[1] At 15, he joined the U.S. Department of Interior working alongside his older brother J. Gus Patton.

The two brothers moved to Tulsa in 1901 and surveyed and plotted the town.

Daniel stayed in Tulsa and surveyed railroads and bridges in eastern Oklahoma.

[3] Patton was a Republican and won the 1928 Tulsa Mayoral election.

He was fired as Tulsa city engineer by Roy M. Lundy after his mayoral election.