USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 3
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Mr. Couch was born near Italy, Texas, July 14, 1869, son of James C. and Laura (Morris) Couch. He had a good practica! education in public and private schools, and
graduated in 1889 from Hope Institute, a boarding school of Italy. From that time to the present, over thirty years, he has been engaged in a versatile role of business. In 1890 he was in the drug business. In 1891 he became interested in a grocery establish- ment, with which he continued until 1893. In that year of general industrial depression he began his association with the cotton business. He was a cotton broker until 1899, in which year he acquired some holdings in the Italy Cotton Oil Company, becoming principal owner and general manager of the plant. He confined his enterprise largely to his home town in this business until 1910, when he sold out and moved to Fort Worth as a larger city from which to direct his increasing inter- ests. At Fort Worth he became associated with the prominent capitalist Winfield Scott in the ownership of the Mutual Cotton Oil Company. being vice president and after the death of Mr. Scott acquired the Scott estate's holdings and served as president and general manager of the company until November 1, 1917. At that time he sold a controlling in- terest and retired from the active manage- ment, though he is still on the board as a director and stockholder. One of Fort Worth's leading enterprises todav is the Trad- ers Oil Mill Company. which Mr. Couch or- ganized March 15, 1918, with a capital of $150,000. He is interested as a stockholder · and otherwise in a number of cotton oil mills over Texas. He was at one time president and principal owner of the Grandview Cotton Oil Company at Grandview and also the Trad- ers Cotton Oil Company of Sulphur Springs. He owns the Citizens Cotton Oil Company of Taylor, Texas, and this is operated under his direction. It was his prominence as an owner and manager of such industries that led to his appropriate selection as president of the Texas Cotton Seed Crushers' Association. The Traders Oil Mill Company, which Mr. Couch organized in 1918. has its large plant at the South end of Hemphill Street in Fort Worth, this plant having been constructed at a cost of more than three hundred thousand dollars.
Mr. Couch was elected mavor of his home town of Italy in 1909, but resigned the office on his removal to Fort Worth the following year. He is an active member of the Masonic Order. the Elks and Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is also identified by mem- bership with the Fort Worth Club and River
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Crest Country Club. He married Myrtle Ad- kisson, and they have one daughter, Vivienne.
JUDGE I. H. BURNEY. Soon after the build- ing of the Texas and Pacific Railroad through Western Texas to El Paso, a young lawyer, a native Texan, established his office at Colo- rado City in the midst of the great range country, and gained his early clientage chiefly among the stockmen of Northwestern Texas. Judge Burney has always been a prominent lawyer among Texas cattlemen, served for many years as attorney of the Texas Cattle Raisers' Association and for the past quarter of a century has lived at Fort Worth.
Judge Burney was born at Kerrville, Texas, April 16, 1859, son of H. M. and Mary (Tatum) Burney. The interesting record of his father is given in the following sketch. I. H. Burney spent his boyhood in Southwestern Texas, attended common schools there, was graduated Bachelor of Arts from Southwest- ern College at Georgetown, Texas, in 1880, and received his degree in law from Vander- bilt University in 1882. The following year he located at Colorado City and was in gen- eral practice there for twelve years, handling many of the important legal matters in the district and country west of Fort Worth. While there he held two appointments from the governor of Texas, one as special district judge and the other as a commissioner to the International Exposition at Paris, France, in 1889. The first public office he ever held was as city attorney of Colorado. His partner in law at Colorado City was R. L. Ball. In 1894 they removed to San Antonio, where Judge Burney practiced two years, and then deter- mined to resume his place and his association with his former clients in West Texas and in 1896 came to Fort Worth. Judge Burney, while practically retired, is still nominally a partner in law practice with S. H. Cowan. In later years Judge Burney has given much of his time to his investments and other personal affairs. He was one of the directors of the American National Bank, and when it was consolidated with the Farmers and Mechanics National Bank he remained on the board of the larger institution. He is a director in sev- eral other corporations at Fort Worth and elsewhere and owner of considerable real estate.
Judge Burney is a member of the Fort Worth and River Crest Country Clubs and is Knight Templar Mason and Knight of a
Pythias. Judge Burney married in 1896 Belle Largent Stonemets.
