USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume IV > Part 43
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
After leaving the university and until 1914 Mr. Byrne was employed as a detailer with Monks & Johnson, engineers at Boston. Fol- lowing that he was connected with the Mosher Manufacturing Company until 1915.
In that year he joined the W. C. Hedrick Construction Company. This company was organized in 1915 as an independent company owned by W. C. Hedrick. Its operations were at the beginning confined to small work, but the business steadily increased in volume. In 1917 the W. C. Hedrick Company was given the contract for the construction of Love Avi- ation Field and Aviation Repair Depot at Dallas for the government. The efficient rec- ord the company made in handling this con- tract proved the signal for a rapidly growing business so that the company besides its main headquarters at Fort Worth has opened offices in Houston, San Antonio and El Paso and has connections in New York City as well. The organization has to its credit a great volume of important work. Some of the prominent VOL. IV-15
buildings at Fort Worth constructed with its facilities are the Neil P. Anderson, the Star- Telegram, Winfield Garage, Stripling Store, Fort Worth High School, Home Oil Refinery, Montrose Refinery and Cotton Belt Terminal at Hodge. Many other equally important con- tracts have been filled out over the state and in different parts of the Southwest.
This business is operated with a capital stock of $300,000. The official personnel of the company are: W. C. Hedrick of Fort Worth, president ; Thomas S. Byrne of Fort Worth, vice president ; Don Hall of Houston, vice president ; and Frank N. Watson of Dallas, secretary and treasurer.
Mr. Byrne has supplied much of the tech- nical service in this organization, though for nearly two years during the World war he was on leave of absence, serving as a captain in the United States army from 1917 to 1919. Captain Byrne is a member of the Fort Worth Club, River Crest Country Club, Phi Delta Theta college fraternity, is a democrat in poli- tics and a member of the Episcopal Church. He is unmarried.
CAPT. ALBERT G. SAVELLI has achieved a remarkable work in connection with the development of the far-reaching export trade of the Wichita Motor Company of Wichita Falls, a concern that has carried the fame of this vigorous little Texas city into the furthermost corners of the world. Captain Savelli, a man of distinctive technical and executive ability, is vice president of this important industrial corporation, of which he has been the export manager since the year 1913. Of the great business developed and controlled by the company adequate revela- tion is made on other pages of this work, in the sketch of the career of its president. John G. Culbertson.
Captain Savelli was born in the City of Rome, Italy, in the year 1876, and there he received the advantages of the Superior Technical Institute, besides which his educa- tion was further continued by his attendance in the Commercial Institute in the City of Milan, the Italian military school at Modena. and the Superior War School in Turin. It will be seen that he thus received a fine technical education and prepared himself for effective service in connection with military. affairs in his native land. He entered the national army of Italy, in which he won com- mission as captain, and in which he continued his services until 1913, when he resigned and
592
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
came to the United States. Within a short time after his arrival he came to Wichita Falls, Texas, and assumed the position of export manager of the Wichita Motors Company, a position which he has since retained, besides which he has been vice president of the com- pany since 1917. Of his work the following pertinent estimate has been given: "Captain Savelli has made himself an indispensable force in the affairs of this great industrial corporation, from the Wichita Falls plant of which are turned out 4,000 motor trucks annu- ally, while the adjunct manufactory, at Okla- homa City, Oklahoma, has an annual output of 3,000 trucks. The Captain has formulated and carried to successful issue an active, pro- gressive and skillfully worked out campaign in furtherance of the export trade of the company, with the result that the corporation now ships trucks in large numbers to eighty- three foreign countries, besides which its domestic trade is of extensive volume. As a matter of illustration it may be stated that in the spring of 1920 an entire trainload of the Wichita trucks was exported to India alone."
To have devised and carried out a plan by which so remarkable an export business has been developed has required initiative and administrative genius of high order, and none can doubt that Captain Savelli has this genius, the voucher for which is the concrete results attained. He has proved an acquisition to the business and social circles of Wichita Falls and has won a host of friends in the land of his adoption.
Captain Savelli married in New York City, November 13, 1919, Miss Josephine Pasko, a native of Moscow, Russia, where she was born August 15. 1896.
