USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 66
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Major Fulton was born at Ladonia, Fan- nin County, Texas, in 1889, a son of Dr. S. H. and Lona (Payne) Fulton of Ladonia. He represents one of the oldest families of North- east Texas. His grandfather, Samuel M. Fulton, who was born in Virginia in 1800, was a son of a shipbuilder. He came west to Arkansas about 1818, and the town of Ful- ton was named in his honor in Arkansas, and he was identified with some of the pioneer trappers and explorers down to the Red River country. In 1823 he came to Texas, then a Mexican province, and later joined the army under Houston fighting for Texas indepen- dence. At one time he owned an estate of over 30,000 acres, and was one of the largest taxpayers in Lamar County. Dr. S. H. Ful- ton was born at Paris, Texas, in 1852, and as a young man following the close of the Civil war spent several years as a cowboy driving stock over the trails leading out of West Texas to the north. Subsequently he returned to East Texas, lived on a farm, studied medi- cine, and in 1892 located at Ladonia, where he built up a large private clientage and also became extensively interested in farming in
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that locality. Lona Payne, mother of Major Fulton, was also of a pioneer Texas family.
Edward L. Fulton graduated from the public schools of Ladonia, completed his work in 1908 in Austin College at Sherman, and studied law in the University of Texas. He received his LL.B. degree in 1911, and in February of the following year began practice at Wichita Falls. He served as assistant county attorney, and made rapid advancement to the substantial rewards of his profession.
In the spring of 1917 he shut up his office and entered the Officers Training Camp at Leon Springs, Texas. He was commissioned captain and assigned to the Three Hundred and Forty-fifth Artillery in the Ninetieth Division. He remained on duty at Camp Travis, San Antonio, until February, 1918, and then entered the School of Fire at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he finished his inten- sive training in May, 1918. From that date until July, 1918, he was at Camp Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina, and was then trans- ferred to Camp Taylor at Louisville as an instructor of artillery. He was promoted in October, 1918, to the rank of major, and re- mained with the army until his honorable discharge January 21, 1919. .
Major Fulton resumed professional work at Wichita Falls in February, 1919. He has a large general practice, requiring his presence in all the various State and Federal courts, and is one of the very talented members of the Wichita Falls bar. He is active in the Cham- ber of Commerce and is affiliated with the Elks and the Odd Fellows. Major Fulton married Miss Una Colquitt, of Little Rock, Arkansas.
CAPT. AUSTIN F. ANDERSON had just qualified for his profession as a lawyer when the war with Germany began, and he was in training, on duty in home camps and abroad for more than two years. After leav- ing the army he began practice at Eastland and shared in the work of one of the most prominent law firms of that city.
Captain Anderson was born at Granger in Williamson County, Texas, in 1889, a son of Dr. J. C. and Ara (Jennings) Anderson. His mother's family was established in Caldwell County, Texas, early in 1851. His maternal grandfather was William Jennings, of that county. Dr. J. C. Anderson was born in Arkansas and for a number of years practiced his profession at Granger and from there re-
moved to Plainview, where he is one of the highly regarded physicians and surgeons.
Austin F. Anderson was graduated from the Granger High School in 1904 and con- tinued the work of the Peacock Military Academy at San Antonio in 1905, acquiring while there some knowledge of military tac- tics that proved of value to him more than ten years later when he entered the army for actual war service. Captain Anderson was graduated from Trinity University at Waxa- hachie in 1911 and studied law at the Uni- versity of Texas. He began practice at Plain- view in 1914, and in 1917 removed to Ralls in Crosby County. He had barely made a beginning of his professional endeavors in that section when the war with Germany began.
Captain Anderson entered the First Officers Training School at Camp Stanley at Leon Springs, was commissioned a captain and his first assignment of duty was at Camp Travis, San Antonio, with the 343rd Regiment of the 90th Division. He was given intensive train- ing in the school of fire at Fort Sill for three months, completed his course in artillery, and in June, 1918, went overseas with a contingent of the 90th Division. Mr. Anderson was in France from the closing weeks of the war until late in the spring of 1919. He received his honorable discharge from the service at Camp Bowie July 7, 1919, more than two years from the time he entered the Officers Training School.
