The contribution of George Edgar McIninch to the upbuilding and progress of Missouri has come from his connection with commercial and industrial interests and through valuable public service. He is now vice chairman of the Missouri state highway board and important duties and responsibilities devolve upon him by reason of his office. He makes his home in St. Joseph, where he was born March 3, 1867, his parents being Amos A. and Lydia E. McIninch. About ten years prior to the Civil war the father removed to Missouri from Dundee, Ohio, in company with his parents, the family home being established on a farm about eight miles northeast of St. Joseph. When the marked differences between the north and the south lead to the open and active hostility that culminated in the Civil war he enlisted in the Union army and served his country until the battle of Nashville, in which he was so severely wounded that he was discharged from the service. After regaining his health he engaged in the general merchandise business at St. Joseph, where he successfully conducted his store for twenty-five or thirty years, being classed with the representative business men of this city.
George Edgar McIninch obtained his education in the public schools of St. Joseph and then joined his father in business, devoting several years to general merchandising In that connection. Later he spent about ten years in the wholesale queensware business and for the past seventeen years he has been engaged in the printing and lithographing business under the name of the Combe Printing Company of St. Joseph. This concern was started a half century ago in a small way and is now one of the largest in the west. He was the vice president and secretary of the George Cooke Crockery Company of St. Joseph for ten years and then, after serving as secretary of the Combe Printing Company, was elected to the vice presidency and has so continued to act until seventeen years have passed since he was called to official position with this company. He is also interested in the Battreall Shoe Company and his investments include lands, bonds and farm mortgages.
On the 30th of October, 1888, in St. Joseph, Mr. McIninch was married to Miss Angie R. Kirk, daughter of Able D. and Elizabeth A. Kirk of this city. Her father removed from Kentucky to Nebraska at an early day and served in the legislature of the latter state. Later he became a resident of St. Joseph, Missouri, where he practiced law for many years. He afterwards retired and removed to Long Beach, California, where he died at the advanced age of ninety years. Mr. and Mrs. McIninch are the parents of an only daughter, Mabel Helen, the wife of Corbin T. Richmond, Jr., and now the mother of three children, two sons and a daughter.
Mr. McIninch is a member of Hundley Methodist church of St. Joseph, while his wife, Mrs. McIninch, is a member of the First Christian church. About thirty-two years ago he joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and for five years he has been a member of the Elks Lodge, No. 40, of St. Joseph. He has membership in the Commerce Club, the Automobile Club, the St. Joseph and Buchanan County Good Roads Association and was president of an automobile club for two years and for five years of the Good Roads Association. His deep interest in the public highways and his effective work therefore led to his appointment by Governor Frederick B. Gardner, March 13, 1917, as a member of the Missouri state highway board, of which he is vice chairman. This board has administered twenty million dollars during the past four years in connection with the building and improvement of the state roads of Missouri, and the commonwealth has recently voted a sixty million dollar bond issue for a six thousand mile system of hard surfaced roads.