USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > Spokane and the Spokane country : pictorial and biographical : deluxe supplement, Volume II > Part 5
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At Crete, Nebraska, in May, 1900, Mr. Gray was married to Miss Cora E. Streeter, of Wisconsin, a daughter of Gaylord D. and Marie (Adams) Streeter, natives of New York. In the maternal line Mrs. Gray is descended from the Adams family that provided America with so many eminent men, belonging to the branch of which John Quincy Adams was a member. One daughter, Mariana, has been born to Mr. and Mrs. Gray.
The family in religious matters is liberal, favoring no special creed. Fraternally Mr. Gray has attained high rank in the Masonic order, being affiliated with the blue lodge and chapter and also the com- mandery. He likewise belongs to the Odd Fellows, Maccabees and Elks. His political support he gives to the democratic party save at municipal elections, when he casts his ballot for the man he considers best qualified to subserve the interests of the majority. He has always taken an active interest in all local affairs and in 1907 he was elected mayor of Pullman, which was the year the saloons were voted out, a movement in which he was largely instrumental. Mr. Gray is a man of many fine qualities and such strength of character that he inspires confidence in all who have dealings with him. He is a believer in the Jeffersonian principle which is exemplified in his own life and is
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a widely read student of and a writer upon economic questions. What he is and what he has achieved must be entirely attributed to his own efforts, as he has made his own way from early boyhood and is in every sense of the word a self-made man, his success being due to his determination of purpose, persistence and definite aim. Conserva- tive and cautious in his methods, he takes a full inventory of his powers and possibilities of success before undertaking a new venture, and as a result knows exactly what his plan of action will be and con- centrates his entire force upon the achievement of his ambition.
In closing this sketch, it will not be amiss to quote from a testi- monial handed Mr. Gray over thirty years ago, by the faculty of the university at Ada, Ohio, at the time when from lack of funds, as well as a sense of duty to his mother and the balance of the family, he was obliged to withdraw from the institution before graduation. From said testimonial the following paragraph is given:
"Mr. Gray has been a student at this institution for several terms, and of the thousands who come under our instruction, we seldom find a man whom we can commend so favorably. He is a gentleman of most pleasant manners, a kind and generous heart, with a strong will, a sensitive conscience, a clear strong mind, and possessed of strict hab- its of industry :- we believe him worthy of high trust."
In the light of our subject's subsequent life and achievements, the opinion formed of him by his mentors in earlier days, seems to have been fully justified.
Frank L. Smith
RANK L. SMITH is known to the business world F through his mining interests, for he is now closely associated with the development of the rich coal deposits of British Columbia, operating extensively along modern lines. Judged only from a business standpoint, his life work would be considered of worth in this connection, but his activities have been of far wider range in his efforts to uplift humanity and bring into the lives of his fellow- men those higher ideals which result in the development of individual character. His life has come into close and beneficial contact with many others, as he has labored not only in this country and in our insular possessions but also in Great Britain for the benefit of his fellowmen in the dissemination of those truths which are a higher and holier force in the world.
He was born in New York city, February 18, 1848. His ances- tral history can be traced back to the Cromwellian period, for the fam- ily are descended from Lord Stephen Smith, who was a member of Cromwell's parliament. His father, Elias Smith, was born in Prov- idence, Rhode Island, and died about 1891. He was recognized as a very prominent war correspondent and newspaper man of New York and was associated with Horace Greeley in journalistic enter- prises. He became one of the famous newspaper correspondents at the time of the Civil war and was held in high regard by the press of New York city, the chief journalists of the metropolis giving him the credit of being a real historian of that great conflict. He served on the staff of General Burnside and came into close touch with the events that constituted the real history of the civil strife. He scored many "scoops" as correspondent during the days of the war, and the first news which the war department had of the fall of Vicksburg was a dispatch which Elias Smith sent. He practically gave all of his life to newspaper work and was city editor of the New York Times. He was an intimate friend of Henry Ward Beecher and knew many of the leading journalists and distinguished men of the day. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Sarah R. Miller, is of English lineage and a descendant of Roger Williams, the first gov-
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ernor of Rhode Island. Her father was the founder of the Providence Journal and was a prominent political leader.
