William T. Mayo, Vernon Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller, February, 2002 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** William T. Mayo, who was a captain in the Thirty-fourth Infantry during the World war, is a native son of Louisiana, and except for the war period has been identified with the business and civic life of Shreveport for twelve years. He is the Present commissioner of public utilities in the city government. Captain Mayo was born in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, in 1888. He acquired a liberal and technical education in the local schools, attending Vanderbilt University, and specialized in chemistry at the Atlanta Pharmaceutical College and in the College of Pharmacy at New Orleans. Captain Mayo on locating at Shreveport in 1912 engaged in the general Insurance business. In April, 1917 he entered the First Officers' Training School at Leon Springs, Texas, was commissioned the first lieutenant of infantry, and was assigned to the Thirty-fourth Infantry of the Regular Army. With this regiment as a part of the seventh Division he went overseas, and served with it during several campaigns in France. While overseas he was promoted to the rank of captain, and he returned home and was discharged in June, 1919. He is a member of the American Legion. Captain Mayo in 1922 was elected to the office of commissioner and superintendent of public utilities m the City of Shreveport. In this position he has supervisor of all public utilities, such as water Works, sewers, street railway system, telephone, etc. He had been elected upon his specific pledge to the people that he would give Shreveport a good and wholesome water supply, and he host no time in an endeavor to fulfill that pledge. Immediately following his induction into office as commissioner of public utilities he began a careful review and investigation with engineers of various sources of supply available for the city's use, resulting in the ultimate selection of Cross Lake, this final choice having been based upon the abundance of supply, nearness to the city, which in itself would mean a saving of several millions of dollars to the taxpayers, and also by the further consideration that with the completion of the engineering projects Cross Lake, with its eleven thousand acres of water, surrounded by hills and other natural adornment of terrene and forestry, will become the outstanding pleasure resort of Northern Louisiana. As an expression of their confidence, both in the proposed plan and in the man behind the plan, the citizens of Shreveport by an overwhelming majority voted for a bond issue of a million dollars for use in the creation of this water supply project. The work of construction is now well under way, and when completed the City of Shreveport will have one of the finest municipal water supply systems in the South, together with as high grade soft potable water as is possible to obtain. The benefits to be derived therefrom, both by the present generation and those to follow after, surpasseth comprehension, while the completed work will stand as a tribute to the aggressive energy and comprehensive optimism of the builder who transformed the dream of yesterday into the reality of today. Captain Mayo is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a Knight Templar and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of the American Hellenic Educational Progress Association. He married Miss Inez Kirk, of Tennessee. They had the misfortune to lose their only child, William T., Jr., at the age of eighteen months. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 197, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.