[3] Wilson Compton earned his doctoral degree from the department of history, politics, and economics at Princeton University in 1915.

[5] Under the Oberlaender Trust of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation, Compton was part of the 1934 group of American lumberman who toured Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia to observe and study forest management in Europe.

[6] On August 21, 1944, the Board of Regents of the State College of Washington, today Washington State University, named Wilson M. Compton as the college's fifth president, succeeding President Ernest O. Holland who retired after 28 years of service.

Compton led the institution through a period of growth following World War II as military veterans used their GI Bill benefits to attend college.

On May 9, 1964, Princeton trustees named one of two Graduate College quadrangles the Compton Quadrangle, honoring the three Compton brothers: Karl who had served as president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wilson who had been president of Washington State University and Arthur who been chancellor of Washington University in St.