USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 21
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At, Findester
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the family. Much of his education he ac- quired in a night school. About 1896 Mr. Poindexter entered the employ of the Mad- dox-Ellison Company, now the Ellison Furni- ture Company, and was with that well known Fort Worth house nearly a quarter of a cen- tury. He finally resigned his executive post in June, 1920, and organized the Poindexter Furniture & Carpet Company, incorporated for $200,000 capital. It is both a wholesale and retail business, and has well established trade connections throughout the Southwest. Mr. Poindexter is a stockholder in several other Fort Worth business enterprises. He is a member of the Order of Elks.
On July 3, 1906, he married Miss Carrie Bell Richardson, daughter of the late J. M. Richardson. Her father was a native of Hart County, Kentucky, was prominent in the Ken- tucky tobacco business, and came to Texas in 1881, locating in Fort Worth, where for many years he lived retired. The mother of Mrs. Poindexter was Mary E. Walters, a native of Woodburn, Kentucky. Mrs. Poindexter was the next to the youngest of nine children, and was a child when brought from Woodburn, Kentucky, her native town, to Fort Worth. Mr. and Mrs. Poindexter have three children : Jane Elizabeth, Virginia Lines and Edna May, all of whom were born in Fort Worth.
JOHN L. McMAHON, of Wichita Falls, gen- eral superintendent of the Texas Company for North Texas, has had a veteran's experience in practically every branch of the petroleum industry. As he has been in the business for upwards of thirty years it seems appropriate that he should have been born and reared in the original oil state of Pennsylvania. He served his apprenticeship in the oil fields of that state, but in some capacity has been identi- fied with oil production and transportation in practically every great field in the United States except California.
He was born at Karns City, Butler County, Pennsylvania, some forty odd years ago, and his father was an oil man almost from the time of the original discoveries in Western Penn- sylvania. Going into the work when a boy, Mr. McMahon's experience has covered every phase of the oil business except refining, indi- vidually, and for a couple of the major pro- ducing and pipe line companies. He has been a producer and pipe lineman in all the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas, and for several years was an individual producer in Oklahoma and Texas.
Mr. McMahon made his first connection with the Texas Company in Texas in 1913. He was one of the company's key men until 1915, when he resigned and again took up inde- pendent operations. In 1918 he resumed his connection with the Texas Company as gen- eral superintendent of production in North Texas at Wichita Falls. In handling the vast properties under his supervision in this field Mr. McMahon goes about his work with that quiet efficiency and promptness of decision which mark the master executive.
The Texas Company has the largest produc- tion of oil and the most extensive pipe line equipment in Wichita County. The corpora- tion is the county's largest tax payer. Recent statistics show that the Texas Company are the largest producers and refiners of oil in the United States. Its tank cars go up and down over every railroad in the country, and through the products the company's name has become one of the familiar household words. The principal business headquarters are in Houston and in New York. The company has production amounting to thousands of barrels a day in Mexico. Its largest and most impor- tant refinery is at Port Arthur. The state is proud of the corporation that has taken the title of the Lone Star commonwealth. It is a home corporation, and has done more for Texas than any other agency. It has spent money in unlimited and almost fabulous amounts in drilling and bringing in wells, building pipe lines and refineries and other im- provements, and is an industry in which Texas men have always figured prominently in its executive affairs. The company had its origin at Spindletop at Beaumont the first year of the oil boom there in 1902. Two of the men most conspicuous in its early affairs was the late. John W. Gates and J. S. Cullinan, now of Houston. The capital and the enterprise of the Texas Company have in recent years been extended into other fields, and have developed other mineral resources in Texas, chiefly the great sulphur deposits of the Southeast.
Since coming to Wichita Falls Mr. McMahon has exerted himself outside the lines of his business to promote every move- ment for the welfare of the city. He is one of the vice presidents of the City National Bank of Commerce, one of the greatest banks in the Southwest. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Wichita Club. Mr. McMahon married Miss Myra King, and their two children are Margaret and Myra Jane.
