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Permanent LinkRepresentative Robert Mullins Wright View All Years
ROBERT MULLINS WRIGHT was born in Sheffield, England, November 1, 1844, and died in Fort Dodge, Iowa, June 11, 1931. Burial was in Oakland Cemetery, Fort Dodge. When he was five years old his parents, Thomas and Mary (Mullins) Wright, removed with their family to near Lisbon, Kendall County, Illinois, crossing the Atlantic in a perilous trip in a sailing vessel. Three years later they removed to a farm in De Kalb County, Illinois. Robert attended common school, and was graduated from the University of Michigan with the degree of A. B. in 1871 and of A. M. in 1874. During this period of his life he varied his college work with labor on farms and with school-teaching, being for four years principal of Fort Wayne, Indiana, High School. In the meantime he had been studying law, and in 1876 removed to Fort Dodge, Iowa, and began practice. This he pursued with success. In 1881 he was elected representative and was again elected to that office in 1903, thus serving in the Nineteenth and the Thirtieth and Thirty-first general assemblies. Prohibition and woman suffrage were two subjects which received his ardent support in his legislative service. He led in the enactment of the drainage laws in his two later sessions. In 1906 he was elected a judge of the Eleventh Judicial District. Re-elections followed, and he served until January 1, 1923. His work as lawyer, legislator and judge was creditable to himself and useful to his community and state.