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WILSON P. COTTRELL, M.D.
Vol. 3, p. 977

While his location in the land that once was the hunting ground of
the red men can in no way be considered a result of his ancestral
antecedents, it is interesting and rather coincidental that the
paternal great-grandfather of Dr. Wilson P. Cottrell, now a
prosperous physician and surgeon at Milburn was a quarter-blood
Cherokee, spent a good part of his life as a hunter of game in the
wild wooded and mountainous regions of Tennessee and Virginia, and
for months at a time was accustomed to travel alone, returning to
civilization only occasionally for a wagon and team to haul in the
savable part of his game. After a few days of rest in the settlement
and communion with his family, he would then return, answering the
call of the wild, and again pursue his vocation happily in the woods.
No claim was ever set up by his descendants for lands in the Indian
Territory after the Cherokees were moved west. During his few years
of residence in the Indian country Doctor Cottrell has been an
interested student of the more modern red man and has practiced in
the homes of some of their leaders, among them the late Mark CHEADLE,
who has been by some of his people designated as the greatest man the
Chickasaws have produced.

It is a very small modicum of Indian blood that runs in the veins of
Doctor Cottrell. He was born at Florence, Alabama, in 1879, a son of
William Henry and Martha (TOMLISON) Cottrell. His father, who now
lives in Marionville, Missouri, is a native of Tennessee, early
settled in the vicinity of Florence, Alabama, and for a number of
years was a prominent teacher both in that state and in Arkansas, to
which he removed when Doctor Cottrell was a small boy.

It was in the common schools of Arkansas that Doctor Cottrell
received his early education. He had to contend with difficulties in
advancing himself to the plane of a profession. He took an academic
course at Green Forest, Arkansas, and began the practice of medicine
before completing his professional education. His degree Doctor of
Medicine was obtained from the medical department of the University
of Arkansas in 1908. He then practiced one year at Missouri, moved to
Lincoln County, Oklahoma, and was in practice there for two years,
and has been a resident of Milburn since 1911. During his early youth
he had to work hard on the farm and every step in his educational
advancement was earned by his own labor. For six years he was a cow
puncher in Missouri, but through all that time his ambitions for a
professional career never left him. Leaving the ranch he entered the
profession of teaching, and during the four years spent in that work
he carried on his medical studies coincidentally. Doctor Cottrell is
now junior member of the firm of Drs. CLARK & Cottrell, and they
enjoy a splendid professional business in and about Milburn.

In 1901 Doctor Cottrell was married at Green Forest, Arkansas, to
Miss Myrtle MITCHELL. Their three children are Virgie, aged fourteen,
and now a student in high school; Pansy, aged nine; and Nell aged
seven. Doctor Cottrell has one brother, W. K. Cottrell, who is an
instructor in telegraphy and bookkeeping in a business college in
Springfield, Missouri. Doctor Cottrell is a member of the Christian
Church, is Master of Milburn Lodge, A.F. & A.M., and has taken
various degrees in the Scottish Rite of Masonry. He is also a member
of the County and State Medical Societies and the American Medical
Association, and is one of the workers in the Good Roads Club of
Milburn. He and Dr. Guy Clark, his partner, own the stock of the Blue
River Telephone Company of Milburn.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Earline Sparks Barger, December 15, 1998.