East Baton Rouge Parish
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Warren Otto Watson, who is a veteran of seas service in the World war, is one of
the and popular younger members of the bar of Rouge, where he has been
established in the general practice of his profession since January and where
distinctive success is attending his and efficient service in his chosen
vocation he has the fundamental characteristic that make for successful
advancement needs no further voucher than the statement that he depended
entirely upon his own resources in gaining his higher academic and also his
professional education.
Mr. Watson claims the old Lone Star State as the
place of his nativity, his birth having occurred at Kilgore, Gregg County,
Texas, September 28, 1893. His father, John Robert Watson, now a resident of
Marshall, that state, was born in Georgia, June 29, 1861, and was a boy at the
time of the family removal to Alabama, whence removal was later made to Texas,
he having been still a comparatively young man when he established his residence
in Gregg County Texas, where he was for a time engaged in farm enterprise and
where he was called upon to serve in various local offices of public trust. He
was long and actively associated with public service, has been influential in
the councils of the democratic party in Texas, and now holds a position with the
Texas & Pacific Railroad. His wife, whose maiden name was Georgia Letitia
Morris, was born in Alabama, November 16, 1865, and they have six children:
Henry Prescott, who was born September 12, 1886, resides at Breckenridge, Texas,
where he is city secretary and treasurer, as well as city tax assessor and
collector; Robert Pitt, who was born July 24, 1888, is engaged in the wholesale
and retail grocery business at Marshall, Texas; Callie Belle, who was born
October 10, 1891, is the wife of Homer M. Spencer, manager of a retail grocery
at Marshall, Texas; Warren Otto, of this review, was the next in order of birth
; Mittie Lucile, born November 26, 1893, is the wife of Albert J. Tatum, of
Houston, Texas; and Annie Lorna, born September 5, 1902, is the wife of John Eli
Mason, of Houston, Texas.
The earlier educational discipline of Warren
Otto Watson was acquired in the public schools of Gregg and Harrison counties,
Texas, and in his native state he was graduated from the Hallsville High School
as a member of the class of 1908. For a few months thereafter he applied himself
to strenuous sawmill work at Milvid, Texas, and in the Lone Star State he
remained, variously employed, until the year 1911, when he there took a position
in the shoe department in the department store of the Russell-Graham Company at
Marshall. He continued as a salesman for this concern two years, and from
September, 1913, until July, 1913, he was similarly employed in the Imperial
Shoe Store at Shreveport, Louisiana. His next experience, of brief duration was
that gained as agent for the New York Life insurance Company at Shreveport, and
in the meantime he had permitted nothing to dampen his ambition to prepare
himself for the legal profession. In September, 1913, he was matriculated in the
academic department of the Louisiana State university and his work there was
interrupted by his gallant service in the World war, after the close of which be
resumed his studies at the university, in which he was graduated as
valedictorian of the law class of 1921 and from which he received his degree of
Bachelor of Laws. In his senior year he was business manager of "The Gumbo," the
University annual. In the autumn of 1920, while still a student, be was defeated
in his candidacy for the position of delegate to the State Constitutional
Convention of Louisiana which assembled in 1921, his defeat being by a very few
votes. Mr. Watson was admitted to the bar in June, 1921, and thereafter was
associated with an insurance agency in Baton until January of the following
year, when he an office and engaged in the practice of his profession. He has
made his impress as a resourceful trial lawyer and well fortified counselor, and
his practice is constantly expanding in scope and importance.
When Mr.
Watson entered the university his financial resources were at the lowest ebb,
and to finance himself in the continuing of his law studies he worked during
afternoons of his freshman year in a shoe store in Baton Rouge. For this service
he received five dollars a week, and on this he contrived to live and pay
incidental expenses. In his sophomore year he took charge of the shoe department
of the Welsh & Levy Clothing Company, at a salary of forty-five dollars a month,
with work in the afternoons only. He was in his freshman year in the law
department of the university when the nation became involved in the World war,
and less than a month later he volunteered for military service and was sent to
the First Officers Training Camp at Fort Logan H. Roots, near Little Rock,
Arkansas. On the 13th of the following August he was there commissioned a second
lieutenant in the quartermaster corps, and was soon assigned to a labor
battalion of negro troops at Camp Pike, that state. On the 4th of December,
1917, at Hoboken, New Jersey, he embarked for overseas service. He landed at
Brest, France, on the 21st of that month, and on Christmas day he arrived at
Bassens, six miles distant from the City of Bordeaux. The next day he took his
company out to work on railroad construction, and he continued to be stationed
at Bassens until midsummer in 1918. In this interval he was engage(l in the
construction of all railroad yards, courthouses, cold-storage plants, docks,
etc., built by the American Expeditionary Forces in that district. Thereafter he
was engaged in railroad construction in the vicinity of Talmont, at the mouth of
the Girond River, until November 11, 1918, which was marked by the signing of
the now historic armistice. He remained at Talmont, engaged in general work in
connection with the closing of the service of that camp, until January, 1919,
and thereafter was in charge of road repairing, with headquarters at Bassens,
until the 1st of the following March, when he was detached from his company and
sent to the City of Paris, where for four months he had the privilege of
attending the famed Sarbonne University. He arrived in the Port of New York City
July 31, 1919, and on the 25th of the following mouth he received his honorable
discharge at Camp Pike, Arkansas.
Mr. Watson is an ardent advocate of the
principles of the democratic party, and has been an active worker in its ranks.
By a very few votes in the primary election of January 15, 1924, he was defeated
for nomination for representative in the Louisiana Legislature. He and his wife
are zealous members of the First Baptist Church of Baton Rouge, and he is
superintendent of one of its Sunday- School departments. His basic Masonic
affiliation is with Baton Rouge Lodge No. 372, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons,
of which he is senior warden (1925), and in the Scottish Rite of the great
fraternity he has received the thirty-second Degree in the Consistory at New
Orleans, where also he k a Noble of Jerusalem Temple of the Mystic Shrine. Mr.
Watson is an active member of the Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce, and his
property holdings in the capital city include his modern home place at the
corner of Drehr Avenue and Oleander Street, in the attractive district known as
Drehr Place.
December 17, 192l, marked the marriage of Mr. Watson and
Miss Janie L. Palmer, daughter of James and Mattie (Rogillio) Palmer, the former
of whom died in Baton Rouge, where the widow now resides with her daughter. Mr.
and Mrs. Watson are popular factors in the social life of their home city.
Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, pages 80-82.
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