J. W. HEAD, M. D. A specialist in eye, ear, nose and throat at Fort Worth, Doctor Head is a physician and surgeon of genuine distinc- tion, and his personal abilities and attainments have been supplemented by perhaps as thor- ough training and preparation as has been enjoyed by any other member of his vocation in Texas.
Doctor Head was born in Fayette County. Georgia. in 1871, son of W. P. and Sarah Jane (Carter) Head. W. P. Head who was born in the same county of Georgia in 1845 and is now living at Handley, Texas, was a youthful soldier in the Confederate army with a Georgia regiment, and afterwards lived in Georgia as a farmer until 1885. when he removed to Texas and established his home on a farm in
Smith County twelve miles west of Tyier. Some years later he moved to his present honie in Tarrant County. W. P. Head has been the father of twenty children and twelve of thein are still living. One of the sous is Lon D. Head, present sheriff of Stephens County, Texas. At a family reunion held at the home of W. P. Head at Handley in 1920 there were five generations present.
Dr. J. W. Head acquired his early and lit- erary education in Georgia and in the Rose- dale High School at Mount Sylvan in Smith County, Texas. He spent one year in the Agricultural and Mechanical College in Texas and preparatory to his work as a general prac- titioner he attended Tulane University at New Orleans one year, the Southern Medical Uni- versity at Atlanta one year, and in 1893 was graduated M. D. from the medical department of the University of Louisville.
During the following ten years Doctor Head attended to a satisfactory country practice at Tyler, Texas. In the meantime he did post- graduate work in New York, principally in the Baby Hospital at 57th Street and Madison Avenue. He finally gave up his practice at Tyler altogether to pursue an extensive period of special study and investigation, at first in New York and then in Europe, spending two months in London, three months in the Uni- versity of Freiburg under Dr. Killyon, origi- nator of the Killyon operation, and about eleven months in the Allgemeine Krankenhous in Vienna, where he had the fortune of con- ing under the celebrated Doctor Hjiak, the world's foremost instructor and authority on the nose and throat. Altogether Doctor Head devoted four years to his special preparation for the eye and rest to the nose and throat.
Doctor Head located permanently at Fort Worth in 1910 for practice as a specialist in the treatment of the eye, ear, nose and throat. and from this city his fame as an authority has gone abroad and he has a well deserved reputation all over the Southwest for his exceptional skill in his special field. He is a member of the County, State, Southern and American Medical Associations.
Doctor Head's first wife was Miss Ella Eu- lelia Leath. who is survived by one son, J. Leath Head. Doctor Head subsequently mar- ried Miss Minnie Belle Burford. who was born and reared in Fort Worth.
1
S. GEORGE CLARK. An enviable record is that of S. George Clark of Fort Worth. For forty years he has been a railroad conductor.
593
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
This service has been essentially one of public relationship, and in the faithful and conscien- tious performance of his duties he has prob- ably won as rich a reward of personal esteem and admiration as any railway man in the state.
Practically from the time the first railroad lines were constructed into the northern part of Texas the name Clark has been a familiar one in railway circles. S. George Clark was born in Henderson County, Tennessee, June 17, 1856, son of M. M. and Nancy Ann (Chappell) Clark. His father, also a native of Tennessee, came to Texas with his family in 1861, settling in Gregg County. Physical disabilities prevented his going into the Con- federate army, though he served the cause in matters of home defense and in providing clothing and other necessaries to the women and children left behind. He became quite an extensive owner of timber lands in East Texas and in this way after the war got into the business of furnishing ties for construct- ing some of the early railroads. He was also a contractor in railroad construction and built the International & Great Northern Railroad into Longview. He had the tie contract during the building of the Texas & Pacific west from Longview. These business interests led him to take up his home at Fort Worth in the late '70s and he continued to give his enthusiastic support to everything con- nected with the advancement of that city until his death in 1908. His name is affectionately recalled by old timers, and he was associated with W. J. Boaz in building the first packing house at Fort Worth and was an associate of Major Van Zandt in organizing the first free school in the city.