Judge Burney is one of the most widely traveled men of Texas. He acquired a taste for travel through his visit to the Paris Expo- sition in 1889, and the possession of ample means has enabled him to gratify that taste. He has crossed the Atlantic more than half a dozen times, and has been a student as well as a traveler in nearly all parts of the civi- lized world. His travels have given him a wide knowledge of all the Americas and he has been in every capital in Europe and the Orient, and has an interesting acquaintance with the complex racial and political problems involved in the eastern countries, including the Balkans. He has recently returned from a tour of South America.
Judge Burney has served as city park com- missioner of Fort Worth and has been a trustee of the Texas Woman's College since its organization. During the World war he devoted much of his time to auxiliary war work, being chairman of the Tarrant County Red Cross, while Mrs. Burney was chairman of the Canteen Committee in association with a hundred other faithful women. Judge Bur- ney was one of the founders and the first president of the first golf club in Fort Worth, now the River Crest Country Club. Mrs. Burney organized the Woman's State Golf Association and was its first president. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fort Worth Library. Their home at Fort Worth is considered the most beautiful private residence in the city, located on Sunset Ter- race.
HANCE MCCAIN BURNEY, father of the prominent Fort Worth lawyer Judge I. H. Burney, was a pioneer of Texas and a man whose record may be studied with profit by all who admire the sturdiness and enterprise of those men who "made Texas."
He was born near the famous Revolution- ary war battleground, Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, May 12, 1826. He lived to be nearly eighty-nine years of age, passing away at his home in Kerr County April 23, 1915. The vitality and vigor of his life are reflected in the seven sons who survive him. He spent his early life in McNary County, Tennessee, and first came to Texas in 1853, locating in Washington County. In Washing- ton County on December 28, 1853, he mar- ried Miss Mary A. Tatum, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Tatum, who in 1852 came from
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RESIDENCE OF I. H. BURNEY
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McNary County, Tennessee, and settled at Labaradee Prairie, two miles from the old town of Burton in Washington County, Texas. On December 28, 1913, Mr. and Mrs. Burney celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of their wedding, six of their sons being present. Mrs. Burney, the aged wife and mother, is still living in Kerr County, and her home has been in one house for over sixty years. She was born in Tennessee June 13, 1839. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Burney returned to Tennessee for several years, then came back to Texas in 1856, and after about a year in Washington County moved to Kerrville, where they were associated with the first set- tlers, and at the time of his death Mr. H. M. Burney was one of the last survivors of the original group of pioneers in that community. Their first home was at the corner of what is now Main and Baker streets. A Postoffice was established at Kerrville in 1857, with Judge Burney as the first postmaster. He was also one of the first merchants, his store being next door to the courthouse. He served as postmaster seven years, and in 1862 he es- tablished a ranch on Turtle Creek at the head- waters of the Guadalupe River, where he lived the rest of his life. He was a man of exceptional enterprise and public spirit. The opportunities for accumulating wealth were not abundant in that sparsely settled section of Southwest Texas, but by the production of the means to wealth and his public spirit H. M. Burney deserved all the prosperity that comes to the most successful men. Besides his ranching industry he recognized some of the natural resources of his community and proceeded in characteristic manner to develop them not only for his own profit but for the benefit of the entire district. The banks of the Guadalupe River contained a large amount of cypress timber. To convert it into lumber he imported into the country a steam sawmill, freighted from San Antonio laboriously by ox teams. He constructed the mill in 1871, and sawed up large quantities of cypress tim- ber, much of which was sent to San Antonio. The home in which he lived the best years of his life and in which his widow still re- sides was built from cypress, every piece of timber from sills to shingles being of the "wood everlasting." While he was a success- ful cattle rancher, he was also interested in agriculture and early understood the avail- ability of the valley lands of the Guadalupe for wheat growing. He was one of the first to produce wheat in that section, and in order
to find an outlet for his crop and encourage his neighbor farmers and ranchers to sow wheat he established a flour mill, using the water power from the Guadalupe River. This flour mill was erected in the early '70s. Thus he had a prominent share in establishing local industries that went a long way toward mak- ing the community self supporting in the many years when Kerrville had no railroad facilities.
