Shawnee County KS

Biographical Sketch of Luther C. Challis

Perhaps Luther C. Challis, nearly forty years a citizen of Atchison, is best known as a pioneer railroad man. He was born in New Jersey January 26, 1829, and for some years before moving West was engaged in business in Philadelphia and Boonville, Missouri. In 1855 he located in Atchison and joined his brother as one of the first merchants of that town. He afterward became a banker, and maintained a profitable ferry across the Missouri River until the building of the bridge in 1875. Mr. Challis was elected to a seat in the Territorial Council of 1857-58, made vacant … Read more

Biography of Oliver Franklin Winner

Oliver Franklin Winner. The excellent business standing of Oliver Franklin Winner rests upon many years of connection with agricultural affairs in Shawnee County, where he is still the owner of a large and valuable property. Particularly is he known as an authority upon the subject of alfalfa growing, to which he has devoted many years of study and investigation. Mr. Winner is an Illinoisan by nativity, and was born at Belvidere, Boone County, in 1859, being a son of Martin W. Winner. Martin W. Winner was born in New York, from which state he emigrated as a young man to … Read more

Biography of George A. Clark

George A. Clark, now president of the Toneka Title and Bond Company, is a representative of that class of citizen who without special ostentation have been leaders in making Kansas one of the foremost states of the Union. He is a true and typical Kansan by reason of more than thirty-five years of active participation in its life and affairs. In one respect his career had been unusual. The greater part of his life had been passed in newspaper work, ranging in locality from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, but chiefly in Kansas. This work began as “printer’s … Read more

Biography of William Gibson Dickie

William Gibson Dickie. Though he began his career on a Kansas farm with very few advantages in the way of schooling and has had to work for his own support and for that of others since boyhood, William G. Dickie has acquired a very honorable position in business affairs at Topeka, and has a record embodying many useful years spent in public office, in manufacturing lines, and in connection with several Kansas corporations. A native of Kansas, he was born six miles west of Olathe, Johnson County, January 21, 1870. His parents, William Holmes and Charity (Gibson) Dickie, had moved … Read more

Biography of John P. Davis

John P. Davis, Topeka. A resident of Kansas for forty-four years, Mr. Davis has in his career set an example of all that is best in American citizenship, not only to his immediate family but to the public in general. He has been prominent in public and business affairs, and has discharged the responsibilities which have fallen to his lot in a conscientious and able manner. His most potent influence for good has been exercised in business as well as in every day life. By his extensive business connections and his extended personal acquaintance he is one of the well … Read more

Biography of Hiram B. Miller

Hiram B. Miller. Kansas wheat and corn and other farm products have been so much emphasized as partly to obscure the fact that the great basic industry of the state up to twenty-five or thirty years ago was live stock. Older residents of the state, now a little past their prime, will recall that the leading industry of their youth, except perhaps in the few counties along the eastern border, was the raising of live stock on the great ranges. Of the men who stood pre-eminent in that industry special mention should be made of the late Hiram B. Miller, … Read more

Biography of Charles F. White

Charles F. White. Although a resident of North Topeka only since the early part of 1916, Charles F. White had demonstrated within the year that he is a man of force and ability, and a promising acquisition to the agricultural life of the community. His entire career had been passed in Kansas and from the time he started life on his own account he had devoted himself to farming, so that he had the necessary experience and the thorough knowledge needed in the acquiring of a full measure of success in this fertile farming locality. Charles F, White was born … Read more