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. IV, Part 23

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 656

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. IV > Part 23

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Penn V. Rabb was born at Lone Oak, Texas, Novem- ber 25, 1877, and received his education in the public school at Wynnewood, Indian Territory, and the Poly- technic College at Fort Worth, Texas, from which he was graduated in 1894. His first employment was in a wholesale grocery house at Wynnewood, where he assisted in establishing the Southern National Bank, in 1901, being made assistant cashier of that institution. He was made cashier two years later, and in 1907 was made state bank examiner. While holding this responsible position, he established himself in the mercantile busi- ness at Wynnewood, continuing to be thus engaged until February, 1910, when he came to Marlow, Oklahoma, as cashier of the Guarantee State Bank, a position which he has retained to the present.

The Guarantee State Bank was founded in 1901, as the First National Bank, and adopted its present policy and name in September, 1909. It occupies a modern bank building, with offices on the second floor and in the rear, built in 1901, on the corner of Main Street and Broadway. The present officers are: John Joseph Ad- kins, president; S. M. King, vice president; and Penn V. Rabb, cashier. The bank has a capital stock of $25,000, with surplus and profits of $6,500, and has always had the confidence and patronage of the people of Stephens and the surrounding counties. Mr. Rabb, personally, bears an excellent reputation in financial cir- cles, and his own well known integrity has been an im- portant factor in attracting deposits. He is an active democrat, having been a delegate to numerous county and state conventions ever since attaining his majority. During the four years in which he served as city treas- urer of Marlow, he introduced numerous innovations in the office which have resulted in benefiting the peo- ple and finances of the municipality in no small degree. Fraternally, he is a popular member of Lodge No. 648, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, at Ardmore, Oklahoma; Marlow Lodge No. 103, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is past master by service; Guthrie Consistory No. 1, of the thirty-second degree; and India

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Oklahoma City.

In 1907, at St. Joseph, Texas, Mr. Rabb was mar- ried to Miss Lillian Puryear, daughter of J. T. Puryear, a merchant of that place. Mr. and Mrs. Rabb have no children.

HON. PAUL NESBITT. Among Oklahoma legislators there are few careers that illustrate more decisive turn- ing points in personal advancement than that of Paul Nesbitt. Briefly outlined, he spent his boyhood on a Nebraska farm, began dealing with adversity at an early age, struggled for means to secure a higher education, turned to medicine and graduated and for several years was in practice in Oklahoma. After a long delay he answered a truer call to journalism, equipped himself by metropolitan experience, and then returned to Oklahoma and since the beginning of the statehood period has been one of the leading newspaper men of the state. In 1914 he answered another call from his home district at McAlester, and went to the Legislature, representing Pittsburg County.

Paul Nesbitt was born in Nuckolls County, Nebraska, in 1872, a son of James B. and Eveline (Lee) Nesbitt. His father, who was of Irish descent, was a Union soldier in the Twelfth Illinois Regiment of Infantry during the Civil war, but enlisted from Iowa. The father's grand- father was a soldier under General Washington in the Revolutionary war, and spent that dreadful winter of suffering with his comrades at Valley Forge. Eveline Leo was a daughter of Francis Lee, who was foreman of the largest shipbuilding coucern in the United States, tho old Atlantic Forge in New York, before the Civil war. Francis Lee emigrated to Iowa during the war, but was expelled from the state because of his sympathy with the cause of the Confederacy.

Paul Nesbitt's birthplace was a ranch situated on the Little Blue River, in Nebraska, and through it ran the famous Oregon trail. There he was reared to the age of sixteen, and was then sent to high school at Edgar, Nebraska. Later he attended school at Lincoln, and during 1900-01 was a student in Cotner University at Lineohr. By much economy and by hard work in vaca- tions and also while in school he managed to take one year in the work of the medical department at Cotner, and was then compelled by lack of finances to leave school and become a wage earner. Going out to Den- ver, he began railroading, and by 1893 had saved $500, which he deposited in a bank in Denver. Leav- ing most of this fund in the bank, he went on to Chicago for the purpose of completing his medical edu- cation. A day or so after his arrival the news came that the Denver bank had failed, and that his hard-earned savings were irretrievably lost. When he applied for admission to the Chicago Medical College he had $10, and $5 of this he spent for the matricula- tion fee. Paul Nesbitt has never been the type of man who could be permanently rebuffed by misfortune. For two years he continued attending college and earned be- tween times practically every dollar that his medical education cost him. He was vice president of the class of 1895 in which he graduated.

