Hale County, TX Biographies

HOOPER, JOHN C. John C. Hooper - In November 1912, the citizens of Hale County selected from among their well known and popular farmers and ranchmen John C. Hooper to fill the office of sheriff for the succeeding term. An efficient officer who has a full sense of his duty to the public in this important position Mr. Hooper by his business career and his long residence in west Texas has well deserved all honors that can be paid to him by his fellow citizens. A native of Cooke county, Texas, John C. Hooper was born August 2, 1867, the third in a family of eight sons and one daughter. James Hooper, the father was born in North Carolina, was about eighteen years old when he came to Texas, and finally located in Cooke county, where he was a farmer and stock raiser. In 1892 he moved out to Hale County which was his home and where engaged in farming and stock raising until his death in March 1909 at the age of eighty-six years. He was one of the last survivors among the Mexican war veterans in the state and about fifteen years after he had returned from the victorious passage at arms between the United States and Mexico he entered the Confederate army and went through the Civil War. He married a Texas woman and she died in Hale County in 1900 at the age of fifty-two. Mr. John C. Hooper during his early youth attended the schools of Cooke county and then geban work on his father's farm. During his twenty-second year he took up farming and stock raising on his own account which he followed in his native county until 1898. He then moved to Hale County and in the past year was placed on the Democratic ticket as candidate for sheriff, to which position he was eleted by a good majority. Mr. Hooper was married January 23, 1890 to Miss Addie L. Pierce of Cooke County. The five children of the marriage are: Clara B., born in Cooke County, January 26, 1894 and a graduate of the Plainview High school; Alva H., born in Cooke County, April 17, 1890, and attending high school; James Kelly born in Cooke County, January 4, 1898, and a pupil of the Plainview schools; Robert and Ruth, twins, born at Plainview, April 14, 1904 and both now in school. When Sheriff Hooper first came out to Hale county there was very little in the way of substantial development in this part of the state. He has seen both the town and country prosper and grow and it is his conviction that this development will continue until west Texas becomes the most prosperous farming and stock raising country in the world. He owns his own home in Plainview and other city property, and is a prosperous well-known citizen with many influential friends in different parts of the state. Source: A History of Texas and Texans, Volume 4, by Francis White Johnson, pages 1994 & 1995, transcribed by P. T.)