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L. E. PETERS, a manufacturer of cigars and one of the enterprising business men of Fort Worth, has won his right to the position he occupies in his community through solid worth and constant industry. He was born in Gray- son County, Texas, July 7, 1885, a son of R. C. and Flora (Haskins) Peters, natives of Missouri and Minnesota, respectively. R. C. Peters was sixteen years old when he was brought to Texas, but his wife was only two years of age when her parents located in the Lone Star state. They were married in Parker County, Texas, and are still living, being resi- dents of Minnesota. They had five children, all of whom are living, and of them all L. E. Peters is the eldest.
Growing up in Texas, L. E. Peters attended its common schools and then learned the cigar making trade with J. E. Westland, beginning his apprenticeship when only fifteen years of age. In 1912 he bought his present plant, where he gives employment to forty people, and would expand his business if he could se- cure experienced workers. He is a manufac- turing wholesaler of cigars, and his territory extends all over Texas and other states as far North as New York City and Canada. The quality of his product is excellent, and there is a demand for his goods which is steadily increasing.
In 1907 Mr. Peters was united in marriage with Adalaide Connell, and they have one daughter, Mary Adalaide. Mr. Peters is a Mason. He belongs to the South Side Baptist Church, of which he is a deacon, and in which he is a very active worker. Having spent so many years at Fort Worth, Mr. Peters is naturally much interested in its growth and development, and is proud of the fact that he has been able to develop one of its flourishing industries.
A. J. ANDERSON. One of the oldest com- mercial concerns in Fort Worth is the A. J. Anderson Company, wholesale and retail deal- ers in sporting goods, hardware and electrical supplies at 1101-1103 Houston Street. The business is a large and prosperous one, and for years its facilities have met all the varied demands upon a concern of this kind originat- ing in an extensive territory around Fort Worth. The exceptional interest attaching to the business, however, is due to the fact that it is the product of and has responded to the direct and forceful supervision of the founder, who established himself on an exceedingly modest scale at Fort Worth about a year after
the little village on the hill was linked with the outside world by a railroad track. Thus the A. J. Anderson Company, now an incorpo- rated concern, was established in 1877, and A. J. Anderson has been the mainspring of its activities ever since, a period of forty-four years.
A. J. Anderson was born at Skei, Norway, August 21, 1855. His father was Andre P. Anderson and his mother Christina Pederson, both of whom are now deceased. He was one of their family of three sons and two daugh- ters. He has a brother, Anthon Anderson, and a sister, Nettie, still living, both at Tacoma, Washington.
A. J. Anderson came to America alone in 1873. The ship that carried him across the ocean landed him at Galveston, Texas, so that his first knowledge of America was acquired in Texas. In 1877 he established his own business at Fort Worth, his capital stock in trade consisting of a credit of fifteen dollars for a set of hand tools. From the use of that equipment he has made his enterprise grow and expand into the business mentioned above. In 1907 the A. J. Anderson Company was in- corporated, with Mr. Anderson as president. From the first it has been a sporting goods business, but its stock is now divided into three main lines, sporting goods, hardware and electrical supplies. The annual turnover of goods now aggregates in value more than half a million dollars, and approximately twenty- two thousand five hundred square feet of floor space is used for the business on Houston Street.
A successful business man. Mr. Anderson has been equally public spirited in all his rela- tions to Fort Worth. He has given of his means and influence to every project for the upbuilding of the city. It is said that he has subscribed and paid out more than fifty thou- sand dollars in behalf of the various railroads, packing houses, manufacturing plants and other industrial projects. Fort Worth con- tained five hundred inhabitants when he came, and it is a source of pride to him that he now lives in and has an important place in this city of a hundred and fifty thousand. Mr. Ander- son is a member of the Board of Trade and the First Methodist Church.
WILEY GULICK CLARKSON, senior member of Clarkson & Gaines, architects at Fort Worth, is a native Texan, prepared for his profession in Chicago and for the past ten years has steadily been making a name for
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himself in his chosen work and since 1912 has practiced at Fort Worth.
