USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume IV > Part 42
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
Mr. Googins has been continuously asso- ciated with Swift & Company since 1900. He began with them as a cattle buyer at the Chi- cago Stock Yards, and in 1902 came to Fort
586
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
Worth when the company established its first packing plant here. Continuously for eighteen years he has had general supervision of Swift's interests in Fort Worth.
Mr. Googins married in 1897 Miss Ruth Swiler of Delavan, Wisconsin, daughter of J. W. Swiler, former superintendent of the Deaf and Dumb Institute of Wisconsin and now a resident of Burlington, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Googins have two sons and one daugh- ter: David S., who married Marie Hefley of Fort Worth; John C., a student in Princeton University; and Ruth, attending school at Fort Worth.
Mr. Googins is a member of the Fort Worth Club, the River Crest Country Club, served two years as a director of the Chamber of Commerce, and was at one time vice president of the Fort Worth Townsite Company.
HYDE JENNINGS. Life seems to shower upon some men distinction of magnitude, and yet it is but seldom that such honors come to the undeserving. A man must be worthy be- fore he is singled out from his associates for advancement, and he is required to maintain that same high standard to retain what he has already gained. Especially is this true with reference to promotions and advancements in the legal profession. Before a man can hope to attain to a paying practice he must have given years to study and training, and has to show that he is qualified by natural ability for the serious duties pertaining to this honored calling. The late Hyde Jennings for many years held a distinguished position among the brilliant attorneys of Fort Worth, and was known all over the state of Texas as a man of unusual ability.
Hyde Jennings was born in Nacogdoches, Texas, in August, 1849, a son of T. J. and Sarah (Gray) Jennings, the former of whom at one time served as attorney general of the state of Texas. Hyde Jennings was reared and educated in the various parts of Texas to which his father's professional duties called him, and in 1872, came to Fort Worth where he developed a very valuable practice, and was numbered among the most successful practi- tioners of his profession.
Mr. Jennings was married to Florence Van Zandt, a daughter of Maj. K. M. Van Zandt, and they became the parents of three sons and one daughter, namely: K. V., T. J., Chilton and Martha, who is the wife of E. E. Bewley, of Fort Worth. The true worth of Mr. Jennings was early recognized by his
fellow citizens, who would have been glad to honor him by election to some of the respon- sible offices if he would have accepted the nomination, but he did not care to enter pub- lic life, preferring to devote himself to his profession. Unselfishness toward others is a wonderful developer of character, and Mr. Jennings' was beautifully rounded out, and his memory is cherished by the many with whoni he had professional relations, as well as those who came closer to him in social intercourse. Much of the advancement in civic conditions can be traced to his influence, and the high standards today maintained by his profession, were fully sustained by him.
G. CLINT WOOD by nativity belongs to the great section of the Texas northwest, since he was born in Parker County in 1870. His father was the late B. Frank Wood, who died in 1918, at the age of eighty-four. He was a . notable pioneer and long a prominent char- acter of Parker County in western Texas. A native of Mississippi, he came to Texas in 1856, and in that early year established a home in Parker County, when there were only three or four isolated military outposts over all the vast territory of West Texas to protect the advancing line of civilization. For fifteen years after he settled in Parker County the region was exposed to the danger of hostile raids from the Comanche Indians. During the war between the states he volunteered and served in the Confederate army.
G. Clint Wood finished his education with four years in the Parker Institute at Weather- ford. In 1890, at the age of twenty, he went to southeastern Texas and found employment in some of the great lumber mills operating around Beaumont. He was on the ground when the great oil boom at Beaumont broke. beginning with the discovery at Spindletop. Everyone in Beaumont was more or less inter- ested in the oil industry, but Mr. Wood found it a field of practical operation, and he has acknowledged no other previous claim to his energies since then. Successively he was an operator at Spindletop, Sour Lake, Batson and Humble in the southeast Texas fields. Leav- ing Humble, he came to Wichita Falls in 1911, and about the time the first well in the Electra field was brought in. With every successive development he has been closely connected both through his personal enterprise and cap- ital. A man of business courage, fortified with long experience in the oil industry, his success has been a matter of practical achieve-
587
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
ment as well as the result of good fortune. and he has been a moving spirit in many of the great projects in this wonderful petroleum district.