As Doctor Nesbitt he began the practice of his pro- fession in El Dorado Springs, Missouri, in 1895, and during the three years of his residence he enjoyed a satisfactory patronage. In 1898 Doctor Nesbitt came to Watonga, Oklahoma, and there was engaged in prac- tice for three years. For a number of years he had been hearing the call to a newspaper office, but it was only after he had made a success in the medical profes- sion that he answered the summons and bought the Watonga Herald. After a brief experience he realized

that a broader equipment and training were necessary for a thorough success, and he accordingly sold his plant and went to St. Louis, and in that city and in Joplin he did editorial work for several years, and thus acquired a training in metropolitan newspaper activities. Re- turning to Oklahoma in 1906, Mr. Nesbitt took charge of the publicity department of the democratic campaign for the election of delegates to the constitutional con- vention. After statehood was a fact, he served a year and a half as assistant state examiner and inspector and two years as a clerk in the office of Gov. C. N. Has- kell. In 1912 Mr. Nesbitt became editor of Governor Haskell's newspaper, the New State Tribune at McAles- ter, and has since devoted most of his time to his editorial duties.

In 1914 he was elected to the Legislature from Pitts- burg County, and was made chairman of the committee on penal institutions and vice chairman of the com- mittee on rules. He has been a member of the committee on labor and arbitration. His home county contains the state penitentiary and some of the largest coal mines in Oklahoma, and these interests bring him naturally to a consideration of compensation laws for workinen and other measures that affect the laboring classes.

Mr. Nesbitt was chairman of the democratic county central committee of Pittsburg County in the campaign of 1912. He is a member of the McAlester Rotary Club. Having relied on his own resources and having come up through adversities which few men could successfully face, Paul Nesbitt has never sought the easier paths ot life, but has been ambitious to acquire more strength to perform larger duties, and has been dominated by an ambition to work and to make his work count for some- thing in useful service to humanity. He takes consid- erable interest in matters relating to the history of the Five Civilized Tribes.

In 1896 Mr. Nesbitt married Carrie M. Lee at Falls City, Nebraska. Their two children are Robert Lee, aged seventeen, and Muriel Bird, aged ten. Mr. Nesbitt also has three brothers and two sisters: E. F. Nesbitt, manager of a wholesale grocery house at Altus, Okla- homa; Charles George, owner and editor of the Record at Hinton, Oklahoma; Howard, manager of the Signal at Mounds, Oklahoma, thus making three of the family en- gaged in the newspaper business; Mrs. E. E. Harrett, of Watonga; and Mrs. Lewis Shaw, who lives in Fairfield, Nebraska.

WILLIAM D. HALL. Among the prosperous business men of Brinkman may be mentioned William D. Hall, who has been engaged in the merchandise business here since early in 1913. He has carried on the same en- terprise in other Oklahoma towns for some years, but two years ago established himself here, enjoying a gen- erous measure of success in the time that has passed.

Mr. Hall is a native of Florida. He was born in Escambia County, that state, near Pensacola, on October 31, 1857, and is a son of G. C. Hall, also a native son of that state, born there in 1826, and dying in Mobile County, Alabama, in 1902. The Hall family is long established in America, having emigrated from Scotland in early Colonial days, settling first in Georgia, and continuing for the most part to be identified with the south from then down to present days. From Florida G. C. Hall came to Grimes, Texas, in 1866, and his next move took the family to Mobile County, Alabama. He was a pioneer to Texas in the truest sense of the word, but he liked better the more truly Southern states, and did not long continue in Texas. The principal busi- ness of his life was farming and cattle raising, in which he was quite successful. He was a lifelong democrat, and Methodist, serving for years as a steward in the church.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

He enlisted for service in the Confederacy, serving iu a Florida regiment, and served two years without injury or illness. In 1855 he married Miss Melissa Brown, who was born in Alabama in 1835, and who died near Mobile, Alabama, in 1883. They were the parents of seven chil- dren. The first born was William D. of this review. The next was J. C., living in Los Angeles, California, where he is employed as a railway conductor. W. G. is a mer- chant at Rossville, Oklahoma. John T. died at the age of twenty-two years. H. C. was killed in a railroad acci- dent at the age of nineteen, and the two youngest chil- dren died very young.

