Cowley County KS

Biography of Solomon A. Smith

Solomon A. Smith is one of the old time residents of Cowley County and he taught school to an earlier generation of children in the country districts, but for upwards of thirty years had been a successful lawyer of high standing at Winfield, and is one of the oldest members of the bar of that city. His home had been in Kansas since 1869. He was born near Salem in Marion County, Illinois, May 1, 1853. His people were among the very first settlers in Marion County, having located there very early in the nineteenth century. This branch of the … Read more

Biography of James W. White, Judge

Judge James W. White, judge of the Probate Court at Winfield, is a Kansas man whose courage and resourcefulness deserve the admiration of every citizen. With health, vigor, in full possession of his faculties, and looking forward to an active career, he was suddenly stricken blind and deprived of all those benefits and prospects which otherwise he might have expected to realize. He could not accept complete defeat. He learned to read, as the blind must, by the sense of touch, acquired a trade and for a number of years had not only made himself a useful factor but one … Read more

Biography of Ernest F. Day, M. D.

Ernest F. Day, M. D. The work of Doctor Day as a physician and surgeon had met with cordial appreciation and patronage since he came to Arkansas City over fifteen years ago. He is in every way a most competent and thorough professional man, and in recent years had extended his opportunities for service by his management, in association with Doctor McKay, of the Mercy Hospital there. Doctor Day is a native of Indiana but had spent practically all his life in Kansas. He was born at Rensselaer in Jasper County, Indiana, October 20, 1876. He is of very old … 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 Robert V. Grattan

Robert V. Grattan is one of the well known and active factors in the community at Burden, and during the past administration had made a very satisfactory record as postmaster. Mr. Grattan is a native of Burden, Kansas, where he was born May 29, 1884. His father, Robert Grattan, was an Irishman, born at Newtownards in Ireland and came to this country when about thirty years of age. In 1871 he was a pioneer homesteader in Cowley County, locating 160 acres of land one mile west and four and a half miles north of Burden. He proved his real Irish … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Edwin C. Manning

Edwin C. Manning, the founder of Winfield, the organizer of the County of Cowley, one of the early editors of the state and thirty or forty years ago a republican leader of Kansas, was born in Redford, Clinton County, New York, November 7, 1838. He was educated both in Vermont and Iowa, taught school at an early age, at the age of nineteen commenced to learn the printer’s trade and in 1859, then about of age, was among the first to start for the Pike’s Peak region in search of gold. He returned a disillusioned young man, but became interested … Read more

Biography of A. M. Dean

A. M. Dean, an attorney, had spent his life since boyhood in Southern Kansas or in Northern Oklahoma. He was born at West Point, Nebraska, December 7, 1875. His family history goes back to Pennsylvania, where his grandfather, A. M. Dean, was born about 1821 and where the Deans settled when they came from England. A. M. Dean, the grandfather, grew up in Ohio, afterwards moved to Wisconsin, was a pioneer there and also in Nebraska, and finally located in Arkansas City. He was a farmer until he retired, and his death occurred in Arkansas City in 1893. Politically he … Read more

Biography of Ross Homer Rhoads

Ross Homer Rhoads is agent for the Santa Fe Railroad Company at Arkansas City. He had been a railroad man for a number of years, and it was his efficiency and his ability that led to his promotion to one of the most important posts along the Santa Fe system in Kansas. Mr. Rhoads had spent most of his life in Kansas but was born at Somerset, Pennsylvania, April 9, 1883. His grandfather, Samuel A. Rhoads, was a native of Germany and came from there to Pennsylvania. He had ten children: Sarah, deceased; Adaline, single; Etta, deceased; Philip, deceased; Susan, … 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 Albert Hamilton Denton

Albert Hamilton Denton is the leading banker of Arkansas City. While he was born and reared on a farm in this section of Kansas, banking had been his life work. He is president of the Home National Bank of Arkansas City, but his range of interests includes official connections with a number of other banking houses and as owner of valuable properties both sides of the state line, in Kansas and Oklahoma. Mr. Denton was born on a farm three miles south of Arkansas City, June 18, 1872. Back of him he had several generations of sturdy and thrifty ancestors. … 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 William H. Manser, M. D.

William H. Manser, M. D.,had that splendid satisfaction which comes to the man who found himself in a congenial vocation early in life and had steadily broadened and improved his service and capacity for doing good. Dr. Manser is now the oldest physician in point of continnous service at Burden, where he had practiced thirty-three years. Though of New England ancestry, the Mansers having located in Massachusetts in Colonial times, Dr. Manser is a native of old Virginia, born at Beckley in what was then simply Western Virginia and as a result of the Civil war became the State of West Virginia. … Read more

Biography of John Madison Dosbaugh

John Madison Dosbaugh. Ready adaptation to opportunity, a capacity for gauging the possible value of investments and securities and the well developed speculative instinct that places the natural banker and business man in a class by himself, are factors which have directed the business and financial energy of John Madison Dosbaugh, president of the Dosbaugh National Bank of Cedar Vale, and one of his community’s leading citizens and principal landholders. Mr. Dosbaugh had been identified with the bank of which he is now the directing head for more than a quarter of a century, during which period he had aided … Read more

Biography of Edward C. Gates

Edward C, Gates. It was in 1887 that Edward C. Gates was admitted to the Kansas bar and undertook to build up a reputation and practice at Fulton, where be resided until he came to Fort Scott. In Fort Scott for the past twenty years he had enjoyed a reputation among the ablest members of the Kansas bar. Until 1913 he was actively associated with A. M. Keene in the firm of Keene & Gates, and since then had pratticed alone. The law had always represented to Mr. Gates a profession rather than an occnpation, and in all his work … Read more

Biography of Lee Scott

Lee Scott. The career of Lee Scott, one of the well known figures in the business life of El Dorado, had been an illustration of practical and diversified activity, and had invaded various fields of endeavor. Mr. Scott had been identified with a number of lines of business, but more recently had given the greater part of his attention to oil and gas brokerage and the real estate and insurance business, and is accounted one of the leaders in these lines of commercial and industrial promotion. He is now quite heavily interested in some of the best oil and gas … Read more

Biography of L. L. Warner

L. L. Warner, who is successfully engaged in business as a dairyman of Bartlesville, was born in Pennsylvania on the 17th of March, 1867, a son of Joseph and Catherine (Warner) Warner, who though of the same name were not related. They removed to Illinois six weeks after the birth of their son, L. L. Warner, settling in Fulton County, that state, where Joseph Warner carried on farming until 1879. In that year the family home was established in Fremont County, Iowa, where Mr. Warner of this review remained until he was twenty-three years of age, when he was married … Read more