Mr. Clarkson was born at Corsicana, Texas, November 28, 1885, a son of William Clark- son, a resident of Corsicana. William Clark- son was born at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1858, and has lived in Texas since early man- hood. Soon after locating at Corsicana he en- gaged in the foundry and machinery business, and still owns the plant, though retired from its active management. The mother of Wiley G. Clarkson was born in Brenham, Texas, in 1868, but was reared in Corsicana, to which place her father moved when she was a young girl. The Clarkson family for generations have furnished voters of the Democratic faith.
Wiley G. Clarkson graduated in the public schools of Corsicana in 1903. For two years he was a student in the University of Texas, and to complete his technical education he spent two years in Chicago, a student of archi- tecture in the Armour Institute of Technology and the Chicago Art Institute. Mr. Clarkson on returning to Texas practiced architecture at Corsicana two years, and in 1912 removed to Fort Worth. As an architect he is best known for the large number of beautiful and conspicuous homes he has planned and super- vised at Fort Worth. The greater number of these homes are in Ryan Place and River Crest. He became associated with A. W. Gaines in 1919, and Clarkson & Gaines as a firm designs work of all classes, including banks, schoolhouses, residences and industrial buildings.
Mr. Clarkson is a member of the Fort Worth Club; and in Masonry is affiliated with Julian Field Lodge, F. and A. M., Julian Field Chapter, R. A. M., the Council and Com- mandery and Moslah Temple of the Mystic Shrine.
January 10, 1912, he married Miss Mary Kate Johnson, daughter of Dr. S. W. John- son of Dallas. Mrs. Clarkson was also born and reared in Corsicana, was educated in the public schools of that city and finishing her education in the city of Washington and at Boston. Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson have one son, Wiley Gulick Clarkson, Jr.
STEPHEN SAMUEL LARD. While late legis- lation with reference to the production of foodstuffs may have worked a hardship upon some concerns, it has given those of reliability a wonderful opportunity to expand and place upon the market goods which will stand the most rigid tests with reference to purity and
dependability. In nothing are these regulations more severe than those pertaining to the pro- duction of butter and other creamery prod- ucts, and one of the leading concerns, not only of Texas, but of four other states, is that operating under the name of the Nissley Creamery Company of Texas, manufactur- ers of Mistletoe butter, with headquarters at Fort Worth, of which the president is S. S. Lard, one of the most experienced butter men of the Southwest.
S. S. Lard was born in Riley County, Kan- sas, October 9, 1885, a son of Seldon B. and Adelide A. Lard. His boyhood was spent on a farm, and there he acquired a practical knowledge of agricultural matters under his father's instruction. Later he entered the Kansas State Agricultural College and took a thorough course in butter making. Upon leav- ing college Mr. Lard, although only a youth of eighteen years, displayed considerable good sense in that he carefully studied the question of a location for one of his calling, and se- lected Texas as the most desirable one. Act- ing upon this decision, he came to Fort Worth in March, 1904, and became buttermaker for his present company, rising in two years to be manager. In 1908 he acquired control of the company, and since then has expanded the business in every way. The company now has magnificent plants at Fort Worth, Amarillo and San Antonio, and has branches all over the state and two in Louisiana, and a very large trade is carried on by mail throughout five states. This expansion is almost entirely due to Mr. Lard's technical knowledge of the business and his natural executive ability, and no man in the city or state is more deserving of the prosperity he enjoys today than Mr. Lard.
He was married February 26, 1917, to Mary Potishman. By an earlier marriage he has a son, Homer. Mr. Lard is an enthusiastic booster for Fort Worth, and, having aided in securing many of the present improvements, knows what can be done and how to do it. He takes a great pride in the city and in his busi- ness, and has won, by ability and hard work, an enviable place in his community. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and is a member of the Fort Worth Club, the River Crest and Glen Garden Country clubs, the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Com- merce.
