USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 60
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Fighting the battle of life with typical American grit and exceptional courage, Jesse Lee Johnson typifies in his career that ideal spirit of determination which brushes aside obstacles and handicaps and enables one, through unaided effort and self-developed capacities, to achieve honorable success har- moniously blended with completeness of moral attribute and unblemished reputation.
Mr. Johnson is a native Texan and a de- scendant of a family whose active connection with the history of the state leads back to the pioneer days, for it was in 1836 that his grand- father, Hiram Johnson, brought his family from Illinois and settled in what is now Washington County. The country was at that time an almost trackless, unbroken, wilderness, and this little family became numbered among those fearless pioneers who willingly faced the dangers and endured the privations of the time and locality, and whose humble homes stood as the outposts of advancing civilization upon the western frontier. Among the eight chil- dren of this pioneer couple was a son, Jesse Hale Johnson, who was, as a youth of eighteen years, just approaching manhood when he came with his parents from Illinois. He shared and had part in establishing the family in their adopted home and, in course of time, he met and married Lucinda Woodyard, who had also come with her parents, from Virginia, in 1836, and whose family was, therefore, also numbered among the pioneers. She was a lineal descendant of the old established Wood- yard family of Virginia.
Jesse Hale Johnson became widely known as a ranch owner and cattleman in Texas, and contributed in no small manner toward the development of the new country. During the greater part of his life he remained a resident
of Washington County, in which both he and his worthy wife eventually passed to their eternal rest. They reared a family of five sons and six daughters, of whom two sons and two daughters are now living.
Jesse Lee Johnson was born in Washington County, Texas, September 3, 1862. His boy- hood days were spent amidst the surroundings common to the youth of that locality, where the school of hard work and practical experi- ence, limited opportunity, as compared with the youth of today, was the common lot of all. His ambition, however, was unlimited and unrestrained by his early environment, and starting out for himself at the age of nineteen years he went to Sweetwater, where he first found employment as a sheep herder at a mod- est wage, the while he was ever watchful of an opportunity for something better. To those who really seek opportunity the chance for betterment is seldom long denied, and soon, thereafter, he accepted a position as clerk in the general store conducted by Connell Brothers, and there began a personal friend- ship and business associations which still con- tinue, though each of the principals has long since removed from Sweetwater, and each has greatly extended the field of his business activity.
In 1885 Mr. Johnson, in partnership with his brother William D., established a general mer- chandising business in Pecos, and this they continued until 1893. In this last named year, in association with his two brothers, William D. and F. W., was established the cattle busi- ness of Johnson Brothers, and it was not long until their magnificent ranch of 15,000 acres, and known as the W ranch, became widely and favorably known, and Johnson Brothers acquired recognition among prominent ranch- ers and cattlemen and in the livestock markets of the country.
Since 1897 Mr. Johnson has made Fort Worth his residence and business headquar- ters, from which center he has conducted his various enterprises, and though his former ex- tensive livestock interests have been disposed of he still owns valuable ranch property near Midland, and keeps alive the old time interest in the activities and the traditions of the in- dustry.
In 1903 Mr. Johnson organized the Cicero Smith Lumber Company, of which he has from the first been president and general man- ager. This company has become one of the largest distributors of lumber in the southwest, maintaining twenty branches and retail yards
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in Texas and Oklahoma. He is also finan- cially interested as a shareholder in the First National Bank of Fort Worth, and is a mem- ber of its Board of Directors.
In 1890 Mr. Johnson married Mrs. Dora Allison, and their six children are: Jesse L., Jr., who is associated in business with his father; Floy, now Mrs. E. L. North, Mrs. Ed P. Byars and Mrs. J. Loyd Parke, all of Fort Worth; Mary Louise and Katherine Francis.
Mr. Johnson is a member of the College Avenue Baptist Church, the River Crest Coun- try Club, the Fort Worth Club and the Mead- owmere Club. He has ever taken active in- terest in the welfare of the community and is liberal in his support of those movements tend- ing toward civic betterment.
F. P. HODGE for over eight years has been actively associated with some of the corpora- tions conspicuous in the Mid-Continent oil and gas field, and for several years past has been manager of the Frick-Reid Company, oil well supplies, at Ranger.
