USA > Texas > The encyclopedia of Texas, V.1 > Part 89
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The Gardner ranch is one of the most highly de- veloped in Wichita County with every modern im- provement and ample facilities for the handling of yearlings and full grown cattle when they are ready for market. The ranch presents a beautiful scene with its hundreds of sleek. fat cattle. The ranch is entirely under fence and some idea of its area may be gained from the fact that a total of twenty-five miles of fencing.
Young Gardner was reared on a ranch and with the exception of two years when he was in the clothing business and the time spent in the army during the world war, has spent his entire life in the business of raising cattle.
A native of Iowa, he was born in Page County in 1893, a son of M. J. and Allie (Harlan) Gardner. His father is a prominent retired ranch man and re- sides in Wichita Falls where he is connected with a number of the city's leading financial and commer- cial enterprises.
After attending the public schools and a business college young Mr. Gardner took up his work on the ranch and succeeded to the active management of the large properties controlled by his father. He was married in 1915 at Bonham, Texas, to Miss Margue- rite Caney. They have two children, Max, Jr., four years of age, and James C., the baby. Young Max is already trailing in his father's footsteps and takes great delight in riding the range with his dad.
In 1917 Mr. Gardner joined the Motor Transport Corps and was assigned to duty with the Forty- second Division. He was in active service in France for 18 months, receiving his discharge in 1919 and immediately returned to the ranch.
Mr. Gardner is an active member of the Texas Cat- tle Raisers Association and the Benevolent and pro- tective Order of Elks.
W. FRITZ, general manager of J. I. Staley and Company, investment bankers, 513 Morgan Building, is one of the best known of the younger and progressive business men of Wichita Falls and has resided in the city since 1916. He has been manager for the J. I. Staley interests for several years and under his direction the business has achieved a splendid de- gree of success. Besides the investment banking feature of the business, the Staley interests control important oil holdings and have extensive interests in farm and ranch lands in various portions of West Texas and New Mexico. Mr. Staley is a well known financier and has done much for the development of that section of Texas surrounding Wichita Falls.
Mr. Fritz was born in Central Nebraska, in 1889, and is a son of F. O. Fritz, now retired and living in Wichita Falls. The elder Fritz is well known and highly esteemed by a large circle in Wichita Falls.
After attending the public schools the younger Mr. Fritz began his business career with the Frisco
Railroad and later went with the Wichita Falls and Northwestern. He was agent for both lines at various points for several years before accepting his present position as manager for Staley and Company.
He was married at Altus, Oklahoma, in 1912, to Miss Addie Dye, a native of Illinois. They have two children, Lester, aged six, and Laura, four. The family resides at 1403 Grant Street.
Mr. Fritz is a Scottish Rite Mason and a member of Maskat Temple Shrine, and the Wichita Club. He is greatly interested in civic affairs and a con- sistent and earnest booster for Wichita Falls.
BARRY S. BAUM, in Kemp Hotel on Eighth Street side, has one of the most attractive gent's furnishing establishments, not only in his city, Wichita Falls, but in northern Texas. The Harry Baum Company establishment was organized in June of 1920, and all its fixtures, cases, equipment of every type, were planned by Mr. Baum personally and specially manufactured for him in Wichita Falls, that fastly growing Texas city that is becoming a leader in every activity. Two employees are kept constantly busy besides the founder of the business. Wichita Falls has mnade unprecedented strides in commercial circles. and growth in wealth and in population likewise, and is today known as the city of big men for it has a greater percentage of men of big business among its men of commercial affairs than perhaps any other Texas city and will compare in this respect favorably with any city anywhere on the percentage basis. And an astonishing number of these big men are young men-men in the twenties and thirties inostly, few in the forties with only a bare showing of old men. To this great galaxy of successful young men, Mr. Baum's establishment is a chief supply house.
Mr. Baum is a native of Texas, as he was born in Gainesville, of this state, in 1885. His father, Sol Baum, deceased, was a merchant of success who came to Texas many years ago. After completing the public school system of his city, Mr. Baum attended the University of Pennsylvania, from which he received his A. B. degree in 1908. He then began as a traveling salesman for C. Stern & Mayer Company of New York City, covering the entire United States, Mexico, and South America in their silks and neck wear. In this capacity he made his first acquaintance with Wichita Falls, five years before locating in this city. Then he became asso- ciated with Baum-Gardner Company, a ladies' and gents' furnishing establishment, with whom he re- mained until September of 1919. He was also active with Mr. J. A. Kemp, a leading business man of his city, in opening and selling the Morning Side Park Addition. In June of 1920, he established the Harry Baum Company, one of the most up-to-date gent's furnishing establishments anywhere.
