(1890 – 1968)
William Dalton Barton was born in Cordova, Alabama, on July 6, 1890. He spent his boyhood days on a farm in Walker County. He graduated from Hamilton in 1910, spent the next year teaching, and came to Auburn in 1911, where he graduated in 1913.
He began teaching in the district agricultural school at Wetumpka in the fall of 1913, where he remained until November 1914, at which time he became county agent for Autauga County. With the exception of six months in Sumter County in late 1917 and early 1918, he remained in Autauga County until July 1918, when he was made district agent. He was, however, the first agent assigned to Sumter County during those interim six months.
He resigned his position as district agent to become director of field service for the Farm Bureau and its marketing associations, and editor of the Farm Bureau News on July 1, 1924. In 1928, he resigned from this position with Farm Bureau and accepted a position in the sales department of the Synthetic Nitrogen Products Corporation with headquarters in Atlanta.
Mr. Barton passed away on October 27, 1968. To honor the service of W. D. Barton to Alabama Extension’s early years, we inscribe his name on the dedicatory plaque of the Extension Memorial Chapel.
Chapel Plaque Inscription Number: 308
