Elbert Lee Trinkle
Elbert Lee Trinkle was an American politician who served as the 49th Governor of Virginia from 1922 to 1926.Biography
On March 12, 1876, Trinkle was born in Wytheville, Wythe County, Virginia, as the youngest son of the prominent Trinkle family. After graduating from Hampden–Sydney College in 1895, he studied law at the University of Virginia, where he was manager of the Virginia Glee Club, and later opened a Wytheville law practice.
Trinkle served as the chairman and an elector of the Democratic Party in 1916. He served two terms in the Virginia Senate before his election as governor. Trinkle also acted as a delegate for Virginia to the Democratic National Convention in 1924 and 1928. On November 25, 1939, he died in Richmond, Virginia and was interred in East End Cemetery in Wytheville. Trinkle Hall on the campus of the University of Mary Washington and Trinkle Hall on the campus of the College of William and Mary are both named in his honor, as he helped secure funding to construct the buildings.
However, due to the historical treatment of minorities during the Jim Crow segregation era with which he served, the University of Mary Washington elected to rename the hall, as it runs against the university's ASPIRE policy of inclusion amongst all students. On July 24, 2020 Mary Washington renamed Trinke Hall James Farmer Hall, after the prominent civil rights activist and former professor at the university. Trinkle Hall on the Radford University campus is also named for him.Election
1921; Trinkle was elected Governor of Virginia with 64.6% of the vote over Republican Henry W. Anderson and Black-and-tan Republican John Mitchell, Jr.
