USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume IV > Part 30
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Mr. Harris achieved his first independent success in business in 1913, when he organized the Fort Worth Warehouse & Transfer Com- pany. This corporation erected the first large
fireproof storage warehouse in Texas. He remained in the service of the company as general manager for six years. Three years ago he took up his duties as state distributor for the Diamond T Motor Truck Company, and maintains offices both in Fort Worth and San Antonio, and has been largely responsible for the tremendous volume of business built up for the company in Texas.
Mr. Harris as a member of the Rotary Club, is a Mason and Shriner and an Elk. In 1906 he married Mabelle Shumate, of Newbern, Tennessee. The family consists of two sons and one daughter, Temple, Jr., Wil- liam and Margaret.
W. NEWTON MAER. In a commercial cen- ter like Wichita Falls, which has achieved such remarkable progress in a decade, it is not difficult to distinguish the men who have been chiefly concerned and responsible for the pro- gram of improvement which has enabled the community to realize all the vast benefit flow- ing from the physical resources of the sur- rounding territory. One of these men is W. Newton Maer, a banker, primarily a build- ing contractor, and a wealthy young oil pro- ducer. Mr. Maer came to Wichita Falls thir- teen years ago, before the opening of the oil boom, and was a factor in the city's business enterprise before any great amount of outside capital sought investment here.
Mr. Maer's father, O. E. Maer, is a prom- inent railroad official, superintendent of the Wichita Valley Railway and a resident of Wichita Falls since 1907.
W. Newton Maer was twelve years of age when his parents came to Texas in 1896, and he finished his high school education at Smith- ville. His first ambition was to follow rail- roading, like his father. To that end he learned telegraphy, and at the age of sixteen was employed as a railway operator by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas. He was assigned to duty in various places, and subsequently became a telegrapher with the Cotton Belt Railway, at first in Texas and later at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where he was made chief clerk. On leaving the railroad service he became traffic manager for the Bluff City Lumber Company at Pine Bluff, and subse- quently paymaster for the Sawyer-Austin Lumber Company of the same city. It was in this way he became interested in building supplies and building construction.
Since 1908 Wichita Falls has been his home and the scene of his varied and remarkable
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enterprise in building work, oil production and banking. He is vice president of the Wichita Falls Lumber and Building Company. Mr. Maer is one of the largest property owners in the city, and since 1918 has been almost continuously engaged in important building construction. The most pretentious of these enterprises and one that is a real monument to his foresight. initiative and public spirit is the City National Bank Building, a modern twelve story office building, one of the most attractive large buildings in the state. Mr. Maer is the largest individual stockholder in the building. He secured the cooperation of a number of wealthy oil men contributing cap- ital to this enterprise, and was instrumental in securing the City National Bank's association on a "fifty-fifty basis," and since the comple- tion of the building it has been the home of the City National Bank of Commerce, which represents the merger of the City National and the National Bank of Commerce. Thus this bank, with resources of over twenty-two million dollars, has an appropriate home as one of the largest banks in the state. Mr. Maer is vice president of the bank.
In addition he has employed his personal resources and influence to effect a large pro- gram of physical improvement, such as the rapid growth in population in Wichita Falls (lemands. He built the Maer-Heydrick Building No. 1 and Maer-Heydrick Building No. 2, both modern business structures in the commercial district used by automobile con- cerns, while Maer-Heydrick Building No. 3 is used for stores and offices. During the summer of 1920 he and his organization were engaged in the construction of eighteen mod- ern cottages between Eighth and Ninth streets. almost in the heart of the city, this enter- prise being one of the largest individual proj- ects in the solution of the pressing housing problem of the city. Mr. Maer is one of the owners of Kemp Kort, a modern apartment building, and has a large aggregate of lesser property and financial interests.
At the very beginning of the oil boom in the Wichita region in 1912, he became inter- ested in production in a small way. About that time he leased about eight thousand acres at the head of Lake Wichita. His first well was a dry hole, and his subsequent ventures were continued with rather indifferent suc- cess. He never figured as one of the success- ful oil men until 1917. when the Fowler well at Burkburnett came in. He entered that field by the leasing of adjoining property, and had
the good fortune to strike it rich, and since then has been uniformly successful in his oil ventures. The main sources of his present wealth flows from oil. Most of his inter- ests at the present time are in the Kemp- Munger-Allen field in Wichita County. He had drills in operation throughout the sun- mer of 1920, and besides this new explora- tion and testing work is owner of much large production in this general territory. Mr. Maer was one of the organizers of the Amer- ican Refining Company at Wichita Falls, and one of its Board of Directors, but sold his interests in May, 1920. He is also a director of the Morgan Feed and Fuel Company of Wichita Falls and one of the owners of the City Laundry.
