Born near Springfield, Missouri, Wooten moved in infancy with his parents to Texas during the Civil War.

He attended Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from the law department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, where he won the school's highest awards for writing and debate and was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

As a member of the Texas legislature, Wooten served as delegate to the National Antitrust Conference at Chicago in 1899.

[7] Wooten was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Robert Emmet Burke and served from July 13, 1901, to March 3, 1903.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress