USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 31
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W. E. HUSTER is a Fort Worth business man who founded and is active head of the establishment known as the Huster Tool & Supply Company, Inc., garage and machine shop equipment and automobile supplies, at 1113 Commerce Street. Mr. Huster is a native of Fort Worth, and his family has lived in the city and vicinity upwards of fifty years.
He was born at Fort Worth February 14, 1884, a son of Frank and Ida (Helmcamp) Huster. His father, a native of Germany, came to America in 1865, when a boy of about fifteen, lived in Ohio for the first ten years, and in 1875 came to Fort Worth, before this city had a single line of railroad. He has been continuously engaged in some line of business or other in that section ever since and is now seventy years of age, still doing his duty as a carpenter and contractor. He was the father of eight children, five of whom are still living, W. E. being the fifth in age.
In the early childhood of W. E. Huster the family moved to a farm at Azle, and he grew up in a rural environment, remaining there until he was about twenty. In the meantime
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he attended country schools and later com- pleted a business college course at Weather- ford. He acquired his early commercial train- ing in a hardware store at Weatherford, re- maining with that business four years. In 1910 he became associated with Colonel Bowie in the automobile business under the firm name of the Texas Auto Company, a business continued under that title for one year. Sell- ing out, Mr. Huster removed to Fort Worth and for two years was a clerk with the Crouch Hardware Company and then bought an in- terest in that old established business. In 1918 he disposed of this interest, and on the first of June of that year opened up a business of his own at 109 East Tenth street under the name Huster Tool & Supply Company, as at present.
Mr. Huster is a member of the Kiwanis Club. On December 31, 1912, he married Miss Elizabeth Hood, daughter of Mrs. Ada G. Hood, of Weatherford, where she was edu- cated in the public schools. The Hood family came from Virginia. Mrs. Huster is a mem- ber of the Daughters of the American Revolu- tion. They have one daughter, Elizabeth, born September 1, 1916.
JOSEPH O. POWERS. While Wichita Falls is known all over the world because of the remarkable oil development, it is being given solidity and stability because of its connec- tion as the headquarters of the Wichita Great Western Underwriters, the business of which corporation has increased 500 per cent dur- ing the year ending September 1, 1920, at which time it was just two years old. Its remarkable growth from a local concern to one whose business is nation-wide is the out- come of the broad vision and superior execu- tive abilities of Joseph O. Powers, its secretary and treasurer, and his associates.
Mr. Powers is a young man, having been born in the later '80s, at Terrell, Texas, where he was reared and educated. As a youth he went into the oil-mill business, and was en- gaged actively in it for several years, in sev- eral of the cities of Texas. In 1918 he came to Wichita Falls to become associated with his present company, which has been built up to its present proportions through the hard work of Mr. Powers and his associates, R. E. Huff and John S. Mabry.
The parents of Joseph O. Powers were J. M. and Mollie (Walton) Powers, the former of whom is deceased, but the latter is living. J. M. Powers was born at Mobile,
Alabama, a son of Judge Powers of the Su- preme Court of Alabama, and he became a prominent business man of Terrell, Texas, where for many years he was actively inter- ested in the lumber trade. He installed the first light plant and the first ice plant at Terrell, and was in other ways one of the lead- ing men of his community.
Mr. Powers was married to Miss Effie McMillan, of Waco, Texas, and they have a son, Joseph O., Jr.
No better idea can be given of the magni- tude of the Wichita Great Western Under- writers than the following, taken from the Wichita Falls Record News of the date of August 8, 1920 :
"Among the enterprises started since Texas came into her own is the Wichita Great West- ern Underwriters, a reciprocal inter-insurance organized for the purpose of insuring pre- ferred risks throughout the United States.
"This organization is in no manner a mu- tual organization in so far as the policy hold- er's contract, providing the assessment clause. The policy holder's contract specifically sets forth a liability of the policy holder as being the same as that of an incorporated stock company, yet at the same time the company issues a special agreement in which the policy holder is to receive a portion of the annual premium after expenses and fire losses have been paid-in fact at the end of the policy year should the company's expenses, together with the fire losses, be less than the amount of the premiums paid by the insured.
