Marshall Marion McCaslin is a native of Kansas and has crowded a great many activities and experiences into the thirty years since his birth. He was formerly a farmer, but is now proprietor of the Acetylene Welding Company, one of the important industries of Coffeyville.
The McCaslin family came out of Ireland, were early settlers in America, and for many years lived in the State of Indiana.
Mr. McCaslin was born in Crawford County, Kansas, July 23, 1886. His father, W. M. McCaslin, was born in Illinois in 1860, was reared there. In 1880 he came with his family to Kansas, locating in Chautauquo County, where he married, then going to Crawford County, and coming from there to Montgomery County in 1902. He is a practical farmer and now lives on his place six miles northwest of Coffeyville. He attends the Methodist Episcopal Church and is a republican. W. M. McCaslin married Mrs. Maggie Ellsworth, who was born in Illinois in 1855. Ada, the oldest of their three children, is the wife of Dr. S. Huff, who has a world-wide reputation as a specialist in the treatment of cancer, and is one of the oldest specialists in that field of medicine, his home being at Mound Valley, Kansas. Bertha, the second of the children, is the wife of C. N. Fye, a farmer and railroad machinist living at Pindell, Arkansas.
The only son of the family, Marshall M. McCaslin, attended the public schools while living on his father’s farm in Crawford County. In 1907 he took a course in the Coffeyville Business College, specializing in bookkeeping. After one year of experience in the real estate business he took up farming in Montgomery County, and was so engaged until February, 1916, when he sold his farm and became manager and owner of the Acetylene Welding Company. This is a plant which is a growing and prosperous concern, fitted up with mechanical appliances for every sort of welding and also for the repair of automobile machinery. Mr. McCaslin owns the plant and its machinery, the location being at 819 Spring Street.
Politically he is a republican; he is a member of the United Brethren Church and is affiliated with Coffeyville Lodge No. 1193, Loyal Order of Moose.
His home is at 304 East Ninth Street. January 25, 1913, at Coffeyville, he married Miss Bessie Augustine, daughter of John and Julia Augustine. Her parents are farmers, their home being near six miles north and a little west of Coffeyville. Mr. and Mrs. McCaslin have one daughter, Nema, born August 29, 1914.