Captain Anderson located at Eastland in August, 1919, and is now a member of the firm Burkett, Anderson & Orr, one of the leading law firms of central west Texas. The firm handles a general practice and many large and important interests.
Captain Anderson is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the Episcopal church. He married Miss Kathryn Powell, of Terry County. Mrs. Anderson is related to the Powell, Scott and other prom- inent families of Harrison County in east Texas. They have one son, Austin F. Ander- son, Jr.
ROBERT W. ALFORD. Among the active bus- iness men of Fort Worth, Robert W. Alford is one of the few who were born in Fort Worth when it was a frontier country town without a railroad within a hundred miles. His father was one of the old and prominent settlers of Fort Worth and northern Texas, and Mr. Alford himself grew up in the city
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and for many years has been identified with the industry of ice manufacture.
Mr. Alford, who is president of the Alford Ice Company, Incorporated, was born Septem- ber 14, 1871, a son of James P. and Minerva (Maulding) Alford. His father was born either in Tennessee or Georgia and his mother was a native of Tennessee. James P. Alford settled in Fort Worth a few years after the military post was established there. He was a surveyor by profession and ran some of the pioneer land lines in northern Texas, and was also a dealer in lands. While at Fort Worth he was elected a member of the Legislature, and he journeyed to Austin on horseback in the absence of any other means of communi- cating with the capital. He lived to the age of eighty-four. He was a very devoted Chris- tian, active in the Methodist Episcopal Church and one of its early members at Fort Worth. The mother lived to the age of seventy-nine. Their family consisted of six daughters and four sons, nine of whom reached mature years and six of whom are living.
Next to the youngest, Robert W. Alford was reared and educated in Fort Worth. As a boy he worked as a messenger in the West- ern Union office, also as an employe of the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway, and concluded his education with a course in the Pruitt Business College, the first institution of the kind in Fort Worth, established by F. P. Pruitt. Mr. Alford has been in the artificial ice business since 1900. He organized a com- pany for the manufacture of ice, and in 1912 this company built the Alford Ice Plant, the first of its kind in Fort Worth to employ elec- trical equipment. The business is one that em- ploys about twenty-five people, and it supplies a large part of the ice consumed in Fort Worth and neighboring towns.
Mr. Alford is a member of the Kiwanis Club, the Knights of Pythias and the Elks. He married in 1892 Mary Castle, of Smith County, Texas. They have three daughters, Cecilia, Catherine and Roberta.
HENRY VAN GEEM. The town of Eastland was laid out and established in 1875. The following year, centennial year, a newcomer in the community was Henry Van Geem. Mr. Van Geem has lived there ever since and is one of Eastland's oldest and most honored citizens. He has enacted a sustaining role. in citizenship through all these years, and for fourteen years has been connected with East- land's postoffice and is now in his second term
as postmaster. The patrons of the city postal system have bestowed unstinted praise on the efficiency and splendid service Mr. Van Geem has developed in his capacity as postmaster.
He was born at Buffalo, New York, in 1853, and represents one of the old Holland Dutch families of that state. He acquired a common school education and as a boy showed a faculty for self-reliance, evidenced when he left home early in 1870, a youth of seventeen, and started out to see the world on his own account. He traveled by stages through Michigan, Indiana, central Illinois, and Missouri, and finally reached Harrison County in east Texas. He lived at Marshall for several years and while there worked at a mechanical trade. He continued his work as a general mechanic at Eastland for a number of years.
He became an employe of the local post- office in 1906, and for several years was assistant postmaster. Soon after the begin- ning of President Wilson's administration in 1913 he was appointed postmaster. The growth and expansion of Eastland beginning with the oil discoveries of 1917 increased the postal business to the extent that Eastland was made a second class office and on July 1, 1921, provision was made for it being raised to a first class office. In October, 1920, the postoffice was removed to a building specially constructed for that purpose on West Main Street, a substantial brick structure 40 by 90 feet and containing 3,600 square feet of space. Modern equipment and facilities were installed at the same time, and the office now has a force of ten clerks, two city carriers and two rural carriers, and about 1,000 postoffice boxes. The postal inspector has given Eastland the highest rating in his district in point of equip- ment, efficiency of clerks, carriers and assist- ants, and in everything pertaining to first- class postal service. Mr. Van Geem has worked hard to bring about these results, and has derived the highest degree of satisfaction from his unremitting efforts to improve the management and detailed efficiency of his office.
