Biography George Wesley Smith; Vermilion Co., ILL., 
then Richland Parish, Louisiana A History of Louisiana, 
(vol. 2), page 236, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by 
The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925. 

Submitted by Mike Miller


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 George Wesley Smith, a lawyer by profession since 1897 has been 
engaged in practice at Rayville and almost continuously has been 
engaged in some public position or public service to his community 
and state.

Mr. Smith is a native of Vermilion County, Illinois, born September 
5, 1871.  His paternal and maternal ancestors came from Virginia.  
Mr. Smith was educated in the public schools, and as a youth came 
South, studying law at Atlanta, Georgia, where he was admitted to 
the bar in 1895.  Then in 1897 he came to Louisiana and located at 
Rayville, the parish seat of Richland Parish.  He has achieved an 
enviable position as a lawyer, commanding a large general practice, 
and has appeared in many notable cases before the courts of Louisiana.  
Besides his law office at Rayville he maintains an office in Monroe.

Mr. Smith was for several years mayor of Rayville.  He represented 
his district in the State Senate for the four-year term 1912 to 1916.  
During that period he was identified with much of the important 
legislation and also served as a member of the Louisiana Investigating 
Commission, and the Corporation Commission: he was secretary to Governor 
Hall in 1915.  Mr. Smith was for several years a member of the Richland 
Parish Board of Education. He is now city attorney for Rayville, Louisiana.  
He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and past chancellor of 
Rayville Lodge Knights of Pythias. He belongs to the Episcopal Church.

In 1892 he was married to Miss Acele F. Stevens of Veedersburg, Indiana.  
One child was born to them, Waldorf A. Smith, now residing in Chicago, Illinois.

Mrs. Smith enjoys the distinction of being the first woman in Louisiana to hold 
public office by election by the people, she having been elected in 1922 as 
alderman of Rayville, Louisiana, and reelected in 1924 without opposition, being 
the only woman on the board of aldermen.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 236, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by 
The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.