A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. III, Part 2

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 660

USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. III > Part 2

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until 1902 he was one of the editors and publishers of the Denton County News, and in the latter year he came again to Oklahoma, where he engaged in the general merchandise business at Shawnee. In the spring of the following year, however, he removed to Oklahoma City, where he continued in the employ of the Western Newspaper Union until August, 1906, when he became foren:an in the office of the Oklahoma Morning Post. Of this position he continued in tenure until Oklahoma was admitted to statehood, in 1907, when he was elected the first incumbent of the office of State Commissioner of Labor, which office he has since continued to hold, through re-election in 1910, In January, 1915, Governor Williams appointed him a member of the State Board of Public Affairs, and his service to the state has been marked by ability, circumspection, loyalty and an earnest effort to conserve the best interests of the people. When he assumed the office of State Commissioner of Labor the Oklahoma statute books had no laws pertaining to mat- ters normally within the jurisdiction of this office, and he was specially instrumental through his assistance to the legislative committee of the State Federation of Labor in preparing and procuring the enactment of con- sistent labor laws. As commissioner he put forth most zealous and effective efforts to obtain legislative enact- ment touching the matters of employers' liability and workmen's compensation, and in his fifth annual report as Commissioner of Labor he gave a thorough exploita- tion of this important matter and urged with marked force and consistency the passage of laws similar to those relative to these provisions on the part of other states of the Union.

Mr. Daugherty has been a member of the Typographi- cal Union since 1890 and has held every local office in the same. In 1904-5 he was president and secretary of the Oklahoma City Trade Council, and he has been a vigorous and earnest advocate of the cause and legitimate demands of organized labor, though never bigoted or in- tolerant in his views. Mr. Daugherty is a director of the Arkansas River Bed Oil and Gas Company, which is capitalized for $250,000, which owns valuable holdings in the petroleum and gas fields of Oklahoma, and which operates successful producing wells. In a fraternal way he is affiliated with Oklahoma City Lodge No. 36, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Elm Lodge No. 51, Knights of Pythias, at Denton, Texas; Oklahoma City Lodge No. 417, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; Camp No. 15 of the Woodmen of the World at Denton, Texas; and Oklahoma City Camp No. 6892, Modern Woodmen of America. Both he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and his political allegiance is given to the democratic party.

In 1901 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Daugherty to Miss Alberta Mitchell, daughter of Robert R. Mitchell, a representative citizen and lumber merchant at Denton, Texas, and the two children of this union are Philip E., who was born March 12, 1904, and Frederick A., who was born August 18, 1914. The family home in Okla- homa City is at 1115 North Central Avenue.

EDGAR SAMUEL BRONSON. For fifteen years Mr. Bron- son has been identified with Oklahoma journalism, and has recently become one of the proprietors of the El Reno American. Outside of his individual success in this field, he is well known for his active part in building up the Oklahoma Press Association, which now has a splendid membership and is rated as the most progressive press association in the United States.

Edgar Samuel Bronson was born in Shelby County, Missouri, December 2, 1858, and has spent practically forty years in some phase or other of the newspaper and publishing business. His parents were William

ONABrewer.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Norris and Mary Susan (Holmes) Bronson, who were married in January, 1858, at Newark, Knox County, Mis- souri. The father was educated at Syracuse, New York. The mother was a daughter of Samuel G. Holmes, a pioneer merchant of Missouri.