In the early '60s he was appointed probate judge of Kerr County and in 1878 was elected to the office then known as chief justice or county judge, filling that post four years. He also served as deputy county and district clerk. Judge Burney both for the benefit of his own children and for the community in general was deeply interested in education, and from his own slender resources he provided gener- ously for the needs of his sons and gave them the advantages of college. The records of these sons show that they well repaid the af- fection and interest of their parents. The nine sons, seven of whom survive their father, were Judge R. H. Burney, Judge I. H. Bur- ney, W. D. Burney, J. G. Burney, William Burney, Lee Burney, John W. Burney, Mack Burney (deceased) and Percy Clitus Burney (deceased). The survivors all live in Kerr County except I. H. Burney of Fort Worth and J. G. Burney of Austin. Robert Henry Burney has been a prominent Texas lawyer for many years, a former member and for a time president pro tem of the State Senate, and for the past sixteen years has been judge of the Thirty-eighth Judicial District, with home at Kerrville. W. D. Burney, a resident of Center Point in Kerr County, is cashier of the Guadalupe Valley Bank. J. G. Burney is a farmer, merchant and former member of the Legislature, living at Austin. William is a stock farmer at Center Point. Lee is also a farmer and stock raiser, and John W. is a merchant at Kerrville.
GILES H. CONNELL. The story of the growth and development of Texas is rich in the lore of the boundless prairie, the range and the trail, and closely interwoven in the legend are the names of certain men and families who have played an active part in transforming the wilderness into a modern commonwealth with all of its twentieth-cen- tury advantages and opportunities, and it is the purpose of this brief review to record a few salient facts in the life of one who has won for himself deserved recognition in the
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field of commerce, banking and industrial development of the state, as well as in ranch- ing and the cattle industry.
Mr. Connell is a native Texan, born in Bell County, where the Town of Holland now stands, May 25, 1856. His father, William Connell, was a native of South Carolina. He came from Tennessee to Texas in 1834, his first location being made in Washington County. He served as a soldier in Gen. Sam Houston's army in the war for Texas inde- pendence. He became a prominent cattle- man, rancher and freighter when the only means of conveyance was by ox teams, "trek- king" across the plains. In 1843 he married Loumisa Wills, a native of Missouri, who had come with her parents to Texas and who, like her husband, was a member of one of those sturdy families who had cheerfully faced the dangers of a new country and whose prairie homes stood as the outposts of civiliza- tion upon the Western frontier. Of a family of eight sons and three daughters born to this union three sons and two daughters still sur- vive. The parents spent the latter years of their lives in Brownwood, Texas, where Wil- liam Connell died in 1882, at the age of sixty- six years. His widow survived him until 1899, when she passed to her eternal rest at the age of seventy-seven years.
Giles H. Connell went with his parents to Brown County when but five years of age, and there he spent his boyhood amidst such surroundings and with the limited advan- tages common to the youth of that locality and period. In 1878 he went to Buffalo Gap, where he engaged in merchandising, opening one of the first stores in the town. With mule teams he hauled from Fort Worth the lumber used in the construction of his buildings, and later employed the same means in transport- ing the merchandise necessary to the operation of the business. When the railroad was ex- tended to Sweetwater he located there and built the first residence erected in the town. His brother, Wilson E., joined with him and a general merchandising business was established under the firm name of Connell Brothers, and continued many years. Sweetwater in the early days of its existence was no place for the tenderfoot or the faint hearted. It was the gathering point for the cowboys and ranch- ers for miles around, and also one of the principal stopping points on the Overland trail. Many rough characters were also attracted to the place, as was common with all frontier towns in the early days, and many worthy
travelers who sought safe lodgings were accom- modated by the hospitality of Connell Brothers, who furnished them blankets upon which to sleep in the back of the store, sacks of flour being utilized as a barricade against stray bullets as possible disturbers of their slumber.
In 1888 Connell Brothers opened a store in Midland, and also established a private bank- ing business there, which bank is now the First National Bank of Midland. This humble beginning also marked the beginning of a career in banking that has brought honor and success to both of the brothers. A sketch pub- lished elsewhere in this work outlines the career of Wilson E. Connell, president of the First National Bank of Fort Worth, in which institution G. H. Connell is a director. In addition to his banking interests in Fort Worth G. H. Connell owned and conducted a bank in Duncan, Oklahoma, for fourteen years, and has also conducted banks at Eastland and Spur.
Mr. Connell came to Fort Worth, to reside, in 1890. Two years later, in association with Winfield Scott and A. A. Hartgrove, he organ- ized the Dublin Cotton Oil Company and was chosen president and general manager of the business which he conducted with signal suc- cess. He also built the cotton oil mill at Brownwood, and operated the same for sev- eral years. He has been heavily interested in the lumber manufacturing business in East Texas, and in this field of enterprise has con- tributed largely to the industrial development of his state.