S. George Clark was five years old when brought to Texas, and his father's business interests furnished him an opportunity to learn railroading. He has been a railroad man prac- tically ever since he left school. For three years he was a locomotive fireman with the International and Great Northern. Mr. Clark came to Fort Worth in 1879, just three years after the first train pulled into the city over the Texas & Pacific tracks. He was with the Texas & Pacific in the train service until about 1886. In that year he joined the construction train service and thus helped build the Fort Worth & Denver City Railway. With the completion of that road he became a passenger conductor and in that capacity has had an uninterrupted experience, so that he is now the oldest in point of service on the Denver road.
He also has very appropriately the leading run, Trains No. 1 and No. 2 in and out of Fort Worth.
He is a man not only held in high esteem by the officials of the road, but by the traveling public as well, whom he has carried on his trains for nearly forty years. Everybody knows and likes George Clark, and regular travelers on the road would feel a deep sense of personal loss without his familiar figure in charge of the trains. Mr. Clark has a fine home in Chase Court at Fort Worth. He is one of the original members of the order of Railway Conductors, and has held practically all offices in the Local Division No. 57. De- cember 7, 1881, Mr. Clark married Miss Alice Hawkins, who was born at Mansfield, Lou- isiana.
GEORGE A. FULTON of Fort Worth, one of the prominent railroad men of the state, with a record of more than thirty years of railroad service, is a Texan from the standpoint of practically every experience and circumstance except that of birth. He is a native of New York state, but since early boyhood has lived in Texas.
About 1890 he became a messenger boy in the offices of the International and Great Northern Railroad at Palestine. Exhibiting that remarkable enthusiasm and inquiring mind which has distinguished the careers of all prominent railroad men, Mr. Fulton made rapid progress in responsibility and he was soon one of the regular operators and station agents with the International and Great Northern. For several years he was at La- redo handling both the local and Mexican business for the railroad in that border city. His next post of duty was at Trinity, Texas, where he was joint agent for the Interna- tional & Great Northern, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and Beaumont & Great Northern railroads. He then became agent for the International & Great Northern at Rockdale.
After a continuous service of nearly twenty- three years with the International & Great Northern Mr. Fulton removed to Fort Worth, where for two years he had charge of the claim desk in the local offices of the Missouri. Kansas & Texas. He then became claim in- vestigator in the general office of the Freight Claim Department of the Rock Island at Fort Worth, the duties of this position being handled by him until April, 1920.
Mr. Fulton is now one of the officials of one of Northwest Texas' newest railroads, the
594
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
Wichita Falls, Ranger & Fort Worth. He was given the responsibility of organizing the Freight Claim Department of the company, with headquarters at Ranger, and still has charge of that department. This road was completed to Breckenridge in July, 1920. On the 16th of June Mr. Fulton proceeded to Breckenridge and organized the station force and made thorough arrangements for handling the enormous freight and passenger business which poured into the famous oil town, a busi- ness that has shown steady increase. In this way Mr. Fulton has had an intimate and im- portant association with the chapters of Stephens County's history as a center of oil production.
Mr. Fulton still retains his home in Fort Worth. He has become prominent in Texas Knights of Pythias, is past chancellor com- mander of the lodges at Trinity and Rockdale, and is a member of the social branch of the order, the D. O. K. K.
Mr. Fulton married Miss Mignon Low, a native of Missouri. She is a niece of the late M. A. Low of Topeka. Kansas, distinguished as a lawyer and for many years as general counsel for the Rock Island Railway Com- pany. The five children of Mr. and Mrs. Fulton are: Haddie, Gertrude, George, Jr., Herbert Low and Jerre Gene.