Edgar S. Bronson was educated in private schools at Falmouth, Kentucky, to which place his parents removed in 1862. In 1876 he was graduated from the Pendleton Academy of Kentucky, and he had previously edited a school paper, and learned the mechanical details of printing on the Falmouth Pendletonian. He did his first reportorial work for the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Louisville Courier-Journal. In his earlier experience as a newspaper man Mr. Bronson was employed on a num- ber of papers, chief among which were the Times-Union of Jacksonville, Florida, the Times at Macon, Missouri, the Press of Ottumwa, Iowa, and from 1884 to 1895 on the Democrat at Kirksville, Missouri. In 1895 Mr. Bronson bought a half interest in the Trenton, Missouri, Morning Tribune, his co-partner being C. D. Morris, now proprietor of the St. Joseph, Missouri, Gazette. In 1898 he sold his interest in the Trenton Tribune to Mr. Morris, and in 1900 came to Oklahoma City as a staff man for the Kansas City Times. Two years later in 1902, he and N. A. Nichols established the Thomas Tribune at Thomas, Oklahoma. He not only helped to build up and publish a first-class newspaper, but was active in the general material and civic progress of Thomas, and that is a town whose early history can never be told without some reference to this enter- prising newspaper man. In 1914, after selling the Tribune to M. C. Trautwein, Mr. Bronson left Thomas and on July 1, 1914, with his old partner N. A. Nichols bought the El Reno American.

In 1907, Mr. Bronson was made secretary-treasurer of the Oklahoma Press Association at the McAlester meet- ing. He became a member of the Benevolent and Protec- tive Order of Elks at Trenton, Missouri, in August, 1902, and he and Mr. Nichols were the chief movers in estab- lishing the lodge of that order at Trenton. Politically Mr. Bronson has always voted and exercised his influence in behalf of the democratic party. He is unmarried.

O. H. P. BREWER. Muskogee's present postmaster, a lawyer by profession, O. H. P. Brewer, has for a number of years been one of the leading men of the old Cherokee Nation, gained his first public honors under tribal gov- ernment, was a member of the constitutional convention, and has had an active part in Oklahoma affairs since statehood.

Born at Webbers Falls, Indian Territory, a hamlet twenty-five miles southeast of the enterprising City of Muskogee, O. H. P. Brewer is the offspring of pioneer stock, his parents being Cherokee citizens who voluntarily emigrated from Georgia to the Indian Territory in 1838 in accordance with the terms of a congressional act. His father, O. H. P. Brewer, was educated in the public schools of the Cherokee Nation and also at Mount Comfort, a private school at Fayetteville, Arkansas. He was commissioned captain in the Cherokee Brigade of the Southern Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil war. He served with distinction in this capacity and was com- missioned colonel for meritorious and distinguished activ- ity during the progress of the military operations of the Cherokee people. Perhaps no young officer in the Con- federate army of the Cherokee Nation won greater dis- tinction and honor nor enjoyed greater confidence and respect at the hands of his superiors than he. He filled many positions of honor and trust under tribal govern- ment-as a member of the Cherokee Council, a member of the Cherokee Board of Education, as tax collector for the Cherokee Nation in the matter of royalties growing

out of the leasing of the Cherokee Strip to a livestock association with headquarters at Caldwell, Kansas, and was a member of the Supreme Court of the Cherokee Nation at the time of his death on December 20, 1891. The mother, Delia A. (Vann) Brewer, was educated in the tribal public schools, the Sawyer School for Girls at Fayetteville, Arkansas, and at the Young Ladies' Semi- nary at Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Mr. O. H. P. Brewer was likewise educated in the tri- bal public schools, the Cherokee National Male Seminary and was graduated from the University of Arkansas. Following his graduation from the university he spent seven years upon the home plantation at Webbers Falls, devoting his time to agriculture and the acquisition of knowledge from a selection of good books, the heritage of his father. He was then elected by the voters of Cana- dian District (a tribal subdivision corresponding to a county subdivision) a member to the Cherokee Senate, in which body he served actively on the Committee of Edu- cation. He advocated with all the activity of a vigorous personality and the persuasive powers of an alert mind before the Senate Committee on Education, the largest appropriation for educational purposes in the history of the Cherokee Legislature, and through his efforts the committee unanimously reported to the Council in favor of the appropriation. On the floor of the Cherokee Sen- ate in the face of determined and strenuous opposition he championed the cause of the committee report, and after days of forceful argument he overcame all antip- athy to the measure, and had the satisfaction of seeing the same placed upon the statutes of the Cherokee Na- tion. At the expiration of his term he was elected by joint session of the Cherokee National Council a member of the Cherokee Board of Education. He served six years as president of said board and won the admiration and respect of the white inhabitants of the Cherokee Nation and the members of his tribe, by speaking con- stantly for the cause of education in almost every neigh- borhood while supervising the schools of the Cherokee Nation; appealing to the citizens to grasp the oppor- tunity of cultivating the minds of the younger generation in order that the good work might in the future redound to the credit of his people. The Cherokees were the pioneers in the establishment of a free school system, and their educators have been sincerely devoted to the supremacy of the tribe and the result of racial care and pains has fostered the development of men like O. H. P. Brewer whose good work will shine forth upon succeed- ing generations so that the historian of the future may truthfully record that in the closing days of the gov- ernments the Indians so loved, when the Indian Territory was bereft of its swaddling clothes and made to assume the lofty station of statehood, that the Cherokees, at least, recognized the importance of being prepared for the emergencies and responsibilities entailed by such a change of condition so that they expended all their best efforts toward a betterment of tribal condition and a greater stimulation of national ambition.