JAMES WILSON SPENCER established his residence in the city of Fort Worth in the year
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1879, and in the passing years he left large and worthy impress upon the civic and busi- ness history of this favored community of the Lone Star state. Few have contributed more definitely to the substantial and normal devel- opment and progress of Fort Worth than this sterling citizen, who achieved distinctive suc- cess and large influence and who was for nearly a quarter of a century president of the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank, which under his aggressive and resourceful executive regime became one of the staunch and valu- able financial institutions of this part of the state. He retired voluntarily from the presi- dency of this great Fort Worth bank in the spring of 1912, was recalled to the presidency from 1916 to 1920, and since that time has not been engaged actively in business, though he maintains a vigorous supervision of his per- sonal financial and property interests.
Mr. Spencer was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee, on the 19th of February, 1855, and is a son of the late Captain Jonathan E. and Nancy (Waggoner) Spencer, his father hav- ing been a farmer, merchant and mill owner by vocation. Mr. Spencer, Sr., also served with distinction in the Confederate army as a captain in the Forty-fourth Regiment, Ten-
nessee Volunteer Infantry. J. W. Spen- cer received excellent educational advantages, and as a young man devoted four years to suc- cessful service as a teacher in the schools of his native state. He was an ambitious and self-reliant young man of twenty-four years when, in 1879, he came to Texas and estab- lished his residence in Fort Worth, where he opened a modest retail grocery. Of his sig- nificantly progressive and successful career the following statements were published at the time of his retirement from the presidency of the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank : "Success came rapidly, and he entered the wholesale field. In 1885 he organized the Fort Worth Grocery Company, the business of which was sold to the Waples-Platter Com- pany in 1893. Mr. Spencer's rapid advance- ment in merchandising attracted the attention of the directors of the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank, of which John R. Hoxie was the founder and then the president, and he was elected vice president of this bank in 1893. Upon Mr. Hoxie's retirement the following year Mr. Spencer was elected president, and he retained this office until his retirement nine- teen years later. He entered the banking busi- ness shortly before the real-estate and com- mercial collapse in Fort Worth, which carried
down many commercial institutions and caused a long period of depression. Notwith- standing these difficulties the business of the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank had a continuous and surprising growth, and speed- ily became one of the strongest institutions of the city. When Mr. Spencer came here Fort Worth had a population of 5,000, which soon dropped to 3,000 upon the extension of the Texas and Pacific Railroad. Hence his busi- ness career covers the whole period of Fort Worth's expansion from a country town to the chief distributing and manufacturing city of the Southwest. Throughout this long period he has been an active factor in all the city's civic and material affairs. He has served as president of the Board of Trade, as school trustee, and in various other positions of re- sponsibility and leadership. The directors of the bank received his resignation with great regret, and adopted feeling resolutions upon his retirement."
Appreciative and significant were the reso- lutions adopted by the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank upon the retirement of Mr. Spencer from the presidency of the institu- tion, and it is but consonant that these resolu- tions be made a matter of record in this brief sketch of his career :
"Resolved, That in accepting the resignation of J. W. Spencer as president of the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank, the directors record their exceeding regret at the severance of a business relation which had lasted for nineteen years, with great profit to the stock- holders, pleasure to his fellow officers, and inspiration to the bank's employes.
"He has proved himself a master builder and has brought the institution from a position of small importance to one of large influence in the city and the state. He has given the best service that is in him to weighty responsibili- ties, and has discharged them with such suc- cess as another may feel proud to equal.
"Reluctant to lose his service as chief execu- tive, we are pleased that he is to remain as a director, that we are still to have his wise counsel and are still to enjoy his association. We congratulate him upon being able to sat- isfy his desire for rest, and we wish for him in the remaining years of his life the full measure of contentment which his fidelity, his industry and his uprightness so richly de- serve.'
Mr. Spencer still finds his interests centered in Fort Worth, where he retains the position of vice chairman of the directorate of the
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Farmers and Mechanics National Bank, and where he still remains an influential figure in civic affairs, as one whose loyalty as a citizen is on a parity with his distinctive ability and forceful personality.
