USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 65
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and methods of continuing his work and not allowing oil men and their operations to inter- fere.
His farm being located in one of the richest agricultural regions of Texas, it is to the interest of the entire state that none of this area should be withdrawn from agricultural production. Mr. Douglas has twelve hundred acres in his farm, and without the value added by oil it is one of the best equipped and finest farms in Northern Texas. Mr. Douglas has the faith and optimism of a real farmer, and in spite of discouragingly low prices he put in about four hundred acres of his land to small grains during the season of 1921, handling his crops with the aid of his sons. He is a modern twentieth century farmer, making use of the tractor, and has a large investment in other modern farm machinery. Stock growers in general know the Douglas farm because of its herds of pure bred Whiteface and Durham cattle. The herd is headed by a registered bull, and Mr. Douglas is one of the leading breeders in his section.
Mr. Douglas was born in Warren County, Tennessee, near McMinnville, November 27, 1864, a son of Matthew and Amanda (Eng- land) Douglas. His father was of Scotch ancestry, and the Douglas family has been in America since Colonial times. Matthew Douglas spent all his life in Tennessee, was a farmer, and his wife, Amanda England, was the daughter of Richard England, of a pioneer family of middle Tennessee. Levander P. Douglas was the only child of his parents. His mother later became the wife of John M. Rust, and she died January 21, 1916, at the age of seventy-one.
Levander Douglas acquired a public school education, also attended a normal college in Tennessee, and his early experiences in that state well fitted him for the life of an agricul- turist. In 1890 he and his mother came to Texas and located in the present Electra dis- trict of Wichita County. His mother lived with him for several years, until returning to Tennessee. Mr. Douglas has therefore been a member of the Electra community for over thirty years, and was a well-to-do and highly respected farmer and citizen long before the first important development of oil in Electra. The first drilling was done on his land in 1912, and there have been producing wells on the farm ever since.
Mr. Douglas has his home close to the cor- porate limits of the city of Electra. He has therefore shared both in the activities of the
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Ray Nixon
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town and in his country community. He was one of the original stockholders of the Farmers Elevator Company, has served as a member of the Electra School Board, is a charter member of Electra Camp, Woodmen of the World, and is a democrat in politics.
On October 17, 1895, Mr. Douglas married Miss Minnie Lee Meadows, also a native of Warren County, Tennessee, daughter of William Morris and Sarah Jane (Moffett) Meadows. Mrs. Douglas was born February 14, 1867, and was liberally educated, attend- ing Irving and Burris colleges in Tennessee. She began teaching at the age of twenty, and for a time she taught school in Milan County, Texas. Besides discharging her responsibili- ties as mother of an interesting family Mrs. Douglas has continued her studious interests and is a well known and accepted authority on local history in this section of Texas. Vari- ous articles written by her are conspicuous for their accuracy and attention to essential de- tails. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas are members of the Christian Church. Their six children are named Gordon Meadows, Wendel Lee, Juanita, Lorena, Virginia Amanda and Arden Ray.
CLARENCE E. McDANNALD, the present mayor of Electra, has been a merchant almost from the beginning of the town and has placed his enterprise and resources squarely behind every successive stage of advancement and prosperity, working and co-operating with other public-spirited citizens and enjoying to no small degree the credit for the results which make Electra today one of the greatest small cities of the southwest.
Mr. McDannald was born at Martinsburg, Missouri, in 1881, son of J. T. and Jessie (Cockrell) McDannald. He was reared and educated in his native community, living there to the age of twenty, when he sought a new outlook and a new field for his life in the southwest.
On coming to Texas in 1901 Mr. McDan- nald located at Wichita Falls and had some ex- perience and training in one of the mercan- tile enterprises of that city. Then, in 1907, he moved to Kell, Oklahoma, where he engaged in the lumber business. He moved to Electra in 1910 and entered the hardware firm which his brother established. He has remained in that line of enterprise continuously and has developed and owns a business of far-reaching proportions. As a local business man he made
it a point to broaden and expand his commer- cial service for the benefit of the individuals and the capital that came to Electra with the beginning of the great oil boom in 1911. His business then and since has done a large part in equipping the oil industry with its necessary tools and appliances.
