Education
Curtis Wilbur lived with his wife and children in a grand home completed in 1904 on Frederick Knob in San Francisco.
Curtis Wilbur lived with his wife and children in a grand home completed in 1904 on Frederick Knob in San Francisco.
He was appointed to the United States Naval Academy in 1884. Shortly after graduation, Curtis Wilbur resigned his commission, a common practice at the time, and moved to Riverside, California. He was admitted to the California bar in 1890 and served as Los Angeles Deputy Assistant District Attorney.
Curtis Wilbur moved to the Superior Court in 1903, and finally, in 1918, to the California Supreme Court where he served as the 19th Chief Justice of California.
Wilbur was born in Boonesboro, Iowa. On March 19, 1924, Curtis Wilbur was sworn in as Secretary of the Navy.
The first appointee of President Calvin Coolidge, Curtis Wilbur came into the position with a reputation as a man of high intellect and a character of "unimpeachable integrity."
In the last hours of his presidency, Coolidge nominated Curtis Wilbur to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. However, when the 70th Congress ended that week, the Senate had not acted on the nomination, so it expired.
President Herbert Hoover then resubmitted the nomination to the Senate in the 71st Congress, which approved lieutenant
Wilbur served as a judge in active service until 1945 when his senior status began. However, on Easter Sunday 1940, Leonard died in Shanxi of typhus. He died in 1954.
The guided missile destroyer United States Ship Curtis Wilbur (DDG-54) is named for him.