Alexander Penn Wooldridge (April 13, 1847 in New Orleans, Louisiana – September 8, 1930 in Austin, Texas) was an American lawyer, banker and politician. He was mayor of Austin from 1909 to 1919.
Wooldridge was educated at the University of Virginia and graduated in 1868. He then accepted an apprenticeship as a professor of physical sciences Bethel College in Russellville, Kentucky. In 1872, Wooldridge moved to Austin, Texas and studied law at the law firm Terrell and Walker. That same year he was admitted to the bar of the Fifth Circuit Court and helped found the law firm Fulmore, Wallace and Wooldridge, solicitors and estate agents. In 1874, Wooldridge returned briefly to Russellville to marry Ellen Waggener, sister of Leslie Waggener. The marriage produced seven children.
Over the next several years, Wooldridge began holding various civic roles in Austin. So in 1880 he became president of the former public school board of the city and as such has contributed to the development of the local public school system. In 1881 he chaired the committee that found a site for the University of Texas and campaigned for the Austin site. From August 1882 to September 1894 he was secretary of the Council of Regents the University.
In 1885 he became president of the City National Bank. He was also president of the Austin Chamber of Commerce from 1888 to 1890. In 1902 he became president of the Council of Regents of the Texas Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls of the State of Texas in the arts and sciences. When his wife died suddenly of typhus in 1903, Wooldridge went into semi-retirement. He has given up another term as president of the Council of Regents. He was also relieved of his banking duties when it merged with the Austin National Bank in 1905.
In 1909, he was elected mayor of Austin. As such he paved and lit city streets, provided additional resources to the police and fire departments, and carried out several projects in the field of wastewater disposal. In 1917 Wooldridge remarried. His second wife, Nellie Wylie Holden (1863-1944), was an Austin philanthropist active in various charitable and civic organizations.[1] In 1919 Wooldridge retired from being mayoralty. In 1924 he was the first recipient of the Most Worthy Citizen Award the city. Wooldridge Park, the Wooldridge Primary School and the Wooldridge Drive[2] they were named after him.
Wooldridge died in Austin on September 8, 1930 and was born on Oak Cemetery buried.
- Ruth Ann Overbeck: Alexander Penn Woolridge (Austin. Von Boeckmann-Jones Company, 1963)
- ↑ entrance to Penn and Nellie Wooldridge House I am Texas Historic Site Atlas the Texas Historical Commission
- ↑ Elizabeth A. Cash, Suzanne B. Deaderick: Pemberton Heights of Austin (Editions Arcadia, 2012)