As this record of his career indicates, all his work has been characterized by a high degree . of public spirit. It was largely through his instrumentality that Wichita Falls secured the Waco franchise in the Texas League of Baseball Clubs, and thus beginning with 1920 Wichita Falls secured a place in the League and maintains a high grade club that has satisfied the interests of the numerous baseball fans of the city. He is a member of the Wichita Falls Golf and Country Clubs, is a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of Hella Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Dallas.
Mr. Maer married Miss Sibyl Kemp, daugh- ter of Joseph A. Kemp, Wichita Falls' fore- most citizen. They have two children, New- ton Kemp and Sibyl.
DEAN BELL. For a number of years Dean Bell was associated with the management of some of the best known of Fort Worth's mercantile enterprises. He is a business man of wide and extensive training and enter- prise, and that experience he has brought to his present duties as tax collector of Tar- rant County and has set a high standard of efficiency in this public position.
Mr. Bell was born at Eagleville in Ruther- ford County, Tennessee, May 23, 1870, son of L. D. and Haynie (Ogilvie) Bell. His par- ents were natives of Tennessee, but his father is now living at Columbus, Mississippi, where he owns a farm of several hundred acres in extent and does a successful business as a planter. The mother died in 1889, at the age. of forty-seven. Dean is the oldest son and second child of six, five of whom reached mature years.
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His boyhood was spent in Tennessee and he acquired a good education in Lewisburg College and Haynes and McClain College in his native state. He came to Texas at the age of twenty-seven and for a number of years was associated with the W. C. Stripling store at Fort Worth. He began as a sales- man and later was a manager and buyer for the clothing department. On leaving the Strip- ling store he became manager and buyer for the mercantile house of L. G. Gilbert, and had a large part in the affairs of that busi- ness for three years. Following that Mr. Bell was in the clothing and furnishing goods business under the name of Bell Brothers until 1910, when he became a traveling rep- resentative for the Winona Mills.
Mr. Bell has been identified with his pres- ent office since 1916, serving four years as deputy tax collector, and in 1920 was elected to the responsibilities of county collector. He is one of the most popular officials of the county and stands high among business men and all classes of citizens. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a member of the First Christian Church.
In 1907 Mr. Bell married Miss Emma Mun- cey, of Fort Worth. They have four daugh- ters, Mary Dean, born in 1908; Evelyn, born in 1911; Hazel, born in 1913; and Myrna, born in 1915.
JESSE M. BROWN is a native son of Tarrant County, made a record as a very successful educator for several years, after which he studied law, and his professional career has been one of continued important service to the public and advancement in his chosen vocation.
Mr. Brown, who is now district attorney of Tarrant County, was born February 25, 1883, a son of M. F. and Mary (Covey) Brown. His parents were both born in North- western Arkansas and moved to Texas in 1873, locating near Bedford in Tarrant County. This was a new country at the time, not a single railroad having reached Fort Worth. M. F. Brown became one of the substantial farmers of the county, and is now living and enjoying a well deserved retirement at Argyle, Texas. The mother died at the age of fifty-three. In the family were five sons and two daughters : Alice, J. H., C. W., W. F., O. F., Mattie and Jesse M.
Jesse M. Brown spent his boyhood days on his father's farm. While there he at-
tended country school and in 1905 he grad- uated from the North Texas Normal College. His work as a teacher was a very gratifying experience, though largely a stepping stone to his legal career. For one year he was prin- cipal of the Diamond Hill School in North Fort Worth, another year was assistant prin- cipal of the Sixth Ward School, and for one year taught mathematics in high school. Mr. Brown in the fall of 1908 enrolled as a student in the law department of the Uni- versity of Texas and received his law degree in 1910.
