Hon. Isaac M. Hinds. Mound Valley and Labette County have for many years been the scene of the extensive business and public activities of Isaac M. Hinds. Some years ago that district sent Mr. Hinds to represent its interests in the State Senate, and he is still a member of the upper house of the State Legislature.
Though he had spent nearly all his years in Kansas, Senator Hinds was born in Cole County, Missouri, December 30, 1862. He was brought to this state when an infant. Going back several generations his Hinds ancestors were Germans who came to America and were early settlers about Bowling Green, Kentucky. The grandfather of Senator Hinds was Benjamin, a native of Kentucky. He went to Missouri and became a pioneer in Cole County, where he died before Senator Hinds was born.
Isaac Hinds, father of Senator Hinds, was born in Kentucky in 1833, was reared and married in Missouri, and followed farming as his life’s vocation. He died in Cole County in February, 1863. The maiden name of his wife was Cordelia A. Stephens. She was born in Cole County, Missouri, August 4, 1833, and is still living at the age of eighty-three, making her home with her son, Senator Hinds. She married for her second husband James M. Richardson, who died in Mound Valley, Kansas, where he was a retired farmer. Isaac Hinds and wife had the following children: Benjamin F., who is a mechanic living at Kansas City, Missouri; William M., who died in young manhood at Mound Valley in 1876; Joseph, who died at Mound Valley in 1874; Jennie, wife of L. W. Wilmoth of San Diego, California; and Isaac M.
While the Civil war was still in progress Mr. Hinds’ mother brought her family to Kansas and located on a farm three miles southwest of Mound Valley. In that locality Isaac M. Hinds spent his early youth and childhood. He attended the district schools of Labette County, and in 1882 completed the teachers’ course in the Fort Scott Normal College. Following that came two years of teaching in Montgomery County. A desire to see the world then seized him, and he made a trip not unaccompanied by hardships and hard work through Arizona, New Mexico, California, Oregon and Washington, going as far as Seattle. The winter of 1883-84 he spent in the hazardous occupation of logging in the State of Washington.
On returning to Kansas Mr. Hinds, in the fall of 1884, engaged in the drug business at Mound Valley. After about a year he sold his store and then took a course in the St. Louis College of Pharmacy. He received his certificate as a registered pharmacist from the State Board of Pharmacy, in 1887, and though he had not been in the drug business for a number of years he still keeps his certificate up-to-date as a registered druggist. Mr. Hinds had the leading drugstore at Mound Valley until 1905. In that year his business interests became more widely extended. He began buying land near Brownsville, in the extreme southern end of Texas, and since then had bought and sold land not only in Texas but in Kansas and Oklahoma. He deals entirely in his own properties and had done a great deal to develop some of the newer localities of the Southwest.
For four years Mr. Hinds was vice president of the Mound Valley State Bank. He had long been prominent in the councils of the democratic party. He served as councilman a number of terms at Mound Valley, was mayor two years, assessor one year, and in 1912 was elected for his first term in the State Senate. That term expires in January, 1917, and at this writing he is a candidate for reelection.
Senator Hinds had the distinction of being the only senator who is chairman of two committees. These two committees are: Employees Committee and Temperance and Hygiene Committee. He is also a member of the Banks and Banking Committee, the Federal and State Affairs Committee, Mines and Mining, Oil and Gas, and the Ways and Means committees.
Senator Hinds had been a conspicuous figure in the county and state conventions of his party for many years. In 1904 he was nominated as a delegate to the National Convention, and in 1912 attended the convention at Baltimore as a delegate. During Cleveland’s second administration he served as postmaster of Mound Valley from January 1, 1893, to January 1, 1897. He was president of the Mound Valley Commerical Club when that organization was in flourishing existence. Fraternally he is past master of Mound Valley Lodge No. 218, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and is affiliated with Lodge No. 211, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 61, Ancient Order United Workmen, and the Modern Woodmen of America at Mound Valley.
Senator Hinds is the owner of over 700 acres of land in Kansas and Oklahoma. At Mound Valley he owned the postoffice building on Hickory Street, and had his own home at the corner of Commercial and Hickory streets, and another dwelling on Hickory Street. His offices are on Main Street. During the disastrous fire of 1907 he lost a hotel and four other business buildings.
In 1887 at Mound Valley Mr. Hinds married Miss Zenora Gandy. Mrs. Hinds was born in Iowa in 1869, a daughter of R. W. and Mary Gandy, both of whom are now deceased. Her father was a merchant. To their marriage have been born two children, Cecil L. and Thelma A. The daughter, who was born October 15, 1899, is now a senior in the high school at Mound Valley. The son, Cecil, who was born at Mound Valley, November 15, 1889, was educated in the public schools, graduating from high school in 1906, and had his early business experience in his father’s drugstore. For a year he conducted a flour and feed mill, for another year ran a store at Preston, Nebraska, and then for five years was assistant cashier of the Mound Valley State Bank. September 10, 1915, Cecil L. Hinds became postmaster at Mound Valley under the administration of President Wilson. He is thus filling an office which his father served in with commendable credit twenty years ago. Cecil Hinds is an active democrat, is affiliated with Lodge No. 61, Ancient Order United Workmen, at Mound Valley, and Mound Valley Lodge No. 218, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. In 1912 at Mound Valley he married Miss Alice Morris, daughter of A. W. and Paralee Morris. Her parents reside at Shelbina in Shelby County, Missouri.