Born in
Freedom, Wyoming, Brown was an active member of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served missions through the church in Texas and Louisiana from 1938 to 1940. He served in the
U.S. Army as an engineer in the
South West Pacific theatre of World War II from 1942 to 1946. He received a
B.S. from
Utah State University in 1943 and worked as an elementary school principal before receiving his
J.D. from the
University of Utah in 1950. He was admitted to the Utah Bar and practiced law in
Kemmerer, Wyoming, between then and 1965, except when called to other vocations. He was recalled to military service as a reservist during the
Korean War, where he also served as an engineer. He was a bishop in Fairview from 1952 to 1955. Brown was a State Bar Commissioner from 1955 to 1957 and city attorney for
Afton, Wyoming, from 1955 to 1959 and was elected county attorney of
Lincoln County, Wyoming, in 1958. He thereafter moved to
Washington, D.C., where he was an Associate Solicitor of the
United States Department of Interior, from 1961 to 1962, while also attending law school graduate program at
Georgetown University. ==Judicial service==