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Richard Ernest Seagler (1883-1956), attorney and speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, was born at Tennessee Colony in Anderson County, Texas, on December 3, 1883. In 1908 he graduated from North Texas State Normal College (now the University of North Texas) at Denton and in 1912 received a law degree from the University of Texas. After passing the bar exam, he practiced as a trial attorney in Palestine. He was elected to the Thirty-sixth House of Representatives in 1918 and was reelected twice. He served as speaker of the Thirty-eighth and, briefly, the Forty-fourth House. In his term of office Seagler was active in developing judicial procedures, as a member of the criminal jurisprudence committee, and as vice chairman of the rules committee. In 1924 he resigned to serve as assistant attorney general and to join a San Antonio law firm. In 1925 he joined the legal department of Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon Company, U.S.A.), where he became head of the trial division in 1929 and general attorney in 1938. He retired in 1948 to establish his own practice in Houston. Seagler had three children. He died on January 6, 1956. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Houston Post, January 7, 1956. Henrietta M. Larson and Kenneth Wiggins Porter, History of Humble Oil and Refining Company (New York: Harper, 1959). Presiding Officers of the Texas Legislature, 1846-1982 (Austin: Texas Legislative Council, 1982). Diana J. Kleiner Reprinted with permission from the Handbook of Texas Online, a joint project of the Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin. © 2003, The Texas State Historical Association.
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