Mr. Hall attended the public schools of Alabama and Texas and finished his public school training in . the schools of Mobile, Alabama, leaving his books at the early age of fourteen. Up to the age of fifteen he lived at home on his parent's farm, and when he first left home to try his luck in the world he took a position as clerk in a store in Flomaton, Alabama, continuing there for a year. He then entered the sawmill business as a workman, and he followed the mills through Florida, Lousiana, and Alabama, and at one time owned and operated a sawmill in Mt. Vernon, Alabama. He was engaged in this work off and on up to 1889, when he came to Oklahoma and at McLeod engaged in the mer- chandise business in company with his brother, W. G. Hall, now of Rossville. After eight months they sold out and built and stocked a store in Rossville. Four years later William D. Hall sold out to his brother, and in 1904 he went to Covington, Oklahoma, where he was engaged in the merchandise business for about two years. In 1906 he ventured in the same business in Hitchcock, Oklahoma, adding a cotton gin to his other interests, and three years later sold out and went in business again in Rossville. He continued there for four years, and on May 1, 1913, came to Brinkman and established a gen- eral merchandise store on Main Street. To do this he was obliged to buy two buildings opening into each other, so that he has a floor space of 75x75 feet. He carries a general stock, well adapted to the trade of the county, from which he draws much patronage, as well as enjoying a liberal trade among his townspeople.

Mr. Hall was elected to the office of mayor of the village in 1914, and while in Covington served on the school board of that place. He is a public spirited citizen, and whatever community has claimed him has benefited from his up-and-doing spirit. He is a member of the Church of Christ, and at one time was a member of the Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias.

Mr. Hall was married in Covington, Oklahoma, in 1904, to Miss Ida Walker, a daughter of Thomas Walker, now living retired in Clinton, Oklahoma. No children have been born to them.

EDGAR N. RATCLIFF. The pioneer merchant of Vinita, for more than thirty-one years Edgar N. Ratcliff has been identified with the business interests of this city, primarily as a dealer in dry goods and clothing and more recently as president of the wholesale grocery firm of Ratcliff-Sanders Grocery Company, of Tulsa and Vinita, one of the leading establishments of its kind in the state. In the meantime he has established an excellent record for service to his community, and his entire career has been characterized by industry and well directed in- terest in affairs which contribute to the upbuilding of his adopted city.

Mr. Ratcliff was born at Hillsboro, Hill County, Texas, March 5, 1857, and is a son of James T. and Mary E. (Whiteside) Ratcliff. James T. Rateliff was born June 18, 1818, at Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, and was there married, his wife having been born at the Vol. IV-6

same place in 1828. He was possessed of but few ad- vantages in his youth, but his ambition led him to edu- cate himself well and he was duly admitted to the bar of his native state after successfully passing the examni- nation. For some years he practiced at Macon, Georgia, but eventually moved to Hillsboro, Texas, where he was admitted to the bar before the Hon. John H. Regan, subsequently became one of the prominent lawyers of Hill County, and in 1866 was sent to the Texas Legis- lature, being elected on the democratic ticket. He died, full of years and honors, in 1880, Mrs. Ratcliff surviv- ing him until 1896. They were the parents of eight chil- dren, of whom six are living, Edgar N. being the fourth child.