His time, capital and energies have been really bestowed upon most of the important development projects that have given Wichita Falls its position as the oil metropolis of the southwest. He built the Clint Wood Building, a modern office building, seven stories, at Eighth and Scott streets, pronounced by com- petent judges as one of the finest specimens of commercial architecture in the country. His public spirit has found vent in many other ways .. During the war with Germany he was chairman of the County Exemption Board for Wichita County. He is chairman of the Build- ing Committee of the First Baptist Church, which is now constructing a new edifice at a cost of over a quarter of a million dollars, making it probably the finest church in Texas.
Through his influence in eastern financial centers Mr. Wood has been the means of interesting a large amount of outside capital in Wichita Falls and vicinity. He served as a lieutenant colonel on the staff of Governor Hobby of Texas. Mr. Wood is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Wichita Club and a number of other local organizations.
JOHN B. LANERI. Old time Fort Worth citizens deserving special recognition in this publication include J. B. Laneri, whose home has been here for nearly forty years. He is now retired from business, and resides at 902 Jennings Avenue.
Mr. Laneri was born in Genoa, Italy, and came to America in 1873. His home was in New Orleans for several years and he came to Texas in 1877, locating at Marshall, where he was engaged in the restaurant business.
Coming to Fort Worth in 1882 just at the beginning of Fort Worth's development as a railroad center Mr. Laneri took charge of the restaurant facilities at the Fort Worth Union Depot and was in business there continuously for thirty years. In that way he became widely known to the traveling public as well as to Fort Worth. He retired in 1912. Mr. Laneri married, in 1895, Miss Nannie Graves of Fort Worth.
E. H. CARTER. A business house that serves to fortify Fort Worth's position as one of the great wholesale distributing centers of the Southwest is the Carter Grocer Company, an organization of great magnitude whose
directing head for many years was the late E. H. Carter, one of the veteran business men of Texas.
Mr. Carter who came to Fort Worth in 1884, died in that city after thirty-six years of residence on November 4, 1920. He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, April 16, 1851. son of L. E. and Bettie ( Rainey ) Carter, his father a native of Kentucky and his mother of Tennessee. The family lived at New Or- leans where E. H. Carter secured most of his education, but he then returned to Shreveport and began an active career which brought him a varied experience in commercial lines. For two years he was clerk to a cotton buyer of Shreveport, then for three years was man- ager of the local business of the Grover and Baker Sewing Machine Agency, and in 1874, a young man in search of opportunity, he moved to Longview, Texas, and became a retail grocer.
Mr. Carter was at Longview for ten years, and in 1884 came to Fort Worth and at once associated himself with one of the large firms distributing groceries over North and West Texas. He became manager of the Fort Worth Grocer Company. an organization op- erating on a capital stock of about $20,000. In 1895 the business was reorganized as the Carter-Battle Grocer Company, the capital stock being increased to $75,000. Mr. Carter then became president, and was active head of the business for just a quarter of a century. The corporate title was subsequently the Car- ter-Hunt Grocer Company, and in April, 1910, became the Carter Grocer Company. with Mr. Carter in possession of the majority stock. The capital stock of the business is a quarter of a million dollars. Successive years, the increase of population and business enter- prise, have required many new buildings and increased personnel, until today the organiza- tion keeps a large number of traveling sales- men on the road, and handles a large propor- tion of the groceries distributed among the retail merchants of the Southwest.
Mr. Carter was a successful business man chiefly because of his concentration of energy and all other enterprises not directly con- nected with the wholesale grocery business have been accorded only an incidental interest. But his good citizenship was none the less valued and esteemed. For many years he served as president of the Board of Deacons of the Broadway Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth, and aided in building the church that was destroyed in the 1909 fire, and also the
588
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
structure that succeeded it. He was a direc- tor of the Veihl-Crawford Hardware Com- pany and the Star Refining Company. He was also a member of the Retail Grocers and Butchers Association of Fort Worth.
