Curtis Dwight Wilbur

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Curtis Dwight Wilbur (10 May, 1867 – 8 September, 1954) served as the forty-third Secretary of the Navy from 1924 through 1929.

Life & Career

Curtis Wilbur was born in Boone County, Iowa on May 10, 1867. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in the class of 1884, however he resigned his commission owing to place of prospects for employment. After his resignation he moved to California, where he studied law in the evenings after work, eventually being admitted to the California bar in 1890 and taking a position as Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney.

Wilbur subsequently was appointed to the Superior Court in 1903 and became a member of the California Supreme Court in 1919, serving as chief justice from 1923 to 1924. In the wake of the Teapot Dome scandal, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Wilbur as Secretary of the Navy in 1924. According to one source, "Coolidge was to later admit that he had never heard of Curtis Wilbur prior to March 1924."[1] Regardless of his previous obscurity, Wilbur is credited with creating a strong navy, advocating for naval education, modernization of the carrier fleet, and advocating for temporizing the power of Japan. He served as Secretary until Coolidge left office in 1929, and Coolidge's successor, Herbert Hoover, appointed him to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he served from 1929 to 1945.

Wilbur died in San Francisco on September 8, 1954.

See Also

Bibliography

Papers

Naval Appointments
Preceded by
Edwin Denby
Secretary of the Navy
19 Mar, 1924 – 4 Mar, 1929
Succeeded by
Charles F. Adams

Footnotes

  1. Hyde. Scraps of Paper. p. 128.