Connellee, Charles Ulrich

Charles Ulrich Connellee (1851-1930) was a surveyor and Texas state legislator. He was known as the Father of Eastland because of his many and varied activities in Eastland during its early history. His first interests were in land and cattle.

Connellee served as county surveyor of Scott County, Kentucky, for a short time in 1874 before moving to Dallas, Texas, where he founded a real estate enterprise. In January 1875 he bought a public square on 320 acres located in Eastland County, and in May, he and two partners, Jack S. Dougherty and J. B. Ammerman, surveyed the town of Eastland and successfully lobbied to make it the county seat.

During the early 1880s Connellee attempted to breed better cattle for local ranches, before turning to a political life. He served as representative from the Forty-second District in the Twenty-first and Twenty-second legislatures in the late 1880s. In 1911 he was a member of the board that established the state tuberculosis colony. Furthermore, he was a regent of the College of Industrial Arts (1925-1930), now Texas Woman's University. After his death in 1930, he was buried in Eastland.

Source : Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. Connellee, Charles Ulrich, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fco39.html (accessed May 20, 2010).