Mr. Van Geem for many years has taken an active interest in Masonry, has been a member of Eastland Lodge No. 467 since 1888, is a past master of the lodge, is a Royal Arch and Council Mason, and is a past dis- trict deputy grand master for his district. He is a member of the Baptist church, in which he was ordained a deacon. Mr. Van Geem married Miss Josephine Holland, a native of
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Kentucky and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. M. Holland. Their three children are Charles M., John S. and William Van Geem.
WV. T. SCOTT KRETZ has employed the best resources of his mature life in the profession of banking. He is well known in the banking circles of Fort Worth and the Texas Pan- handle and more recently in Eastland, where he is cashier of the First State Bank.
His own creditable career serves to recall two distinguished railroad builders and citi- zens of Texas, his grandfathers, one of whom was Maj. Herman Kretz and the other Col. W. T. Scott, the originator and builder of the Texas & Pacific Railway.
Major Herman Kretz was a gallant officer in the Union army throughout the Civil war, while Col. W. T. Scott fought on the opposite side as a colonel of a Texas regiment. Major Kretz about 1870 came to Marshall, Texas, and as a friend and representative of Thomas A. Scott, a Philadelphia capitalist who pur- chased the Texas & Pacific Railway from Col. W. T. Scott and later sold it to the Gould interests, he took an active part in the build- ing of the Texas & Pacific Railway from Shreveport, Louisiana, to Texas. With head- quarters at Marshall, Major Kretz served as treasurer of this railway company during its early construction. Some years later, in May, 1895. President Cleveland appointed him to the position of superintendent of the United States Mint at Philadelphia, and he held that office during the remainder of the Cleveland administration. Following that he became president of the Fox-Chase National Bank of Philadelphia, where he lived out his life. Major Kretz now rests in Arlington Ceme- tery among the nation's honored soldier dead.
The ancestral home of Colonel W. T. Scott is Scottville in Harrison County, Texas. Originally this was a great plantation employ- ing hundreds of slaves, and it is one of the most historic homes in this part of the state. The town of Scottville itself was built on the old plantation. Colonel Scott, besides his great distinction as a railway builder and his service as a colonel in the Confederate army, was also a member of the Texas Legislature.
W. T. Scott Kretz was born at the family home in Scottville, Texas, son of Charles D. and Susie S. (Scott) Kretz. His father was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and is now engaged in the grain and brokerage business at Lake Charles, Louisiana. For several years
he was connected with the Texas & Pacific Railway and subsequently was treasurer of the International and Great Northern Railway.
W. T. Scott Kretz was educated in the public schools of Shreveport and in Thatcher Institute of that city. His youthful experi- ence in banking was acquired in his uncle's bank at Shreveport. From that city he re- moved to Fort Worth, for a time was with the Carter-Battle Grocery Company, follow- ing which he was in the service of the Fort Worth & Denver Railway, and then joined Armour & Company in North Fort Worth. This connection led to his taking a place in the Stockyards National Bank of North Fort Worth, an institution with which he was iden- tified from 1907 to 1914. In the latter year he removed to Dalhart, Texas, joined the First National Bank of that city and became its active vice president.
Mr. Kretz came from Dalhart to Eastland on August 1, 1920, to become cashier of the First State Bank. This is one of the best and strongest banks in central west Texas, the president being Judge H. P. Brelsford. Mr. Kretz is a York and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. He is married and his two chil- dren are W. T. Scott Kretz, Jr., and William Stone Kretz.
STEPHEN M. GRISWOLD. The Griswold Oil Company, of which Stephen M. Griswold is president, is one of the notably large and substantial organizations of its kind in the Southwest. It is a company of the highest financial rating, has large property, equipment and financial assets, and has been steadily developing production in Texas and Oklahoma for several years. While engaged in an in- dustry that by its very nature is uncertain and speculative, the company under the leadership of Mr. Griswold has steadily declined to en- gage in any wildcatting enterprises, and it is high praise that the company has never had a dissatisfied stockholder.