In the family of Mr. and Mrs. Elias Smith were three sons: Frank L .; E. C., who is now engaged in mining in Mexico; and Alva M., who is a newspaper man of the south.
Frank L. Smith pursued his education in the public schools and in Fairchild's Academy at Flushing, Long Island. He was still a youth in his teens when he did active duty as a member of the Fifty- sixth Regiment of Volunteers of the New York National Guard during the riots at the docks. He entered business life as a commer- cial traveler in the employ of an uncle and afterward was engaged in business in Galveston, Texas, until 1867. While there residing he was married, in May, 1866, to Miss Charlotte Higgins, of Key- port, New Jersey, a daughter of Charles Higgins, one of the most prominent men of that district, who at that time owned all the stage routes out of Freehold. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Smith have been born seven children, of whom four are yet living: Edward W., a resident of San Francisco; Ernest, who is living in Sebastopol, California; Judson, a pharmacist of Spokane; and Lottie M., the wife of Rev. Alfred Lockwood, who for five years was the predecessor of Dean Hicks of All Saints cathedral and is now rector of the church at North Yakima.
On leaving Galveston, Mr. Smith went to Bloomington, Illinois, where he was connected with the railroad service until 1874, when he was made assistant treasurer of the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railroad, now a branch of the Big Four. He won advance- ment from the position of office clerks to assistant treasurer in the general office and remained with the road until it changed hands. Becoming deeply interested in religious work, he afterward spent a a number of years in important positions in connection with the Young Men's Christian Association. He was also engaged in evangelistic work and held missions not only all over the United States but also in England, Scotland and Ireland, conducting a very interesting cam- paign in behalf of moral progress on the other side of the water. The meetings which he held were all by invitation, for his reputation spread and he became known as an earnest, zealous worker in his church. He continued in the evangelistic field until the Spanish war, when he conducted Christian work among the camps of the south, at Camp Lee, Jacksonville, and at Savannah. He afterward continued his labors in this connection on the island of Porto Rico and assisted Gen- eral Henry in distributing relief. He instituted his religious work in Porto Rico at the time the troops were first sent to San Juan, con-
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ducting this labor under the auspices of the international committee of the Young Men's Christian Association. He afterward took part in instituting similar work among the United States sailors but event- ually removed to the northwest. Here he has been connected with a number of important business enterprises and is now secretary-treas- urer of the Boundary Mining & Exploration Company, Limited, of which Dr. C. M. Kingston is the president and S. J. Miller vice presi- dent. In addition to the officers, F. H. Knight and A. H. Noyes are members of the board of directors. The object of this company is to develop the coal properties of Midway, British Columbia, consist- ing of crown-granted property of six hundred acres and other tracts. They have over one thousand feet in tunnels and drifts and shafts. and several hundred feet of the mines have been developed. They are now beginning to sink a developing shaft to strike two veins of coal, one to be reached at a depth of one hundred and ten feet and the other of one hundred and seventy feet. They have several well defined veins in tunnel, five feet in width. Their coal is of the bitu- minous kind and they are now prospecting for semi-anthracite. This is a good blacksmith coal and took first prize at the Interstate Fair. The work of development is being vigorously prosecuted and the com- pany will make its initial shipments in 1912. They have two lines of railroad over the property, the Canadian Pacific and the Great Northern, affording them remarkably good shipping facilities.
While Mr. Smith is proving his worth as an enterprising, progress- ive business man, capable and determined, he at the same time con- tinues his labors in behalf of moral progress and as an evangelist has held misions in every state of the Union except Wyoming and Ne- vada, working largely along undenominational lines. He has served as state evangelist for the Congregational church of California. At Ellensburg he joined the Episcopal church, was confirmed, worked as a layman under Bishop Wells and conducted services as a layman. During 1908 he was called to the management of the Ondarra Inn in Spokane, an institution for the help of the unemployed, and suc- ceeded in making this great work self-supporting. A free employ- ment bureau provided work for about eight hundred men each month and thousands of men were sheltered and fed. Religious services were held and lectures given by prominent men. The property was purchased in 1910, by the North Coast Railroad to be used as a union depot and the work discontinued. Rev. W. L. Bull, an episcopal clergyman, was the owner and he, with Right Rev. Lemuel H. Wells, bishop of the diocese, were the instigators and responsible for the work. He is now connected with St. James parish and had charge of the
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work at St. John's church for one year. He presented a confirmation class of five to the bishop-rather an unusual thing for a layman. His efforts have been a most efficient force for good in the districts where he has labored and the radius of his influence is far reaching.