He at once returned to Fort Worth and has been an active member of the bar of that city for ten years. On November 1. 1910, he was appointed assistant county at- torney under John W. Baskin. Later, on May 1, 1913, he was appointed county judge. an office he filled until elected district attorney in 1918. Whether in office or in private practice, he has been chiefly interested in public affairs and has afforded council and leadership to all worthy movements. His time as county judge is memorable by reason of the large amount of constructive activities undertaken by the county, including much road and bridge building and the erection of the Criminal Court Building, the Tarrant County Hospital and the Tarrant County Orphans Home.
Judge Brown married in 1911 Ethel Cro- mer. They have one son, Jesse M., Jr. Mr. Brown is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, Woodmen of the World and the Order of Elks.
L. C. HARPER. Among the energetic young business men who are prominently connected with the oil industry in Northwest Texas, one who has been identified with this line of business since entering upon his career and who has worked his way up from the posi- tion of ditch-digger to that of an official of the Pioneer Fuel Oil Corporation of Fort Worth is L. C. Harper. His business life has been one of typical self-made manhood and throughout his career he has depended solely upon his own resources and abilities.
Mr. Harper was born at Eureka Springs. Carroll County, Arkansas, July 11, 1892, a son of J. C. and Martha G. Harper. For some years J. C. Harper was engaged in the oil business in Oklahoma, buying and selling leases, and in 1919 came to Fort Worth, where he embarked in the real estate and oil business and continued therein until his re-
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tirement. He and Mrs. Harper still survive and are highly-respected residents of Fort Worth. They are the parents of a family of eight sons and daughters.
The fifth in order of birth of his parents' children, L. C. Harper acquired his early education in the public schools of Oklahoma, where he was taken as a child. Later this was supplemented by attendance at the normal school located at Guthrie, that state, and Mr. Harper then began his connection with the oil business as a digger of ditches for the installing of pipe line. Later he turned his attention to roustabouting on oil leases, and from that to tool dressing and drilling. From the latter position it was an easy step to the producing, refining and marketing busi- ness, in which he is now engaged, as an offi- cial of the Pioneer Fuel Oil Corporation of Fort Worth, which was organized in 1921. and in which his associates are Dr. T. E. Moore and E. Z. Curnutt. This company is engaged in the marketing of fuel oils exclu- sively and erecting storage throughout the United States for the purpose of storing fuel oils, both from a wholesale and retail stand- point. Mr. Harper is accounted one of the capable men of his line of business to be found in Northwest Texas, and is widely and favorably known in the oil industry, having been formerly secretary of the Texas Oil Job- bers' Association, of which body he is still a member.
Mr. Harper belongs to the Masonic fra- ternity and to the Fort Worth Club and takes his recreation in hunting and fishing, of both of which sports he is fond. He is absolutely independent of political parties, preferring to use his own judgment in the choice of can- didates and the principles which he supports. He has no religious affiliations, but believes in religion and is a contributor to worthy causes. Mr. Harper is unmarried.
ALFRED W. BURNSIDE. With so many other achievements to its credit, in population in- crease, wealth and business and civic power. Wichita Falls very appropriately has an- nexed one of the most successful insurance men in the state in the person of Alfred W. Burnside, general agent of the State Life Insurance Company of Indianapolis. His agency in the spring of 1920 headed the "Honor Roll of Texas" for volume of busi- ness written, and doubtless the history of life insurance would show few men in the busi- ness at the age of twenty-four who have ac-
cumulated such an aggregate of business in such a brief time.
Mr. Burnside came to manhood in Wichita County, but was born at Westerville in Dela- ware County, Ohio, in 1897. He is a son of G. E. and Nina (Linnabarry) Burnside, na- tives of the same Ohio county. He was six years of age when his mother died, and some years later his father came to Wichita County, Texas, and has since been a success- ful farmer.
Alfred W. Burnside completed his public school education in the Wichita Falls High School and subsequently attended Rice Insti- tute at Houston. While a student he began writing insurance, but his college and business career was interrupted in the summer of 1918. when he volunteered in the naval aviation branch. He was on military duty about six months, being trained at the aviation field in New Orleans and subsequently was on duty at Pensacola and other points. Then, in Jan- uary, 1919, he located at Wichita Falls as agent for the State Life Insurance Company of Indianapolis. This is one of the strongest life concerns in the world.