Mr. McDannald early in 1919 was ap- pointed mayor of Electra. He was regularly elected to that office in April of the same year, and has shown conspicuous ability and good business judgment in handling the affairs of the municipality. He is also a mem- ber of the Chamber of Commerce and other organizations. Mr. McDannald married Miss Bessie Hooks, a native of Texas. Their two children are Virginia and James Thomas.
RAY NIXON, president of the Schermerhorn Company, owners of the "Fair" store of Fort Worth, is one of the solid and reliable business men and enterprising merchants of this part of Texas, whose remarkable achievements in the mercantile field entitle him to a foremost place among the men of his generation who have become worthwhile citizens. Mr. Nixon was born in Bell County, Texas, September 11, 1876, a son of Frank and Sarah Nixon. He was reared and educated at Fort Worth, and then went on a farm in the vicinity of the city, and until 1899 devoted himself to agricul- tural activities.
The life of a farmer, however, did not con- tent him, and in 1899 he returned to Fort Worth and entered the employ of the Scher- merhorn Company as a clerk. So able did he prove to be that he was advanced until he became manager. In 1910 the business was re-organized as the Schermerhorn Company, of which Mr. Nixon was made vice president, and in 1920 he bought out his partner and organized the Schermerhorn Company with a capital stock of $350,000, with himself as pres- ident. He has made the business a profit- sharing concern with his employes, and since doing so the volume of business has increased fifty percent. Having proved his contention that the modern merchant should make those working for him sharers in the business if he wishes to succeed, Mr. Nixon is very enthu- siastic with reference to co-operative employ- ment, and his experiments are being watched with interest by his competitors. Mr. Nixon is one of the stockholders and directors of the Continental Bank & Trust Company, and he has other interests, for he is a man who be- lieves in encouraging local enterprises.
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In 1911 Mr. Nixon was united in marriage with Catherine Pease, the daughter of W. C. Pease, of Chicago, Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Nixon have one daughter, Nancy. Mr. Nixon belongs to the Fort Worth Club, the River Crest Country Club, the Rotary Club and the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.
Men like Mr. Nixon are setting a pace in labor circles. He believes that his plan will, if conscientiously carried out by both sides, go far toward solving the problems which con- front all extensive employers of labor. By giving his people a share in the profits he awakens their interest and makes it worth their while to exert themselves as nothing else would. Having worked at a small wage him- self, he can enter into the feelings of the man who is employed, and at the same time, as an employer of many, he knows how things stand from the other viewpoint, and thus feels that he is able to judge impartially. As before stated, his enterprise is attracting much atten- tion, and if it continues to be successful no doubt his example will be followed by others, for there is nothing more true than that "suc- cess breeds imitators."
WILLIAM J. OCHILTREE is treasurer of the Thurber Earthen Products Company, one of the most important in an affiliated group of corporations that make Thurber one of the most important towns in West Texas for its products.
This company has at Tiffin, on the main line of the Texas & Pacific Railway Company, in Eastland County, the largest and best equipped plant of its kind in the southwest, utilizing the inexhaustible resources found in that locality of limestone. This limestone by analysis and practical tests has met the most exacting conditions for use in concrete work, in the construction of roads and street paving, also general building work. The plant, with its modern machinery and equipment, has a rated capacity of 1,200 tons per shift, and in rush seasons the plant can be worked two shifts per day. The crushing and screening facilities permit of the production of lime- stone in every form in which it is commer- cially demanded, whether in prepared sizes or as sand and the crushed and powdered forms required when limestone is used for fertilizer. "Liming the soil" is a feature of modern agri- cultural practice that is reaching increased ap- preciation and application, and the use of limestone for agricultural purposes in regions
accessible to Thurber is bringing increasing revenues to the company every year.
Mr. Ochiltree is a native of Yonkers, New York, was reared and educated at Brooklyn, and prior to coming to Texas his business career was in the financial district of New York. His first employment as a boy was in the New York Produce Exchange at No. 10 Broadway. Later he was with the financial firm of Blair & Company, continuing with them until September, 1919, when he came to Thurber as assistant treasurer of the Texas Pacific Coal & Oil Company, assistant treasurer of the Texas Pacific Mercantile Manufacturing Company, treasurer of the Thurber Brick Company and treasurer of the Thurber Earthen Products Company. Some idea of the importance of this latter company may be gained from the fact that its monthly payroll is about $7,500.