In politics Mr. Smith is an independent republican, while frater- nally he is connected with the Modern Woodmen and the Red Men, being now a trustee of Comanche Tribe. He also belongs to the Inland Club and in connection with Senator Poindexter and others organized the Fellowship Club, which has been very active in the dis- cussion of public subjects, thus creating public opinion and largely influencing public work. He has ever regarded life as an opportunity -an opportunity for the development of the trifold nature of man- and has therefore labored to bring to the highest perfection pos- sible the physical, mental and moral forces of the world. He has ever reached out in helpful spirit and sympathy toward all mankind and his is one of the natures that sheds around it much of the sunshine of life.
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7.10 Garnit
Frank D. Garrett
RANK D. GARRETT, engaged in the real-estate F business with offices in the Hyde block, is one of the extensive landowners of Washington. He was born in Hardin county, Iowa, on the 12th of October, 1864, his parents being Frank and Mary J. (Stra- horn) Garrett, both of whom are prominent among the pioneers of Iowa and are still living.
Mr. Garrett of this review received his education in the public schools of Iowa until he was fifteen years of age. At that time he left his native state and removed west to Pendleton, Oregon, where he accepted employment on a large ranch for seven years, during the greater part of which period he acted as foreman. He thus be- came acquainted with many of the essential features of the cattle business and subsequently he engaged in that enterprise near Sprague, Washington, for three years. The winter of the last of these three years was a particularly severe one and he had the misfortune to lose the greater part of his stock, when in two nights ten thousand sheep disappeared. But his determination and grit were undaunted and he immediately engaged in agricultural pursuits and for seven years successfully cultivated his farm near Sprague. Again he ex- ercised the same diligence and careful application to the duties at hand which he had displayed in his previous undertakings and the success with which he met was more than compensatory. He dis- posed of this property and since 1904 has engaged in the real-estate business in Spokane. His various undertakings have proved so lucrative that he has been able from time to time to purchase consid- erable land in Washington. At present he is the owner of four thou- sand acres in the Palouse country and of several valuable holdings in Spokane. He has further extended his activities by associating himself with the Coeur d'Alene Empire Mining Company, of which he is at present serving as president. Since becoming a resident of Spokane eight years ago, he has well proven his worth as a business man, as a judge of real-estate values and as a trusted adviser in busi- ness circles.
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In Medical Lake, Washington, on the 3d of July, 1889, Mr. Gar- rett was married to Miss Anna Teal, a daughter of David H. and Rachel Teal. To them two children have been born: Forest, who is attending college at Pullman, Washington; and Hazel, who is a student at the Lewiston Normal School at Lewiston, Idaho. Mr. Garrett exercises his right of franchise in support of the men and measures of the republican party. He holds membership in Spo- kane Lodge, No. 228, Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He has attained notable success and this has followed as the logical se- quence of his labors, his careful study of the development of a rap- idly growing country and his integrity. His record may well serve as a source of inspiration and courage to others, showing what may be accomplished by one who has determination and energy. He has proven his worth as a factor in the business world and the position which he occupies is a creditable one and one involving much respon- sibility.
Y am
Thaddeus S. Lane
HERE is perhaps no man in all of the northwest T more widely known than Thaddeus S. Lane, and he has an almost equally wide acquaintance and repu- tation in the older east, for his business and finan- cial activities have brought him into close connection with important interests in various sections of the suntry. He makes Spokane his home and yet is frequently found in the various metropolitan centers beyond the Rocky Mountains formulating plans concerning important business transactions or speaking words that constitute the guiding force in control of a mammoth industrial or financial project. He was born in Gustavus, Ohio, on the 10th of February, 1872, his parents being Truman M. and Melissa Lane, who were not only of American birth but trace their ancestry back to the colonial epoch in our country's history. His forebears were residents of New England but during the first half of the last century representatives of the name traveled with ox teams to Ohio, where they hewed their farm out of the virgin forest. Mr. Lane still owns the ancestral home in the Buckeye state and frequently visits it on his eastern trips.