In December, 1874, at Jefferson, Texas, he married Mrs. Belle Williams. She died June 1, 1911, the mother of two daughters, Lotta Carter and Donnie Lee Carter. His older daughter is the wife of H. E. Gardner, now treasurer of the Carter Wholesale Grocer Company, and the mother of four children, Hunter, Rosalind, Belle and Carter, deceased. Donnie became the wife of J. B. Craddock, secretary and sales manager of the Carter Company. Their three children are Jean, Dorothy and Jack Craddock. On January 4, 1913, Mr. Carter married Mrs. Maggie Kerr of Fort Worth, who survives him. She is a daughter of G. H. and Mary E. (Lyles) Gowan. She married William Edward Kerr, February 9. 1888, and to this union was born a daughter, Marguerite Eddie Kerr, a grad- uate of the National Park Seminary, of Wash- ington, District of Columbia, and later a stu- dent in the University of Texas.
BOB BARKER has a statewide reputation in Texas politics and affairs. His home has been in Fort Worth for the past seven years, and he is still one of the forceful men in politics, though most of his time is given to the man- agement of his farming interests in North and West Texas.
Mr. Barker is a native Texan, born at Milli- can, Brazos County. September 8, 1874, son of W. W. and Missouri J. (Swain) Barker. He represents an old Kentucky family and his grandfather spent his life in Brazos County, was a slave owner and a Confederate soldier. W. W. Barker was a Kentucky farmer until 1860 when he moved to Texas and developed a ranch in Brazos County, and in 1876 moved to Ellis County, where he continued the grow- ing of fine stock until his death in 1882. The mother died in 1911. Of their six sons and one daughter, the daughter and four sons are still living. Bob being their third child. Mr. Barker had a country school education, grow- ing up in Ellis County and at the age of six- teen began work in a cotton gin. Four years later he made his first essay in politics, giving the full strength of his influence in Ellis County in behalf of the election of Col. R. M. Love as candidate for state comptroller. After Colonel Love's election he was appointed and served two years as warrant clerk in the comp-
troller's department at Austin. In 1903 Mr. Barker was elected chief clerk of the Texas House of Representatives, and handled with rare skill and fidelity the responsibilities of that office throughout the 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st and 32d sessions and was again elected for the 35th session. In the meantime he had become a resident of San Antonio and while living in that city in 1908 he was candidate for state comptroller, being defeated by John W. Stephens, and again was candidate for the same office in 1912, his successful opponent being W. P. Lane.
In 1914 Mr. Barker moved to Fort Worth and he is now profitably engaged in farming, owning one ranch in Hall County and another in Johnson County, near Mansfield. Through his political influence Mr. Barker was instru- mental in bringing back to Texas the Waters- Pierce Oil Company. He is now business and circulation manager of the Democratic Review, a monthly magazine owned, edited and con- trolled by former United States Senator J. W. Bailey. Mr. Barker as this record shows has always been a democrat. Mr. Barker mar- ried Miss Nora Jones of Hall County. They have one son, Bob, Jr., born February 4, 1910, now attending the Tenth Ward School in Fort Worth.
ALEXANDER H. BRITAIN is established in the practice of his profession in the City of Wichita Falls as one of the representative members of the bar of Wichita County, and has served as mayor of the city, where he has secured prestige as a liberal and public- spirited citizen.
Mr. Britain was born in Dallas County, Texas, on the 10th of March, 1878, and is a scion of one of the most honored pioneer families of that section of the Lone Star state. his grandfather, Joseph Britain, having come to Dallas County in 1845 and having settled a few miles west of the present City of Dallas. and the family having been one of promi- nence and influence in that community during the long intervening years. Benjamin M. Bri- tain, father of him whose name initiates this review, was reared on the old pioneer home- stead of Dallas County where his parents settled upon coming from Missouri, the Britain family having been founded in Vir- ginia in the Colonial period of our national history. Benjamin M. Britain served as a soldier of the Confederacy during the Civil war, as a member of a regiment from Dallas County. He thereafter continued . his resi-
14. Britain
589
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
dence in that county until 1886, when he removed with his family to Seymour, Baylor County, where he resided until his death, June 9, 1921. The maiden name of his wife was Girlie Strader, and she passed away in 1889.