"The company enters into a special agree- ment in which they obligate themselves to use only twenty-five per cent of their premium receipts for operating expenses. This special agreement provides for the cost of re-in- surance, as well as a fund known as legal reserve. These items, together with fire losses, are deducted from premium receipts, and the balance paid in by subscribers or policy holders automatically reverts to the policy holders.
"The company is engaged in the insurance business for the purpose of assuming risks on preferred lines only, such as brick, stone and concrete buildings and stocks of goods therein, thereby eliminating the hazardous risks, such as frame buildings, hay barns, mattress factories, powder plants, and prop- erties not protected by adequate fire depart- ment's and are thereby enabled to decrease the average fire loss ratio easily one-fourth of that ordinarily experienced by stock fire in-
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surance companies, who make a practice of assuming risks on general lines.
"The Wichita Great Western Underwriters have extended their field of operation into eight different states. They are now authorized to do business in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkan- sas, Illinois, California, Oregon and Wash- ington, and they have a general office in all of the important cities west of Chicago, and are possibly the largest reciprocal fire insur- ance company operating in this country when you consider their age as well as their assets to their liabilities. At the end of their fiscal year, September 1, 1919, they actually returned to their policy holders fifty-two per cent of all premiums paid on policies one year old, the average saving effected by them since or- ganization being thirty-nine and one-tenth of all premiums paid.
"It is very gratifying to the general public to know that the state of Texas has provided an institution that rivals anything in America when it comes to reducing the present high cost of living, as no doubt this company is doing. The Wichita Great Western Under- writers have always settled their fire losses promptly, in fact have been one of the first companies to settle their losses, wherever fires have occurred in which they were interested. The management is in the hands of very con- servative men, they have surrounded them- selves with associates who have had many years of experience in the fire insurance busi- ness, they employ the very best inspectors, and it is freely predicted that they will in a few years have their organization complete from coast to coast, as it is the intention of the management to make this institution nation wide. They have an underwriting strength of $3,000,000 which is equivalent to the capi- tal stock of an incorporated company, there- fore they are in a position to take care of their excess fire losses as conclusively as any stock company without depending upon their policy holders to 'chip in,' as it would be with a mutual company."
The Wichita Great Western Underwriters have an extremely strong advisory board com- posed of the following: R. E. Huff, presi- dent of the First National Bank, Wichita Falls, Texas; J. A. Kemp, president of the City National Bank, Wichita Falls, Texas ; J. C. Hunt, wholesale granary, Wich- ita Falls, Texas ; W. H. Fuqua, president First National Bank, Amarillo, Texas; R. R. Dar- rah, manager of the Petroleum Company, Fort Worth, Texas ; P. P. Langford, vice president
of the City National Bank, Wichita Falls, Texas; D. E. Waggoner, president of the Security National Bank, Dallas, Texas ; C. W. Reid, president of the National Bank of Com- merce, Wichita Falls, Texas ; W. R. Ferguson, president of the Wichita Falls State Bank & Trust Company, Wichita Falls, Texas; J. B. Mayfield, president of the Mayfield Company, wholesale groceries, Tyler, Texas; C. E. Mc- Cutchen, vice president of the First National Bank, Wichita Falls, Texas; R. L. Penick, president Penick-Hughes, Stamford, Texas ; and John S. Mabry, manager and attorney of the Wichita Great Western Underwriters, Wichita Falls, Texas.
The headquarters of the Wichita Great Western Underwriters are at Wichita Falls, Texas, and the branch offices are as follows : Pacific Coast Department, J. F. Kehoe, man- ager, Southern California Department, A. J. Johnson, manager, Los Angeles, California ; Oklahoma Department, R. B. Thomas, mana- ger, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Northwest- ern Department, Pittman & Van Dexter, managers, Portland, Oregon; Arkansas De- partment, E. D. Kidder, manager, Little Rock, Arkansas; Rocky Mountain Department, C. L. Owen, manager, Denver, Colorado; and St. Louis Department, W. W. Pigue, mana- ger, St. Louis, Missouri.
CARL CROMER PAXTON has been a resident of Fort Worth since 1890, and from a humble beginning as a journeyman printer has de- veloped and built up an extensive and modern commercial printing plant, of which he is the sole owner and active head.
