D. D. Glover (1868–1952)

David Delano “D. D.” Glover served in the Arkansas legislature (1909–1911), as prosecuting attorney of Arkansas’s Seventh Judicial Circuit (1913–1917), and as a Democratic representative to the U.S. Congress from Arkansas’s Sixth Congressional District (1929–1935). During Glover’s tenure in the Arkansas legislature, he chaired the Capitol Commission that oversaw the troubled completion of the Arkansas State Capitol building.

D. D. Glover, the second of William H. Glover and Margaret Crowson Glover’s seven children, was born on January 18, 1868, in Prattsville (Grant County), where his parents owned a family farm. He attended schools in Prattsville and Sheridan (Grant County) and graduated from Sheridan High School in 1886. On December 24, 1891, Glover married Roberta Theodosia Quinn, whose father, Thomas W. Quinn, was the first sheriff of Grant County. The couple raised three daughters and six sons. Glover engaged in various vocations, including farming, operating a mercantile business, and teaching school in Hot Spring County (1898–1908) before he studied law, passed an oral law examination, and was admitted to the bar in 1910. He then established a law practice in Malvern (Hot Spring County).

Independent-minded Glover, who never had a law partner other than his sons, operated the most lucrative law practice in Malvern and earned the reputation as a formidable trial lawyer. During his days of practicing law, few attorneys in the state tried more personal injury cases than Glover. He reaped great financial rewards by collecting half of any amount awarded to his clients. When he discussed legal fee with his clients, he told them, “I don’t know but one way to divide and that’s by two.” Glover, a strict disciplinarian, provided all his children with a college education and presented each of them with a house when they earned their degrees.

Glover began serving in the Arkansas legislature the same year that he was admitted to the bar. Epps Brown, speaker of the state House of Representatives, advocated that Glover, whom he considered “solid as a rock,” chair the Capitol Commission that oversaw the completion of the state capitol building after Governor Charles Hillman Brough learned of its faulty construction by the original contractors. Glover subsequently ran unopposed for two terms as prosecuting attorney of Arkansas’s Seventh Judicial Circuit, and he proved to be a vigorous prosecutor.

Glover later served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Glover, labeling Washington the “hub of the universe and the crossroads of the world,” regretted not having gone to the nation’s capital sooner. While serving in Washington, Glover focused upon obtaining federal resources that improved conditions for his native state, especially Hot Springs (Garland County), where local officials honored him for his efforts to gain National Park status for their city. Glover’s tenure in Washington ended when a young John L. McClellan challenged him for his congressional seat in 1934. After he retired from his law practice, he remained active by operating a construction crew until he was eighty-four years old. Family members fondly recall Glover sitting on a nail keg and watching the men as they built apartment houses.

Glover died on April 5, 1952, and is interred in Shadowlawn Cemetery in Malvern.

For additional information:
“David Delano Glover.” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=G000243 (accessed April 27, 2022).

Weaver, Hannah Sue Duffie. They That Wait upon the Lord. Mabelvale, AR: Foreman-Payne Publishers, Inc., 1978.

Williams, Fay. “He Molded Life to His Own Patterns.” In Arkansans of the Years, vol. 2. Little Rock: C. C. Allard & Associates, 1952.

Sherry Laymon
Hot Springs National Park