LORENZO D. WRIGHT. One of the early business men of Ryan and still identified with its business activities, is Lorenzo D. Wright. For twenty years, a period covering practically all the history of southern Indian Territory and northern Texas as a developed country aside from its range cattle interests, he has been well known through his connection with the farming affairs of the section. In 1888 Mr. Wright became business manager for the Farmers Alliance of Wise county, Texas, that organization then being a power in the southwest. He later became lecturer for the order for the state of Texas. After about a year he became the Alliance's business agent in the cotton business. As a cotton buyer he is best known throughout the country. When the Alliance finally ceased to do business as an organization he located at Bowie, Texas, as representative of C. F. Witherspoon, now of Denton, Texas. For eight years he was Witherspoon's buyer, and in the meantime had established a grain business for him at Ryan. Somewhat later he became buyer for Wooten and Potts along the Rock Island System, but on January 1, 1908, obtained his release .from his contract with them in order to devote his time to his own business. After his separation from Mr. Witherspoon he continued the grain and feed business at Ryan, at first under the name of Wright and Johnson, but is now sale proprietor. The business now amounts to about ten thousand dollars a year, and as an adjunct of his regular business he buys some cotton on his own account. He is a well known business man and property owner of Ryan, and has a business credit that indicates the strength of his personal and business integrity in this community.
    Mr. Wright was born in Titus county, Texas, October 22, 1859, a son of William F. M. Wright, who settled there in 1852, from Alabama, and was a farmer and stock raiser. After the war he moved to Wise county, Texas, where he died in 1882, aged forty-eight years. He was a slave owner, and had served through the war as a private in the Confederate army. (William F. M. Wright's father was Joseph Wright.) William F. M. Wright married Nancy M. Phillip, daughter of an Alabama planter and slave owner. She now lives with her son in Ryan. Her children were: James M., who died in Wise county, Texas;Margaret, deceased wife of Charles Odom; and Lorenzo D., the second child. Lorenzo D. Wright spent his early life, until 1888, on a farm. In the line of educational advantages, he had about two months' schooling a year until he reached manhood, when he obtained a better equipment by a period of attendance at Goshen School in Parker county, Texas. After his father's death he became responsible for the care of his mother's affairs and remained with her until he married, since which time he has given her a home. On September 4, 1884, Mr. Wright married, in Wise county, Miss Mattie J. McCracken, daughter of J. L McCracken and Tyreisa Boren. Mrs. Wright is one of six children. Mr. and Mrs. Wright have three children, Dovie S., Lula and Pansy.