Mr. Hodge was born at Chatfield, Navarro County, Texas, in 1886, a son of R. L. and Mary Page (Pannill) Hodge. His grand- father was Captain Robert Hodge, a native of Kentucky, for a number of years a steamboat captain on the Ohio River, who came to Texas in the early fifties and settled in Navarro County. The Hodges were one of the pioneer families of that county, then well out on the frontier of North Texas. Captain Robert Hodge died in 1892. R. L. Hodge is still living in the same house in which he was born and reared at Chatfield. He and his wife have twelve living children, and as a family they are noted for strength and sturdiness both physically and mentally. Two brothers of F. P. Hodge are identified with the oil indus- try, one, H. P. Hodge, being manager of the land department for the Magnolia Company at Wichita Falls, and the other, O. S. Hodge, is in the oil well supply business at Brecken- ridge.
F. P. Hodge grew up at Chatfield, attended the local schools, also the John Tarlton Col- lege at Stephenville, and when he left home his first employment, continuing two or three years, was with Fortson Bros., a firm of ex- tensive merchants and bankers at Rice in Na- varro County. For about a year he also trav- eled as a salesman for Armour & Company. Mr. Hodge in September, 1912, entered the
service of the Magnolia Oil Company in the North Texas gas department at Wichita Falls. The company subsequently transferred him to Denton as manager of its gas depart- ment, where he remained about three years. His subsequent service was with the McMann Oil Company at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and he represented that corporation at Drumright, Oklahoma, until the latter part of 1916. The Frick-Reid Supply Company in 1917 em- ployed him at Eldorado, Kansas, but in June, 1918, he joined the magic oil city of Ranger as manager of the Ranger branch of the Frick-Reid Company. The headquarters of this corporation are at Pittsburg. It is one of the largest oil well supply houses in the country.
With a large business to look after Mr. Hodge has nevertheless found time to give some attention to civic affairs, and is an effec- tive worker in the Ranger Chamber of Com- merce. He is a member of the Masonic Order and the Woodmen of the World. He married Miss Allie Pearl Speed, of Corsi- cana. Their two children are Jean Elizabeth and Lucille.
E. A. LANDRETH. One of the most notably successful oil producing organizations in the Breckenridge field is the Landreth Company, named for its organizer and active head, a progressive young business man who has sup- plied the initiative and capital for much of Breckenridge's modern development.
For a long period of years the Landreth family have been prominent in the great min- ing districts of southwestern Missouri around Joplin. The father of E. A. Landreth was George W. Landreth, a native Virginian, who subsequently lived in Illinois, Kansas, Colo- rado and in 1889 settled in Jasper County, Missouri. He spent the greater part of his active career in connection with mining oper- ations. The oldest of his nine children is William H. Landreth, who for twenty years has been the active head of the Landreth Machinery Company of Joplin, a concern that specializes in mining machinery.
E. A. Landreth is one of five Landreth brothers, all successful young business men who have been more or less connected with the great mining industry of the Joplin dis- trict. The three other brothers are J. P. Landreth, of Chicago, E. L. Landreth, of Breckenridge, Texas; H. H. Landreth, of Joplin, treasurer of the Landreth Ma-
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chinery Company. E. A. Landreth, secretary of the Landreth Machinery Company, was born in Illinois in 1891, but lived in Joplin, Missouri, from infancy. He was reared and educated there and for several years has been actively identified with the Landreth Ma- chinery Company of Joplin. He was a resi- dent of Joplin during the World war and was a leader in all the campaigns for the sale of Liberty bonds, and chairman of the Speakers' Bureau during one campaign.
Mr. Landreth came to Breckenridge in March, 1919. As an oil producer he first operated south of town, and has been very successful from the beginning. The E. A. Landreth Company, which he organized, had in November, 1920, eight producing wells south of the city, and a half a dozen more drilling. Mr. Landreth has made a great deal of money for himself and his associates in the Breckenridge oil fields, and is an interesting example of a young man making good in the oil business.