The official bulleting of the company in May, 1920, referring to Mr. Burnside's achievement in taking first place for the month of April by writing more than three hundred thousand dollars worth of business, reviewed his record as follows: In April, 1918, Mr. Burnside began his career with the State Life and wrote twenty-five thousand dollars worth of business for that month. Though he joined the aviation service of the United States in September of that year, he succeeded in qual- ifying in the 1918 Two Hundred Thousand Club. After his return from the service Mr. Burnside began a period of most remarkable achievement. In 1919 he wrote more than a million dollars worth of business. In 1920 he is rushing forward at a rate which more than doubles his record for the first four months of 1919. For a period of sixteen con- secutive months Mr. Burnside has averaged a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars worth of business per month." The Bulletin stresses the qualities that enable Mr. Burnside to achieve this record, saying that no one was distinguished by more consistent, constant, ag- gressive and enthusiastic labors, and it was his diligence and earnestness that have made him such a power in the insurance field.
As general agent at the head of the Wichita Agency Mr. Burnside has offices in the Ameri- can National Bank Building. He has also
al. Burnside
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allied himself closely with the progressive or- ganizations of his home city in civic and social affairs. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, Wichita Golf and Country Clubs, a Knight Templar and thirty- second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and also a member of Maskat Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wichita Falls. He and Mrs. Burn- side are members of the First Presbyterian Church at Wichita Falls, of which he is assist- ant superintendent of the Sunday School. He married Miss Fannie Kate Wood, of Nava- sota, Texas.
GEORGE WASHINGTON NEWTON. A farmer of Fairview Community No. 4, George Wash- ington Newton has been a resident of Denton County more than half a century, and came here a few years after his four years' serv- ice as a private soldier of the Confederacy. His long residence, his high standing as a citi- zen, and the diligence with which he has gone about his business as a farmer entitle him to full representation in this publication.
Mr. Newton was born in Perry County, Tennessee, June 25, 1839. His grandfather, John Newton, was a native of North Caro- lina, and spent his active life as a farmer and stockman. In his generation he was a breeder of blooded horses and cattle. In old age he came to Texas, and his body is at rest four miles west of Pilot Point, on a farm owned by his descendants. He had a large number of children, three of his sons being Charles, Jesse and John. Two daughters died unmar- ried in Texas and were buried near him.
Charles Newton, father of George W., was a native of North Carolina, but grew up and married in Tennessee, and he also spent his active life as a farmer. He possessed a lib- eral education, and for many years taught schools in the community where he lived. He was an ardent Southerner, a democrat in pol- itics, a member of the Primitive Baptist Church, and while living in Arkansas he held the office of justice of the peace. Charles Newton died about 1891, when seventy-five years of age. He married Susan Whitehead, who died several years earlier. They reared all of their thirteen children, namely: John, who was a Confederate soldier and died in Lamar County, Texas; James L., who was killed during the Georgia campaign in front of Atlanta; Richard, a Confederate soldier, died in Cooke County, Texas: William died at Austin, Texas; George W. is next in age : Charles was a Confederate soldier and died
in Arkansas; Martha died in Arkansas, un- married; Sarah died in Oklahoma, wife of Thomas Wilkes; Mary Jane became the wife of Lee Cates and died in Texas; Reuben P. was a resident of Clay County, Texas, when he died; Sir Isaac is a well known citizen of Pilot Point, former mayor of that city; Ellen became the wife of James Brazeal and died in Oklahoma, and C. P. Newton died at San Antonio.
George Washington Newton was five years of age when in 1844 his parents moved to Stoddard County, Missouri. After ten years there they came .south to Hot Springs County, Arkansas, and in 1869 the family made their final migration to Denton County, Texas, where his parents lived in the Fairview locality and died on a farm adjoining the one now owned by George W. Newton.
