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. V, Part 18

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 644

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. V > Part 18

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Kansas. Rolla E., who was born April 27, 1869, is superintendent of the city schools of Galena, Kansas. May M., who was born March 28, 1871, is a successful and popular teacher in the public schools of the City of Sherman, Texas, and Doctor Long of this review is the youngest of the nine children.

Passing the days of his childhood and early youth on the homestead farm in Neosho County, Kansas, Doctor Long acquired his preliminary education in the district schools and thereafter attended the public schools of Erie, the county seat, where he was graduated in the high school as a member of the class of 1895. In the meanwhile he had formulated definite plans for his future career, and in the year that marked his con- pletion of his high school course he entered the University Medical College at Kansas City, Missouri, in which insti- tution he was graduated March 19, 1898, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine.

Immediately after his graduation in the medical col- lege Doctor Long came to Oklahoma Territory, and, on the 20th of April of the same year, he opened an office at Alva, judicial center of Woods County, where he continued in the successful practice of his profession during the ensuing eight years. He then took an effective post-graduate course in one of the leading medical insti- tutions of the City of Chicago, and in May, 1906, he established his home at Beaver, Oklahoma, where he has since been engaged in active general practice and where he has secure prestige as the leading representative of his profession in Beaver County. He has served as mayor of Beaver, besides holding other local offices of minor order, and has shown a lively interest in all that touches the welfare and progress of his home town and county. While a resident of Alva he served as a member of the city council and also of the board of education, besides which he did effective service as county health officer of Woods County. He holds membership in the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medi- cal Association, has completed the circles of both York and Scottish Rite Masonry, in the latter of which he has received the thirty-second degree, besides being affiliated with the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine and the Knights of Pythias.

On the 10th of September, 1899, was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Long to Miss Maude Beegle of Alva. She was born in Kingman County, Kansas, on the 13th of March, 1875, and is a daughter of Adam and Eliza- beth Jane (Crottzer) Beegle, both natives of Pennsyl- vania and both honored pioneers of Kansas. Mr. Beegle was born in 1836 and his death occurred June 10, 1908. The mother of Mrs. Long was born in 1832 and was summoned to eternal rest on the 25th of December, 1911. Prior to her marriage Mrs. Long had been a successful and popular teacher, her work in the pedagogic profes- sion having continued for three years after she had completed a course of study in the Colorado State Normal School at Greeley. Doctor and Mrs. Long have one child, Lenore Madge, who was born at Alva, this state. on the 12th of November, 1902.

WILLIAM ELBERT GREEN. Superintendent of the city schools of Noble, Mr. Green is an Oklahoma school man of considerable experience and holds a life teacher's cer- tificate in this state. At Noble he has under his super- vision a corps of six teachers, 250 enrolled scholars, and a modern $10,000 school house thoroughly equipped. He took charge of these schools in the fall of 1915.

He was born at Senatobia, Mississippi, July 6, 1893. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish who came to North Caro- lina in the early days, and there has since been a small admixture of Indian stock. Thomas Walter Green, his father, was born in Senatobia, Mississippi, in 1866, and

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has spent his active career as a farmer aud stock man. He came to Oklahoma and located in the vicinity of Clanmore a number of years ago, but after a time re- turned to Mississippi, and located permanently in Chand- ler in 1907, and still resides there. He owns 240 acres, and does diversified farming and raises blooded stock. He has held various towuship offices, being prominent iu local affairs in his locality. He is a democrat and has been a member of the official board of the Christian Church, and affiliates with the Modern Woodmen of America, the Woodmen of the World and the Knights of Pythias. Thomas W. Green married Sallie Eva Han- cock, who was born in Independence, Mississippi, in 1871. Their children are: William E .; Mary Elizabeth, wife of Walter E. Ward, a farmer, stockman and grain dealer at Westboro, Missouri; Mattie Pearl, who graduated from the Chandler High School and was a student in the state normal at Edmond and is now a teacher in Chandler; Marvin Presley, a graduate of the Chandler High School and a teacher in Okfuskee County; Lottie Lucile, a junior in the Chandler High School; and Dollie Eula, a sophomore in the high school.