. Mr. Griswold has been a Texas business man for a number of years. He was born at McMinnville, Tennessee, son of Norman W. and Eliza (Smallman) Griswold. On coming to Texas in 1904 Mr. Griswold was for some years prominently connected with the life insurance business. He was located at Waco and San Antonio, and for a number of years represented the Bankers Life In- surance Company of Des Moines and later was. state agent for Texas of the Merchants Life Insurance Company at Burlington, Iowa.
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W.W. Haggard.
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He gave up his insurance connections in 1915 and in that year came to Wichita Falls to apply his resources and enterprise to the oil industry.
His success in this field led to the organ- ization of the Griswold Oil Company in 1919, with an initial capital of $45,000. In Decem- ber, 1919, the capital was increased to $150,- 000 and since June, 1920, it has been a $5,000,- 000 corporation. The company has acquired by purchase the holdings.of several other leas- ing and producing companies in Wichita County. This company owns a lease on the Zink tract a mile and a half south of Iowa Park, regarded by oil men as one of the finest leases in the northwest Texas field. On this and adjoining leases a number of highly prof- itable producing wells have been brought in. In this particular field the Griswold Company has installed the most modern drilling and pumping equipment operated by electric power. In the various tracts the company has sixty acres of leases and also owns fifty-five acres in the Denny tract, Block 127, and thirty acres in what is known as East K M A field. The Griswold Company has operated some of the most profitable wells in the shallow field in north Texas. Their operations have spread up into the Panhandle, and they also have valuable acreage in Potter County, forty acres near the great Masterson gas well, and other leases in that territory. Other valuable acre- age owned by the company is in Tillman County, Oklahoma. In September, 1920, the Griswold Company had a total of 373 acres, all in proven oil territory. They have recently secured eighteen acres in the New Texhoma field in Archer County and have just brought- in their first well which is now producing 300 barrels of high gravity oil. They have their second derrick up for another well. The vice president of the Griswold Oil Company is Dr. Eugene Christian of New York. Doctor Christian was born at McMinnville, Tennes- see, in 1860, and married Miss Mollie Gris- wold, a sister of Stephen M. Doctor Christian was for many years a successful business man and manufacturer, but has long made a close study of dietetics and the preparation of foods, and some years ago, after a decision by the Supreme Court, established a right as a food scientist to prescribe diet as remedy for dis- ease in New York. He is widely known as the author of many works on foods and food preparation and scientific living, and is presi- dent of the Christian Company of New York.
Stephen M. Griswold married Miss Aline Faulkner, of McMinnville, Tennessee. Their son, E. F. Griswold, acquired a thorough busi- ness training and experience in New York City and is now secretary and treasurer of the Griswold Oil Company and its field man- ager. Mr. Griswold makes his permanent home at Wichita Falls, has the offices of the company in the City National Bank Build- ing, and is a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
WALTER WATT HAGGARD, senior partner of the firm Haggard & Tucker, real estate and insurance, in the Dan Waggoner Building at Fort Worth, has been a resident and active business man of that city for the past twenty years. He has been dealing in local real estate and also in Texas farm lands throughout the period which has witnessed the most remark- able growth and transformation of Fort Worth as a center of population and of extended commercial influence.
Mr. Haggard was born in Perry County, Alabama, May 16, 1865. His grandfather was a native of Ireland. On coming to America he located in Virginia. He and a brother fell into the hands of some of the Cherokee In- dians in the mountains of western Virginia. The brother lost his life, being decapitated by a tomahawk. The grandfather seemed likely to share the same fate when a chieftain's daughter intervened, moved by romantic at- tachment, and begged for his life, saying that the chief should kill her unless the captive was spared. A reluctant consent was obtained and the two were married and lived among the Indians for some years and later moved to eastern Tennessee and Kentucky. The grand- father was a farmer and a Baptist minister, and of his five sons four became ministers of the same church.
The son, Henry Oliver Haggard, father of Walter W. Haggard, was born in Kentucky, grew up on a farm near McMinnville, Ten- nessee, and after his marriage moved to South Alabama and was superintendent of a planta- tion some four or five years. At Selma, Ala- bama, he was ordained a Baptist minister, and followed this vocation in Selma for several years and then moved to Perry County, where he owned a large plantation and resided until he died in April, 1868. He married Marga- rette Ann Mitchell in Tennessee, who survived her husband nearly half a century, passing away in October, 1914. Of her six children
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four are still living, Walter W. being the fifth in age.