During. the fall of 1906 he was elected a member of the constitutional convention by the electors of the Seventy-seventh Constitutional District, overcoming a normal republican majority and defeating his opponent by 325 votes. In this body he served as chairman of the Committee on Education, member of the Committee on Public Buildings, member of the Committee on State School Lands, member of the Committee on Engross- ment. Through his influence as chairman of the Com- mittee on Education the provision for the maintenance of separate schools for white and negro children and the section providing for a compulsory system of educa- tion in the State of Oklahoma was incorporated in our organic law.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

At the beginning of statehood he was appointed, though he did not accept either place, member of the State Board of Examiners and a member of the State Text Book Commission by Oklahoma's first governor. During the summer of 1908 he was placed in charge of the appraisement of Oklahoma state school lands, and in the spring of 1909 was put in charge of the Oklahoma State Farm Loan Department, which had to do with loaning out upon Oklahoma farms, as preferred security, $5,000,000 appropriated under the terms of the enabling act. He resigned from this position on the 15th of April, 1910, returned to his home in Muskogee, com- menced the study of law and was in due course admitted to the bar. During the campaign of 1912 Mr. Brewer took charge of Senator Robert L. Owen's headquarters and managed his campaign for re-election in the territory comprehending the eastern half of the State of Okla- homa. On May 7, 1913, Mr. Brewer was appointed post- master at Muskogee by President Woodrow Wilson, and his appointment was confirmed by the United States Senate on the same days.

ANTON H. CLASSEN was born at Pekin, Illinois, in 1861, and is of German descent. His childhood and youth were spent amid surroundings that were typically characteristic of the great class which has contributed so much to the America of today. Trained to habits of industry, with a fair common school education and a good degree of business ability, Mr. Classen matriculated in the law school of the University of Michigan several years after attaining his majority and graduated in that institution in 1887. Two years later he came to Okla- homa, entering with the rush on that memorable 22d of April, 1889. After stopping at Guthrie for a time he settled at Edmond, where he became thoroughly identi- fied with the pioneer life of the community. Besides engaging in the practice of law, he edited and managed the Edmond Sun for four or five years, and also looked after the operation of a farm adjoining the town. He was the leading spirit in the effort which resulted in securing to Edmond the first normal school established in the state. He stimulated a spirit of civic pride in the early development of that city by planting many trees not only on his own property but on public property at his own expense. Although from the first he took an active interest in public affairs, and during the first year after the opening, when the time arrived for the people to organize their respective parties, was chosen as one of the members of the Central Committee and took an active part in the organization of the republican party, he did not hold any political position until his appointment as receiver of the United States Land Office at Oklahoma City in 1897 by President McKinley.' At the expiration of his term, four years later, he was ap- pointed register of the same office, which position he resigned in the latter part of 1902 to devote his whole time and attention to his rapidly increasing business interests.