Alexander H. Britain is indebted to the schools of Seymour for his preliminary educa- tion, and there he began the study of law under effective preceptorship. He made rapid advancement in his absorption and assimilation of the involved science of jurisprudence, and was admitted to the bar in 1898. His initial work in the practice of his profession was achieved in Baylor County, where he remained until 1904. During the interval covering the years 1904 to 1908 he practiced law in the following cities of Cleburne, Temple and Fort Worth. In 1908 he established his residence in Wichita Falls, where he has since continued in active general practice and where he is a member of the leading law firm of Carrigan, Montgomery, Britain & Morgan, with offices in the First National Bank Building. This firm controls a large and important practice, and its members have appeared in connection with much important litigation in the various courts of this section of the state, with a clien- tage of prominent and influential order, both corporate and individual. Mr. Britain is a member of the American Bar Association and the Texas State Bar Association, and in his home city he is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, is president of the Wichita Club. the Wichita Falls Golf and Country Club, of which he is serving his second term as presi- dent in 1921, and is a member of other repre- sentative civic organizations. He is a member of the directorate of the City National Bank of Commerce. Mr. Britain has always mani- fested lively and resourceful interest in those things that have conserved the civic and material progress and prosperity of his home city, and he served as mayor of Wichita Falls four years-1914-18.
Mr. Britain was united in marriage with Miss Ona Bell, of Wichita Falls, she being a niece of the late Dr. J. M. Bell, who was a leading physician and honored and influential citizen of Wichita Falls, where he served at one time as mayor. Mr. and Mrs. Britain have two children-Ona Bell and Martha Alexander.
JAMES RHEA HILL is a Texan whose rec- ord is largely one of hard work, a factor that has brought him an abundant degree of suc-
cess and prominence. He was successively a clerk, merchant, land dealer, a business he still continues, and in recent years has also been prominent in oil operations in the West Texas field.
Mr. Hill whose home has been in Fort Worth for the past decade was born at Inde- pendence in Washington County, Texas, May 23, 1873, son of James and Lily (Stribling) Hill. His grandfather, Captain T. H. Hill, was a Confederate soldier and officer through- out the entire war. As a planter he owned many slaves before the war, and was a promi- nent man in Southern Texas. James Hill also became a plantér, owned an extensive tract of land and was a lover and student of agri- culture and the advanced practices of stock raising. He died in 1873 when only twenty- three years of age, survived by his widow until 1910.
The younger of two children, James Rhea Hill grew up in Southern Texas, where he attended public school. He also spent one year in Baylor University when that institu- tion was located at Independence. He was eleven and a half years of age when he left off his formal schooling, and began earning his living driving a hay rake. Soon afterward he became a clerk in a local mercantile estab- lishment, and clerked some ten or twelve years before he embarked his capital and experience in a business of his own. He was a merchant until failing health caused him to remove to Mineral Wells, Texas, while from 1906 to 1911 he was engaged in the land and real estate business. Coming to Fort Worth in 1911 Mr. Hill was associated in partnership with J. N. Winters under the firm name of Winters & Hill. During the five years of its existence this firm sold more large tracts of land than any similar firm in Texas. Since the dissolution of the partnership Mr. Hill has en- gaged alone in the land and oil business. The field in which his enterprise and capital have been primarily interested as an oil operator is the Stephens and Eastland counties district. He has sunk a number of wells, and has been fairly successful as a producer. His chief hobby is agriculture, and he now divides his time between his farm west of Fort Worth and his business in the city.
Mr. Hill has made money and acquired a reasonable degree of prosperity, and for years it has been his rule as well to do good as he went along, and has taken more than a pass- ing interest in a number of causes and insti- tutions, particularly church and schools. He
590
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
has made large donations to educational insti- tutions. He is a member of the First Meth- odist Episcopal Church, is a thirty-second de- gree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and was formerly a democrat but is now an inde- pendent voter.
August 11, 1898, at Glenrose, Texas, Mr. Hill married Miss Lulu Milam, a woman of culture and thorough education, who finished her literary education in the Southwestern University of Georgetown, Texas. Her father, B. R. Milam, was a merchant, banker and planter, and for the greater part of his life lived in Weatherford where he died in 1900. Mrs. Hill is one of a family of six children. She takes a decided interest in the various activities of the Methodist Church. Mr. and Mrs. Hill have two living children : Joel Mi- lam Hill, born May 25, 1899, and Laure Hill, born April 25, 1902. The son entered public school at Mineral Wells at the age of six, con- tinued his education at Fort Worth until grad- uating from high school, and during the World war spent two years in the Virginia Military Institute. He graduated from Prince-' ton University June 21, 1921, with the B. A. degree. He is deeply interested in surgery, and begins his regular professional education in 1921.
