Judge Ernest B. Hughes. Now serving as judge of the Twenty-second Judicial District, including Creek and Okmulgee counties, Judge Hughes has been as popular on the bench as he was as a practicing lawyer in this district. he is the oldest lawyer by residence and practice in the entire district, and has been identified with the bar of Eastern Indian Territory in Oklahoma for almost twenty years. Possessed of scrupulous honesty and a fine sense of justice, his hosts of friends unite in declaring him one of the most competent men who ever sat on the district bench in the state.

Judge Hughes is a native of West Virginia, born in Summers County, July 23, 1874, a son of Gordon C. and Alice (Hanchins) Hughes. His father was born in Giles County, Virginia, March 24, 1853, and his mother in Summers County, West Virginia, April 17, 1853. They were married in West Virginia in 1872, and lived in that state until May 1, 1893, and removed to Arkansas, afterwards to Missouri, and in 1897 located in Indian Territory, first at Tahlequah and since 1898 has had their home in Sapulpa. Gordon C. Hughes has spent his active career as a farmer and as a man of affairs. While he lives in town, he has some extensive interests to require his attention in farming and in other matters. Creek County has had no more influential leader in all the uplift movements for the improvement of agriculture and rural life than Mr. Hughes. He has been identified with all the good roads undertakings in this county, and has been a loyal supporter of corn clubs and other organizations. He is a democrat, and while living in West Virginia served as sheriff of his home county. He is also a member of the Masonic Order, and both parents are devout in performing their duties as members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.

Judge Hughes, who was the oldest of seven children, six of whom are still living, lived at home with his parents until his marriage in 1898. In the meantime he had gained a liberal education. He attended the college at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, from which he graduated in 1897, and in 1900 took his degree in law from the Southern Normal University at Huntington, Tennessee. At an earlier date he had for two years been a student in the State Normal School of West Virginia. Before statehood Judge Hughes served as city recorder of Sapulpa, and enjoyed a widely extended practice in the courts of this district until his election as district judge in November, 1914.

Judge Hughes is a loyal democrat, is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and is affiliated with the Masonic Order, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of Pythias. He was the first president of the Creek County Bar Association, and is well known in the State Bar Association.

In 1898 he married Miss Olga Temperance Lindsey, a native of Arkansas, and a daughter of Dr. F. J. Lindsey of Benton County, Arkansas. To their union have been born six children: Bernard, Nellie Carmen, Birdie, Joseph G., Thomas Wilson (deceased), and Billie Mirth.