Cowley County KS

Biography of John T. Denton, Hon.

Hon. John T. Denton. While John T. Denton had been a staid and substantial banker, business man and public spirited citizen of Grenola and Elk County for over thirty years, he had covered a great deal of territory in the course of his earlier experiences, and he came through difficulties and hardships on the road to success. He was left an orphan boy in Kentucky, was reared in the home of relatives, started out to make his own way in the world when sixteen, and had always considered it fortunate that he came to Kansas in the early days of … Read more

Biography of Owen M. Thomas

Owen M. Thomas. The Citizens State Bank of Bronson, of which Owen M. Thomas is vice president, is an institution which had grown rapidly and prospered since it was established less than ten years ago, and its success is largely due to the character of the men entrusted with its executive management. Mr. Thomas had been actively identified with banking for ten years, both in Oklahoma and in Kansas. Though a young man, his career had apparently been one of rapid accomplishment, and he had achieved as much in ten years as many men do in their entire active life. … Read more

Biography of Allen Dale Hileman

Allen Dale Hileman. Belonging to that class of business men whose practical education, quick perceptions and great capacity for painstaking industry have advanced them to positions of business prominence formerly occupied only by men many years their seniors, Allen Dale Hileman, while representing the vigorous and resourceful present of Kansas, gives promise of participating in its more enlightened future, more especially at Cherryvale and in Montgomery County, where he is engaged in a well-established real estate, loan and insurance business and also connected with the Montgomery County National Bank. Allen Dale Hileman, or Dale Hileman, as he is universally known, … Read more

Biography of Patrick E. Henneberry

Patrick E. Henneberry, president of Henneberry & Company, packers and provisioners at Arkansas City, is a veteran in the packing industry. He had his first experience in that business at Chicago in 1872, before refrigeration of meat products and modern methods of transportation by refrigeration cars had been introduced. He had been in the industry through nearly every phase of development, and his experience and enterprise have brought the Arkansas City plant to a prosperous condition and one of the best managed of the smaller packing houses in the state. Mr. Henneberry was born in Covington, Kentucky, July 15, 1859. … Read more

Biographical Sketch of William Dexter Halfhill

William Dexter Halfhill, who has been a representative of the legal fraternity for a period covering forty-three years, took up his abode in Muskogee in 1904 and has here since engaged in general civil practice, in which connection he has built up a clientage of enviable proportions. He is a native of Morrow county, Ohio, and a son of Moses and Lydia (Kingman) Halfhill, the former a farmer by occupation. The public schools afforded him his early educational advantages and on attaining his majority he began teaching school. This he considered but an initial step to other professional labor; however, … Read more

Biography of Oscar Maxel Yount

Oscar Maxel Yount. The person of this sketch, Oscar Maxel Yount, is perhaps the most wonderful example, everything being taken into consideration, of what a determined will-power can accomplish that the Sunflower State had ever produced. He had been a lawyer and engaged in the active practice of his profession since June 22, 1905. He is a native son of Kansas, and the work he had done in his profession and in civic affairs had brought him a place of special esteem throughout the state and especially in his home community of Galena. He was not born with a “silver … Read more

Biography of John C. Hoyt

John C. Hoyt became identified with the real estate, loan and insurance business at El Dorado over thirty years ago. He is the dean in that line of business in Butler County, and the reputation for honesty and integrity which had become associated with his name through many long years had brought him all the business that his firm could attend to during the rapid development of Butler County’s resources in recent years. Mr. Hoyt was born near Bellevue, Ohio, September 3, 1860. His people have been identified with Northern Ohio since pioneer times. His grandfather, John Hoyt, was born … Read more

Biography of Charles T. Atkinson

Charles T. Atkinson is one of the oldest members of the bar in Southern Kansas, having been an attorney at Arkansas City since 1884. He is a lawyer first and last, and had seldom allowed outside interests to interfere with his complete devotion to his profession, in which he had made a most noteworthy success. Mr. Atkinson had an interesting ancestry. His people for generations back were Quakers and were identified with the early history of the City of Brotherly Love. It was during the time of William Penn that the first of the name came from England to Philadelphia. … Read more

Biography of James McDermott, Hon.

Hon. James McDermott. The career of James McDermott, now a retired resident of the City of Winfield, has been one remarkable in many ways, and his life story contains many interesting chapters. From newsboy on the streets of New York to leading lawyer and member of the Kansas Legislature, his active career led him through many of the most important battles of the Civil war, as well as through the struggles of political life, and through it all he has maintained a reputation for courage, fidelity and absolute fearlessness. Mr. McDermott was born in New York City, New York, June … Read more

Biography of William C. Suttle

William C. Suttle. Under modern conditions the water works of any thriving and prosperous community is one of the most important branches of the civic service, and its management requires abilities far beyond the ordinary. Fredonia boasts of one of the best water systems in Southeastern Kansas, and much of the credit for the present excellent conditions existing in this enterprising city is due to the capable and experienced work of the superintendent of the water works, William C. Suttle, who had been connected with this department for about eleven years and had been in his present position since 1913. … Read more

