Preceded by Don H. Biggers Succeeded by Pink L. Parrish Preceded by Robert A. Stuart Died March 30, 1936 | Preceded by William S. Bell Role Attorney Name William Bledsoe | |
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Succeeded by Benjamin Franklin Berkeley | ||
William Harrison Bledsoe, also known as W. H. Bledsoe (December 23, 1869 – March 30, 1936), was an attorney and businessman from Lubbock, Texas, who served as a Democrat from 1915 to 1929 in both houses, consecutively, of the Texas State Legislature. In 1923, as a state senator for District 29, which encompassed a large portion of West Texas, he co-authored legislation to establish what became Texas Tech University.
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Background
Bledsoe was born in Cleburne, in Johnson County south of Fort Worth, the fifth of six children of Willis Scott Bledsoe (1837–1877), a Democratic member of the Texas House for District 23 with service from 1873 to 1874. His mother, the former Susan Frances Harrison (1840-1909), a native of Overton County, Tennessee, and known as Sue F. Bledsoe, was widowed when he was eight years of age; his oldest living sibling, a sister, Nellie Bledsoe Templeton (1864–1941), was then thirteen. His younger brother, Albert Sydney Bledsoe (1871–1913), was born and died in Cleburne and was married to the former Nettie McQueen.
Political life
After brief study at the University of Texas at Austin, Bledsoe was admitted in 1890 to the State Bar of Texas, based on his independent preparation. He returned to Cleburne to practice law but relocated eighteen years later to Lubbock in 1908 in search of opportunities on the South Plains. He founded the Lubbock law firm, Bledsoe, Crenshaw and Dupree, later known as Crenshaw, Dupree and Milam. He worked to establish the South Plains Bar Association, was city attorney in Lubbock and a member of the local school board.
Bledsoe won a special election for Texas House District 122 on October 9, 1915, to succeed Representative Don H. Biggers of District 122, who resigned the seat. A story circulated that Bledsoe was out of town at the time of filing for the special election, and a handful of civic leaders placed his name in the Democratic primary election. On July 14, 1919, he won another special election in Senate District 29 to succeed William S. Bell, who died in office. He remained in District 29 from 1919 to 1925, when he began to represent Senate District 30 for four more years until 1929.
Representative Bledsoe chaired the House committee which in 1917 investigated Governor James E. Ferguson, who was impeached by the full House and convicted in the state Senate for misapplication of public funds and receiving $156,000 from an unnamed source. He also headed a committee that supervised the reform of the Texas Ranger Division.
In 1917, a bill to establish an A&M college for west Texas passed the legislature and was signed into law by Governor Ferguson. A committee chaired by the governor was named to conduct the site selection. Ferguson announced the selection of Abilene, but he had rigged the results. Mrs. Bledsoe, the former Emma K. Boone, said that her husband called for Ferguson's impeachment while seated next to the governor. The Abilene college selection was struck down.
The West Texas Chamber of Commerce supported legislation passed by both houses of the legislature in 1921 to establish a West Texas A&M College. The bill was vetoed by Governor Pat Morris Neff, who said that the state could not afford another state college. Neff also defended his veto on grounds that the proposed college was not included in the 1920 Democratic state platform. Neff's veto stirred up a political firestorm; two years later he was prepared to sign similar legislation.
In 1923, Bledsoe and Representative Roy Alvin Baldwin of Slaton in south Lubbock County pushed to passage the legislation (Senate Bill 103) with a $1 million appropriation to establish a four-year institution in West Texas with an emphasis on agricultural research. The school would be separate from Texas A&M University in College Station, which had a similar mission and whose leadership opposed the new institution. Bledsoe confessed to having drawn up the requirements for the host city to fit only Lubbock, which was selected over thirty-six other locations, including Sweetwater in Nolan County, San Angelo (before the existence of Angelo State University), Midland, Plainview, Brownwood, Lampasas, Big Spring, Boerne in Kendall County barely northwest of San Antonio. Vernon west of Wichita Falls claimed it should be selected because of its railroad access; at the time Vernon had more than one thousand more people than Lubbock. The site selection committee traveled to all the communities seeking to become the location of the new college, but the fix was in from the start. To win the competition, Lubbock was even allowed to amend its initial application to account for eighty more acres so that it could meet the two thousand acres required in the legislation for the chosen location. In time, Texas Tech, originally Texas Technological College, helped to make Lubbock the largest city of West Texas, excluding El Paso in the far southwestern corner of the state. Representative Richard M. Chitwood, chairman of the House Education Committee, thought his Sweetwater to have been far better suited for the new institution as the "central" location of West Texas. When Lubbock was chosen, Chitwood was given a patronage consolation as business manager of the new institution. He moved to Lubbock but died after just fifteen months as the Texas Tech business manager.
From 1925 to 1927 in the 39th legislative session, Bledsoe was the Senate President pro tempore in the administration of Governor Miriam Wallace Ferguson, wife of former Governor James Ferguson. In 1927, Bledsoe was injured in an automobile accident. On retirement, he attributed the location of Texas Tech to the work of the citizens of the South Plains and Lubbock County.
Bledsoe died in the early spring of 1936 at the age of 66. He is interred at Lubbock City Cemetery. He is voted the eighth most influential Lubbock resident by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.