In 1916, at Wichita Falls, Mr. Baum married Miss Lillian Avis, daughter of J. D. Avis, formerly a hardware merchant, now of Wichita Falls. They have residence in Morning Side Park, Wichita Falls.
Mr. Baum is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner at Maskat Temple. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Wichita Golf Club, the Wichita Club, the Wichita Ad Club and every or- . ganization that makes for the social and civie ad- vancement of Wichita Falls.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TEXAS
OM L. BURNETT, Iowa Park. In the settling up of the great western range and the
division of the large ranches into farm lands of smaller area there is slowly but surely disappearing a picturesque type of citizens who have played so romantic and interesting a part in the history of the West, the Western "Cowboy."
To be sure there are still areas where the whole- some spirit of the chap with the broad brimmed hat and gauntlets, the chaps and spurs, with a smile and heart as big and broad as the prairie over which he roams, reigns supreme, but this area is diminish- ing from year to year and it will be only through the efforts of those remaining who know and love that broad free life of the Western range that its pic- turesque romance may be preserved.
Foremost among those men who have labored to perpetuate the spirit and tradition of the range is Tom L. Burnett, King of the Western Cowboy, whose life has been spent among the vast herds and who is widely known through West Texas as the em- bodiment of the type he represents.
Tom L. Burnett resides at the headquarters of the Burnett Ranch, comprising an area of over 26,000 acres, located in the Northern part of Wichita Coun- ty, between Iowa Park and Electra on the Ft. Worth & Denver Railroad and the highway 17% miles Northwest of Wichita Falls. He is general manager of the ranch of which he owns a half interest, twenty five hundred head of steers graze upon the ranch. The ranch buildings are attractive and commodious bunkhouses supply headquarters for the ranch hands and a stock pen beside the railroad track has ade- quate facilities for loading cattle.
A portion of the ranch is proven oil land and about 175 wells have been drilled with a daily production of over 3,000 barrels and considerable development is being done with the prospects of a largely measured production of oil.
Mr. Burnett is a native Texan, he was born on a ranch in Denton County, December 10, 1871, his parents were S. Burk and Ruth Loyd Burnett. His father is one of the pioneer stock men of West Texas and leading capitalists of Ft. Worth, who came to Texas in the fifties and has been one of the leading stockmen for nearly half a century. When a boy .of seven Tom went with his mother to Ft. Worth where he attended school for several years. At the age of ten he came to Wichita County and has since that time remained upon the big ranch with the exception of three years he spent at the Vir- ginia Military Institute at Lexington, Va.
Mr. Burnett was reared in the atmosphere of the range. Ile was adapted to the ranch life and at an early age showed his ability to run the business of the ranch. For a period of 17 years he had the entire management of the ranch which part of the time included the 45,000 acres in Wichita County and 400,000 acres of leased land in Oklahoma. When his father sold the 18,000 acre ranch in the Burk- burnett District and bought the Louisville Ranch in Kings County, Tom took charge of the Iowa Park Ranch where he has since remained.
Mr. Burnett was married in 1890 to Miss Ollie Lake of Ft. Worth. He has one daughter-Annie, who is a member of the senior class of Hilton Arms School, Washington, D. C.
Mr. Burnett holds membership in the B. P. O. Elks, the I. O. O. F., the Fort Worth Club and the River Crest Country Club. Public spirited in his views
he has always been one of the most liberal contribu- tors to all activity for the advancement of public interest, and never fails to do his part in charitable causes. His greatest interest, however, is the cause of the cowboy and it is no exaggeration to say that he is West Texas' leading exponent for the per- petuation of the traditions and spirit of the range.
He promoted the Rodeo at Wichita Falls in 1920 and again in 1921 in which some of the best exhibi- tions of roping, bulldogging, fancy riding and broncho busting ever shown in the South were featured. He is endeavoring to make the Rodeo an annual event at Wichita Falls. His success in these events led to his being selected by the Ft. Worth Live Stock Show to put on the Rodeo at that event in 1922. He has also arranged a Horse Show for that occasion and for those who know Tom, his ac- ceptance of the management of an enterprise of that kind is a guarantee of its success.
