which he has since been engaged without
intermission. In 1904 Mr. Patton cam to Avard and associated himself
with the Gerlach Mercantile Company, which in 1907 was reorganized
and incorporated as the Avard Mercantile Company, a concern with a
capital of $20,000. This concern does a business of from $60,000 to
$70,000 annually, handling and purchasing all that the farmer
produces and utilizes. The present officers are John J. GERLACH,
president; George Gerlach, vice president, and R.B. Patton,
secretary, treasurer and manager, and the concern maintains stores at
Woodward and Avard, Oklahoma, and Canadian, Texas. The firm are
wholesale and retail dealers in broom corn and grain of all kinds,
and of the former have bought and shipped as high as 500 or 600 cars.
While this is perhaps their largest line, they also handle hardware,
tinware, cutlery, wind mills, water pipe, casing, implements, farm
tools, coal, feed, field seeds, queensware, groceries, harness,
saddlery, dry goods, gents' furnishings, hats, shoes, furniture,
carpets, mattings and oil cloths. The large department store at Avard
is stocked with the most up-to-date goods of every character, and is
the principal business industry of the city.

Mr. Patton is a director in the State Bank of Avard, and continues
to maintain his position as one of the leading business men of the
community. He is fraternally connected with the Knights of Pythias,
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks. He has also shown an interest in civic
affairs, serving acceptable as a member of the town council and the
school board and as town treasurer, and at all times taking a
foremost part in movements which have made for progress and
advancement. With his family, he belongs to the Methodist Episcopal
Church.

On April 5, 1902, at Cleburne, Texas, Mr. Patton was married to Miss
Martha E. POOLE, daughter of R.L. Poole of Mississippi.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Linda Ricco, November 14, 1998.