Hon. Robert Roberts, Jr., Union, then Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller
Date: 1999-2000






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Hon. Robert Roberts, Jr.  Among the men of public prominence in Northern 

Louisiana, few are better known over a wide territory or enjoy more 

entirely the confidence of their fellow citizens than Hon. Robert Roberts, 

Jr., of Shreveport.  For many years he has been entrusted with public 

responsibilities, and with honor and efficiency has performed every public 

duty.



Judge Roberts was born in Union Parish, Louisiana, in 1872, son of Captain 

Robert and Mary (McCormick) Roberts, the former of whom was born in South 

Carolina and the latter in Mississippi.  The grandparents of Judge Roberts 

came to Louisiana as permanent residents when their son Robert was ten years 

old, and the Tatter was reared and educated in Union Parish.  He served 

throughout the war between the states as captain of a company in the Fifth 

Louisiana Infantry, Confederate Army, and in addition to serving a large 

clientele in the practice of medicine afterward filled positions of public 

usefulness for many years, being at the time of his death a member of the 

State Pension Board and formerly superintendent of education in Union Parish, 

a wise and judicious leader along many lines of public welfare.



Robert Roberts, Jr., spent his early schooldays in Union Parish, later entering 

Ruston College, where he graduated in 1893, and still later going to the 

Louisiana State University, where he continued until graduation in 1897.  

After teaching in the public schools for several years he entered upon the 

study of law in the office of Barksdale & Barksdale at Ruston, Louisiana, 

and in 1902 was admitted to the bar, following which he became a member of 

the firm of Barksdale, Barksdale & Roberts, representing the firm at Farmerville, 

where he maintained his office.  Mr. Roberts made so favorable an impression at 

Farmerville that he was elected mayor, and later, after removing to Minden, was 

elected mayor of Minden in his several administrations bringing about reforms 

and bettering civic conditions in both places.  It was while residing at Minden 

that Judge Roberts was first elected a member of the Louisiana House of 

Representatives, in which august body he served with great usefulness for eight 

consecutive years.  During his second term in the House of Representatives Judge 

Roberts was chairman of the ways and means committee, and also ranking member of 

the committee on rules.  He was a member of the employer's liability commission 

appointed by Governor Hall in 1912, and one of the authors of the Burke-Roberts 

Workmen's Compensation law, which was enacted in the year 1914, and has proved 

since that time its usefulness and popularity with both employers and employees.



Before coming to the bench Judge Roberts had served in still other public 

capacities aside from his professional activities.  He served as a member of the 

State Tax Commission in 1911, and the Constitutional Convention in 1913, and it 

was while serving as private secretary to Governor Hall that a vacancy occurred 

on the bench of the Circuit Court of Appeals, through the death of Judge Ben 

Edwards.  Governor Hall immediately appointed Mr. Roberts, and he served on the 

Circuit Bench for two years.  In 1920, while still a resident of Minden, Judge 

Roberts was elected judge of the District Court, comprising Webster and Bossier 

parishes, for a period of four years.  On January 1, 1923, through a realignment 

of the judicial districts, Bossier Parish became a part of the First Judicial 

District, composed of Caddo and Bossier parishes.  Judge Roberts is now engaged 

in private practice in Shreveport in partnership with his son.



Judge Roberts married Miss Olive Goodwill, of Minden, and they have one son and 

one daughter, Robert Roberts III, who completed his academic course at Louisiana 

State University in 1923, and his law course in 1925; and Olive, who is a 1925 

graduate of Newcomb College, New Orleans.  Judge Roberts is a member of the 

Methodist Episcopal Church.  He belongs to the Kappa Sigma and Masonic fraternities.



Judge Roberts has always, been ardently fond of out door sports, devoting his 

leisure time and vacations to fishing, quail hunting and duck shooting.  For 

several years past he has been an enthusiastic golfer and is frequently seen 

upon the links of the Shreveport Country Club, of which he is a member.



NOTE:  The referenced source contains a black and white photograph of the subject 

with his/her autograph.



A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 21-22, by Henry E. Chambers.  

Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.