Earl Peterson Platt

 

Earl Peterson Platt

    Earl Peterson Platt was born on December 14, 1908, in the town of St. Johns, in what was then the Arizona Territory of the United States.  Arizona would not become a stated until 1914.  His father, Henry, was a rancher and his mother, Mary MaSylvia, was a stay-at-home mother.  He had two brothers, Clair and Harvey, and two sisters, Barbara and Maud.  Both Clair and Harvey went on to run large cattle operations as well and many of their descendants are still involved in cattle operations across the West.

    

    Earl went to elementary school and high school in St. Johns, Arizona, where he eventually played on the high school football team.  He used to tell us about how they would walk down the field in a long line before a game and halfway through, picking up the large rocks to toss them out of the field to create a somewhat softer landing when being tackled.

    Earl graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in 1929.  He then went on to study law at the University of Southern California, where he graduated in 1933 with a Bachelor's of Law.  Evidently, a law degree was not a Doctorate at the time.  How times have changed. He then began practicing law in San Diego.

    On 11 November, 1934, Attorney Rex Lee, Sr, was killed while hunting near Fredonia, Az.  At that time, Earl came back to St. Johns and bought Rex Lee's law practice and his clients.  By 1937, Earl had started his first of two terms serving as the Apache County Attorney.  

    

    He met Buena Mae Peters in Phoenix, where she worked at a smoke shop.  They were married 20 Oct, 1939.  They lived in St. Johns, where Earl practiced law and worked on the ranch.  They had a stillborn child in Holbrook in 1941, and then Warren was born in  1943.  Mitch was born in 1945.  He then was elected as a Senator for Apache County in 1947-1951.  During his time as a senator, he was the chairman of the committee on Style, Revision, and Compilation for his first term and chairman of the Judiciary committee in his second term.  For both terms, he was on the committees on Agriculture and Irrigation, Judiciary, and Capital and Labor.  He was also on the committees on Banking and Insurance, Public Lands, Livestock, State Institutions, and Highways and Bridges.

By 1956, Earl had become a part of the Arizona Cattlegrowers' Association where he served as an officer, and later as the President of the association.  He was well respected among the many Arizona Cattlemen that he represented.

    Earl continued to practice law in St. Johns while running his ranch until around 1971, when his second son, Mitch, returned to St. Johns after getting a law degree from the University of Arizona.  Mitch and Earl worked the law firm for a time until Mitch put his foot down and told his dad that he was an attorney now, and not a cowhand on the ranch.  At that time, Mitch bought out the law practice, and Earl went into full-time work as a cattleman.

    On 17 February, 1985,  Earl's wife, Buena, passed away, and Earl became a frequent visitor to the Mitch Platt family dinners, which continued until he was too sick to come to the house.  But we still delivered his meals to him at his house.

    Earl continued ranching, even during a 3rd bout of cancer that kept him bedridden for a large part of the time.  Earl passed away on 17 June, 1995.

    Of course, there is much more to add to this timeline, but for now, this will suffice.  I will add more as I increase the research into more details of his life.  For now, here are some more pictures that I got from the FamilySearch memories page.