Paul Nesbitt (April 3, 1872 – July 22, 1950) was an American politician, who served as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.
[1] His father was a first lieutenant in the United States Army and his grandfather was an Irish immigrant who served under George Washington in the American Revolutionary War.
[1] Growing up in Nebraska, he was educated at Chicago Medical College and practiced medicine in Vinton, Iowa, El Dorado Springs, Missouri, and finally in Watonga, a town in Oklahoma Territory, in 1899.
[2] He abandoned his practice in 1904 and went to St. Louis, Missouri, to apprentice as a cub reporter and later worked for the Joplin Globe.
[2] He did not support the nomination of Charles N. Haskell in the Democratic primary, but ended up serving as secretary for Oklahoma's first governor.