MRS. J. HERMAN RAAB is a Fort Worth woman who has shown remarkable ability in continuing the high class service which during Mr. Raab's lifetime was associated by all motorists and motor car owners with Raab's Garage.
Mrs. Raab was born at Bloomington, Illi- nois, in 1892, daughter of Richard Qualey, for many years a resident of Illinois, but later moving to Fort Dodge, Iowa, where he is still in business as a merchant.
Mrs. Raab was the oldest of four children and was educated and graduated from a con- vent school at Bloomington at the age of fifteen.
J. Herman Raab began his business career in a very modest way. An old friend that had known him from childhood offered him a chance to engage in the garage and repair business, furnishing him a room upstairs just large enough to hold one automobile. It was a small opportunity, but was accepted as a chance, and his benefactor, Bob Cantrell of Fort Worth, made good his promise to as- sist him subsequently as his skill and ability developed. In a short time he needed more floor space, and he continued successfully in
the repair business until his patronage justified a still further expansion and he then took two floors, one for repairs and one for a garage, with storage space of twenty-six cars. This is the modern Raab's Garage on Throckmor- ton Street, and Mr. Raab was the responsible head until an automobile accident snuffed out his life in the latter part of 1920. Mrs. Raab at once took charge, and is one of the few women who have successfully conducted such a business. The late Mr. Raab was a member of the Lutheran Church and was affiliated with the Elks and other social organizations.
FRANK W. REEVES, consulting geologist and engineer, received his technical training in one of the great western universities, but the field of his experience has been largely in the Mid- Continent oil and gas field and since the sum- mer of 1919 his headquarters have been at Fort Worth.
Mr. Reeves was born at San Bernardino, California, February 1, 1892, fourth in a fam- ily of six children born to Mr. and Mrs. William B. Reeves. His father is of English ancestry, was for many years a cattle rancher in Wyoming, but moved to California in 1880 and is now living retired at San Bernardino. Of the four daughters and two sons all are living except one son.
Frank W. Reeves attended the San Bernar- dino High School and in 1914 graduated A. B. in mining and geology from Leland Stanford University of California. Following his uni- versity career he at once took up civil engi- neering and construction work, and in the summer of 1916 joined the Empire Gas & Fuel Company in the capacity of a geologist in Kansas. In December of the same year the company sent him to represent it in a tech- nical capacity in the district of Northern Texas and Southern Oklahoma, with headquarters at Wichita Falls. In 1917 Mr. Reeves moved to Mineral Wells, and in the summer of 1919 established his offices in the Dan Waggoner Building at Fort Worth as a consulting geolo- gist and engineer. Besides his general prac- tice in that profession he is now chief geologist for the Plateau Oil Company, which was or- ganized in the early part of 1920 by the firm of Ross, Goss and Fletcher, and is now oper- ating in North Central Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Illinois, the company having a daily production of twenty-five hundred bar- rels. It was this company that brought in the E. C. Ward No. 1, one of the largest wells in the Breckenridge field in Texas, a well that
591
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
has produced over a million barrels of oil. The present officials of this company are: A. H. Goss, president ; S. Fletcher, vice president ; and C. N. Elliott, treasurer.
January 10, 1916, Mr. Reeves married Miss Dorothy Hume at Los Gatos, California. They have two children, Hume Wixom, born October 11, 1917, and Dorothy, born October 16, 1920.
THOMAS SNEED BYRNE is a civil engineer and architectural engineer, who at the age of thirty has achieved a creditable and influential place for himself in business affairs in the Southwest being vice president of the W. C. Hedrick Construction Company, whose main offices are in Fort Worth.
Mr. Byrne was born at Austin, Texas, Feb- ruary 20, 1891, son of E. J. and Ellen (Sneed) Byrne. His father was born in Ireland, came to America when a youth, lived in New York for several years, then in Galveston and the greater part of his active business career was spent at Austin where he was a cotton mer- chant. Since 1914 he has lived retired at Fort Worth. The younger of two children, Thomas' Sneed Byrne had the best of opportunities to develop his particular talents. He was edu- cated in the University of Texas, and from there entered the Boston School of Technol- ogy, where he graduated with the degree Bachelor of Science and Architectural Engi- neering. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.