Mr. Paxton is a native of Ohio, his birth occurring in Noble County, that state, October 4, 1874, he being the youngest of a family of twelve children born to Samuel Jefferson and Eva P. (Welsch) Paxton, each of whom were descended from a long line of American an- cestry. The Paxton family occupies a prom- inent part in the early history of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where the progenitors of the family made settlement in 1734. Samuel J. Paxton went from Pennsylvania to Ohio in 1834, and there met and married Eva P. Welsch, a young woman of English and Welsh, extraction, born in Morgan County, Ohio. She died in Fort Worth in 1902. Samuel J. Paxton died in Ohio in 1896.
Carl C. Paxton acquired his educational training in Ohio and Kansas, to which latter state he had gone in 1886, and where he began an apprenticeship in the printing trade. He
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came to Fort Worth in 1890, and was subse- quently connected with several of the repre- sentative printing establishments of that city, gaining a comprehensive knowledge of the art and acquiring merited recognition as one of the ablest commercial printers of the South- west.
For fifteen years he was senior member of the firm of Paxton & Evans. He then dis- posed of his interest in that firm and formed an association with C. C. Shelton, Jr., under the firm name of Paxton & Shelton. He later acquired full ownership of the business, which is now conducted under the name of the C. C. Paxton Company at 206 West Eleventh Street where, with a fully equipped and modern establishment he is performing an important service in supplying the demands of this rapidly expanding territory.
In 1901 Mr. Paxton married Miss Hermie Akers, a daughter of William P. and Matilda (Buckner) Akers. William P. Akers was a native of Georgia and a Confederate veteran who came to Texas in 1873. Matilda Buck- ner was born in Missouri, and came with her parents in 1858 to Jack County, Texas.
To Mr. and Mrs. Paxton have been born three sons : Clair Akers, Jay William and Carl C., Jr. The eldest is now a student in the Southwestern University at Georgetown, Texas, while the other two are students in the Senior High and the grammar school re- spectively of Fort Worth.
In fraternal circles Mr. Paxton is a charter member and a past master of Southside Lodge, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons No. 1114. He is also a Knight Templar and a charter member of Moslah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He takes active interest in all good movements tending toward the advancement of the community, and is regarded as one of Fort Worth's representative business men.
W. A. BENNETT, president of the Oil Mill Machinery and Manufacturing Company of Fort Worth and president of the Texas Cot- ton Seed Crushers' Association, has for many years been prominent in grain and cotton manufacturing industries in West and North Texas, and the enterprise and capital of him and his associates have contributed a large share to the commercial progress of several localities northwest of Fort Worth.
Mr. Bennett was born in Calhoun County, Mississippi, September 28, 1871, son of Robert G. and Rebecca (Whitson) Bennett. His father, a native of Alabama, came to
Texas in 1876, and established his home on a farm in Anderson County. In 1913 he re- moved to Fort Worth, where he is now liv- ing retired. The mother died at the age of seventy-five.
Only son and child of his parents, \V. A. Bennett, was four years old when brought to Texas, and he acquired a common school education in this state. His early life was impressed by the industry and discipline of the home farm. At the age of nineteen he secured a loan of $300 from a friend, and with that capital removed to Seymour in Northwest Texas and started a restaurant. He had a prosperous trade, and continued the business until he made enough money to en- ter a business college, completing his course and graduating in 1891.
With this training Mr. Bennett entered the retail grain business with his father and a partner, the company being Bennett, Ryan & Company at Seymour. Three months later W. A. Bennett bought the 'interest of Mr. Ryan and the firm continued as Bennett & Son and was one of the leading business con- cerns at Seymour until 1900. In the mean- time, in 1897, Mr. Bennett also acquired. the ownership and management of the flour mill at Seymour, and in 1901 he built the electric light plant that proved a welcome public util- ity to the city. He carried on these various business enterprises and in 1906 also organ- ized the Seymour Cotton Oil Company and in 1907 the Memphis Cotton Oil Company. About 1909, having sold his holdings and in- terests at Seymour, he moved to Memphis, Texas, and was active in the affairs of that Northwest Texas community until he removed to Fort Worth in 1913.
In Fort Worth Mr. Bennett became asso- ciated with Col. Morgan Jones and Sidney Webb in the oil mill business. They built the Riverside Oil Mill, bought other mills, and for several years operated nine mills in different parts of Texas. About 1917 the partnership was dissolved, the mills being equally divided among the three partners. Mr. Bennett now owns the cotton oil mills at Seymour and Jacksboro, and also a chain of fourteen gins.