William Elbert Green attended the public schools of Independence, Mississippi, the state uormal college at Sherman, Mississippi, and the University of Tennessee. He graduated from the high school at Claremore, Oklahoma, in 1912, and in 1913 completed the course of the Edmond State Normal School and was granted a life teacher's certificate. During 1914 he attended the State University at Norman and has taken courses during the summer time at the university for three years past. The school year of 1914-15 he served as principal in one of the publie schools at Ardmore, and he previously served as assistant superintendent of schools of Okfuskee County.

Mr. Green is a democrat, is a member of the Christian Church, and is affiliated with Chandler Lodge No. 19, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and with the Modern Woodmen of America. He is unmarried.

MRS. BERTA (KEYS) SPOONER. In business circles of Hollis there is no name more highly esteemed than that of Mrs. Berta (Keys) Spooner, owner of the Spooner Hardware Company, and a woman of marked commer- cial ability. She was born at Decatur, Alabama, a daughter of C. M. and Mary (McDaniel) Keys, and a member of a Scotch-Irish family who were pioneers of Texas. C. M. Keys was born in Alabama in 1850, and in 1879 removed with his family to Cleburne, Johnson County, Texas, where for a number of years he was engaged in farming and raising stock. He now resides at Hollis, practically retired, being the owner of a farm of 160 acres four miles north of Hollis, which is being operated by tenants. Mr. Keys is a member of the Baptist Church, in which he serves as deacon.

Mr. Keys married Miss Mary McDaniel, also a native of Alabama, and they became the parents of twelve children, namely: Cricket, who is the wife of B. A. Copass, of Dallas, Texas, assistant secretary of the Baptist State Missionary Society; Berta; Ernest L., a hardware merchant of Wynnewood, Oklahoma; F. M., who is manager of the Spooner Hardware Company, at Hollis; Wood, who is connected with the hardware busi- ness at Hollis; May, who married Rev. W. A. Knight, pastor of the First Baptist Church at Frederick, Okla- homa; J. E., who is associated with his brother, Ernest L., in business; Yater, who married J. D. Pennington, bookkeeper for the Spooner Hardware Company; John, who is the wife of V. A. Grissom, the owner of the City Drug Store at Hollis; Rob, the wife of Elmer Sheppard, engaged in the real estate and insurance business at Ballinger, Texas; Sam, who holds a clerical position at

Hollis; and Mott, a sophomore at the William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri.

Mrs. Spooner accompanied her parents to Cleburne, Texas, in 1879, and there attended the public schools, following which she went to a select school for young ladies and received a high school education. She next studied the millinery art at St. Louis, Missouri, and Dallas, Texas, and was a filler in the millinery trade before her marriage. Mrs. Spooner, since the death of her husband, has been the owner of the Spooner Hard- ware Company, the policy and activities of which she directs, but also finds time to devote to social, religious and charitable work. She is an active member of the Baptist Church, and at the present time is state treas- urer of Oklahoma for the P. E. O. Sisterhood.

In September, 1900, at Waxahatchic, Texas, Berta Keys was united in marriage with Horace Nelson Spooner, Jr., who was born at Peoria, Texas, January 9, 1872, a member of a family which originated in England and whose members were pioneer settlers of Mississippi. Horace Nelson Spooner, Sr., the father of Mr. Spooner, was born in 1843, and during the greater part of his life was engaged in clerical work. He lived for some years at Peoria, Texas, and in 1873 removed to Hillsboro, Texas, where his death occurred in 1905. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, took an active part in religious work, and was a member of the official board of his congregation for many years His fraternal affiliation was with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. Spooner married Miss Julia A. Foote, a native of Virginia, and she survives him and resides at Ardmore, Oklahoma.