Mr. Haggard had a country school educa- tion in Alabama, being privileged to attend school only two months each summer, while the rest of the year was spent in labor on the farm. He was only three years of age when his father died. After leaving the farm at the age of twenty-six he became a railroad man, being first employed in a railroad roundhouse at Clarendon, Texas, and in February, 1902. moved to Fort Worth and entered the real estate business. He then formed a partner- ship with A. N. Evans and Brown Harwood, but after three months bought the interests of his partners. He was for about three years located at 7061/2 Main Street, where. for a time he had as a partner E. T. Duff. His next office was at 515 Main Street. After two years with Mr. Duff he bought his interests, and his third business headquarters were in the Fort Worth National Bank Building. In 1919 he formed his present partnership with H. B. Tucker. In 1909 he had moved to the Dan Waggoner Building. Mr. Haggard has been through the ups and downs of the real estate business, but has persisted through good times and bad, and the aggregate of his numerous transactions has been very favorable in results to himself and all others concerned. Besides city property he has dealt in lands all over Texas.
Mr. Haggard as a Fort Worth citizen has been a man of notable public spirit. Among institutions with which he has been especially concerned are the Labor Temple and the Girls Home of the Volunteers of America. He is a trustee of the latter. He is a member of the Broadway Baptist Church and a Democrat in politics.
On July 12, 1896, at Omaha, Texas, he married Miss Sallie Lee Hall, a native Texan, daughter of D. L. Hall, of Omaha. Mrs. Hag- gard finished her education in the schools of Morris County.' To their marriage were born four children : Annie Lee, wife of J. M. Simp- son, living at Oak Cliff, Dallas ; Walter Earl, a student in the University of Texas; Lillian Carry, a pupil in the Fort Worth High School : and Gladys May, attending the Fort Worth grammar schools.
FRANK P. TIMBERLAKE. Modern merchan- dising is a tremendously complicated science involving elements and factors that the old- time merchant never considered and impos- ing such strain of responsibilities that there
seems an obvious explanation for the fact that a large proportion of mercantile execu- tives are very young men. One of the largest and most successful mercantile organizations in the Southwest, operating chains of depart- ment stores in many Texas and Oklahoma cities, is that in which the names Timberlake or Perkins have a conspicuous part.
The active heads of this organization are comparatively young men, thorough mer- chants, have grown up in the business almost from childhood, and are recognized masters of the mercantile technique. Recently Wich- ita Falls hailed the opening of a remarkably beautiful, spacious and high-class modern de- partment store, known as the Perkins-Timber- lake Company's store. The secretary and treasurer of the Perkins-Timberlake Company and general manager of the stores of which that at Wichita Falls is a conspicuous exam- ple is Frank P. Timberlake, a young Texan who left his school books not more than a dozen years ago.
He was born in Montague County, Texas, in 1889, son of J. H. and Annie (Perkins) Timberlake. His father, a native of Tennes- see, came to Texas as a youth with his uncle, who settled in Montague County. J. H. Timberlake has for a long period of years been a merchant and for several years past has been manager of the Perkins store at Jacksboro. His wife, Annie Perkins, is a sis- ter of J. J. Perkins, founder of the numerous Perkins stores.
J. J. Perkins was born in Lamar County, Texas, in 1876, and is himself in point of age one of the younger business men of the state. He founded his first store at Decatur, Texas, on May 19, 1897, at the age of twenty-one. About two vears later he and his older brother, Sam B. Perkins, formed a partnership and established a second store at Kaufman. That was the beginning of a business that has grown and expanded until the interests associated with the Perkins name now operate a chain of twenty-three stores, mostly in Texas cities, with two or three in Oklahoma. Thirteen of these stores are con- ducted under the name of Perkins Brothers, seven under the firm name of the Perkins- Timberlake Company, and four as the Per- kins-Watkins Company.
In 1892, when Frank P. Timberlake was about three years of age, the family moved to Dallas, making their home in that city until 1901. While there he acquired his first school advantages. In 1901 the Timberlakes went
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