In that his letter of resignation measurably denotes the character and broad outlook of Mr. Spencer, it is but fitting that at least a portion of its text find reproduction in this review. From his letter of resignation, there- fore, are made the following extracts, the let- ter being addressed to the Board of Directors of the bank over whose affairs he had long and ably presided as chief executive :
"All men at some time during their business careers dwell longingly upon the idea of retir- ing at some future date, that they may enjoy fully, and without the weight of responsibility, the fruits of their labors before old age makes it impossible. In most cases the allurements of fame and fortune cause a postponement until it is too late and the victim actually dies in the harness. Between these two theories, 'die in the harness' and 'retire and rest,' I have been struggling for the past three years. It has been said that 'fame is an empty bubble,' but whether it is or not, I have to my credit the leadership of two institutions, one mercan- tile, the other financial, from very modest be- ginnings to very successful issues during the past thirty-three years of my residence in Fort Worth. Hence 'fame and fortune,' used in the general sense, have lost their charm for me, and it becomes my duty, first to myself, and second to this bank, to step aside and 'take a rest.' Some of my friends have warned me not to do this, for, having led such an active life, I will become discontented and restless. If such should prove true, then my reply is that there are fields of labor other than those of commerce and finance to which I can go and obtain surcease from the unrest that comes to the idle, whether it be enforced or voluntary idleness.
"Notwithstanding all this, however, I must confess much concern in relinquishing my holdings and official position as chief officer of a bank second to none in soundness and in service to its patrons. In leaving I desire to emphasize my belief that this bank has been built upon such a foundation that even a greater advance in business and commercial importance awaits its immediate future. My intimate contact with my associates enables me to say with authority that they have no supe- riors, and I bespeak for the next president the VOL. III-8 .
same sympathy and loyalty that have so gen- erously been extended to me."
October 26, 1876, Mr. Spencer married Miss Josie Holt, a daughter of D. B. Holt, a well known merchant of Lynchburg, Tennes- see, and to this union there have been born five daughters, as follows: Pearl, now Mrs. John E. Homan, of Fort Worth; Sallie, who married Dr. H. L. Entriken and resides in Enid, Oklahoma; Nannie, who married George F. Rozell, assistant cashier of the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank, Fort Worth; Fay, who married J. N. Tucker and resides in Oklahoma City; and Mabel, the wife of J. M. Higginbotham, of Fort Worth.
Mr. Spencer and his family have long been devoted members of the Broadway Baptist Church of Fort Worth, which he served for many years as a deacon.
CITY NATIONAL BANK OF COMMERCE OF WICHITA FALLS. The City National Bank of Commerce of Wichita Falls, resulting from the consolidation of two older banks, the City National and the National Bank of Commerce, in May, 1920, gave to Wichita Falls a finan- cial institution with resources of over twenty- two million dollars, making it the financial pillar of much of the constructive business and industrial power that properly centers in Wichita Falls.
The history of the bank also involves much of the history of Wichita Falls finance. The City National Bank was the second bank of Wichita Falls, and was organized by Colonel John G. James on March 11, 1890. Colonel James was Wichita Falls' pioneer banker, hav- ing organized the first bank, a private insti- tution, subsequently known as the Panhandle National Bank. The first home of the City National was a small red brick building at the corner of Seventh and Indiana streets. It had been the home of Colonel James' private bank, and still later served as the city hall. The City National was capitalized at $50,000. On March 16, 1892, Colonel James was succeeded as president by Joseph A. Kemp, who for twenty-eight years was president and is now president of the City National Bank of Com- merce. At that time the capital was increased to $75,000. It was the character and business resourcefulness of Mr. Kemp that upheld the City National Bank during the hard years that began with the panic of 1893. Besides the financial panic there was a period of crop fail- ure, and in 1897 the condition of the bank was at such a low ebb that an assessment of
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stockholders was averted only through Mr. Kemp prevailing on the comptroller of the currency to defer the calling of such assess- ment until the harvesting of the crop. That year brought an abundant harvest, followed by two other good years, and the bank having narrowly escaped the crisis enjoyed a period of prosperity proportionate to the country itself. Except for those hard years the City National never paid less than ten per cent annual divi- dends, and at one time declared a hundred per cent stock dividend. At the time of the con- solidation the City National Bank had capital, surplus and profits of $1,240,163.88, while the total resources were well upwards of seventeen million dollars.
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