IRA D. BROWN is one of Wichita Falls' lead- ing young business men and citizens, and has the distinction, rare among local citizens, of being a native son of the city.
He was born at Wichita Falls in 1887, at a date when Wichita Falls had scarcely any dis- tinction among the small towns of Northern Texas. His parents, both now deceased, were Joseph A. and Fannie (McCormick) Brown. His father came to Wichita Falls at a very early date, when the town was little more than a supply point for cattlemen and ranch- ers. Later for a number of years he was a city official. Fannie McCormick was born in Virginia and was of the branch of Virginia McCormicks which produced the McCormick family long associated with the invention and manufacture of harvesting machinery.
Ira D. Brown grew up at Wichita Falls, attended the grammar and high schools, and has been a worker since boyhood. His busi- ness experience has been on broad lines, and in the course of his career he has been identi- fied with some of the leading interests of Wichita Falls. At one time he worked in the broom factory when T. B. Noble was presi- dent of the company. Subsequently he was in the railroad service with the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway. In 1917 he en- gaged in the confectionery business at Wichita Falls, but subsequently disposed of his inter- ests in that line and for a time was associ- ated with the railroad and other industrial affairs of Frank Kell, the prominent capital- ist. In May, 1920, Mr. Brown re-entered the
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retail confectionery business, and has been conducting a fine modern establishment at 822 Scott Street. This does not represent all his business enthusiasm and civic spirit, since he is associated with all the progressive young business men who have been largely respon- sible for the great things achieved during the past dozen years at Wichita Falls.
Mr. Brown is a member and has the honor of being secretary of the Wichita Falls Rotary Club. This organization has concentrated much of the finer public spirit of the city. Both collectively and through the individual action of its members and resources it has supported every movement for the benefit of the city, but in. particular has looked after the welfare and the continuance of the public schools as an efficient part of civic institutions. The people of Wichita Falls have naturally come to look to the Rotary Club for leadership and action.
Mr. Brown is also a member of the Cham- ber of Commerce, the Open Shop Association and the Knights of Pythias. He married Miss Minnie Gray, of Dalla's, and they have one son, Ira D. Brown, Jr.
JOHN BERNARD OWENS, whose experience as a practical man in the mid-continent oil and gas field covers many years, has been general manager of the gas company supply- ing natural gas to the city of Ranger for the past two years. Considering the tremendous and unprecedented growth of the city, his post was one of great responsibility and in- volved the working out of many complicated and technical details in trying to keep the facil- ities of distribution apace with the demands.
Mr. Owens was born in Wilson County, Kansas, in 1888. His parents, ' Hugh and Sarah (Crane) Owens, were both born in Ire- land and are now living in Kansas City. His father came to America at the age of twenty- one, and for many years was engaged in farming in Wilson County, Kansas. Sarah Crane came to this country when a child, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Michael J. Crane, settling near Aurora, Illinois. Michael J. Crane lived to the age of a 104, and up to about a year before his death possessed all his mental and physical faculties. Both the Crane and Owens families were early settlers in Wilson County, Kansas, not far from Cha- nute, which is across the line in Neosho County.
John Bernard Owens grew up on the Kan- sas farm and attended country schools and the Kansas State Normal at Emporia. For several years he was actively identified with school work, teaching in Wilson County, and for six years was a teacher at Fort Steele, Wyoming.
On leaving school work to enter the oil and gas industry he chose the method of appren- ticeship which would give him a knowledge of every practical detail. He started as an em- ploye of one of the pipe line companies in Southeastern Kansas. Later in Oklahoma he had charge of the field work of the Boynton Oil & Gas Company, whose headquarters were at Muskogee. His own home was at Boynton. He also had charge of the distrib- uting plant for the natural gas supply of the Boynton Gas and Electric Company, a sub- sidiary of the first named corporation. The parent company also carried on drilling en- terprises and had considerable production.
