• Birth and Death Year | 1864-1933
• Induction Year | 1932
• Profession | Jurist
• Oklahoma Connection | Cotteral came to Guthrie, Oklahoma, as a lawyer in the Land Run of April 22, 1889.
• Hometown | Guthrie

Fun Fact

Attorney and Judge John Cotteral opened his law practice in Guthrie only one day after making the great land run into the area in 1889.

Quote

“The history of Oklahoma cannot be written without recording Judge John Hazelton as its foremost jurist…a spotless record of the highest intelligence, the purest integrity, and grandest impartiality.” - A.G.C. Bier

Bio

Judge John Hazelton Cotteral was born in Indiana and attended Michigan University before moving with his parents to southwestern Kansas. He later was admitted to the bar and opened a law firm in Garden City. Cotteral came to Guthrie, Oklahoma, in 1889 and opened a law practice the day after the land run of April 22. Judge Cotteral was active in the growth of Guthrie and was valued in the works of the Christian Church. At statehood in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him to the U.S. District Judgeship for the Western District of Oklahoma and became the Circuit Judge of the Eighth Federal Circuit in 1928.