Horace Nelson Spooner, Jr., was sent to Bethel Col- lege, Russellville, Kentucky, from which institution he was graduated in 1894, and in that same year entered a hardware store at Hillsboro, Texas, in order to become familiar with the business. There he remained several years, mastering every detail of the trade, and in 1897 went to Whitney, Texas, where he was entrusted with the position of buyer for the W. T. Herrick Hardware Company, a capacity in which he gained experience that was of the greatest value to him in later years. After eight years with that concern, he felt qualified to embark upon a venture of his own, and in January, 1905, came to Hollis, Oklahoma, and established the Spooner Hard- ware Company, on Broadway, which under his manage- ment soon became one of the largest hardware concerns in the State of Oklahoma. The establishment has a floor space of 50 by 100 feet, with a basement of the same dimensions, trade is drawn from all over Harmon and Greer counties, Oklahoma, and Collingsworth County, Texas, and the firm carries a most complete line of shelf and heavy hardware, stoves, implements, etc., all of the latest design and maufacture. Mr. Spooner at the time of his death, which occurred May 19, 1910, was justly accounted one of the foremost among the younger gen- eration of business men in this part of Oklahoma. He had made his own way, unaided, and had gained success solely through his own initiative and resource. At the time of his death he was president of the Hollis Com- mercial Club, and enjoyed the friendship and confidence of the leading and influential men of the city. His fraternal connections included membership in Hollis Lodge No. 219, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and the various degrees up to the thirty-second, he being a member of Consistory No. 1, Valley of Guthrie. He was also a Pythian and an Odd Fellow, and in social circles had many friends who sincerely mourned his death. He was a democrat, but not a politician. Always a faithful member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, he was acting as steward and superintendent of the

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Sunday school when called away. Though his presence is gone, he leaves behind him as a monument to his integrity and ability a firmly-established business, and au influence for good citizenship and high ideals that will remain for years after his name has been forgotten.

WILLIAM G. CAPPS. Though not yet thirty-five years of age, for more thau ten years William G. Capps has been a resident of Oklahoma, and all that time an effect- ive working force in the successive lines to which he has applied himself, whether in business, in politics and pub- lic affairs, or as a banker. He is the Icading financier of Mountain Park, where he is now president of the Planters State Bank, and his name as a bauker and his financial judgment are respected not alone in his home state but among bankers of national reputation.

The Capps family to which he belongs originated in France, but William G. Capps was born in Yell County, Arkansas, December 25, 1881. His father is Dr. B. F. Capps, still a prominent physician at Bluffton, Arkansas. Doctor Capps was born in Tennessee in 1850, moved from that state to New Orleans and there acquired his educa- tion for medicine, began practice at Fort Smith, Arkan- sas, in 1879 moved to Yell County, in 1887 to Morrillton in the same state, and finally located at Blufftou. He is an active member of the County and State Medical soci- eties and the American Medical Association, is a demo- crat in politics, belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, is a Royal Arch Mason and also a Knight of Pythias. Doctor Capps married Miss H. L. Ward, who was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1861. Her father was Major John C. Ward, who enlisted from Arkansas at the beginning of the war between the states and became major of the First Arkansas Mounted Infantry. He re-enlisted with his regiment in Colonel John F. Hill's regiment of cavalry, and on August 10, 1861, was wounded on the south side of Bloody Hill at Wilson Creek and died as a result of his wound. He was a native of Virginia and a contractor by profession. Dr. Capps and wife were the parents of five children: William G .; Edwin, who died at Bluffton, Arkansas, at the age of twenty-one; Erick, who is bookkeeper in the Planters State Bank at Mountain Park, Oklahoma; B. F., who died at the age of two years; and Clarence, who is attending the Bluffton High School and lives with his parents.

William G. Capps had a substantial education but has been in practical business ever since he was nineteen years of age. He attended the public schools of Morrill- ton, Arkansas, finished the high school course there, and in 1898 took a course in a business college at Birming- ham, Alabama. His first regular position was as a sten- ographer for the Doster & Northington Drug Company at Birmingham, with which firm he remained one year. Then after six months at Demopolis, Alabama, he re- turned to Bluffton, Arkansas, and spent one year in the mercantile business on his own account. Selling out, he was for six months acting secretary of the Fort Smith Commercial Club, and in 1904, at the age of twenty-three, identified himself actively with the Indian Territory por- tion of the present State of Oklahoma.

