Luthene Claremont Gilman (1857-1942)

From Seattle and the Orient, 1904.

   Native Mainer Luthene Claremont Gilman found his business and political fortunes in King County, Washington following his resettlement there in the mid-1880s. A leading attorney in Seattle for many years, Gilman would win election as that city's attorney and later served a term in the state house of representatives. The son of Henry and Mary Twombly Gilman, Luthene Claremont Gilman was born in Levant, Maine on January 28, 1857. His early education was obtained at the Maine Central Institute (graduating in 1879) and after deciding upon a career in law enrolled at the Columbia University Law School in New York. 

   Earning his law degree in 1883, Gilman relocated to the Washington Territory shortly thereafter and soon established his first law practice. He would become a member of the firm Stratton, Lewis, and Gilman and in 1887 was elected to his first political office, that of Seattle city attorney. Two years later he set his sights on a seat in the state senate, but, along with several other state Democratic candidates that year, went down to defeat. Luthene C. Gilman married in Seattle in August 1887 to Eva Augusta Stinson (1861-1944), to whom he was wed for over fifty years. The couple would have four children, Ernestine (died in infancy in 1889), Benjamin Frederick (1890-1932) Frederick Stinson (1892-1918), and Mary Alice (1894-1955).  

  In 1892 Gilman launched a second candidacy for the legislature, this time for the state house of representatives. He would win the election that November and was remarked as the "only Democrat elected on the legislative ticket in King County" that election year. The 1893-95 session saw Gilman as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary and was  acclaimed as: 

"A polished and ready speaker, forcible, and eloquent when occasion demands, ever alert to the best interests of the people he represents, Mr. Gilman has clearly demonstrated the wisdom of the citizens of King in electing him to the legislature."

From "A Souvenir of Washington's Third Legislature", 1893.

   Returning to his law practice at the conclusion of his term, Gilman joined the firm of Preston, Carr, and Gilman in 1897, and six years later was made Western counsel in Seattle for the Great Northern Railway. This appointment marked a career change for Gilman, and in the next two decades rose to become a leading name in the railroad industry in the Pacific Northwest. Beginning in 1909, Gilman left the legal portion of the railway business behind when he assumed the role of assistant to the president of the Great Northern Railway, necessitating his removal to St. Paul, Minnesota. He remained here until 1914, and in that year was elected as president of the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway. This position also saw Gilman serve as president of two subsidiaries of that railway, those being the Oregon Electric Railway and the United Railways. 

  In 1918 further business honors were accorded to Gilman when he was selected as director of the Puget Sound District of the United Railway Administration, comprising the states of Oregon and Washington. In that same year he removed back to Seattle to assume the post of vice-president of the Great Northern Railway, and in April 1922 added the position of bank director to his resume, being named to the board of directors of the Washington Mutual Savings Bank. 

  Luthene C. Gilman served as vice president of the Great Northern for seventeen years, retiring in 1937 at age 80. He and his wife continued to reside in Seattle at the Rhododendron Apartments until Luthene's death at age 85 on September 7, 1942. Gilman's wife Eva survived her husband by two years, dying in 1944. Both were interred at the Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle.

From the Railway Age and Review, November 1920.