One of his enterprises in particular has been of benefit to the entire Breckenridge district. This is the Landreth Water Com- pany, which he organized and of which he is president. It is a private corporation own- ing and operating a $100,000 plant at Walker- Caldwell Lake, two miles northeast of Breck- enridge, from which a water supply is carried through mains for all business and domestic purposes in the city of Breckenridge, and also furnishes the water supply to the oil companies and operators for drilling wells in the Breck- enridge district. Mr. Landreth is president of the Breckenridge Young Men's Christian Association and is a member and director of the Breckenridge Lions Club. .
MORRIS RAY NEWNHAM spent part of his boyhood in the village of Ranger and after achieving more than ordinary success as a business man elsewhere he returned to Ranger about a year after the beginning of the oil boom, and has been one of the most con- structive and public-spirited factors in the subsequent development of that marvelous city.
Mr. Newnham was born in Stephens County, Texas, May 19, 1887, a son of Lyman and Nannie (Ray) Newnham. His mother, now Mrs. Nannie Walker, is still living. She came to Stephens County about 1883, and at one time was a teacher in that county. Her maiden name was Ray. Lyman Newnham, a native of Illinois, was a California forty-
niner, but during the Civil war returned east and settled in Missouri. After the war he came to Texas, was a pioneer of Stephens County, and located in the rich agricultural region that has since been developed in the vicinity of Caddo. He acquired a large body of land, though his principal business was building and contracting. He erected many of the best homes around Caddo and throughout that section of Stephens County, carrying on this business in connection with general farm- ing and cattle raising. He died in 1890, when his son Morris Ray was only three years old.
The son grew up on a ranch until he was eleven years of age, when his mother removed to the village of Ranger. He attended the excellent school of the town and lived in this vicinity until he was about seventeen. Leav- ing home, he first went west to San Francisco and began his apprenticeship in the automo- bile business as a car washer. After a while he was back in Texas, attended school in Dallas, and was employed by an automobile company in that city for two years, first as bookkeeper, and was assistant manager when he left. He then went on the road as a trav- eling salesman for the Beckley-Ralston Com- pany of Chicago, the largest automobile sup- ply house in the world. His territory was Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. After trav- eling for them about three years, he was offered and accepted the Ford Motor Com- pany agency at Bryan, Texas. Six or eight months later the Ford Company gave him the territory of Beaumont and East Texas, and he was at Beaumont four and a half years. In the meantime he acquired a partnership interest in the agency for the Dodge cars at Sherman, Texas, and Shreveport, Louisiana, and he also organized the Gulf Motor Com- pany at Beaumont.
With the outset of the war against Ger- many, being of draft age, Mr. Newnham, in anticipation of going into the army, sold his business at Beaumont and his interests in the other agencies. In closing up these business transactions he was busy until 1918, and was at Dallas trying to get enlisted in the Motor Transport Corps when the armistice was signed in November.
In the meantime Mr. Newnham had spent some time in Stephens County and in Ranger looking after his individual interests and his mother's property. In the latter part of 1918 he came to Ranger and located permanently, establishing the Oil Belt Motor Company. He is president of the company which built the
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handsome and substantial structure which fur- nishes its home and also the business head- quarters of the Davenport Hardware Com- pany. Mr. Newnham is also interested in other automobile houses at Marshall, Texas, and Shreveport, Louisiana. He helped organ- ize the Texas Bank & Trust Company of Ranger, of which he is a director, is a director of the San Jacinto Life Insurance Company of Beaumont, and has invested liberally of his money and his best energies in the new city of Ranger, having supreme confidence in its solid growth and advancement.
Mr. Newnham is a member of the commis- sion government of Ranger in the cabinet of Mayor Hagaman. The mayor regards Mr. Newnham as one of his most valuable co- workers and gives him credit as one of his local citizens who had done most for the real advancement and prosperity of the city. He was associated with that small group of pub- lic-spirited citizens, including Mayor Haga- man, who personally financed the municipal improvements and the building of the public schools in Ranger, a measure made necessary by the fact that Ranger became a city within a few days after the oil boom in October, 1917, but had no incorporation and no author- ity to issue bonds and provide money for these improvements except through the generosity of individual citizens.