ROBERT E. MITCHELL, whom the year 1921 finds in active and vigorous service as the progressive and popular mayor of Cleburne. Johnson County, is a citizen who is here prov- ing a positive force in connection with civic and material advancement, and none is more loyal to the State of Texas, which has repre- sented his home since his boyhood. Mayor Mitchell as born in Blount County, Alabama, September 9. 1880, and is a scion of an old and honored family of that Southern com-
monwealth. He is a son of George H. and Mattie C. (Ingram) Mitchell, both likewise natives of Alabama. George H. Mitchell was born in November. 1860, his father, Rev. Henry Mitchell, having been a clergyman of the Missionary Baptist Church. and having served as chaplain of an Alabama regiment of the Confederate forces in the Civil war. He likewise was born and reared in Alabama, where, in addition to his ministerial labors, he owned and operated a farm, and there he con- tinued to maintain his home until his death, the maiden name of his wife having been Sarah Hyatt and their son George H. having been the only one of their children to attain
adult age. George H. Mitchell acquired his education in the rural schools of his native state, and there he continued his association with farm enterprise until 1896, when he came with his family to Texas and first located in Ellis County. In the following year he came to Johnson County and here he has since been successfully engaged in farming and stock raising, with high standing as a citizen of sterling character and productive energy. He has lived quietly and unostentatiously, but has wielded much influence in the furtherance of social and industrial progress in Johnson County. He has developed one of the excel- lent farms in the vicinity of Venus and is one of the representative citizens of that locality. He is a stalwart democrat, and both he and his wife are active members of the Baptist Church. Mrs. Mitchell is a daughter of the late Rev. Robert Ingram, a Methodist layman and prosperous farmer in Alabama and a soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war. Of the children of George H. and Mattie C. Mitchell, Robert Edward, of this review, is the eldest ; Jennie is the wife of James Smith, of Bristow, Oklahoma; William E. resides at Ranger, Texas ; Vertie L. is the wife of A. M. Archer, of Joshua, Texas ; Charlsie is the wife of Samuel Thomas, of Altus, Oklahoma ; Grace T. is the wife of Charles Mullins, of Bristow, Oklahoma; Florence, wife of Nor- man Maulding, and George, of Sapulpa, Okla- homa.
The present mayor of Cleburne gained his early education in the public schools of Ala- bama and was about sixteen years old at the time of the family removal to Texas, where he was reared to manhood on his father's farm and in the meanwhile availed himself of the advantages of Burnetta College, at Venus. Within a short time after attaining to his legal majority he assumed the position of messenger and general factotum in the First National Bank of Venus, and his ability and sterling characteristics led to his eventual advance- ment to the office of cashier of this institution. an office of which he continued the incum- bent about three years. In 1916 he was elected tax collector of Johnson county, and in 1918 he was re-elected. He continued in tenure of this office until he was elected mayor of Cleburne, in April, 1920, when he resigned the position of tax collector, the county com- missioners having appointed Mrs. Mitchell to serve out his unexpired term.
Mr. Mitchell became a candidate for mayor of Cleburne only ten days prior to the elec-
Füritabell
595
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
tion, had four competitors in the field and was elected by a plurality of thirty-nine votes. He assumed the duties of this office on the 1st of May, 1920, and his vigorous adminis- tration of municipal affairs has been specially marked by the forwarding of street improve- ments, by the forming of closer co-operation with the city board of education, and by work- ing in harmony with various civic organiza- tions in making the city cleaner and more attractive, as well as making improved sani- tary conditions. Mayor Mitchell is interested in a modest farm enterprise in Bosque County, is a director of the Farmers & Merchants National Bank of Venus and the First State Bank of Lillian, and is a staunch advocate of the principles of the democratic party, in the faith of which he was reared and as a repre- sentative of which he cast his first presidential vote for Judge Parker, the candidate from the State of New York. He has had no predilec- tion for practical politics, but has shown a loyal and helpful interest in the party cause. He is past master of the lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons at Venus and his Ma- sonic affiliations include membership also in the Commandery of Knights Templars at Cleburne and Moslah Temple of the Mystic Shrine in the City of Fort Worth. He maintains affilia- tion also with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. He and his wife are members of the Baptist Church, and in the same he has been specially active in the work of the Sunday school.
September 2, 1908, recorded the marriage of Mr. Mitchell to Miss Jennie L. Hudson, who was born in Johnson County, Texas, Sep- tember 8, 1885, and who is a daughter of James G. and Morgan (Teague) Hudson, both natives of Alabama, where their marriage was solemnized. James G. Hudson was a member of an Alabama regiment in the Confederate service in the Civil war, later became a pioneer settler in Texas, and he passed the closing years of his life in Johnson County, this state, where he died when about seventy years of age, his widow being still a resident of this county. Of the Hudson children the eldest was Martin, who died in Johnson County and who was survived by his wife and their chil- dren ; Rufus, Charles and Thomas are repre- sentative farmers of Johnson County; and Mrs. Mitchell, next younger than Charles, is the only surviving daughter. Mayor and Mrs. Mitchell have five children: Glenn Hudson, Iva, Marie, Edna Grace and Robert E., Jr.