The education of George W. Newton was acquired chiefly in the country schools of Arkansas. The first day he went to school he sat on a puncheon bench in an old log cabin, and that practically measured the facilities and equipment of all the schoolrooms in which he acquired his literary education. Before the war he had left home and begun farming for himself. Accepting fully the tra- ditions and southern sympathies of his people, he entered the war in 1861 in Company B. under Captain Monroe, of the First Arkan- sas Infantry, and Col. James Fagan. He spent a week or ten days at Little Rock. was then ordered to Richmond, Virginia. where the regiment became a part of General Holmes' Brigade and General Walker's Divi- sion. It was in the movements around Manassas, though Mr. Newton was not in that battle himself. His first big fight was at Shiloh, after which his regiment went west of the Mississippi and took part in the bat- tles of Saline River and Poison Springs, where the Confederates fought General Steele, and when the war ended Mr. Newton was doing picket duty sixty miles west of Little Rock. He was paroled at the capital of Arkansas. He came out of the war with three wounds. At Shiloh a piece of shell struck him in the head and a minie ball struck him in the ankle. At Saline River or Jenkins Ferry a piece of shell struck him in the back. His ankle and back wounds have troubled him in all subsequent years. He was in the army as a private throughout the war and when peace was restored he returned to his farm in Arkansas and remained there
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about four years, but accumulated little prop- erty in the meantime.
In Arkansas, August 28, 1867, Mr. Newton married Mary Ann Wilkes, who was born in Mississippi in October, 1845, daughter of Jesse Wilkes. Together Mr. and Mrs. New- ton have passed fifty-four milestones on life's journey. They had been married about two years when they started for Texas, and were two weeks in making the journey by wagon. Mr. Newton's equipment when he began life in Denton County was chiefly one pony. It is claimed that he grew the first bale of cot- ton in the county. While providing a living for his family, he struggled manfully to accu- mulate some property and laid the foundation of his prosperity as a tenant farmer. About 1888 he bought the tract of land where he now lives. This place is on the Peter Friend survey and was first settled by a Mr. McIn- turf. The house into which the family moved in 1888 is still standing. Mr. Newton has always raised stock and he has seventy acres of his farm producing annual crops.
While the long years of his life have been chiefly expressed in hard work, he has main- tained a friendly and public spirited interest in every enterprise calculated to increase the educational and other advantages of the local- ity. He has served as a member of the board of Fairview School District No. 4. He is a democrat, was a partisan of George Clark for governor in 1892, and in the 1920 primaries supported the regular organization candidate for governor.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Newton are : Ben R., of Wapanucka, Oklahoma; Robert, of Oklahoma; Clark, a farmer near his father ; Tennie, wife of Charles Butler, of Cooke County, Texas; Callie, wife of Arthur L. Maxwell, of Denton County; Cado, who married Elmo Shull, of Pilot Point ; Verna, Mrs. Robert L. Conley, of Denton County ; and Dee, the youngest, a farmer in Denton County.
WALLACE JACKSON CROSS. In the vast oil industry which has been developed in Texas. many trades, arts and vocations are called into service. One of the most important of these is the occupation of the construction engi- neer, whose highly specialized work is abso- lutely necessary to the development of prop- erties. In this connection mention is made of Wallace Jackson Cross, construction engi- neer of the Pierce Oil Corporation of Fort Worth. A man of broad and varied expe-
rience in his line, his training has been thor- ough and comprehensive, and at various times he has been identified with large concerns in a number of avenues of his calling. He was born January 5, 1884, at Campbell Hill, Jackson County, Illinois, and is a son of Thomas J. Cross. His father, who passed the greater part of his life in farming at Camp- bell Hill, is now deceased.
The youngest in a family of six children. Wallace J. Cross received his early educa- tion in the public schools of Campbell Hill, following which he attended the high school at Delavan and the Southern Illinois Normal School. Completing his education at the Uni- versity of Illinois, Urbana, he secured employ- ment as a draftsman for the Leader Iron Works of Decatur, Illinois, a concern with which he was identified for seven months. At the end of that period he entered the services of the A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company at Decatur, and for nineteen months acted as a draftsman on a corn starch factory. His next employment was with the Larrowe Con- struction Company, Detroit, Michigan, as a draftsman on beet sugar factories, and when he left this company he joined the Kilby Man- ufacturing Company, Cleveland, Ohio, as draftsman on sugar machinery. This was followed by employment with the firm of Samuel Austin & Son Company, of Cleveland, as a draftsman on power houses; the British- American Nickel Corporation, of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, as draftsman on smelter and refinery for copper and nickel ores; and the Lake Superior Corporation, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, as assistant chief engineer He has been identified with various other companies as engineer and construction super- intendent. In April, 1920, Mr. Cross came to Fort Worth, when engaged in the capacity of construction engineer for the Pierce Oil Corporation, a position which he has held to the present time.
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