McRill - And Satan Came Also: An Inside Story of a City’s Social and Political History

The Author

Albert L. McRill was born and reared in Franklin County, Kansas. Upon graduation from the Williamsburg highschool, he became the publisher of his local newspaper, as the youngest editor in the State of Kansas. He also published newspapers at Quenemo and Ottawa before coming to Oklahoma Territory in 1902. After establishing the Dispatch and Peoples Voice at Watonga, he edited the Day County Progress at Grand, the county-seat of Day (now Ellis) County. Later he entered Epworth University (now Oklahoma City University), graduating in 1910 with the degrees of A. B., A.M., and L.L.B. He helped compile the Oklahoma Statutes of 1910, and began the general practice of law at Oklahoma City in 1911 and has remained in the active practice. From the time he came to Oklahoma he was active in politics. In the campaign for constitutional prohibition of the liquor traffic in 1907 and 1910, he spoke throughout the State for the Anti-Saloon League. He was active in the crusade of the Central Hundred in Oklahoma City, and in the campaign of the Committee of 100 to establish the City Manager System of city government. For several years he wrote a daily column, In My Library, for the Oklahoma News, published in Oklahoma City.

He is a member of the Methodist Church. For five years he conducted a mens Bible class of 1,000 in the downtown Empress Theater, and for thirty years taught a Sunday-school class in the First Methodist Church of Oklahoma City. He was a member of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church of 1916. He served on the Board of Trustees of Oklahoma City University and its predecessors for twenty years and was acting president of the University in 1924. For fifteen years he was associated with the Oklahoma City College of Law as professor, and is currently law professor at Oklahoma City University College of Law. As research editor of the Card Digest System, he compiled digests of Oklahoma, Texas and California law. He is author of Oklahoma Fire Insurance Law, My Silver Jubilee, Summary of Oklahoma Law and Procedure, and several treatises on different branches of the law. During 1936 he was a special justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

In 1931 he served as Municipal Counselor, and was City Manager of Oklahoma City in 1931-1933. He is the author of the Ordinance under which the Oklahoma City Board of Education has operated since 1939.

The author is married and lives at 1220 Sherwood Lane in Oklahoma City.