Bios.Tulsa,OK WRIGHT, Gabriel N. 
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Posted by Marti Graham on Sun, 25 Oct 1998
Surname: WRIGHT, STINSON, WOODRUFF, TALMAN, NIXON, WOODEN, HAVER
Vol. 3, p. 1118 
GABRIEL N. WRIGHT 
A character for vigorous and successful management has marked the entire career of Gabriel N. Wright, now one of the foremost business men and citizens of Tulsa. Mr. Wright is a young man in years, but has a record of accomplishment which might well become one many years his senior. He is the executive head of the Merchants and Planters Bank of Tulsa, has a large business as a merchant and manufacturer, and is usually found associated with any movements for local betterment or upbuilding. 
Gabriel N Wright was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, March 2, 1877, the youngest of the five living children of Gabriel N., Sr., and Martha R. (WOODRUFF) Wright. Both parents were natives of Georgia, the father passing away at the age of seventy-six and the mother at sixty-five. During the Civil war his father was engaged in the manufacture of potash, an important commodity for use in the powder mills, for the southern government. At the close of the war he left Georgia and located at Fort Smith, Arkansas. By profession he was an architect and mechanical engineer, and after coming to Arkansas took the contract and built the first structures on the campus of the State University at Fayetteville. After following his business as a builder and contractor for a number of years he bought a plantation near Van Buren and became extensively engaged in the raising of cotton. Subsequently he removed to Oklahoma City, and invested largely in real estate in that locality, but lived retired for several years before his death. He was a democrat in politics. 
Gabriel N. Wright, Jr., grew up in Arkansas, partly in the city of Fort Smith, and partly on his father's plantation, was educated in the public schools and afterwards took a course in a business college at Oklahoma City. His first regular employment was in a lumber yard, from which he drifted into clerking for a merchandise house at Oklahoma City. Still later he was advanced to the position of manager of a department store, and varied that employment with travel on the road as a commercial salesman, for a dry goods house. Mr. Wright was one of the early settlers in Tulsa, having located there in 1905, when that town was just beginning its great boom. Here he opened a stock of clothing and still maintains that business, though it is now only one of his several activities. 
In 1909 Mr. Wright became one of the leading stockholders in the Merchants and Planters Bank of Tulsa and was soon afterwards elected president, an office he still holds. The Merchants and Planters Bank at the close of 1914 showed total resources of over $700,000. It has a capital of $50,000, with surplus and undivided profits of over $15,000, and the item of deposits figures over $650,000. The list of directors include some of the leading business men in Tulsa and vicinity, and the other officers beside Mr. Wright are: E. L. TALMAN, J. Truman NIXON and F. M. WOODEN, vice presidents and F. A. HAVER, cashier. 
Mr. Wright is also president of the Wright Producing Company, an important firm engaged in bring in and developing gas and oil wells in this vicinity. He is president of the Oklahoma Glazed Cement Pipe Company of Tulsa, the largest concern of it's kind in this section of the state, and its products have a steady and growing demand in Tulsa and surrounding country and towns. 
In this brief sketch only the major activities which have engaged Mr. Wright's attention has been noted, and Tulsa people say that for ten years he has been a ready and willing factor in helping to forward any movement to give Tulsa a better position among Oklahoma cities. AT the present time he is serving as president of the Commercial Club, is a charter member of the Tulsa Lodge of Elks and is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias. Politically his associated are with the democratic party. 
On November 25, 1905, Mr. Wright married Eliza M. STINSON. Mrs. Wright is a native of Texas. They are the parents of three children: Norman, Jeannette and Catherine. 
Transcribed by Marti Graham, October 25, 1998.