J. F. Daniel. He whose name initiates this paragraph is known and valued as one of the progressive business men and public-spirited citizens of Wichita, in which city he is vice president and general manager of the Daniel Shoe Company, which is destined to represent one of the most important industrial enterprises of commercial value to this thriving city.
Mr. Daniel was born at Belton, Arkansas, and in the public schools of that place and Arkadelphia, Arkansas, he acquired his preliminary educational discipline. At the Baptist College in the latter place he pursued a higher academic course of study, also completing there an effective course in the Draughn Business College. For a time he was employed as clerk in a general store at Prescott, Arkansas, going from there to the City of St. Louis, Missouri, where he entered the employ of a wholesale hardware concern. Later he became traveling representative in Kansas for the Wolf Brothers Shoe Company, of Columbus, Ohio, and, after an association with this company for three years he assumed a similar position with the well known Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company, of St. Louis. With the latter corporation he continued his alliance from 1908 until 1915, in the meanwhile becoming a stockholder of the company and a member of its advisory committee. In addition to his duties as traveling salesman, he gave effective service as one of the corps of designers for the company. It was through these various associations that Mr. Daniel gained a broad and accurate knowledge of the various details of shoe manufacturing. Becoming convinced that a profitable enterprise-could be developed by establishing a shoe manufactory at some eligible point in the Southwest, he at once made his conviction one of action, finally selecting Wichita as the ideal location for the projected industry. Here he enlisted the co-operation of local capital, and on the 1st of July, 1915, was effected the organization of the Daniel Shoe Company, which was duly incorporated under the laws of the state, with a capital stock of $25,000. Within six months the capital stock had increased to $250,000, and on this basis was instituted the development of the important manufacturing enterprise. As already noted, Mr. Daniel is vice president and general manager of the company, and it should further be stated that the president of the corporation is F. C. Hoyt, who likewise is president of the Union Bank of Wichita. In the manufacturing plant of the Daniel Shoe Company employment is given to a corps of 150 skilled operatives, and the pay roll amounts to fully $100,000 annually. The six traveling representatives of the company cover the states of Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. The products are meeting with a ready and appreciative demand throughout this extended trade territory. The plant has a capacity for the output of seven hundred pairs of men’s and boys’ welts a day, all of which are in every respect of highest grade. The factory is running to full capacity and is the only shoe manufactory in Kansas. The company has recently found it necessary to enlarge its thoroughly modern plant by the erection of a two-story brick building, with basement, on the lot adjoining the original factory site. Here authoritative dictum has stated that there is to be found the best equipped and most modern shoe factory of the Middle Western States. The concern gives all assurance of developing into one of the most important as well as one of the most extensive industrial enterprises of the State of Kansas, and at its helm stands a man of marked technical and administrative ability, Mr. Daniel.