For one year he was bookkeeper with the Hayes Mer- cantile Company at Redland, and in 1905 removed to Muskogee and became advertising agent aud afterwards business manager for Governor Haskell's New State Tribune. He held those positions during Haskell's suc- cessful campaign for governor of the new state. Gov- ernor Haskell then appointed him the chief food and drug inspector of Oklahoma, and he looked after the responsibilities of that newly created state office for two years. In the meantime he had acquired some financial

interests in banking in Indian Territory and in 1909 went into the western part of the state and organized the Oklahoma State Bank at Frederick, serving as its cashier two years. In 1911 Mr. Capps organized the Planters State Bank at Mountain Park, and has been its active presideut since that date. This is oue of the substantial institutions for general banking in one of the small but flourishing towns of Southwestern Oklahoma, and has a capital stock of $10,000 and a surplus of $2,000. The vice president is A. N. Trader, the assistant cashier is Edwin Herstein. The bank owns and occupies the build- ing of the old Citizens State Bank on Main Street.

For several years Mr. Capps has furnished considerable correspondence to the newspapers of Kiowa County on various subjects related to banking. His articles have attracted more than local attention, having been quoted by some of the leading newspapers in the United States, and the wide currency of some of his ideas on couutry banking is well illustrated by the following quotation of a brief article which was published by the Wall Street financial journal in 1914, and subsequently quoted exten- sively in the financial columns of papers all over the United States. The article, furthermore, well expresses Mr. Capps' belicf respecting banking activities and such prominent questions as rural credits. He said: "A country banker promotes the development of his com- munity in proportion that he employs his money through loaning it to farmers for constructive work and improved methods-not for food or for stock feed. Present rural banking methods have resulted in entirely too much money being employed in a way that is not constructive and brings no development whatever, and thereby reduces the bank's ability to loan money for constructive farm- ing. In proportion that a country banker fails to pro- vide money for farm development and constructive farm- ing, in that proportion he injures his best farmers, his community, and first of all injures himself."

Mr. Capps has organized several banks in Oklahoma and also two wholesale houses, but has sold most of his interests in these establishments. He was for a time vice president and a stockholder in the Farmers State Bank at Quanah, Oklahoma. He has served as a member of the advisory committee of the State Bankers' Asso- ciation of Oklahoma and was chairman of the Bureau of Agriculture of the Oklahoma Bankers' Development Com- mittee. His thorough training in country bauking has made him familiar with all branches of bank work, he has already gained a broad acquaintance with prominent men in the banking world, and those who know him best predict that he is far from having reached the climax in his career.

In politics Mr. Capps is a democrat. He represented the State of Oklahoma at Denver at the Conference of National and State Food and Drug Officials in 1909. He also served as county chairman of the Democratic Central County Committee in Tillmau County and as city treas- urer of Frederick for two years. He is now president of the board of education at Mountain Park and is always keenly alive to the needs of his home community. He assisted in organizing the Lodge of Elks at Frederick, held the position of esteemed leading knight in the lodge there, and is now a member of Hobart Lodge No. 881, Benevolent aud Protective Order of Elks. He is also affiliated with Mountain Park Lodge No. 381, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and with Snyder Chapter No. 76, Royal Arch Masons.

At Mountain Park in 1912 Mr. Capps married Miss Lillian Trader, daughter of A. N. Trader, who is a farmer and is also vice president of the Planters State Bank at Mountain Pass. They have one daughter, Marjorie, born Angust 7, 1913.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

DENZIL A. DRAKE. A significantly varied and interest- ing career has been that of Mr. Drake, who has been a resident of Oklahoma since the year that marked its organization under territorial government, and who is now one of the most liberal and progressive citizens of the Village of Hitchcock, Blaine County, where he is not only engaged in the real estate business but where he is also the senior member of the firm of D. A. Drake & Son, publishers and editors of the Hitchcock Clarion, a weekly paper that has been brought up to high standard under his administration and control and in the direct- ing of the affairs of which he has given new evidence of his versatility.

Mr. Drake has been distinctively one of the world's workers, he has gained varied experience in divers sec- tions of the Union, he has been steadfast and sincere in all of the relations of life, has shown initiative ability and a mastery of expedients in varied fields of endeavor, and in Oklahoma he has found ample scope for the achieving of success and for exerting admirable influ- ence in the furtherance of general civic and material advancement and prosperity.