REESE HALE HENRY was a merchant at Burkburnett antedating the great oil boom, and has proved one of the sturdiest figures in the community during that period. He has allied himself with that group of old and new citizens who have comprised the "better ele- ment" and have worked steadily and fear- lessly to uphold law and good order and pro- mote those institutions that provide for the welfare of the community and its people.
Mr. Henry has spent most of his active life in Texas. He was born in Howard County. Arkansas, September 17, 1879, a son of Reese Hale and Helen (French) Henry. He is the grandson of one of the distinguished pioneer Methodist preachers and circuit riders, Rev. John Henry, who was born in North Caro- lina, of Virginia ancestry and of Scotch-Irish stock. Rev. John Henry went to Arkansas in 1817 by way of Missouri, crossing the Arkan- sas River at what is now Little Rock and lo- cating in what subsequently became Hampstead County. The Methodist Church in Arkansas has always honored him as one of its real founders in that state, and a tribute including that honor is contained on the inscription on his monument.
Reese Hale Henry attended school at Center Point Academy in his native county, and was about twenty-two years of age when he came to Texas in 1901. At Lott in Falls County he went to work for his brother, who was a dry goods merchant there, after a few years ac- quired a partnership, and soon became the manager of the business. After four years, on account of failing health, he took a year's rest in West Texas, and from 1913 until March, 1915, lived at Weatherford. For several months he was employed by J. T. Lowry in the dry goods business at Albany, and on Jan- uary 1, 1916, identified himself with Burk- burnett in Wichita County. Here he estab- lished a general mercantile business, and that business has steadily grown and is now one of the busiest marts of trade in this noted oil city. He has a large, modern, double store on Main Street, built of brick and of hand- some appearance, and equipped with stocks of dry goods, groceries and other wares adequate to meet the discriminating tastes of the buy- ing public. The stock would easily inventory at $100,000.
During the past four or five years Mr. Henry has been much more than a successful merchant at Burkburnett. One of his most active interests is the public schools. He is the present chairman of the Board of Educa-
596
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
tion of Burkburnett. Through its progressive Board of Education Burkburnett has a very excellent school system, with two grade schools and a high school, and in spite of many ob- vious handicaps the board has made the facil- ities of education adequate for the great in- crease in population.
Mr. Henry is a charter member of the Burk- burnett Chamber of Commerce and is an accepted leader in all civic affairs and com- munity betterment movements. He stood out strongly for law and order during the days of the boom, when the city was filled with a popu- lation containing many undesirable characters. During the World war he was a leader in Liberty Bond sales and other war activities, and his name has always been associated with charitable and religious enterprises, especially the work of the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Mr. Henry possesses much of the Methodist zeal of his honored grandfather, and is one of the leaders in the Methodist Church at Burkburnett, being a member of the Board of Trustees and superintendent of the Sunday School and a liberal contributor to the upbuilding of the church.
At Lott, Texas, Mr. Henry married Miss Janie Robinson McCreary. Their daughter, Helen Frances Henry. was born September 6. 1909.
CLIFFORD R. NICHOLS as a youth had a spe- cial enthusiasm and tendency for creative and constructive work. He took up contracting and engineering, a profession in which his achievements give him more than ordinary dis- tinction. He is still a comparatively young man, but has been doing contracting for over ten years, and since locating at Wichita Falls has developed an organization, one of the most complete in the South, for carrying out ex- tensive programs of municipal improvement.
Mr. Nichols was born in 1887, in Sheridan County, Western Kansas, where his parents were pioneers, locating there in 1873 and go- ing through the plagues of grasshoppers. drought and hard times. In 1893. when Clif- ford R. Nichols was six years of age, his par- ents returned to Muscatine County, Iowa, where he grew up and received his education. He was liberally educated, having special training for the profession of civil engineer- ing. Quite early in life he started building and construction work, and received a training under some of the old time contractors.
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.