THE CHRONICLES OF OKLAHOMA

"One Who Was Trusted": E. L.
Mitchell of Western Oklahoma

By Paul F Lambert*

Reverend George W Mitchell and his wife Jose-
phine Harris Mitchell could not have known when their eighth child
was born on March 13,1876, that their baby boy, Elza Leon, would be-
come a pioneer journalist in Western Oklahoma a quarter of a century
later Moreover, they could not have foreseen that he would become a
state senator, a renowned attorney, a mayor, a state district judge, and
a candidate for governor of Oklahoma. He would also become a civic
leader, a religious leader, and a beloved family man. A life-long Demo-
crat, he would be praised upon his death in 1952 by staunch Republi-
can newspaper publisher E. K. Gaylord as "One Who Was Trusted."1
Elza Leon, or "Lon" as he was known to his family and friends, was
born near Haynesville in rural Clinton County, Missouri, just eleven
years after the end of the Civil War His mother, Josephine, was part
Cherokee, and his father, George, was of Irish ancestry According to
family tradition, the first Mitchell in his family in the United States

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