After attending the public schools of Hill County, E. N. Ratcliff enrolled as a student at Trinity Univer- sity, Waxahachie, Texas, from which he was duly gradu- ated. It was while attending that institution that he met the lady who afterwards became his wife, and who also graduated from that well known Lone Star School. In December, 1879, Mr. Ratcliff embarked in business at Tehuacana, Texas, as the proprietor of a book and stationery establishment, which he conducted with a fair measure of success until 1884. In that year, hearing of the attractive opportunities offered in business circles of Vinita, Indian Territory, he came to this city, which was then a small town but which gave much promise of developing into a center of commercial activity. Here he became the pioneer merchant, opening a general mer- chandise store, which has since been developed into the leading clothing establishment in the city, with a large stock and a strictly first-class trade. In 1903 Mr. Rat- cliff extended his commercial connections when he be- came one of the organizers of the wholesale grocery firm of the Ratcliff-Sanders Grocery Company, of which he remains as president, and which maintains stores at both Vinita and Tulsa, Mr. Ratcliff making his headquarters at the former place. Under his able management and direction this has become one of the leading grocery houses of Oklahoma. Mr. Ratcliff's enthusiasm and con- fidence in his community have made themselves shown by his eagerness to assist in the promotion of public movements which are meritorious and feasible, and dur- ing his term as a member of the city council in 1906 there were established the city water and sewerage sys- tems. He also served one term in the Oklahoma Legis- lature, during the second session, and it was largely through his efforts that the State Asylum was located at Vinita. Mr. Ratcliff was the chairman of the first statehood convention held at Muskogee, and has always been a prominent democrat. That he is a man of liter- ary taste and no little ability is shown in his poem en- titled "No Man's Land," which takes its title from the Cimarron country of Beaver County, Oklahoma, a strip ceded to the United States Government by Texas in 1850, which for many years was without any govern- ment :

"Our own ungrown, bare Cimarron Flows salten to the sea. His flood's red brine of life no sign Gives flower, shrub or tree.

Alone and prone by Cimarron A painted warrior lay; Of wound and fast his was the last Bold life to ebb away.

No seone of stone by Cimarron Marks him who fought and well; The friendly sand, by hot winds fanned, Made sand dunes where he fell.

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Unknown, unknown by Cimarron The warrior and his band All shared the doom of wind-built tomb- And then 'twas 'No Man's Land!' "'

Mr. Rateliff was married September 9, 1880, to Miss Eva E. Foster, who was born in Northeast Oklahoma, and three sons and two daughters have been born to this union: Frederick F., who resides at Tulsa, Okla- homa, engaged in the sand and building material busi- ness; James W., a traveling salesman for a wholesale coffee house with headquarters at Minneapolis, Minne- sota; and Robert F., Mary Eva and Norville, who reside at home with their parents.

ADAM L. BECK. Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, ahounds in natural resources, a member of which consist of elements which enter into the manufacture of some of the mod- ern imrlements of progress, and the chief of these has contributed to the establishment and growth of the Okla- homa Portland Cement Company of Ada, Oklahoma, of which enterprise Adam L. Beck is president. So important has become the cement industry of the state that the name of Ada is almost synonymous with that of this company, for it is the chief manufacturing con- cern of the state, and one of the largest.

Since early manhood, Adam L. Beck has made a study of cement and its products, and when the Ada plant was established, men who had spent the greater part of their lives in the industry were associated with him. Thus, with veritable mountains of the necessary ingredients for the best possible kind of cement at its very door, the company has built up the largest cement plant in the state, and one of the largest in the Southwest. The institution is one of the most important in industrial lines in Oklahoma, and three-fourths of the Government and other public buildings of the Southwestern territory served by this company contain the product of this plant. To Mr. Beck's knowledge and industry the in- stitution is principally indebted for the remarkable suc- cess it has made and its high standing among the in- dustrial institutions of the Southwest.

Mr. Beck was born at Huntington, Indiana, May 9, 1862, and is the son of Adam and Magdalena (Stetzel) Beck. His father, who was a native of Germany and who settled in Indiana in 1848, was for a number of years a successful manufacturer of wagons, and later in life entered the lime business. His mother was a native of Alsace when that province belonged to France, and came with her brothers to America and settled in Indiana in 1842.

The institutional education of Adam L. Beck was ob- tained in the public schools of Indiana and a business school at Naperville, Illinois, which he attended for two years. Having early acquired a knowledge of the rudi- ments of construction work, he entered business for him- self as a road and bridge contractor, in 1884, in Indiana. Three years later he entered the lime manufacturing busi- ness as senior member of the firm of Beck & Purviance at Huntington, the name later being changed to the Western Lime Company. This company, with several others, was later merged into the Ohio & Western Lime Company, and in this business he is still interested as a stockholder. director and officer. In 1893, severing active connection with the Western Lime Company, he established a lime plant at Mitchell, Indiana, which later was sold to the Kelly Island Lime & Transport Company, of Cleveland, Ohio.

