Browne, E. Wayles

E. Wayles Browne, E. Carroll, then Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller 8/01

E. Wayles Browne. A firm of attorneys that ranks among the ablest in Louisiana is that of E. W. and P. N. Browne of Shreveport. The senior partner has been in practice twenty years, is a native of Louisiana and a former member of the State Senate. Mr. Browne also has offices in New Orleans, where he is associated with Mr. W. A. Porteous. Jr.

E. Wayles Browne was horn at Lake Providence in East Carroll Parish in 1879, son of Benjamin F. and Ella (Eppes) Browne. His father was born in Alabama, and from that state moved to East Carroll Parish after the Civil war. The maternal grand father of E. Wayles Browne was John Wayles Eppes, a prominent early citizen of what was then Carroll Parish where he located in the early '40s and became a slave owner and extensive planter.

E. Wayles Browne was liberally educated, taking his academic course in the Louisiana State University, and his law course in Tulane University. He was graduated with the LL. B. degree in 1904, and after his admission to the bar, practiced at Lake Providence, his native town, but since May, 1906, has had his home in Shreveport. His brother and partner is Percy N. Browne, and their law offices are at the Slattery Building.

Mr. Browne was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the State Legislature in 1917 to till the unexpired term of J. McW. Ford, and he was a member of the session of 1918. He was elected to the State Senate without opposition, serving in the sessions of 1920 and 1922. In both branches of the Legislature his influence and work were notable, and his name is associated with many of the beneficial laws enacted during those years. He was the father and secured the passage of the Abatement Act, popularly known as the Injunction Act, a war measure, and he also sponsored and secured the passage of the Carbon Black Act and the Building Lien Law.

Mr. Browne is affiliated with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, and is a member of the Civitan Club. He married Miss Grace Hall Long. Her father, the late B. W. Long, of Marshall, Texas, was for a number of years clerk of the courts of Harrison County in that state. They have two children: E. Wayles Browne, Jr., now fifteen years of age, who will graduate in 1925 from the Shreveport high school, and Grace, aged twelve years.

Mr. Browne is a member of the American Bar Association and the Louisiana State Bar Associations and has held offices in both of these organizations.

NOTE: The referenced source contains a black and white photograph of the subject with his/her autograph.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 68, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.