L. Varner Stinson. The Oklahoma Legislature of 1915
passed a law providing a method by which public highways might be
constructed in every county in the state. The law made it possible
for townships to vote bonds for highway purposes and created the
county and township machinery for carrying on the work. That part of
the state formerly included within the limits of Indian Territory was
particularly in need of such a law by reason of the fact that so
small a percentage of lands were taxable for any purpose, Congress
having provided that lands remaining in possession of most Indians
should not be taxable for twenty-one years from the date of the
passage of the Oklahoma Enabling Act. Until the highway act became
effective it was possible to construct only a few miles of highway in
a county. Private subscription, which was usually meagre, was the
only method of raising road funds in many communities. In Bryan
County, where only 42 per cent of the lands are
taxable, road work began in earnest in 1915, when the county
commissioners designated County Surveyor L. Varner Stinson as county
engineer. From 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the highway built in a
county are designated as state highways and one-half the expense of
construction is borne by the state, while the county engineer makes
the necessary surveys, drawings, plats, specifications, etc.
L. Varner Stinson
was well qualified for the work of county engineer, being a graduate
in civil engineering from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of
Texas and having had several years of experience in field work.
Another qualification lay in the fact that he had for eight years
been surveyor of the county, being the only man to fill that office
since statehood. During those eight years he had been the
commissioners’ engineer in the construction of all highways, bridges
and other work of an engineering nature.
Mr. Stinson was born
at Campbell, Hunt County, Texas, September 27, 1880, and is a son of
A. W. D. and Ida (Eiland) Stinson. His father, a native of Texas, is
now sixty-seven years of age, but is still actively engaged in the
real estate business at Durant, Oklahoma, where he is a member of the
city council and a leading and influential citizen. His grandfather
was a lawyer and jurist of more than local note for
many years in East Texas. The mother of Mr. Stinson was a native of
Georgia and at the age of fifteen years accompanied her parents to
Texas, the family traveling 100 miles overland from Terrell, the
nearest railroad point, to their new home in Hunt County. There were
three sons and four daughters in the family: L. Varner; Samuel D.,
who is agent at Durant for the American and Wells Fargo Express
companies; Mrs. B. W. Bussell, who is the wife of a public school
principal at Durant; John D., who is an express messenger for the
Missouri, Kansas & Texas
Railroad between Fort Worth and San Antonio; Miss Ruth, who is a
music teacher and student at Dallas, Texas; Miss Esther, a graduate
of the Southeastern State Normal School, class of 1915, and now a
public school teacher of McAlester, Oklahoma; and Miss Lois, aged
fourteen years, who resides with her parents at Durant.
L. Varner Stinson,
after attending the public schools of Texas until nineteen years of
age, moved with his parents to Indian Territory, and for a year the
family lived on a farm near Durant, the son being a student at
Halsell College, Durant, for two years. In 1901 he entered the
Agricultural And Mechanical College of Texas, from which he was
graduated in 1904, and for a year thereafter was employed in the
maintenance department of the Santa Fe Railroad Company, at Beaumont,
Texas. Later he assisted in surveying the route of the Beaumont, Sour
Lake & Western Railroad from Beaumont to Houston, and still later
assisted in the construction of that road. Returning to Oklahoma, he
was employed by the Gulf Pipe Line Company in the location of a line
through Texas, and in 1907 was elected the first county surveyor of
Bryan County, Oklahoma.
In December, 1910,
Mr. Stinson was married to Miss Julia Kyser, of Durant. Mr. and Mrs.
Stinson are members of the Baptist Church. He is popular with his
fellow-members in the Masonic and Elks lodges, and in the State
Association of County Surveyors and Engineers.