Mr. Classen has been an active factor in the phenom- enal development of Oklahoma City. He was elected president of the Oklahoma City Commercial Club in 1899 and was re-elected for three consecutive terms, and from that time that body (the present Chamber of Com- merce, as reorganized) has found in him one of its chief workers and supporters. He took an active part in the struggle for the union of the two territories into one state, and for the purpose of helping to urge the necessary legislation spent some time in Washington on several occasions, and in that respect was not in harmony with his party, the majority of which was in favor of making two states out of the Indian Territory and Okla- homa Territory. His faith in the future of Oklahoma

City was seemingly unbounded. Property was very cheap in and around Oklahoma City in those days and he evidenced his faith in its future by investing all of his modest capital in what was then outside property but which is now the heart of the best close-in residence sections. There were older (and professedly wiser) heads who regarded his ventures in this line as rash beyond the point of reason, but Mr. Classen platted his newly acquired property and lined its tenantless streets with trees which were carefully cultivated and pruned. The end more than justified his careful calculations, and in time he came to be regarded as a shrewd and skillful real estate operator. In 1902 his real estate holdings were transferred to the Classen Company, of which he is presi- dent and principal stockholder. In 1902 he secured a franchise which had been granted for the building of a street railway in Oklahoma City. The work of laying the steel on the first lines was begun in the summer of that year and the first car service was inaugurated in February, 1903. From this beginning the present Okla- homa Railway, with its splendid electric traction system and its radiating interurban lines, has been developed.

Although Mr. Classen is a man of positive views, there are few of his fellows who dislike him, and there is perhaps no man who is more generally and highly re- spected by the citizens of Oklahoma City and the statc. He holds the firm friendship of those who know him best, not because of what he has but because of what he is. Aside from his success in a business way he has distinguished himself as a friend and liberal patron of education and art. He is devotedly fond of flowers.

Mr. Classen was married in January, 1903, to Miss Ella D. Lamb of Oklahoma City. Mrs. Classen, like her husband, was a native of Illinois and a pioneer of Okla- homa, having come to Oklahoma City in 1890. Both her father's and her mother's people were pioneers in Illinois. Her father's people came from Massachusetts to the West in the early '40s. They were of English descent. Her father, James Lamb, bore the same name as his great-grandfather, who was a soldier in the Revo- lution. Mrs. Classen says that she has thoroughbred pioneer blood in her veins, and that she was an Okla- homan in spirit long before she came here to reside; that as a young girl, while living in Champaign, Illinois, she remembers hearing her father many times read and talk about the prospective opening of Oklahoma, and express himself as determined to make his home in this land of opportunity when that time should come. It was with this ultimate plan in view that her father, with his family, came to Wichita, Kansas, to reside for a time. The father died in Wichita in 1887 and the family plans were changed somewhat, but Miss Lamb (with her mother and a younger brother and sister) was able later on in the early years after the opening to establish her residence in Oklahoma, thus carrying out for the family the long-cherished hope of the father, and finding here a realization of her fondest dreams. Mrs. Classen vies with her husband in active effort for the encourage- ment of those things which promote the interests of good citizenship and aid in the progress of the community.

HON. DAN W. PATTON. The vocation of civil engineer- ing undoubtedly offers a prolific field for those equipped by nature for this line of work, but, although its re- wards are commensurate with its difficulties, it requires, perhaps, a thorough technical knowledge of more subjects than almost any other business in which a man can en- gage. The great commonwealth of Oklahoma offers an excellent field for the prosecution of this profession, and one who has already made more than a local name as a civil engineer is Dan W. Patton, who, in addition to occupying a place of prominence in his calling, holds

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

prestige as mayor of the flourishing and prosperous City of Poteau.

Mayor Patton was born near Fort Smith, Arkansas, August 1, 1885, and is a son of Rufus H. and Mary C. (McClure) Patton, the former a native of Tennessee and the latter of Arkansas. His father served for a short time during the war between the states as a Confederate soldier, and following the cessation of hostilities removed to Arkansas, where he was married, and where he has since resided. At this time he lives in Sebastian County, his activities in the maiu being devoted to the pursuits of farming aud stock raising, although he has also been more or less prominent in public and political affairs and has held several positions of responsibility and public trust. His well cultivated farm, on which are located a modern residence and other valuable improvements, is located near the Village of Huntington.