During his residence in Indiana Mr. Beck was active in the politics of the republican party, serving at differ- ent times as the Chairman of his county and district, and as a member of the State Executive Committee he showed

rare ability as an organizer and politician. He never held or ran for an elective office, nor did he hold an appointive office. His activities in this line ceased with his removal from Indiana.

Mr. Beck was married June 17, 1887, to Miss Lizzie Purviance, of Huntington, Indiana, who is a daughter of Samuel Montgomery Purviance, one of the earliest business men of that city and the founder of the First National Bank of Huntington. They have two children: a son, Marshall Beck, who is connected with the Okla- homa Portland Cement Company, and is a graduate of Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois; and a daughter, Magdalena, who is the wife of Paul M. Taylor, a capitalist and banker of Huntington, Indiana. Mr. Beck has two sisters: Mrs. Martha Bolanz, who is the wife of a farmer living at Huntington, Indiana; and Mrs. Mary Smith, who is the wife of a lumber dealer at Huntington. Mr. Beck is a member of the Masonic and Elks lodges, and of the Association of American Portland Cement Manufacturers. In 1910 he assisted in the organization of the Oklahoma Manufacturers' Association of which he is president at this time. He is an active member also of the Ada Commercial Club, and one of the town's leading, most progressive and most public-spirited citizens.

In 1906, having investigated the resources of the Pon- totoc County region in Oklahoma, Mr. Beck conceived the idea of the erection at Ada of the plant of the Oklahoma Portland Cement Company. The company was organized and the erection of the plant was com- menced that year. The company was incorporated with a capital stock of $300,000, but the business increased so rapidly, due to the growing demand for cement all over the Southwest, that the capital stock of necessity was increased, and in 1911 the last increase to $800,000 was made. While, from the time of its inception, Mr. Beck has given practically his entire attention to the business, he did not move his family to Ada and actually become a citizen of Oklahoma until 1910.

The plant of the Oklahoma Portland Cement Company now has a daily capacity of 3,000 barrels, this maximum capacity being reached gradually in the growth of the business, and to compete with other large plants of the kind in Kansas and Texas. Besides being equipped with the most modern machinery, the plant is now oper- ated with natural gas, which has been discovered in great quantities within a few miles of the institution. It contains four large kilns, all of which are 125 feet long-two being 9 feet in diameter, and two 71/2 feet in diameter. Turbine and Corliss engines and water tube boilers constitute the power equipment, developing over 3,000 horsepower. The grinding of the product through fullermills, each of which contains a 20-mesh sieve with 400 openings to the square inch, is so efficiently done that 95 per cent of the product passes through a 100-mesh sieve containing 10,000 openings to the square inch. Other fuller and tube mills for handling the raw material produce a product of approximately 98 per cent through the same sieve. It has been dem- onstrated that in no other region in the world is found a quality of raw material so ideally adapted in chemical combination to the purpose of cement-making. The ingredients of this cement are higher in percentage than "a normal American Portland cement which meets the standard . specifications for soundness, setting time and tensile strength," according to the Bureau of Stand- ards of the United States Government, the percentage running approximately as follows: silica, 21%, alumina, 7.13%, iron oxide, 3.5% lime, 62.21%, magnesia, 1.83%, sulphuric anhydride, 1.46% ; loss on ignition, 2.12%.

The brand of the product "OK," which is registered as a trade mark with the United States Government, is

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

a standard of excellence, and represents an abbreviation of the word "Oklahoma, " and the quality of excellence denoted by the combination of the two letters. The quality is attested by the fact that never has a barrel of the product been condemned, and also by the fact that it compares with the German standard-the highest in the world.

The officers of the Oklahoma Portland Cement Com- pany are: Adam L. Beck, Ada, Oklahoma, president ; A. T. Howe, Chicago, Illinois (president of the Marble- head Lime Company), vice-president; Geo. L. Kice, Ada, Oklahoma, secretary, J. M. Wintersmith, Ada, Oklahoma, treasurer and purchasing agent; William L. Whitaker, Ada, Oklahoma, manager in charge of plant operation; W. Sloan Creveling, Ada, Oklahoma, chemist; and Claude Rodarmel, Ada, Oklahoma, superintendent. All of these men have had many years of experience in the cement business, and all now connected immediately with the. plant have been there since its establishment.

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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: 656

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 656