Operating widely in the real estate field of Muskogee and thoroughly acquainted with values and the opportunities for sale, Jesse Carroll Culbertson has made steady progress in his business career through his close application, energy and commendable determination. A native son of Illinois, he was born in Macon County, November 25, 1882, and is a son of Griffith James and Lydia (Pieper) Culbertson. The father was also engaged in the real estate, loan and insurance business and thus in youth Jesse C. Culbertson gained considerable knowledge of the business, laying up information that has been to him of great value in later years. He supplemented his public school training by study in the University of Nebraska, for a period of two years. He afterward became a law student there and completed his law course in 1903. In the meantime, however, he had made his initial step in the business world by entering the First National Bank of Lincoln, Nebraska, as a messenger in 1898. Steadily he worked his way upward through a period of eight years, winning various promotions until he became teller. He resigned that position in 1906 to become a resident of Muskogee.
Since taking up his abode in this city Mr. Culbertson has engaged in the real estate, loan and insurance business, thus returning to the field of activity with which he had become somewhat familiar in his boyhood through association with his father. In 1908 he purchased a business, forming a partnership on the 15th of February of that year with Luther E. Tomm, under the firm style of Culbertson & Tomm. They maintain not only an extensive real estate department but also handle loans and insurance. Their position is one of leadership in their chosen field and today they are well known as the owners of the Railway Exchange building, an eight-story structure recognized as the finest business block of Muskogee, containing seventy-two thousand square feet of floor space. Mr. Culbertson is recognized as a splendid valuator of property and most progressive in the conduct of all his business interests. Aside from the three lines which claim his attention in Muskogee he is well known through his agricultural activities. He has fifteen hundred acres of land which he farms himself and is the owner altogether of three thousand acres of farm land.
Mr. Culbertson belongs to the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and he is a very active and helpful member of the Kiwanis Club. He is also a member of Beta Theta Pi college fratdrnity. He generously cooperates in all measures that he believes will prove of public benefit and he was very active in the bridge bond election and campaign. He belongs to the Sequoyah Club and also to the Town and Country Club and in these various social organizations with which he is connected is extremely popular. While he has nothing of that familiarity which prompts the individual to greet everyone as a valued friend, he is nevertheless of a cordial and genial disposition, readily recognizing the good qualities in others and judging his fellowmen not by wealth but by worth.