Salina Kansas

Biography of Gottlob Ziegler

Gottlob Ziegler. A life of quiet effectiveness marked by a record of many duties well done and many responsibilities faithfully fulfilled was that of the late Gottlob Ziegler, best known by his long residence at Marysville, but who died in Salina November 20, 1911. While he never held an important public office and was not identified with the conspicuous activities of the world, he rendered a faithful and intelligent performance of every task that was allotted to him during his long life. He left a record that may well be envied and admired by the generations that follow him. He … Read more

Biography of Charles S. Walker

The Farmers Union of Kansas is a branch of the great national organization known as The Farmers Educational and Co-operative Union, with business headquarters at Atlanta, Georgia. C. S. Barrett is president of the national organization. This organization had a membership of 2,500,000, located in thirty-one different states. The head office of the Kansas organization is at Salina, and the president of The State Farmers Union is Maurice McAuliffe, while the manager, with headquarters at Kansas City, Kansas, is Mr. Charles S. Walker. The Kansas Union had 50,000 members, and had undoubtedly been the greatest single factor in creating a … Read more

Biography of George Howe Bechtel

George Howe Bechtel. Of the men who are maintaining Montgomery County’s reputation and prestige in financial circles, few are more highly esteemed as banking officials and citizens than George Howe Bechtel, eashier of the Liberty State Bank, of Liberty. Like many other Kansas bankers, Mr. Bechtel is a product of the farm and of the schoolroom. It would seem that the practicality developed in agricultural life and the mental sharpening acquired in the educator’s vocation form a combination happily adaptative to the great and important business of banking. At least, Mr. Bechtel’s career and his success support such a view. … Read more

Biographical Sketch of A. N. Keeler

Keeler Brothers, Perhaps no more attractive town in Mitchell County, Kansas, can be found than the one that bears the name of Scottsville, which might now celebrate its thirty-eighth birthday, although it was not incorporated for a number of years afterward. It had made wonderful progress since first laid out in 1878, and from then on down to the present great credit must be given for the same to the Keeler family, for it had been continuously identified with all the substantial development here. Ira B. and A. N. Keeler, under the firm style of Keeler Brothers, are the leading … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Fred A. Cunningham

South San Francisco has a reputation of getting almost everything it goes after for the reason that most of its big men are unselfishly imbued with civic pride and interest, or in the language of the streets are “live ones.” Among these “live ones” is Fred A. Cunningham, real estate dealer and trustee and formerly mayor of South San Francisco. Mr. Cunningham is a worker for South San Francisco and the county at large. He was one of the organizers and is at present a member of the Board of Governors of the San Mateo County Development Association. He was … Read more

Biography of W. A. Scidmore

W. A. Scidmore. The center of the financial interests of the Town of Tescott is the Bank of Tescott, an institution that had been holding up the financial credit and stability of the community for many years. It was founded by Mr. F. F. Scidmore in 1887. At the present time the bank had a capital stock of $50,000, surplus and profits of $10,000, and its deposits average $160,000. The two story brick structure on Main Street which was built and owned by the bank in 1911, is the most conspicuous business building in the town. The present officers are: … Read more

Biography of Levi D. Hill

Levi D. Hill is an old timer in Saline County and is now living retired at Salina. His had been a long and creditable career, and as a young man he served as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war. He was born January 8, 1844, in a one-room log house on a farm in Johnson County, Indiana, a son of Squire S. and Mary Ann (Cunningham) Hill. His father was born in Kentucky and his mother in Indiana. Squire Hill was born February 17, 1810, and died August 5, 1886, at Tipton, Indiana. Throughout his active career … Read more

Biography of Ezra William Ober

Ezra William Ober. “Whenever a new railroad was to be secured, a new institution located, a new business brought to town, E. W. Ober was at the head of the list and generally headed the committee that landed the addition to Salina. There is probably not a permanent institution in the city today secured by general effort where Mr. Ober was not the leading spirit.” Such a tribute, voicing the general opinion of a community, can be paid only to the exceptional man. The late E. W. Ober was in every sense an exceptional man. He had good business ability, … Read more

Biography of Arnold Francis Weeks

Arnold Francis Weeks. Much of the commercial history and the civic annals of the prosperous little Town of Assaria in Saline County could be told as a commentary upon the life of Mr. Arnold Francis Weeks, the leading merchant and now the mayor of that little city. In 1907 Mr. Weeks organized the Assaria Hardware Company. He became president and chief executive in the concern, while his brother Joseph was made secretary. In 1913 the two brothers bought all the other interests, and since dissolving the incorporation had conducted it as a partnership and had made it the leading business … Read more

Chestnut, Laura Ann Hughes Mrs. – Obituary

Laura Ann Chestnut, 56, a Baker City native, died April 26, 2007, at Salina Regional Health Center in Salina, Kan. Her funeral will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Canton Christian Church in Canton, Kan. Pastors Sherman Nungester and Jack Smith will officiate. Interment will be at the Canton Township Cemetery. She was born on July 3, 1950, at Baker City to Archie and Julia Driver Hughes. She moved from Oregon to Canton 31 year ago. She was a high school graduate and served in the U.S. Army. She worked as dietary manager for Shiloh Manor Nursing Home at Canton … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Joseph A. Muir

