Biography of William C. Kandt

William C. Kandt, a native of Kansas, and member of a pioneer family in the state, has been a banker all his active career, and while he maintains offices and has his home at Independence he is active cashier of the Wayside State Bank and president of the Citizens State Bank of Elk City. His birth occurred in Dickinson County, Kansas, August 24, 1877. His grandparents, John and Mary Kandt were German people who came to this country in the early ’50s and in 1857 pioneered into Dickinson County, Kansas, where they were among the first to break the virgin … Read more

Biography of Daniel Wiegner

Daniel Wiegner is one of the veteran merchants and business men of Salina, went to that city more than thirty-five years ago, and while he is now retired from active merchandising he still looks after his extensive interests as a land owner in that section of the state. Mr. Wiegner is a native of Germany. He was born February 2, 1852, a son of Frederick and Catherine (Sipe) Wiegner. His early life in the old country was a combination of training in the common schools with practical vocational discipline that would fit him for a worthy place in life. He … Read more

Biography of James A. Paull

James A. Paull, present county treasurer of Ellsworth County, had long been identified with business, industrial and civic affairs in this section of Kansas. Mr. Paull had a very interesting ancestry. The family originated in Alsace Lorraine, immigrated to England, and from that county Richard Paull established the name in America. Richard Paull was born in 1615 and at the age of twenty, in June, 1635, embarked on the “True Love de London” for the Bermudas. He soon settled in Massachusetts and on November 7, 1638, married Margery Turner, of Cohasset, now Taunton, Massachusetts. There are several public records concerning … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Felix Broeker

Felix Broeker. The astonishing growth of the Globe Life Insurance Company within the brief period of its existence is excellent evidence of the progresaive spirit of the Kansas people when they have been assured of the benefits derivable from an enterprise. This Salina organization, founded in December, 1915, had grown by leaps and bounds, and if its past success may be taken as a criterion for the future the company is due within a comparatively short space of time to take its position among the leading insurance institutions of the Middle West. Much of the success of this concern must … Read more

Biography of Winslow Cipra

Winslow Cipra, editor and proprietor of the Lincoln Sentinel and present postmaster of that city, had spent nearly all his life in Kansas, and had had a varied career of usefuluess as a teacher, business man and in journalism and public affairs. Mr. Cipra represents that sterling stock of Bohemian people who have accomplished so much for the cause of agriculture and development in Kansas. He was born at Teskov, Bohemia, December 8, 1873. His father, Frank Cipra, was born in Zbirov, Bohemia, in October, 1839, grew up and married at Teakov, and followed farming according to the intensive methods … Read more

Biography of La Rue Royce

La Rue Royce, who recently began practice of his profession as a lawyer at Salina, represents one of the distinguished names of Kansas. He is a son of John Quincy Royce of Topeka, long prominent as a lawyer, editor and a dominating character in republican politics in this state. John Quiney Royce was born on a farm in Fayette County, Iowa, June 1, 1856, a son of David P. Royce, who was a native of New York State. When nine years of age John Quincy Royce was taken from the farm in his native Iowa county to Independence in that … Read more

Biography of Edson Baxter

Edson Baxter. Now serving as clerk of the District Court at Marion, Captain Baxter is an old timer of Kansas and had lived in close touch with the developments of half a century and his own part therein allows him to speak with authority on the history of that period. The Baxter family came to Kansas in territorial times and did their pioneering in Morris County. Edson Baxter was fifteen years of age when he accompanied the family caravan overland, and he was able to make himself useful from the very beginning of the settlement. He was born on a … Read more

Biography of John Craig

John Craig. One of the most satisfying experiences of life is to review the career in which hardships and difficulties have been mingled with successes and good fortunes, and out of which had emerged a gratifying competence represented in a large body of agricultural lands, well improved, well tilled, and many times as valuable as it was when it was redeemed from the powers of the wilderness. An accident by which he lost his right hand caused John Craig to retire from his farm in 1908 and come to a comfortable city home in Salina. While he had lived retired, … Read more

Biography of Henry Van Deman Faris

Henry Van Deman Faris, of Kanopolis, is a Kansas around whom center many associations of territorial and pioneer times. He is by five years the oldest living pioneer in Kansas west of Salina. He had been continuously identfied with Ellsworth County more than half a century. Mr. Faris comes of that adventuresome pioneer stock that in successive waves had peopled and developed American soil. His grandfather, John Faris, was born in Ireland of Scotch descent. On coming to this country he partieipated as a soldier in the struggle for independence, and afterwards became a farmer in Virginia. He located on … Read more

Biography of Jonas P. Johnson

Jonas P. Johnson. In the life and affairs of Saline County, particularly in the locality around Assaria, the late Jonas P. Johnson played a notable part. He was one of those stanch and true men who have given their chatacter to the community, so that Saline County in its institutions and its moral standards largely reflects the personalities of such men as Mr. Johnson. He had begun life poor, but reached a place where he was surrounded with ample material welfare and bore an influential part in community development. He was born in Sweden March 1, 1849, a son of … 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

Biography of Clinton D. Vermillion M. D.

Clinton D. Vermillion, M. D. The professional work of Doctor Vermillion had been performed with home and office at Tescott since 1901. He had spent the greater part of his life in Kansas. Doctor Vermillion was born in Clay County, Missouri, September 10, 1868. In the paternal line he is of French descent. The Vermillions were one of the French families that located the historic and romantic district of Arcadia in Canada, and after the English captured that country they went as exiles, locating in Virginia. Doctor Vermillion is a son of Clinton M. Vermillion, who was born in Bracken … Read more

Biography of Bryce Muir

Bryce Muir is one of the prominent pioneers of Saline County, Kansas. He had lived in that locality more than fifty years, and if any man can be accounted an authority on the early history and development of that section of the state it is this genial and well known old timer. Prosperity had come to him in large measure during these long years, but he still prefers to keep his home on his fine farm near Salina, on rural route No. 2. He was born September 9, 1840, in Scotland. He had many of the characteristics that have made … Read more

Biography of Maurice McAuliffe

Maurice McAuliffe, of Salina, had not only fitted himself comfortably and substantially into the agricultural affairs of Kansas as an individual farmer and stock man, but had been one of the leaders in the new agrisultural movement and uplift. He is most widely known as one of the fine factors in the organization of the Farmers Union of Kansas, and is now serving his ninth term as president of that vigorous organization. He was also a prominent figure in the Alliance movement. The Farmers Union of Kansas is affiliated with the larger organization known as the National Farmers Union, which … Read more

Biography of Levi Livermore Tucker

Levi Livermore Tucker, late superintendent and president of the Kansas Wesleyan Business College of Salina, devoted practically his entire life to the training of young men and women for business. Fully forty years were given to that profession, and few men accomplished a more satisfying aggregate of results in this field than Professor Tucker. He was of New England birth and ancestry. The farm in Orange County, Vermont, where he was born December 10, 1853, was also the birthplace of his father, Levi Livermore Tucker, Sr., and the house that thus served as a birthplace to these two generations was … 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 Thomas Watson Roach

Thomas Watson Roach, for twenty-one years president of Kansas Wesleyan Business College, and a former president of Kansas Wesleyan University at Salina, had not merely found but had made for himself a distinctive place in educational history of the Sunflower State. He came to Kansas more than forty years ago. His name is closely associated with several progressive movements in Kansas educational affairs. He was the pioneer worker for the consolidation of country school districts. He also did the first practical work toward procuring uniformity of text books throughout the state. But even more important than all this he will … Read more