Tom Burnett is by nature the embodiment of the Western spirit. The great range is his home and there only is he content. Though qualified by edu- cation and culture with an affable and congenial nature and the added advantages of unlimited wealth. the most exclusive clubs and social circles .of the cities are open to him but the call of the prairie is the only call he heeds and in the freedom of this atmosphere is the only life that he finds worth while.
ASIL W. GILMORE, manager of the Gil- more Lumber Company, one of the largest retail lumber yards in North Texas, came to Wichita Falls in 1918 from Oklahoma City and in February, 1919, opened an office and lumber yard in Wichita Falls. He was associated in the ownership of the business with his father, I. L. Gilmore, and Dale P. Gilmore.
The Gilmore Lumber Company handles high grade lumber of every size and description, roofing ma- terial and builders' hardware, and rig timbers for use in building derricks and erecting standard rigs in the oil fields. The yard occupies a space of ground two hundred by one hundred and forty feet and carries one of the most comprehensive and valuable stocks of lumber to be found in this section of the country.
The Gilmore Lumber Company was founded by I. L. Gilmore in Commerce, Oklahoma, in 1916, and from a small beginning has expanded until retail yards are operated at Commerce, Picher, Bristow, Slick, Oklahoma and Wichita Falls and Burkburnett, Texas.
Basil W. Gilmore was born at Kirksville, Mis- souri, July 11, 1898, a son of I. L. and Rosemund (Wooley) Gilmore. He was educated in the public schools of Kansas City, Missouri, and graduated at Westport high school in 1916, later attending the Missouri University and University of Oklahoma.
He was married at Joplin, Missouri in 1919, to Miss Hazel Edwards, daughter of Charles W. Ed- wards, well known real estate and mining operator of Joplin. They reside at Second and Indiana Streets.
After completing his studies young Gilmore en- gaged in business with his father and during the past four years has been active in the conduct of the business of the Gilmore Lumber Company. He is a young man of keen insight, progressive business ideals and inexhaustible store of energy.
372
Cordially your Burnett
MEN OF TEXAS
OSEPH. B. FITTS, Commissioner of Public Safety, has been a resident of Wichita Falls since December, 1911, and was elected to his present position as head of the police and Te departments on July 16th, 1921. Under the di- tion of Mr. Fitts both departments have attained 30 a commendable degree of efficiency.
The police department consists of a chief and thirteen patrolmen, six detectives, three motorcycle "en and ten special officers, the last named serving „nder special commissions without cost to the city. The fire department has thirty-five trained fire ! ghters, four stations, eight pieces of modern motor apparatus and a complete fire alarm system, com- er.sing 120 boxes covering the business and resi- :ential sections of the city. Efficiency of the fire apartment is reflected in the exceptionally low key rate granted Wichita Falls by the fire insurance rat- ing bureau.
Mr. Fitts is a native of Virginia and was born in Lee County, May 20, 1869, a son of Rev. William H. and Eliza (Anderson) Fitts. His father was a well known minister of the Methodist Church and during the Civil War served as a Captain of calvary under General Robert E. Lee.
The family removed to Texas in 1880 and located first at Plano in Collin County, later removing to Hunt County. Mr. Fitts received his early education in the public schools of Hunt County and later en- tered Savoy College.
On April 8, 1888, Mr. Fitts was married to Miss Katie Brown, who died on December 14th of that year. On October 8, 1890, he was married to Miss Ola Sumner of Birmingham, Alabama. They have one son, A. L. Fitts, who is connected with the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway at Wichita Falls.
Mr. Fitts is a staunch booster for Wichita Falls, enthusiastic over the city's outlook for the future and a strong believer in its future as the commercial and industrial center of that section of the state. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
EE HUFF, chief of the police department of Wichita Falls and one of the best known peace officers of West Texas, came up to his present position from the ranks and won his appointment on August 5, 1920, by sheer merit and loyal devotion to the interests of the de- partment. He is absolutely fearless and has no "hobby other than rigid enforcement of the laws.
Coming to Wichita Falls in January, 1920, he entered the department as a plain clothes man and was promoted to the position of chief on August 5th. He has built the police department to its high- est state of efficiency and now has 35 men under his direction. Mr. Huff knows no such thing as office hours and can usually be found on the job from six o'clock in the morning until midnight and when occasion demands long past that hour. He keeps in active touch with the patrolmen and the detective department and personally superintends the hand- ling of nearly all important cases.