Mr. Owens came to Ranger in the fall of 1918 to take charge of the natural gas wells and distributing plant of the Sammies Oil Corporation, which then supplied natural gas to the city of Ranger. He is vice president and general manager of the company, which has recently been reorganized as the Ranger Gas Company, Inc., with headquarters at Ranger, Texas. Ex-Senator A. P. Barrett, of Fort Worth, is president of this company.
In this business is found again an illustra- tion of the rapid growth of Ranger. The com- pany first installed a distributing plant which within a month or so proved completely in- adequate, owing to the excessive demands upon its facilities. Then was built a second plant, this anticipating the needs of a commu- nity of twice as large a population as Ranger is at present. Besides the large amount of money invested and the necessity of perfect- ing a business organization there were also great problems involved in the physical im- provements alone, requiring the putting down of a great system of mains, the work being carried on to a large extent in mud, and in the fall of 1920 the company had forty miles of distributing mains and with service con- nections to practically every street in the city. The Ranger Gas Company, Inc., now has some fifteen miles of line in its field distributing system at South Bend, and is at this time. in the fall, 1921, building a six-inch high-pressure gas line to the city of Graham, Texas, and in- stalling a distributing plant in that city.
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The company is also distributing gas in the towns of lvan and Eliasville in the oil fields.
Besides handling the affairs of his com- pany Mr. Owens has taken a public-spirited part in all civic matters affecting Ranger. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and on the finance committee of that body, and is a Catholic and a member of the Knights of Columbus. While at Rawlins, Wyoming, he married Miss Hazel Rider, of that state. Since moving to Ranger Mr. Owens had the mis- fortune to lose his wife by death. Their three children are Mary Evelyn, Marguerite and Sarah Jane.
JOHN Z. KEEL. The business and civic com- munity of Gainesville recognize in John Z. Keel one of its oldest and most honored fac- tors. He came to Cooke County, Texas, over forty years ago, was for a time one of the capable educators in this vicinity, but for a third of a century has devoted his business energies to the grain and elevator business, and is one of the most widely experienced men in the grain trade in the state. He is also a former mayor of Gainesville, and the city has long regarded him as one of its most influ- ential men.
Mr. Keel represents an old Kentucky fam- ily, and was born in a rural district near Bowl- ing Green, Warren County, Kentucky, Janu- ary 23, 1853. His grandfather, John Keel, was of a pioneer family in that section of Kentucky, and spent his active life as a farmer in Warren County. He is buried near Bowl- ing Green. John Keel's wife was a daughter of William Gossom, who came out of Vir- ginia and was one of the first settlers in War- ren County, and subsequently became one of the largest planters and slave holders in that. section of the state.
William E. Keel, father of the Gainesville business man, was also born near Bowling Green, Kentucky. He married Miss Sallie Taylor. Her father, Rev. Zachary Taylor, was of an Alabama family and spent his life as an itinerant Methodist minister. William E. Keel and wife had eleven children, John Z. being the oldest. Three of them died in in- fancy and only three are now living, the other two being Thomas B., of Gainesville, and M. W .. of Valley View, Texas. William E. Keel died at the age of seventy-two, and his widow survived to the age of eighty.
John Z. Keel acquired his early education in Kentucky. When he was fifteen his parents
moved to Pike County, Missouri, and he canie to manhood near Bowling Green in that county. He finished his education in one of the most superior schools of its class in the west, the Pritchet Institute at Glasgow, Missouri. He taught in Missouri and soon after his mar- riage came to Texas, in 1877 and for ten years was actively identified with the educational interests of the town and city of Gainesville.
On leaving his school work he entered the wholesale and retail grain business, in which line he has continued now for thirty-three years. He was first a member of the firm of Patrick & Keel, and after the death of Mr. Patrick the firm became Keel & Son, and that is the title of the business today. Mr. Keel is considered an authority on the grain busi- ness in his section of the state, and his wide acquaintance with other grain dealers was re- sponsible for his election to the presidency of the Texas Grain Dealers Association. He held that post of honor for four years. Besides the large Keel grain elevator on the Santa Fe tracks at Gainesville the firm has several ele- vators in Oklahoma.