He organized the Oil Mill Machinery and Manufacturing Company of Fort Worth in 1916, and as president has made this one of the important industries serving the cotton oil interests of the Southwest. He and his asso- ciates in 1918 acquired the valuable and inter- esting old property at Fort Worth known as the Metropolitan Hotel.
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In 1903 Mr. Bennett married Mary Rig- gins, of Fort Worth, who died in 1918, leaving two sons, W. A., Jr., and Bob Hugh. Mr. Bennett is a member of the Fort Worth Club, River Crest Country Club, Elks Club, and is a Mason and Odd Fellow.
HOMER PEEPLES of Fort Worth, has had a continuous association with some branch of the oil industry and oil business since early man- hood. Perhaps his most important achieve- ment in the history of petroleum in Texas was his initial enterprise in bringing in the famous shallow well field of Sipe Springs in the ex- treme northwestern part of Comanche County. In November, 1919, Mr. Peeples drilled in the first well on the Jackson farm, two and a half miles south of town. He had begun drilling for the purpose of making a deep test, and after this drill had penetrated a second stratum of shallow sand he tested it out with the result of forty or fifty barrels of initial production, and that pioneer well continued to produce oil after hundreds of other shallow wells had been brought in the same field. In the spring of 1921 it was estimated that about four hundred wells had been brought in at Sipe Springs. At that time they were pro- ducing in the aggregate between seven hundred and eight hundred barrels per day, with an average of from four to seven barrels. While the total does not compare with some of the flush wells of other fields, the high quality of the oil and the low cost of initial produc- tion and operation makes the business highly profitable and one that has attracted a great deal of capital and enterprise. In the early history of the field one five-acre block with four wells sold for eighty thousand dollars. During 1920 the average cost of bringing in a well in these shallow sands was about fifteen hundred dollars, while the pumping expense was almost negligible.
All of this production, growing up around the initial experiment of Mr. Peeples, has brought a tremendous prosperity and develop- ment to the town of Sipe Springs and vicinity, resulting in greatly increased bank deposits and the expansion of business generally.
Mr. Peeples was born at Prescott, Arkan- sas, October 31, 1890, but was reared in west- ern Oklahoma and in the town of Floydada in the Texas Panhandle. When he was twen- ty-two years of age he entered the service of the Pierce Oil Corporation at Oklahoma City, and subsequently was a lease scout in the Oklahoma oil fields. In 1918 Mr. Peeples held
an executive position with the American Red Cross in France, being discharged from that service January 1, 1919. He immediately came to the Texas oil district, and for a short period operated with the firm of Thomas & Ludlow, and did some oil development of his own in the Desdemona field. From there he went to Sipe Springs, with the result already told.
Mr. Peeples has had his home at Fort Worth since the fall of 1920. He has disposed of most of his active oil interests at Sipe Springs, though he still owns valuable leases and acre- age there, and also has oil interests in the Burkburnett and other fields.
On October 11, 1911, Mr. Peeples married Miss Helen Ysleta Lace, of Burleson, Texas, daughter, of William P. and Catherine Lace, and they have one child, Homer, Jr. Mr. Peeples is a member of the Fort Worth Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Broadway Baptist Church of. Fort Worth.
JOEL JOSHUA MCCOOK. On leaving his work as an educator, which brought him not a small degree of reputation in his profession both in North and South Texas, Joel Joshua McCook turned his talents to practical busi- ness ; was formerly well known in automobile circles at Dallas, later as an oil man at Wichita Falls, was active vice president of First State Bank of Eliasville, and is now executive officer of Liberty Savings and Investment Corpora- tion of Dallas.
Mr. McCook was born at Natchitoches, Louisiana, in 1880, and in 1890, when he was nine years of age, his parents moved to Den- ton, Texas. He finished his education in the North Texas Normal College of Denton while it was under presidency of the noted educator, M. B. Terrill. Mr. McCook graduated in 1899. and subsequently took post graduate work, chiefly in mathematics, at the University of Chicago and also was a special student of eco- nomics at Harvard University. During the years he devoted to educational work. Mr. McCook had charge of the mathematics de- partment of the Denton High School and also was principal of the Corpus Christi High School. He was for three years county super- intendent of public instruction of Denton County.
