Robert Russ

Robert Edwin Russ (August 27, 1830 – January 9, 1902) was an American planter and civic leader who founded Ruston, the parish seat of Lincoln Parish in north Louisiana.

The son of Robert Russ and the former Sarah Gillam Hodges, Russ was born in Holmes Valley in Washington County, in the Florida Panhandle. He attended school in Maury County (Columbia), Tennessee. He migrated with his mother and stepfather, Sion D. Smith, to Henry County (Dothan), Alabama, Hinds County (Jackson), Mississippi, and in 1852 to Jackson Parish (Jonesboro) south of Ruston. In 1855, he married the former Mary Elizabeth Randle, and the couple had thirteen children.

In 1873, Russ purchased land in Lincoln Parish, which was established after the American Civil War. With the news that the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railroad would be built in the vicinity, Russ was persuaded to donate more than 600 acres of his land for a town to be built around the depot. "Russ Town" opened in 1883, with lots selling for $375 each. So many people flocked to the new town that a year later, in 1884, it became the site for the Lincoln Parish seat of government.

Russ was active in the Democratic Party and served as sheriff of Lincoln Parish from 1877-1880. He was a trustee of Ruston College, which in 1894 became the future Louisiana Tech University. He was a lay organizer of First Baptist Church in downtown Ruston. He is interred at the historic Greenwood Cemetery in Ruston.

The Robert E. Russ Award is given in Ruston to individuals cited for outstanding civic service. The 2009 winner was Les Guice, vice president for research and development at Louisiana Tech. Tommy Folk, a Ruston native, retired president of construction for T. L. James & Company, and chairman of the board of the Dixie Center for the Arts, won the award for 2008. Other past winners were the late State Representative L.D. "Buddy" Napper and his law partner, Judge Otho Lloyd Waltman.

Russ died on 9 January 1902 in Ruston, Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, at the age of 71.