Nevada Genealogy Trails Elko County John T. Wright Biography

JOHN T. WRIGHT, who is connected with one of the large stock companies of Nevada, and is a leading citizen of Elko, is one of the men who came to this state with little or no capital and by their industry and thrifty habits worked themselves into a place of prominence in the stock-raising industry. Nevada abounds in opportunities for such men, and Mr. Wright took advantage of them with excellent results. When he came to the state about thirty years ago he worked for wages, and only by careful saving did he get his start.

Mr. Wright is of Scotch ancestry and of a Virginia family. His parents, Joel M. and Martha (Nance) Wright, were natives of Virgin: in 1860 moved to the state of Missouri, where the former was engage merchandising and stock-raising for the remainder of his life. He died there in 1899, at the age of sixty-six, and his wife some time previously. They were members of the Methodist church, and much respected people in local community. They had eight children, of whom Gordon K. Wright is also a resident of Nevada, being a stockman in Ruby valley.

John T. Wright was born in Bedford county, Virginia, July 30, 1856, but nearly all of his younger days were spent in Missouri, where he received his education in the public schools. He had considerable farming experience on his father's place, and when he came to Nevada in 1876. at the age of twenty, he began life on his own account as a cowboy in Ruby Valley he worked for Frank Moony for four years at fifty dollars a month and board and with his accumulated earnings embarked in the stock business on his own hook. He bought a few head of cattle, which he ran in Ruby Valley and since then has been on the up road all the time. He later began raising the standard of his stock by thoroughbred breeding, and in this way one demands higher prices. He organized the J. T. Wright Cattle Company which he owns most of the stock, and this company has ranged as many as two thousand head of cattle at one time. The company has thirty-five hundred acres of land, and most of the water in Ruby valley, so there is a definite basis for continued prosperity.

Mr. Wright has a nice residence in Elko and he and his family have many friends in this part of the county. In 1883 he married Miss Jane Gedney, a native of the state of Missouri, and they have one son, Cleveland Rows, who is at home. Mr. Wright has cast a Democratic vote for over twenty years, and has attended the party conventions and done what he could to promote the interests of the party, but has never been a candidate for any office. He is a member in good standing of the Knights of Pythias and has enjoyed the esteem of his fellow men in whatever relation he has met them.

Source:
A History of the State of Nevada: Its Resources and People
By Thomas Wren, Lewis Publishing Company
Published by The Lewis publishing company, 1904