Judge Floyd S. Draper

Floyd Draper was born in Fulton, New York in 1893.  He graduated with honors from Valparaiso University Law School with honors in 1915.  He and his wife Winnie had one son, John M. Draper.

He maintained a solo practice in Gary until 1922, when he formed a partnership with his brother Alfred.  He became Lake County’s Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in 1923 and the Gary City Attorney in 1939.

Judge Draper was elected as a Republican to the Indiana Appellate Court in 1942 and re-elected in 1946.  He served on the court from 1943 until he won election to the Indiana Supreme Court in 1950, serving as Chief Judge of the Appellate Court three times – in the November 1944, November 1947, and November 1949 terms.  Justice Draper served on the state Supreme Court from 1951 to 1955. 

In 1955, he resigned a year before his term on the Supreme Court ended to return to Gary to practice law with his ailing brother and to found the firm of Draper & Draper with his son.  He retired from private practice in 1958, but in 1960, after Lake Criminal Court Judge William Murray died in office, Justice Draper came out of retirement to complete the final year of Judge Murray’s term at the request of Governor Harold Handley. 

Justice Draper was the first Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Indiana Judges Retirement Fund, an education counselor at Purdue University, and a director of the Gary Railways Company.  He was a member of the Sigma Delta Kappa legal fraternity, the First Presbyterian Church of Gary and Merrillville, the Gary Masonic Lodge, the Indiana State and American Bar Associations, and a life member of the Gary Bar Association.

He and his wife retired to Bradenton, Florida in the 1960s.  Winnie Draper passed away in 1976, and John Draper also preceded his father in death.  Justice Draper died in Bradenton at age 86 on March 20, 1980. 

Further resource:
History of the Gary Bar Association, 1921 to 1949 by Richard S. Kaplan