The police department now has 24 uniformed men, xix plain clothes men and six motorcycle and auto- mobile men. The city jail has a capacity of fifty prisoners and is kept clean and sanitary.
Mr. Huff is a native Texan and was born in Coryell County in 1877, a son of J. B. Huff, farmer and ranch man. He attended the public schools and
worked on a ranch until 1900 when he was appointed deputy sheriff of Coryell County. He was later a peace officer in McClennan County for fifteen years before coming to Wichita Falls.
Mr. Huff is unmarried and is intensely devoted to his work. He is considerate of his men but main- tains rigid discipline and will have none but the most efficient and capable officers connected with the police force. He is a strong booster for Wichita Falls and believes it to be the best city in the state. He is a member of the Texas Association of Police Chiefs and of the National organization also.
L. McCLURE, chief of the efficient fire de- partment of Wichita Falls, desires nothing more than to see the complete motoriza- tion of the department and the reduction to a minimum of the fire loss in this city. He is work- ing untiringly to bring about both these accom- plishments and has gone a long way on the road to success.
Coming to Wichita Falls on January 6, 1907, Chief McClure became officially connected with the fire department two years later, entering the service as a driver of one of the horse drawn trucks. Four years after entering the service of the city he was promoted to the position of chief of the department and was also made fire marshal in 1913 when that office was established. Chief McClure has seen the department grow from a small equipment of horse drawn apparatus until it now has four well equipped stations and thirty-five trained fire fighters. Ad- ditional stations were established in 1915 when stations three and four were opened at Seventeenth and Holiday Streets and Seventh and Broad Streets, and in 1920 No. 2 was established at Buchanan and H Avenue. The city has eight pieces of motor drawn apparatus of modern type and a complete fire alarm system numbering 120 boxes.
Chief McClure is a native of Spartenburg, South Carolina, and was born in 1866, removing with his parents to Paris, Texas, when he was two years of age. His father was J. B. McClure, well known North Texas farmer. Chief McClure remained on a farm until he was thirty years of age and received his education in the public schools of Lamar County, riding on horseback seven miles to attend school. He was married May 28, 1891, to Miss Sena A. Lewis. They have two daughters, Vio, now Mrs. G. W. Habern, wife of the assistant chief of the fire department, and Cecil, now Mrs. W. H. Harris, of Fort Worth.
Mr. McClure is a Mason, a member of the Blue Lodge and Chapter organizations, a member of the Rotary Club and the Woodmen of the World. He is an enthusiastic booster for Wichita Falls and ever ready to aid in any movement for development of the city.
F. STRUBE, president of the Wichita County Lumber Company, came to Wichita Falls in 1920. Other members of the firm are C. G. Tevis, vice-president, and R. C. Tevis, secre- tary-treasurer. The business was organized in 1919. and handles lumber, building material of all kinds and makes a specialty of big timbers and oil field material. The business occupies a site 150 x 400 feet and keeps three men employed in the yard. A yard is also operated at Iowa Park, being the first yard opened by the organization in 1918. In 1919 an- other yard was opened at Holliday, Texas. The
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TEXAS
organization is a trust company and one of the largest in Wichita Falls.
Mr. Strube was with the Missouri Lumber and Land Company for ten years, travelling through Texas. He came to Wichita Falls because he be- lieves it is the coming city of Texas.
Mr. C. G. Tevis, vice-president of the firm, came to Wichita Falls in 1899 from Fort Worth, Texas. He has been in the lumber business for thirty-five years. Mr. R. C. Tevis, secretary-treasurer, son of the vice-president, came into the firm when he was discharged from the army after eighteen months ser- vice in the 36th Division Medical Corps. He spent one year in France. Prior to entering the army he was in the lumber business about two years.
Mr. Strube is a native of Des Moines, Iowa, born June 20, 1880. His father, E. Strube, was an Iowa farmer, and his mother was Miss Martha Phillips. He was educated at the Des Moines public schools and attended the Capital City Commercial College. In 1912 he was married at Graham, Texas, to Miss Mary Finch, whose father, W. T. Finch, was in the lumber business in that town. They have two chil- dren, Wm. Ernest and Rhoda Fay, and reside at 1806 Elizabeth street.
He is a Mason and a Shriner, belonging to Moslah Temple, Fort Worth, and South Side Blue Lodge No. 1114.