February 16, 1879, Mr. Connell married Josephine McHan, a native of Alabama who had come to Texas in 1877, and a descendant of an old and prominent family in Alabama. Of the ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. Connell two died in infancy, two died in early childhood, and those surviving are: Elma, now the wife of J. H. Reese, a prominent lumberman of Beaumont, Texas; Edna mar- ried E. C. Edmonds, president of the bank at Spur, Texas; Esther married C. R. Miller, president of the Miller Manufacturing Com- pany, of Dallas; Phoebe married T. S. Corri- her, secretary and treasurer of the Waco Twine Mills, Waco, Texas; Walter, the only living son, is a well known resident of Arling- ton Heights ; and Ruth, who is now Mrs. B. B. Snyder, resides in Fort Worth.
Mr. Connell in religious faith is a member of the College Avenue Baptist Church, where he has served as deacon. He is a staunch sup- porter of good government, and has ever been liberal in his support of those movements
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tending toward the betterment of his state and community. A man of keen discrimination and sound judgement, he has been able to see opportunities and has profited thereby, and in the different spheres of activity which have claimed his attention he has achieved honor- able and accredited success.
EUGENE S. ALLEN is one of the younger members of the Fort Worth bar, where his work and services have gained him the appre- ciation of his fellow lawyers and other sub- stantial recognition of his personal ability.
Mr. Allen was born in Tarrant County, Texas, March 6, 1882, son of W. V. S. and Mary (Mosaly) Allen. His father, a native of Tennessee, came to Tarrant County in 1878 and spent his active life as a farmer. The mother, who was born in North Carolina, is still living on the old farm. All her seven children are still living in Tarrant County.
The fourth child and third son, Eugene S. Allen, had a farm environment and a farm training, attended the public schools, and through his own earnings achieved his higher and professional education. He attended the North Texas State Normal School, but studied law at a night school at Fort Worth and also by correspondence courses. He was admitted to the bar in June, 1917, and began regular practice in August, 1918. Mr. Allen has acquired other business interests in Fort Worth and vicinity, and to some degree has interested himself in politics.
He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. In 1908 he married Una Morgan, and they have one. daughter, Mary Allen.
LEON GROSS. The largest exclusive cloth- ing establishment in North Texas is Washer Brothers of Fort Worth, a business that has enjoyed a steady growth and increasing pres- tige for over twenty years and would easily rank among the first ten or twelve large stores in the South.
The president of this business is Leon Gross, who came to Fort Worth when he was twenty-one years of age, and has enjoyed a remarkable rise in commercial affairs. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, August 26, 1866, son of Henry and Jeannette (Levy) Gross. He spent most of his boyhood at Columbia, Tennessee, was well educated and given a thorough commercial training. On coming to Fort Worth in 1887 he entered the clothing business, and for many years has been associated with the Washer Brothers Com-
pany, and has been president of that company since 1907. The company employs eighty- five people, and the store, one of the most picturesque business landmarks in the city, is at the corner of Eighth and Main streets, in a building 100 by 100 feet.
Mr. Gross married in 1899 Edith Mayer, of Fort Worth. He is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, an Elk, Knight of Pythias, a member of the U. B. A., the Woodmen of the World, and is popular in many of the civic and social organizations, including the Fort Worth Club and the Fort Worth Country Club.
JOHN P. KING. Possessing strength of will and indomitable ambition, combined with the necessary caliber of brain, John P. King has steadily advanced until he is today numbered among the leading business men of Fort Worth, and is a recognized authority upon civic matters. He has had no outside assist- ance of either undue influence of powerful friends or large capital, but has worked his way upward through his own abilities and is fully entitled to the position he now occupies in the confidence of his associates.
John P. King was born at Brenham, Wash- ington County, Texas, December 5, 1861, a son of Porter and Eudora (Bush) King, both of whom were natives of Hopkinsville, Ken- tucky, who came to Texas in 1842, and were among the pioneers of Washington County. Porter King was a farmer by occupation, and lived to be eighty-three years of age, but his wife passed away when she was fifty-eight years old. They had nine children to reach maturity, six of whom are still living, and of them all John P. King was the second in order of birth. When he was about eight years old his parents moved to Fort Worth, and lived in this city for four years, and then moved to a farm near Hundley, in Tarrant County. There John P. King continued to live for five years, and then returned to Fort Worth. Sub- sequently he attended Adran College, and upon his return began clerking in a dry goods store of Fort Worth, and was thus occupied for seven years. While thus employed he naturally served many persons and acquired a wide acquaintance, and when he was placed on the ticket of his party for the office of county clerk he made an excellent campaign and was elected to it by a gratifying majority, and was re-elected several times, serving until 1898.