Mr. McCook was for several years presi- dent of the J. J. McCook Motor Company of Dallas, a wholesale and jobbing firm. On leaving Dallas he spent nearly two years at Wichita Falls interested in the oil business,
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and in November, 1920. went to Eliasville where he acquired a substantial interest in the First State Bank of that place. Mr. McCook became vice president-cashier and executive officer of the bank which was the chief finan- cial institution for the oil and commercial interests centering at Eliasville.
In April Mr. McCook sold his interest in the Eliasville Bank to become secretary-treas- urer and general manager of the Liberty Sav- ings and Investment Corporation of Dallas, Texas, an organization composed of some of Texas' most prominent and successful busi- ness men, doing a co-operative savings and loan business. The Liberty Savings and Invest- ment Corporation operates in all sections of Texas and bids fair to be one of the largest financial institutions of the State.
Mr. McCook is a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason, being affiliated with the Dallas Consistory and Hella Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Dallas. He married Miss Ione Roberts, and they have a family of two children, Marion and Joel.
JOSEPH HARDY JONES, who in 1920 was selected county judge at law for Eastland County, has attained honors and substantial success in his profession very early in his career. He is a native of Eastland County, and a member of a substantial pioneer family of that part of the state.
Judge Jones was born in Gorman, Texas, in 1896, son of J. A. and Emma (Harrell) Jones. The father, a native of Georgia, was brought when a child to Texas, and for nearly forty years has lived at or in the vicinity of Gorman, in the southeastern section of East- land County. He was elected and served for several years as justice of the peace at Gorman, leaving the office to be succeeded by his son, Judge Jones, and later was again elected.
Joseph Hardy Jones acquired his early edu- cation in the public and high schools of Gor- man. For his professional preparation he attended the famous Lebanon Law School of Cumberland University of Tennessee. He was graduated with the class of 1917, and received two degrees, Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Oratory. He was one of the popular members of the student body and especially well known in oratorical and debating societies, and received a medal in oratory at the time of his graduation.
In the same year he began practice in his native town of Gorman, where he still has his legal residence. The firm of Jones & Cor-
mack has a large business, and Judge Jones is one of the most competent and scholarly attorneys of the county. In the July prima- ries of 1920 he received the Democratic no- mination for the office of county judge at law. He was elected in the following No- vember, beginning his official duties December 1, 1920. He is perhaps the youngest county judge in Texas, and is eminently well quali- fied for the responsibilities of the office.
Judge Jones married Miss Peggy Walker, of Terrell, Kaufman County, Texas.
MARSHALL SPOONTS. For more than forty years the name Spoonts has had all the most enviable associations of distinguished abilities in the legal profession. Marshall Spoonts is a son of the late Judge M. A. Spoonts, and has achieved eminence in his profession at Fort Worth both in general practice and as attorney for railroads and other corporations.
His father, Morris A. Spoonts, who died July 27, 1912, was born in Bell County, Texas, in 1853, son of Joseph and Mary (Vanderbilt) Spoonts. The father of Joseph Spoonts was exiled from Germany in the Napoleonic era and settled at Leesburg, Vir- ginia. He was an architect and builder, and constructed the portion of the capitol at Washington occupied by the Supreme Court. Joseph Spoonts was born in Virginia in 1803, and his wife, Mary Vanderbilt, was born in New York City in 1812, being a niece of Commodore Vanderbilt, while her father was a captain in the navy during the War of 1812. Joseph Spoonts moved to Texas in 1852 and followed the milling business in Bell County, where he died in 1870. Morris Spoonts was educated in Bell County, began the study of law at Belton, and was admitted to the bar there in 1878. He soon moved to the western frontier of Texas, establishing a home at Buf- falo Gap in Taylor County, and in 1881 moved to the county seat town of Abilene. He began the practice of law in West Texas before the construction of the Texas & Pacific Railroad. He served as special judge of the District Court, and the reputation of a very able law- yer followed him when he removed to Fort Worth in 1889. In 1890 he was appointed general attorney for the Fort Worth and Den- ver City Railroad, and subsequently became attorney for other railroads centering at Fort Worth, his last years being entirely devoted to corporation practice. Judge Spoonts was known all over Texas not merely for his suc- cess as a lawyer but for his breadth of mind
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