While a business man, Mr. Keel has not failed to respond when his business experience and judgment were required in community af- fairs. He was several times elected an alder- man, serving several terms in that office, and in April, 1916, was chosen mayor of Gaines- ville, serving four years and holding that office during the important period of the World war. His administration was marked by much pro- gressive improvement in the city, including the construction at a cost of $40,000 of the Fifth Ward School and the beginning of an ade- 'quate system of street paving. At the close of his term four miles of tarvia pavement had been completed and several additional miles were under contract. While he was mayor a splendid fire station was built, at a cost of about $20,000. Mr. Keel was the successor of Mayor John Puckett.
His first presidential vote was cast for Samuel J. Tilden, the "Sage of Grammercy Park," and he has never failed to participate in a presidential campaign as a voter since that year. He has attended several state con- ventions, the most notable having been that held in Galveston when the question of im- perialism arising from the acquisition of the Philippine Islands was an important issue. Mr. Keel is a warm personal admirer of Sen- ator Bailey, and was a speaker in several cam- paigns of this notable statesman when he was a candidate for the House or United States
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Senate. Mr. Keel was reared in the faith of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has served the congregation at Gainesville as stew- ard and superintendent of the Sunday School.
At Paris, Missouri, October 2, 1877, Mr. Keel married Miss Mollie E. Patrick, daughter of Eli and Rachel (Combs) Patrick. After nearly forty years as wife, mother and home maker Mrs. Keel passed away January 31, 1916. Her children were Leslie, Virgil, Bon- ner and Walter, all now deceased except Vir- gil, a partner in the grain firm of Keel & Son. Bonner was a lieutenant in the army when he was stricken with the influenza in 1918, and Leslie also died during the same epidemic, as did his wife, both being buried in the same grave. The daughter of Leslie, Mary Ellen, now lives in the home of her Uncle Virgil. For his second marriage Mr. Keel again went back to Paris, Missouri, where on December 30, 1917, he married Miss Mamie Combs. She is a first cousin of his first wife. Both were granddaughters of Fielding Combs, a brother of General Leslie Combs, for many years a distinguished Kentucky lawyer at Lexington, where the Combs family lived for many years.
While Mr. Keel is rapidly attaining the psalmist span of three score and ten, he is still very active in the grain business, and takes an active part in promoting the welfare of the city, county and state.
STANLEY McGREGOR. A conspicuous in- stance among the successful oil operators in Wichita County is that of Stanley McGregor, one of the youngest men in the business, only twenty-four, and yet has to his credit a series of operations that have brought ample for- tune both to himself and his associates.
Mr. McGregor was born at Antonito, Colo- rado, in 1897, and is of Scotch ancestry. He was reared and educated in his native state, and in March, 1917, before he was twenty, came to Wichita Falls and took up drilling and oil prospecting in the Sunshine field of Wichita County. The bringing in of the Fowler well at Burkburnett in July, 1918, was the signal for the beginning of the great oil boom in Wichita County. Mr. McGregor im- mediately transferred his operations to the Burkburnett field. He organized the Big Chief Oil Company, financed it, and after paying an enormous price for a lease on two and a half acres east of Burkburnett, on the Van Cleave tract, drilled and brought in a well with an initial production of 500 barrels per day. This company, capitalized at $65,000,
paid 300 per cent dividends to Mr. McGregor and his associates. The original McGregor well is still producing, at the rate of about seventy-five barrels per day.
That was his first important success, but many others have followed in the past two years. He continued operations in that im- mediate vicinity, and while he has experi- enced the vicissitudes of the oil game, result- ing in the bringing in of a number of dry holes, his career in the aggregate has been remarkably successful and profitable ·both to himself and those associated with him. He has never had any trouble in financing his oil enterprises. During the fall of 1920 his operations were chiefly in the George tract in the Burkburnett field and the Lillis Morgan tract.
Mr. McGregor has promoted and organized several successful stock companies in Wichita County. He is in the general drilling busi- ness, and is an independent driller and inde- pendent producer.
MAJ. EDWARD L. FULTON began the prac- tice of law at Wichita Falls in 1912, and the only important interruption to his work as a successful attorney came during nearly the two years when in the army as an artillery officer.
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