A due amount of satisfaction is given to Mr. Drake in claiming the fine old Buckeye State as the place of his nativity and as a commonwealth in which the family of which he is a scion was founded in the early pioneer era of its history. He was born in Summit County, Ohio, on the 26th of April, 1859. His paternal great- grandfather was one of three brothers who immigrated to the United States from Wales, and his grandfather became a pioneer of Ohio, besides which he manifested his loyalty to the land of his adoption by serving as a valiant frontier soldier in the War of 1812. Both he and his wife were residents of Summit County, Ohio, at the time of their death, and he had taken well his part in the development of that section of the Buckeye State.

Denzil A. Drake is a son of Jasper B. and Caroline (Hardy) Drake, both natives of Summit County, Ohio, where the former was born in 1814 and the latter in 1819,-dates that clearly indicated that the respective families were early pioneers of that section. Jasper B. Drake and his wife passed the closing years of their long and worthy lives at Ness City, judicial center of Ness County, Kansas, where he died in 1899, and where lis widow was summoned to eternal rest in 1904, at the venerable age of eighty-five years, both having been for many years zealous members of the Christian Church, and the entire active career of Mr. Drake having been one of close identification with agricultural industry. Just prior to the outbreak of the Civil war Jasper B. Drake removed with his family to Cedar County, Iowa, where he became a pioneer farmer in the vicinity of the present Town of Durant. In 1866, shortly after the close of the war, he removed to Cass County, Missouri, and later he became a representative farmer of Ness County, Kansas, where he passed the remainder of his long and useful life, the closing period of which was spent in well earned retirement, at Ness City.

He whose name introduces this article, was a child of about four years at the time of the family immigra- tion to Iowa, and there he acquired his rudimentary education in the pioneer rural schools of Cedar County, his studies having later been continued in the little frame school house near his father's farm in Cass County, Missouri. He applied himself to study at home during his youth and through his self-application and broad and varied experiences in later years he has rounded out what may consistently be termed a liberal education. He continued to be associated with his father in farm work until he was sixteen years of age,

when he initiated his independent career. This initia- tion was far from being one of prosaic order, for in 1875, soon after celebrating his sixteenth birthday anni- versary, he made his way to California, where he pro- ceeded up the Sacramento Valley and devoted his atten- tion to the selling of books and periodicals, a line of enterprise which he followed during the first years of his residence in the Golden State. During the second year he "held down" a comparatively profitable posi- tion as collector for the waterworks at Colusa, that state.

Remaining in California about two years, young Drake then returned to Cass County, Missouri, in 1878, and in February of the following year he there took unto him- self a wife, who remained his devoted helpmeet until hier death, about thirteen years later. After his marriage Mr. Drake removed to Ness County, Kansas, where he took up homestead and timber claims and instituted the reclamation and development of a farm. There he con- tinued to devote his attention to agricultural pursuits and stock raising for a period of five years, within which he perfected his title to his homestead. At the expiration of the interval noted he exchanged his farm and livestock for a stock of goods and engaged in the general merchandise business at Buffalo Park, Gove County, Kansas, where he continued his operations in this line of enterprise from 1884 until 1887, when he again exercised the true Yankee trading proclivity by "swapping" his stock of merchandise and the good will of the business for a bunch of cattle. He there- upon returned to Ness County and filed entry on a pre- emption claim, where he placed his cattle and resumed his activities as a farmer and stock raiser. He remained on this farm one year and proved up on the property. From his farm he removed to the Town of Utica, Ness County, and there established a real estate office. He developed a substantial business in the handling of Kansas land, and at one time owned fully thirty quarter-sections, but depreciation in the prices of land in that section of the Sunflower State led him to dispose of his holdings by his favored method of making exchange of properties, and in 1890, the year that marked the organization of Oklahoma Territory he came to the present Oklahoma County and was a pioneer of the Town of Edmond. He remained only a few months, however, and then returned to Missouri, where he devoted one year to farming, in Jasper County.

Mention has already been made of the fact that Mr. Drake is possessed of marked versatility, and after leaving the Jasper County farm he engaged in work at the stone mason's trade, at Carthage, that state, this trade having been learned by him in earlier years. He resumed work in this line principally for the benefit of his health and after following the same during one summer he removed with his family to the City of Wichita, Kansas, where he engaged in the furniture business until the financial panic of 1897 compelled him to sacrifice the same. From that time forward until 1900 he served as a commercial traveling salesman, handling queensware.

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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: 644

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 644