Mr. Newnham is a member of the Masonic Order and the Elks. He married Miss Lulu Arnim, daughter of C. W. Arnim of Hal- lettsville, and a prominent merchant of that place. They have one daughter, Nannie Katherine.
JOHN MARTIN BIRD. While his interests and activities are now quite thoroughly con- centrated upon his tool and machinery plant known as the Bird Manufacturing Company, Mr. Bird for many years pursued the routine of change of residence incidental to his em- ployment with many of the leading railroad lines in the West and South. He is a master mechanic both in practice and theory, and is one of the progressive business men of Fort Worth.
Mr. Bird was born at Sheridan, New York, April 6, 1864, a son of John and Josephine (Rahm) Bird. He is of German and Irish stock, though both his parents were born in Germany. They died in New York. John Martin was the seventh in a family of ten children. As a boy he had very few oppor- tunities. He was about twelve years of age,
after completing the seventh grade of school, when he began his apprenticeship with the Brooks Locomotive Works at Dunkirk, New York, and for seven years had a training that gave him practical knowledge of boiler mak- ing, locomotive and machine manufacture.
When he was nineteen years of age, being then a finished mechanic, he went to San Francisco, California, and was there four years working at his trade. He was employed in the Union Iron Works when that firm built the famous battleship Oregon. For one year he had charge of the Mineral Waterworks at Palo Alto Park on the Governor Stanford ranch. For two years he was in charge of the T. J. Loftis Brass Works at Sacramento. While working at his trade in San Francisco he also spent two years in engineering work at the University of California. On leaving California Mr. Bird went to Portland, Ore- gon, then to Victoria, British Columbia, back to San Francisco, and had a short experience at Panama and then at Buenos Aires. Com- ing back, he landed at Vera Cruz, Mexico, went on to Mexico City, and did work at vari- ous interior points in Mexico. In 1882 Mr. Bird reached Galveston, his first visit to Texas, and for a time was employed by the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad as a machinist. For about two years 1889-90 he had charge of the Iron Mountain Railroad Shops at Little Rock, Arkansas.
In the course of these varied experiences Mr. Bird married at St. louis, Sarah McFar- lin, whose father, Robert McFarlin, was one of the builders of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Mrs. Bird was born at Brownsville, Tennessee. She died in Fort Worth, March 11, 1921. After leaving Little Rock Mr. Bird went to Corpus Christi, Texas, and was gen- eral foreman of the National Mexican Rail- road, then a narrow gauge line. He was next at El Paso as an air inspector for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and in western Texas, at Big Springs, he was a tool maker in the shops of the Texas & Pacific.
Mr. Bird first located at Fort Worth in connection with the machinery department of the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railroad, and after a few years went with the Fort Worth and Denver City. In the meantime he estab- lished his machinery manufacturing business and had several partners, but is now sole own- er of the Bird Manufacturing Company, one of the prosperous institutions of this city. In this connection it is interesting to note that Mr. Bird is the pioneer in his particular field
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of activity. He made the first brass castings manufactured in Fort Worth, and at a time when all such merchandise was being shipped in from the North and the East. His long and varied experience had enabled him to acquire a vast fund of practical knowledge, to which was added a thorough knowledge of the tech- nical features of the business which had been acquired through careful study and research, both in the laboratory and the work room. He established and was connected with a number of plants which are still in active operation in Fort Worth, and which have added mate- rially to the city's welfare as a manufacturing center. Since the establishment of his present enterprise, however, he has devoted his exclu- sive attention to its progress and development, and the Bird Manufacturing Company is now recognized as one of the representative man- ufacturing industries of the city, while the products of this institution have, from the very first, ranked as second to none in the indus- trial world.
Mr. Bird has been successful in his business career, but undoubtedly he takes more pride in the fine family that has grown up in his home than in his individual achievements. There were ten children, all of whom have grown up at Fort Worth and have been well edu- cated, most of them college graduates. They are: Horatio, who married Della Glass ; As- sunta, now deceased ; Dwight, Russell, Cecelia, Sarah, John M., Jr., Francis, Nina and Dor- othy. Mr. Bird and family are Catholics, and are active in the religious and social life of the city.
