Addison Fox McCaleb, one of the most prominent and prosperous citizens of northeastern Oklahoma, where he first took up his abode forty-three years ago, was elected mayor of Bartlesville in April, 1920, and has since capably discharged the duties devolving upon him in that important position. He was born at Harrison, Tennessee, on the 10th of January, 1861, a son of Charles and Elizabeth (Gardenhire) McCaleb, the former a native of east Tennessee and the latter of Hamilton county, that state. The father held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Civil war and was wounded in battle, but his injuries were not considered sufficiently serious to incapacitate him for active service. Following the close of the war, however, he became ill and died soon afterward. His wife is also deceased.
Addison F. McCaleb attended the public schools of his native city in the acquirement of an education, but his wide general information has been largely obtained in the school of experience. On the 14th of April, 1878, when a youth of seventeen years, he arrived in the Indian Territory, settling at Vinita, and for a quarter of a century he devoted his attention to farming and cattle raising in this section, having five thousand acres of land under cultivation in Nowata and Rogers counties. In 1903 he embarked in the mercantile business at Bartlesville and also became an oil producer but sold out his interests a decade later and removed to Phoenix, Arizona, for the benefit of his wife’s health. At Phoenix he became identified with milling interests, but his property there was destroyed by fire, entailing a loss of fifty thousand dollars. He then returned to Bartlesville, where he has since made his home. His wife passed away there in 1917. Mr. McCaleb placed on the market the McCaleb addition of two hundred lots in Bartlesville, and in this addition a school has been erected that has been named in his honor. He owns a large amount of improved city property and has become widely recognized as one of the most successful and esteemed citizens of Washington county and this part of the state.
Mr. McCaleb was first married in 1883 and to this union were born two children, both of whom are deceased. In 1890 he wedded Ida Harwood, a native of Indiana, and of their two children one survives, Charles Garnett McCaleb, who is married and resides at Jennings, Oklahoma. During the World war Charles G. McCaleb served as a lieutenant in the Eighty-ninth Field Artillery and was on the firing line for fifty-nine days, in which period seven guns in his battery were destroyed. He received his military training under General Wood.
In politics Mr. McCaleb is a stanch democrat and his fellow townsmen, recognizing his ability and worth, have called upon him to fill positions of public trust. He served as county commissioner in 1917 and 1918 and in April, 1920, was chosen mayor of Bartlesville, which office he now holds, giving to the city a most progressive and businesslike administration that has been characterized by many needed reforms and improvements. Such in brief is the life history of Addison F. McCaleb. In whatever relation of life we find him-in political circles, in business or in social relations-he is always the same honorable and honored gentleman, whose worth well merits the high regard which is uniformly given him.