LIGHTFOOT, JEWEL PRESTON (1873-1950). Jewel Preston Lightfoot, lawyer, public prosecutor, and attorney general of Texas, was born on January 21, 1873, in Columbia County, Arkansas, son of Elijah Ward and Lucy Adele (Reynolds) Lightfoot. After attending public schools he entered Jeff Davis College (in Pittsburg, Texas), from which he graduated in 1890. While working as a night railroad telegrapher, he studied law. After admission to the state bar, he was elected Camp County attorney in 1898; he served for three terms, then was appointed assistant attorney general in charge of trust cases in 1905. As assistant to the attorney general, Robert Vance Davidson, Lightfoot directed prosecution of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company (see WATERS-PIERCE CASE), which resulted in the largest fine imposed by the state up to that time. In 1910 Governor Thomas Mitchell Campbell appointed Lightfoot attorney general. Lightfoot resigned in 1912 to enter private law practice in Austin. From 1918 to 1926 he was general counsel for Wilson and Company, Chicago meat packers, and subsequently moved to Fort Worth as a member of the Lightfoot, Robertson, Saunders, and Gano law firm. Lightfoot was a Mason and a member of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and the Dallas and Fort Worth, state, and national bar associations. He wrote several books on Masonic law and statutes. He married Fredonia Baudouin on September 15, 1896, and they had five children. He died on July 14, 1950, in Fort Worth and was buried in the State Cemetery in Austin.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sam Hanna Acheson, Herbert P. Gambrell, Mary Carter Toomey, and Alex M. Acheson, Jr., Texian Who’s Who, Vol. 1 (Dallas: Texian, 1937). Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Texas, 1950.