JOHN I. CHESLEY. The modern age is rich with the achievements of young men, and the big developments in north and west Texas today are usually inspired by youth and enter- prise. An interesting example of this is the career of John I. Chesley of Breckenridge.
Mr. Chesley was born on the Chesley ranch in the southwest part of Stephens County in 1892. His father is John E. Chesley of Cisco, who began ranching in Stephens County in 1884 and until recently was one of the leading Hereford cattle raisers in the county. The story of this prominent rancher and cattle man is told on other pages of this publication.
John I. Chesley grew up on his father's ranch and made the best of his opportunities in local schools. His early tendencies were strongly in the direction of business and com- merce, and his business faculties were recog- nized when he was a mere youth. He was only
twenty-two when he was elected a county commissioner of Stephens County, having the distinction of being the youngest county com- missioner in the state. During his second term in this office he resigned, and in 1918 became identified with the Guaranty State Bank of Breckenridge, of which he was cashier. He has taken a leading part in the development of the great oil industry in and around Breckenridge and has organized some of the most successful oil companies in that region. Breckenridge has become a real city within two or three years, and the name of John I. Chesley is intimately associated with practically every important movement con- tributing to this result. He is a member and steward of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mrs. Chesley married Miss Annie L. Clement, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Cle- ment, of Baird, Texas. Their three children are Pauline, Elwood H. and Edgar Lee.
W. JONAH DONOVAN has been a resident of Texas over forty years, and since boyhood his activities have been identified with Cisco, where he has made his business success and for a number of years past has been known as a very energetic member of the city govern- ment whose jurisdiction extends over the water supply.
Mr. Donovan was born in McNair County, Tennessee, in 1870, a son of John and Emily (Murphy) Donovan, now deceased. John Donovan was a native of Ireland, was brought to America in infancy, and for many years was in the railroad service, for several years being identified with the construction depart- ment of the Texas & Pacific Railway.
W. Jonah Donovan was nine years of age when his parents moved to Texas in 1879. They lived in Dallas County, where he secured most of his early education. Mr. Donovan moved to Cisco in 1886, and has been a mem- ber of that community practically from pio- neer times. For many years he has been successfully engaged in the transfer and dray- age business, and has an organization capable of taking care of a large part of the service for the business and industrial interests of the city. He operates a White and a Republic truck.
Under the commission form of government he has been a city commissioner since April, 1916. He was re-elected in April, 1918, and April, 1920. As water commissioner he has earned the gratitude of the community for the energetic way in which he has maintained
E. C. Watters M.L.
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the best service under the present facilities of Commerce and actively identified with civic and has planned for the enlargement of such affairs. facilities, involving the construction of a lake and reservoir, the completion of which in 1922 will insure the city adequate pure water sup- ply for probably all future needs.
Mr. Donovan married Miss Belle Wallace, a native of Texas. They have one son, Vivian Donovan.
GEORGE WINSTON at the age of ten years came to that section of western Texas known as Stephens County, and for upwards of thirty-five years has played the part of an industrious, hard-working, substantial and effective citizen. For twenty years his home has been in Cisco, where he is a merchant, property owner, and one of the most loyal of the progressive element in the city.
Mr. Winston was born in Weakley County, Tennessee, in 1874. He was a child when his father died. His mother, whose maiden name was Martha Ward, subsequently became the wife of G. W. Keathley. In 1884 the fam- ily came to Texas, locating at Breckenridge in Stephens County, where Mr. Keathley was identified with the cattle business for a num- ber of years. Later he removed to Cisco.
George Winston completed his education after coming to Texas, but his best training has been through practical contact with men and affairs. The greater part of his life has been spent as a merchant, and in 1901 he established his business at Cisco, and it was a flourishing trade enterprise long before Cisco acquired its wealth and prosperity as an oil town. Mr. Winston built the Winston Build- ing on Main Street and for many years that was the home of his mercantile enterprise. In 1920 he established his two sons, Claud and Lloyd Winston, in the retail grocery and meat business in a new building on Broadway, and these young men, under the firm name of Winston Brothers, are demonstrating the pos- session of the same energy and business ini- tiative that characterize their father.
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