Connelley, William E. A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans. Chicago : Lewis, 1918. 5v. Biographies can be accessed from this page: Kansas and Kansans Biographies.
Wilfrid Cavaness, who had been a Kansas newspaper man for over twenty years, was born at Chetopa November 24, 1875. He attended the public schools there, graduating from high school in 1892, and for two years was a student in Baker University. In 1895 he became connected with the Chetopa Advance under his father, and […]
Wilfred B. Gasche. One of the best known figures in fire insurance circles of Kansas, and, in fact, of the West, is Wilfred B. Gasche, president since 1900 of the Alliance Co-Operative Insurance Company of Kansas, president of the Kansas State Association of Mutual Insurance Companies for the same length of time, and president of
Gen. Wilder S. Metcalf has been a resident of Kansas since 1887, and developed and is now sole owner of the business known as the Wilder S. Metcalf Farm Mortgage Agency at Lawrence. It is one of the oldest and best known agencies of the kind in the state and its business operations cover twenty-five
Wilbur F. George. With the exception of a short time spent in travel, Wilbur F. George had been a resident of Kansas since 1870, and during this time had been commensurately rewarded by the results which inevitably follow in the wake of industry, energy and careful management. Like many of his fellow agriculturists who have
Wilbur Austin Lawton. When Mr. Lawton came to Lyon County more than thirty years ago he found the district around what is now the flourishing little City of Americus a raw and almost unbroken prairie. He was one of the men who undertook to convert the former cattle range into a fertile farming district, and
Prof. Wilber A. Cochel. There is no doubt but that educational education means more to the United States today than any other kind of education and great institutions like the Kansas State Agricultural College are standard bearers in disseminating agricultural knowledge. This college management, with remarkable judgment, has gathered together a group of thoroughly trained
Whitsed Laming, Sr. The Laming family came to Leavenworth County thirty-five years ago, and there is no name more prominently associated with the business and civic life of the district in and around Tonganoxie than this. The Lamings are bankers, extensive farmers and stockmen, and have also developed some of the largest public utilities and
Wesley R. Childs is a native Kansan, had been a resident of Kansas City, Kansas, since 1895, had accepted the many opportunities to make himself useful in civic affairs as well as in business, was formerly postmaster, and is now giving his attention to his duties as executive special representative in Kansas and Missouri for
Wayne F. Shaw grew up on a farm in Kansas, but at an early age had an ambition to teach, and had made teaching a life work and vocation, attended by unusual success. He is now superintendent of the city schools of Kingman. Mr. Shaw is of a New England family transplanted to Kansas. His
Washington Marlatt was one of the real builders of Kansas. Both in the early territorial days and later he touched the life and affairs of the state at several points. While he might be classed fundamentally as a farmer, he was equally great as an educator and minister of the Gospel. He had the talents,
Hon. Washington E. Gregg. The chief executive office of any community is a responsible one and the individual occupying it has resting upon his shoulders not only the numerous burdens connected with the management of a city, but also the accountability for its commercial and moral integrity. As he is, so is his community, for
Warren S. Plummer, former county clerk of Pottawatomie County, is secretary, treasurer and manager of the Westmoreland Mercantile Company, the largest general merchandise house in business at the county seat. Mr. Plummer started life with an earnest purpose, and had steadily kept that in view and by industry and honorable dealings had attained a position
Warren Knaus has two distinctions among the citizens of Kansas. For over thirty years he had been an editor and newspaper publisher at McPherson and is now one of the oldest newspaper men in continuous service in the state. His other claim to distinction is one more exclusive and recognized chiefly in scientific circles, but
Warner E. Williams. While now one of the great trunk railway systems of the country, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad was largely developed as a Kansas corporation. The main offices of the company at Kansas are at Parsons, where 2,200 of its employes reside. The different lines of the road converge and diverge from
Ward Salisbury. The Salisbury family have been residents of Hiawatha County for over thirty years, and Mr. Ward Salisbury, who was a child when his father located there, had succeeded the older Salisbury as proprietor of the leading grain elevator and his business as a grain buyer extends all over that section of Kansas. Mr.
Ward Burlingame, during the twenty years of his activities in Kansas, a well known journalist of Leavenworth and a confidential secretary to several noted men of the commonwealth, while over a quarter of a century of his life was devoted to the national postal service, ten years as chief clerk of the dead letter division.
Walter S. Ezell. Contributing to the prestige of the City of Wichita as an educational center are a number of well ordered business and technical institutions, and prominent among the number is the Wichita Telegraph College, which was founded in the spring of 1912 by its present owner and manager, Walter S. Ezell, who as
Walter Roscoe Stubbs. The distinctive features of the service rendered by Mr. Stubbs as governor of Kansas from 1908 to 1912 had been described on other pages of this history. A few other details as to his work as governor and something as to his personality and career will be of wide interest to the
Walter Robson, a former representative of Pottawatomie County in the Legislature, is a man of large and important business interests in and around Westmoreland. His chief business is farming, but whether as a farmer, legislator, merchant he had played a forceful and virile part in every one of his numerous interests. Reared in Kansas from
Walter R. Pratt. In 1899 Mr. Pratt established himself in business in the City of Independence, Montgomery County, and he had not only continued as one of the representative factors in the business activities of this community, but had also so shown his civic loyalty and progressiveness as to be called upon to serve as