The first fourteen years of the life of Dan W. Patton were passed on his parents' farm, and in the meantime he attended the graded and high schools. After his gradua- tion from the latter, at the age of sixteen years, he be- came a member of an engineering corps in the Depart- ment of the Interior of the Federal Government, and con- tinued to be thus employed for about three years. Later he entered the service of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad, in the engineering department, and about one year later was transferred to the western division of that system. His next employment was as construction engi- " neer for the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railroad, with which he was identified for two years, and on his return to Oklahoma he engaged in private civil engineering and investments. He has maintained offices at Tulsa, Poteau and Sapulpa, at the last-named place being associated in practice with his brother. From Sapulpa Mr. Patton came to Poteau in November, 1911, and here he entered actively into business and civic life, iu both of which he has become a prominent factor. Aside from much prac- tical experience, Mr. Patton has taken a course of home study in engineering, and, as his energetic nature has directed, has also read law, although he has never prac- ticed the latter profession. In politics a stalwart repub- lican, he has been an active party worker, and in 1915 became the candidate of that party for the mayor- alty of Poteau, to which he was duly elected, assuming charge of the office in May of that year. His adminis- tration of affairs as chief executive of the city has been characterized by the same progressiveness and thorough- ness that have always marked his private affairs. He has devoted himself whole-heartedly to the securing of better municipal facilities and has gathered about him men of action and ability. Mayor Patton is a Master Mason and a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His religious connection is with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Mr. Patton's first wife bore the maiden name of Ella Wall, and is now deceased. The present Mrs. Patton was before her marriage Miss Ethel Galloway. Like her hus- band, she is a general favorite in social circles of Poteau.

JAMES I. WOOD. The present mayor of that large and flourishing industrial City of MeAlester, James I. Wood has been closely identified with the agricultural and political life of this section of old Indian Territory and the new state for more than twenty-two years. He was the first treasurer of Pittsburg County, and also was one of the delegates to the Constitutional Con- vention.

He was chosen to represent a portion of the Eighty- ninth District in the convention which formulated the organic laws of Oklahoma, and during the session he served on auditing committee, the committee on impeach-

ments and removal from office, and the committee ou geological survey.

Because of the progressive char- acter of Oklahoma's first state constitution it has always been considered an honor to have been identified with the making of it, and that distinction will have increas- ing importance with passing years.

After the constitution was completed Mr. Wood be- came a candidate for county treasurer of Pittsburg County, was nominated by the democrats, and was elected by a majority of about niue hundred votes. He was the first individual elected to fill that office, and served for five and a half years, retiring from the county office in July, 1914. In April, 1915, Mr. Wood was. elected mayor of McAlester, and has already shown the progressive and independent quality of his adminis- tration, which is one of marked benefit for the munici- pality.

Mr. Wood is of old American stock. His great-grand- father William Wood served as a soldier in the War of 1812, and was a prominent settler in Tennessee from which state he subsequently moved to Marion County, Arkansas, and died there during the second year of the Civil war. Thomas B. Wood, the grandfather, was born in White County, Tennessee, and went out to the fron- tier of settlement west of the Mississippi, and established a home in Arkansas when it was a part of the old Louisiana Territory. He died in Marion County of that state about 1851 at the age of sixty. By his mar- riage to Elizabeth Talbott his children were: William S., Fred T., Benton, John W., and tour daughters.

William S. Wood, father of McAlester's mayor, was. born in Marion County, Arkansas, in 1823. At the out- break of the Civil war he enlisted in Gen. Joe Shelby 's Confederate command and served in the Trans-Mis- sissippi Department. He had previously been sheriff of Marion County from 1850 to 1854. In 1873 he moved to Comanche County, Texas, and died there during the early '90s. He was a democrat, a member of the Masonic order and of the Christian Church. He mar- ried Malinda Coker, daughter of William Coker of Alabama. Their children were: Thomas B., Sylvester, Fred T., Frank, William S., Arminta, who married James Magnus, Maggie, and James I.

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Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941 Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society Number of Pages: 660

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 660