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In the latter year Mr. King organized the Southern Ice & Cold Storage Company, now the King Ice Company, and has made of it one of the leading concerns of its kind in the city, and is still serving it as president. In 1906 he organized the King Candy Company upon a small scale, his first plant only employ- ing about twenty-four persons. His present plant gives employment to 450 people, and his trade is a wholesome one, his representatives traveling as far west as Arizona, and covering all of the southern states. Mr. King is also a director of the Fort Worth National Bank, and the Fort Worth Power & Light Company, and he is a stockholder in other local concerns, for he has great faith in Fort Worth and has ever been willing to give a practical demon- stration of this by investing his money in the undertakings of its business men of good repute.
Mr. King was united in marriage in 1897 with Lorena Blain, and they have three sons, namely: John P., Jr., Clinton B. and Robert Lee. He belongs to the Fort Worth Club, the River Cress Country Club and to the Masons and Elks. Possessing a strong personality and extraordinary ability for organizing, Mr. King has captured the confidence of his business associates, and has become the mov- ing spirit of his two companies, as well as their executive head. His strong and well- balanced mind enables him to handle success- fully and promptly the various and intricate problems which come before him for solution. He is one of the men of Fort Worth who pos- sesses that new courage and bigger vision which are resulting in the remarkable growth of this region, and his community owes him a heavy debt for what he has done for it as an honorable and public-spirited citizen.
JOHN HOWARD WRIGHT, merchant and banker of Mansfield, is said to be the oldest merchant with a continuous record of activity in Tarrant County. He has lived in that one locality of Northwest Texas forty-five years, during which time he has achieved a splendid reputation both as a business man and as a public-spirited citizen.
Mr. Wright was born in Jackson County, Missouri, May 28, 1857. Kansas City is in Jackson County, though at the time of Mr. Wright's birth the two towns of any con- sequence there were Westport and Indepen- dence. His grandfather, William Wright, was a Virginian and settled at Fayette, Missouri, in pioneer times, later removing to Palmyra
in Northern Missouri and finally to Yazoo, Mississippi, where he died of yellow fever. Dr. William Sebree Wright, father of the Mansfield banker, was born at Fayette, Mis- souri, and during the Civil war was a surgeon in Price's army. He was once captured and sentenced to be shot as a spy, and he was a prisoner of war for two years, four months, eleven days at St. Louis and Alton. In 1870 he moved to Texas, locating at Nacogdoches for five years and in 1875 moved to Mans- field, but five years later went to Montana and died at Butte City in 1882. Dr. William S. Wright married S. I. Hinch, whose father, Henry Hinch, was in his day a prominent man in the state of Louisiana, but spent his last days and died at Mansfield, Texas. J. H. Wright was the oldest of five children. Three others are still living: W. H. and H. L., both in Montana ; Alice, wife of R. H. Evans of South Texas. J. H. Wright spent his boy- hood days in New Orleans, Shreveport and Nacogdoches, acquiring his education in Louisiana and was eighteen years of age when the family located at Mansfield. The first year here he farmed, and he then took the contract for handling the first daily mail be- tween Mansfield and Fort Worth. Mr. Wright in 1884 opened a stock of general merchandise at Mansfield, and his experience as a merchant has continued uninterrupted for thirty-seven years. In 1897 he formed a partnership with Mike Hurly, J. M. Logan, J. T. Stephens and W. B. McKnight as a private banking firm, but a year later bought the interests of Hurly and Logan. He was president of this private bank, but since 1906 this has been the State Bank of Mansfield with Mr. Wright as president and T. G. Davis, cashier. It is one of the prosperous country banks of North Texas, with a capital stock of $35.000, surplus and undivided profits of $20,000, and total resources of over $210,000. In addition to his banking and mer- chandising interests Mr. Wright is also in- terested in the promotion of the agricultural development of this section of Texas, having some 1,300 acres of land under cultivation in Tarrant and Johnson counties.
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