Hon. John Wilson Bogue. It is not possible for every man to succeed in both business and public life. Each line of endeavor demands certain specific characteristics, and few there are who have so many differentiating ones, or are capable of adapting those which they possess so as to make them eminently fitting for divergent avenues of progress. Conditions in any live community are exacting; they demand much from the citizens of a prosperous and growing city before they are crowned with success. But there are some men who seem possessed in equal degree of the qualities which make for achievement in both business and public affairs, and in this connection mention is due of Hon. John Wilson Bogue, mayor of Neodesha, and president and manager of the V. V. V. Brick and Tile Company, one of the city’s leading and growing industries.
John Wilson Bogue was born at Marion, Indiana, September 2, 1868, and is a son of Thomas and Emily (Wilson) Bogue. The Bogue family springs from France, in which country, in 1786, was born the grandfather of John W. Bogue, Barnaby Bogue. He was a young man when he came to America and settled in the Carolinas and subsequently became a pioneer of Marion, Grant County, Indiana, where the remainder of his life was passed in farming and where his death occurred in 1846. He married Millie Baldwin, who was born in Indiana and passed her life there, and they became the parents of the following children: Thomas, Robert, William, Jonathan, Jesse, Mrs. Noah Heinz and Mrs. Allen Pemberton. Jesse resided at Fairmount, Indiana, and is engaged in farming. Mrs. Allen Pemberton is the wife of a retired citizen of Marshalltown, Iowa.
Thomas Bogue was born at Marion, Indiana, in 1836, and was reared and married there. He was brought up as a farmer and engaged in that vocation for some years, but later turned his attention to business affairs and became a manufacturer of brick. In 1893 he removed to Fairmount, Indiana, and after several years spent in business retired. His death occurred in 1908. Mr. Bogue was a republican in politics, a faithful member of the Quaker Church, and a citizen who won the respect and confidence of the people of his community through a life of integrity and honest dealing. He married Emily Wilson, who was born in 1842, at Fairmount, Indiana, and died there in 1907, and they became the parents of seven children, as follows: Mary, who died at Fairmount, Indiana, in 1893, as the wife of Henry Carey, who still resided in that commmunity and is engaged in farming; Elmer, who is chief engineer of the water and light plant at Marion, Indiana; Barnaby, who is engaged in farming in the vicinity of Fairmount, Indiana; John Wilson; Anna, who died at the age of twenty years; Wilson, who was engaged in the jewelry business at Paducah, Kentucky, until his death at the age of twenty-seven years; and Nina, who married Vernon D. Hedden, a contractor of Los Angeles, California.
John Wilson Bogue was educated in the public schools of Marion, Indiana, and was graduated from the high school in 1886. For two years he lived on a farm in Butler County, Kansas, and then established himself in the barber business at Anthony, Kansas, where he remained for six years. For several years he was engaged in a like business at Neodesha, and in the meantime became interested in other business matters, becoming connected, in 1904, with the V. V. V. Brick and Tile Company, of the operation of which he was placed in charge. Mr. Bogue’s interests have since been centered in this concern, of which he is now president and general manager. The offices of this company are situated in the Hale Building, while the plant is located 4½ miles south of Neodesha on the Missouri Pacific Railway. The product of the plant is facing brick, the capacity being 40,000 daily, in the manufacture of which forty men are employed. From a modest beginning the business had grown to large proportions, and the company now not only supplies the local trade, but fills orders from Utah to the west, the Dakotas to the north, Texas to the south, and Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, and all the states of the Middle West. As the directing head of this important enterprise Mr. Bogue is widely known in Neodesha and other cities. He is the kind of shrewd and far-sighted man who attracts and keeps the confidence of his associates, and his substantial standing rests upon years of straightforward dealing.
In public matters Mr. Bogue had long been prominent. A republican in his political views, he had wielded more than an ordinary influence in the ranks of his party. After serving as a member of the Neodesha City Council for several terms, he was elected, in 1902, to the office of mayor, and in the spring of 1915 was recalled to that office, in which he is now acting, to fill out the unexpired term of William Geiser. His term of office will expire in 1917. Under his administration five miles of paving of the city streets had been done, and many other improvements have been made, including the development of the water plant in the way of new buildings and a power house, erected in the fall and winter of 1916. In numerous other ways he had looked after the city’s interests, cheerfully and unselfishly giving of his time and talents in an endeavor to make his city one of the best in the state. Mayor Bogue resided in the Hale Building, and is the owner of valuable city realty, as well as a farm of 160 acres located in Wallace County, Kansas. He is well and popularly known in fraternal circles and is interested in various orders of which he is a member, including Harmony Lodge No. 94, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Orient Chapter No. 72, Royal Arch Masons; Ab-Del-Kader Commandery No. 27, Knights Templar; Mirza Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Pittsburg, Kansas, and Wichita Consistory No. 2, thirty-second degree. He had been past high priest of his chapter. He also belongs to the Elks, at Independence.
At Neodesha, in 1897, Mayor Bogue was united in marriage with Miss Sadie Johnson, daughter of Theodore and Ruth (Spear) Johnson, both of whom are deceased, Mr. Johnson having been an agriculturist. To this union one daughter had been born, Ruth, who is attending school at Los Angeles, California.