Biography of Levi F. Johnson

Levi F. Johnson. As it was only about sixty years ago that the first permanent settlements were made in Kansas, there are a number of the real pioneers still alive, men who can recount their experiences when the plains were covered with buffaloes, when Indians made camp along the creeks, when the prairie fires raged across the high grass, and when the woods were filled with game, the creeks with fish, and when everything was new and primitive. Now living retired at a comfortable home in Winfield Levi F. Johnson had his share in the early making of Kansas, particularly … Read more

Biography of Hollis Herbert Allen

Hollis Herbert Allen found his life work in the grocery business. He came to Arkansas City twenty-eight years ago, then a young man, and learned the grocery trade by work in every capacity, at first for others and afterwards for himself. Any one who had had experience in the grocery trade knows that hardly any other business is subject to the operation of more circumstances and influences affecting its prosperity, and anyone who had been successful in that line fully deserves all he had won. Mr. Allen now had one of the finest retail grocery houses in the State of … Read more

Biography of Frank McClellan

Frank McClellan. After many years employed as an educator in Kansas, Frank McClellan turned his attention to business affairs at Coffeyville, and now has one of the leading offices there for insurance and loans. His birthplace was Bedford, Pennsylvania, where he was born January 21, 1860. His grandfather, Abraham McClellan, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1798, came to the United States when a young man, becoming a farmer and stock raiser in Pennsylvania. He died at Rainsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1883. On account of his service in the state militia he was familiarly known as Captain McClellan. Captain McClellan married … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Charles A. Baker

Charles A. Baker of Wichita lacked only three or four months of being a native son of Kansas. He has spent practically his entire career in this state, and by close attention to his business as a plumber has built up one of the leading establishments at Wichita, and his business is registered under the state laws. He was born at Rio, Wisconsin, June 30, 1870, and it was in September of the same year that his parents moved to Arkansas City, Kansas. After a public school education, gained in Wichita, he began an apprenticeship at the plumbing trade, and … Read more

Biography of Edna L. Johnson, Miss

Miss Edna L. Johnson. In no other field have woman’s work and influence proved such ennobling factors as in the sphere of education. The instruction and the character training of the children of Kansas are largely in the hands of devoted women, and many of the most responsible posts in the school system of the state are filled by woman teachers. The entire school system of Cowley County is under the supervision of Miss Edna L. Johnson, county superintendent of schools, and the people of the county recognize her unqualified fitness for the duties of the office. Miss Johnson was … Read more

Biography of Owen C. Wasson

Owen C. Wasson. Because of the success which had attended his efforts, his commercial soundness and acumen, his spirit of public helpfulness and his good citizenship, the career of Owen C. Wasson, of Peru, offers an encouraging example of prosperity and position gained through a proper utilization of ordinary opportunities. Since entering upon his independent life, numerous vocations have attracted the activities of Mr. Wasson, but he had made steady advancement in each, and is now the proprietor of a well-established hardware and implement business at Peru and one of the city’s substantial business citizens. Mr. Wasson was born on … Read more

Biography of John Wallace Howe

John Wallace Howe. Few men are able to comprehend within a period of less than seventy years such a variety of experience and achievement as John Wallace Howe of Independence. He is one of the youngest vsterans of the Union army in the war between the states. Besides the part played by him as a faithful soldier in that struggle, he had been a farmer, a carpenter, had lived in a number of different localities, and was one of the pioneer settlers in Montgomery County, Kansas, having established his home there on the frontier more than forty-five years ago. Public … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Charles L. McMasters

Charles L. McMasters, dealer in grain, coal and seeds, and a popular young man of Tuscola, was born on a farm three miles northwest of Tuscola, in Tuscola township, March 26, 1867, and is a son of S. L. and Hannah ( Maris) Maris)McMasters, who were natives of Parke County, Indiana. In 1869 his father sold, his farm and removed to Sand Springs, Kansas, where he followed farming and stock raising until his death in Mary, 1870, after which his mother, with three children, two sons and one daughter-Charles being the younger-removed to Winfield, Cowley County, Kansas, where she resided … Read more

Ferguson, Cynthia Ann McEwen – Obituary

Died, near Winfield, Cowley County, Kansas, December 31, 1883, at 12 p.m., Mrs. Cynthia A., wife of the Rev. Solomon Ferguson, aged 61 years, 11 months, and 5 days. Mrs. Ferguson was born in Bartholomew County, Indiana. She moved with her parent, the Rev. James McEwen when quite young to Decatur County where in October 1838 she was married to Solomon Ferguson, by whom she had ten children, two sons and eight daughters. Two daughters died in infancy; the others are left with the bereaved husband to mourn her loss, all member of the church. She was converted in 1843, … Read more

Biography of Edgar Ernest Brooks, M. D.

Edgar Ernest Brooks, M. D.The town and community in which he had gained note as a successful physician and surgeon is also Dr. Brooks’ birthplace. He is one of the leading members of the medical fraternity of Cowley County and had now been in practice at Burden for nine years. Dr. Brooks was born in that community August 1, 1884. He was one of a family of eleven children. This branch of the Brooks family came to America from England and were pioneers in the province of Pennsylvania. Dr. Brooks’ grandfather, John Brooks, was born about 1806. He spent the … Read more