One of the farms that gives a character of progressiveness to Saline County is owned and occupied by Joseph A. Muir, one of the younger representatives of the agricultural industry in this state. This farm is near Mentor in Walnut Township. It is a farm that Mr. Muir had known all his life and he was born there. He had 200 acres of land, and well adapted for the raising of alfalfa, which is one of his principal crops. In every point it is modern in equipment and facilities. He had substantial buildings, including barns and silos for the care … Read more

Biography of Charles Wilbur McCampbell

Associate professor of animal husbandry in the State Agricultural College at Manhattan and secretary of the State Livestock Registry Board whose offices are in the same city, Charles W. McCampbell is a native Kansan and for ten years had broadened and amplified his experience and authoritative knowledge of all phases of the livestock industry, not only with reference to Kansas but to the world at large. While he had perhaps rendered his greatest service as an instructor of the younger generation of Kansas farmers, some of his practical demonstration work and experiments have attracted national attention from livestock men. He … Read more

Biography of Herman H. Sudendorf

Herman H. Sudendorf was born in Hanover, Germany, October 10, 1832, and came to the United States in 1848, locating at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he learned and followed the carpenter trade. In 1859 he removed with his family to Kansas and continued to work at his trade for ten more years. In 1868 he embarked in the lumber business at Salina with Mr. C. Eberhardt, they having opened one of the first lumber yards in the town. The partnership was dissolved in 1891, Mr. Sudendorf afterward continuing the enterprise alone, and the business is yet carried on in his name. … Read more

Biography of David Johnson, M. D.

David Johnson, M. D., a prominent medical specialist whose home and laboratories are at Salina, returned to Kansas a few years ago after many years spent in practice in the New England states, most of the time at Boston. He returned to Kansas because many years ago, on first coming to America, he had located in this then new state, and it was those early impressions and experiences with Kansas life and people that caused him to locate here for a permanent home in his decliaing years. Doctor Johnson was born in Sweden on May 4, 1848. He was liberally … Read more

Biography of James R. Mead

James R. Mead, one of the founders of Wichita and one of the noted pioneers of Kansas, was a Vermonter, born May 3, 1836, and at an early age showed his love for out-of-doors life. During his school days he read and dreamed of the Great American Desert, and in the fall of 1859 started for the plains. For four years he traded with the various Indian tribes in the present State of Kansas, hunted buffaloes and finally established a post on the Salina River, about twenty miles from its mouth. In 1861 he contracted his first marriage, and two … Read more

Biography of William L. Nesmith

William L. Nesmith is one of the Kansas pioneers. He had lived in this state more than forty years, having come here in 1874 with his young wife and their wagon trip from Iowa was in the nature of a honeymoon journey. For a great many years William Nesmith was actively engaged in merchandising and in other affairs at Wilson, and is now a resident of Salina and a member of the grocery house of Nesmith & Son. His public spirit as a citizen and his generous contributions to educational institutions and moral movements have been on a par with … Read more

Biography of James W. Jenney, M. D.

James W. Jenney, M. D. Among many other titles of distinction Dr. James W. Jenny, whose name is professionally known in almost every state in the Union, enjoys that of pioneer physician at Salina, Kansas, which city had been his permanent home for forty-six years. He came here a young man, in the first flush of professional success, earnest and ambitious, and the passage of time had in no way lessened his devotion to medical science. James W. Jenney comes of solid old Quaker stock. He was born in a log cabin on his father’s farm in Huron County, Ohio, … Read more

Biography of John B. Morton, M. D.

John B. Morton, M. D., had been successfully engaged in practice at Nashville for nearly ten years. He is a native of Kansas, and his people were pioneers in the vicinity of Cunningham, where he was born July 11, 1884. He is of Scotch and English ancestry and his forefathers were pioneers in the State of Ohio. His grandfather, Barzillai Morton, was born in Monroe County, Ohio, in 1811, and spent most of his life in his native county, where he conducted a mill for many years. About 1882 he came to Cunningham, Kansas, settling on a farm, and lived … Read more

Biography of John D. M. Conrad

John D. M. Conrad. Among the most interesting men of Salina are those who can justly be named pioneers of this fair city. They have a wealth of experience that no later comers can claim, and it is because of their courage and enterprise that such rich and rapid development had taken place. In John D. M. Conrad, who is the only survivor of a once very important body, the first city council of Salina, is found not only a pioneer of this section but also a veteran of honorable record of the great Civil war. John D. M. Conrad … Read more

Biography of Joseph Little Bristow, Hon.

No Kansan in recent years has rendered such distinguished public service to the nation at large as former Senator Bristow, now chairman of the State Public Utilities Commission. Mr. Bristow had been a resident of Kansas since he was twelve years old. From his father, who was a Methodist minister of the old type, he inherited a courage of eonvictions, a determined animosity to all public and private dishonesty, and his own life on the Kansas prairies had developed in him a zeal for popular rights and liberties and a fearless statesmanship equally removed from radicalism and reaction. For six … Read more