P. (PHY) TAYLOR, pioneer stockman of Northwest Texas, capitalist, hotel proprie- tor and large reality owner in Wichita County, typifies that romantic and pictures- que spirit, symbolical of the West Texas pioneer days that have has so delightful a place in the literature of the great Southwest. His personality as a man, the generosity of his philanthropy, the liberality of his contributions to civic progress, the loyalty of his support of every cause launched for public welfare and his hospitality as a host to visitors to Wichita Falls, have given him a place without peer in the perpetuation of those traditions so dear to the hearts of all West Texans.
Mr. Taylor has had a part in the entertainment of probably more celebrities of National or world-wide renown, than any other citizen of Wichita Falls. Noteworthy among the occasions in which he has officiated upon the committee for entertainment was that of a famous hunt given to the late Theodore Roosevelt, on the tract of land known as Big Pasture, Oklahoma, the year it was opened up for settlement. The date of this interesting hunt was May 5, 1905. Capt. Burk Burnett and W. T. Waggoner, the well- known millionaire cattlemen, owners of the pastures containing 480,000 acres staged the big hunt; and Phy Taylor had an active hand in putting on the event. Among the well known celebrities who partic- ipated in the event were, Tom Burnett, Texas' most picturesque Cow Boy, Cecil Lyons. Republican Na- tional Committeeman. Col. Sloan Simpson, ex-mem- ber of the famous rough riders of the Spanish War, John Abernathy, who caught and held the wolves with his bare hands, later appointed by Roosevelt as U. S. Marshall of Oklahoma, on its introduction to Statehood. Dr. Lambert of New York, Lee Bevens of Amarillo, and other well known Texas characters.
Col. Roosevelt later wrote a thrilling account of this hunt in one of his narratives on the "Winning of the West" and in this account Phy Taylor was given complimentary mention for his active part in making this affair a thrilling success.
Mr. Taylor is a native of Indiana, having been born at Evansville, in 1870. His father, Andrew .I. Taylor, moved to Wichita County, Texas, in 187 ;. when his son was age six. He manufactured the- first brick in that country and was a pioneer to the extent that he killed buffalo on his own farm. The mother was Martha (Lamaster) Taylor, a native of Indiana. Wichita County gave Mr. Taylor his school- ing and after its completion he began life as a cow boy, at the age of eighteen, for Captain Burk Bur- nett, on a Ranch in Oklahoma. For seven years in this capacity he served the man whose name is now so well known in Texas. He then bought a Ranch for himself in Northwestern part of Wichita County. He has a part interest in the "77" Ranch Company. which he manages; on this ranch are 125 thorough bred Black Pole cattle; 1,800 acres are in cultivation, and the beautiful lakes, in which the Ranch abounds, are all stocked with every type of game fish. It is this ranch that has the distinction of being the most beautiful ranch in all Northwest Texas. Mr. Taylor is also the owner of three large apartment houses in Wichita Falls, in addition to the hotels he owns and manages. He has attractive holdings in produc- ing wells of his district, as well as owning the roy- alties in a number of other producers.
Miss Mattie Coble, daughter of C. P. Coble, ranch- man in Wichita County, in 1893, became the bride of Mr. Taylor; they have four children; Mrs. J. R. New- land, Mrs. Marshall Huff, Mrs. Newton Huff, and Miss Maude Taylor. The family residence is at 900 Lamar street. Mr. Taylor is a member of the B. P. O. E. and the Chamber of Commerce.
As a ranchman of good proportions and as a hotel man since 1913, when he came to Wichita Falls from the ranch to take over the Hearn Hotel, Mr. Taylor is well known not only to his city and section, but to many over the state as an admirable host and a lead- ing business man in a city of his business.
OHN BISHOP, associated with T. B. Noble of Wichita Falls. Texas, in the ownership of the T. B. Noble & Company business at Petrolia, Texas, and manager of the firm, is numbered among the representative business men of his town and a citizen highly esteemed and respected by all. He came to Texas in 1900 and locat- ed at Petrolia in 1904, and on January 1, 1917, he established the present business, dealing in hard- ware, furniture, dry goods, and men's furnishings, and he has always enjoyed a good business. Nine employes look after the wants of the trade, and the space occupied by the concern is 50x120 feet, with two warehouses in which to keep surplus stocks. Previous to establishing this business, Mr. Bishop conducted the first grocery, meat and ice business in Petrolia, and for twelve years he was with the Wichita Mill and Elevator Company as grain buyer and elevator superintendent.
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