Like that of most men his rise in the business world has been a gradual one and yet his close application and his keen insight and his ready perception have enabled him to forge ahead of many who perhaps started out far in advance of him. At length his attention was attracted toward the feasibility of the establishment of inde- pendent telephone systems and in 1906 he came to Montana. After a close scrutiny of local conditions he decided that Butte offered a profitable field for Independent telephone endeavor and established there the Montana Independent Telephone Company which consti- tuted the modest beginning of operations that today cover all of Montana, northern Idaho and Washington. In fact his lines reach from the Dakotas to the Pacific. There are eight automatic ex- changes in the system of which Mr. Lane is the president, with general offices in Spokane. His combined interests are conducted under the style of the Inter State Consolidated Telephone Company, which is the holding company of ten companies of which he is pres-
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ident. His Spokane company alone represents an investment of two million dollars. From one point to another he has extended his operations and promoted his activities until he is now president of the Billings Automatic Telephone Company, of Billings, Montana; the Helena Automatic Telephone Company, of Helena, Montana; the Great Falls Automatic Telephone Company, of Great Falls, Montana; the Montana Independent Telephone Company, of Butte, Missoula, Anaconda and Hamilton, Montana; the State Telephone & Telegraph Company, at Bozeman and Livingston, Montana; the Interstate Telephone Company, Limited, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint and Panhandle, of Idaho; the Idaho Independent Telephone Com- pany, of Pocatella, Idaho; and the Home Telephone & Telegraph Company at Spokane, Washington. The Inter State Consolidated Telephone Company, the capitalization of which is five million dol- lars is the holding company of all the other companies mentioned above. The northwest's best known independent magazine, The Treas- urer State, of Montana, writing of his activities in the field of in- dependent telephone exchanges, said: "Mr. Lane came to Butte four years ago with a good disposition, a world of telephone experience, a genius for inspiring confidence and a sane and monumental optimism that convinced everybody that he had come to the best place in the world for the big and permanent operation of an Independent tele- phone system. Probably that is another of the secrets of Mr. Lane's success-he never undertakes anything in which he is not himself vitally and enthusiastically confident. Lane commenced Montana operations by building the Butte exchange. He coolly and even deb- onairly weathered the panic and emerged at the beginning of this year with over six thousand independent phones in the Big Camp as compared with about nine hundred in use by the old established com- pany. With Butte as a base and nucleus of his enterprise Mr. Lane kept on extending his activities. He built perfect exchanges at Ana- conda, Helena, Great Falls, Missoula and a few lesser Montana places reaching as far as the Dakota line on the east and as far as Idaho. He picked up all the intervening rural and interurban small lines and then invaded the Panhandle of Idaho. He ran up against local discourage- ment, past failures, automatic misfits and every conceivable obstacle; but he conquered and eliminated all hindrances and steadily pursued his triumphant march as an organizer and builder of safe and modern telephone business. Within the short time of his activities in this northwest region Mr. Lane has established a cohesive chain of forty- nine exchanges in Washington, Idaho and Montana and in Spokane, where he raised more than one million, five hundred thousand dol-
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lars for his company, over twenty-five hundred instruments were sub- scribed for and ready for business before a bell rang. The Spokane exchange now includes the largest and most perfect automatic serv- ice in the northwest. The weakest spot of the earlier independent telephone companies was their inability to give long-distance service. Therefore Mr. Lane attacked this inability and in perfecting a long- distance system he removed the last and greatest argument against the independent method of telephoning. In acquiring weak, in- complete and isolated small companies an enormous amount of money was required. T. S. Lane has proved an ability in financing his projects which has made him the leading spirit in the independent telephone movement. He has the invaluable faculty of radiating local confidence, inspiriting dejected enterprise, restoring self-con- fidence in others and urging forward the rapid economic success of all his undertakings."
In addition to his mammoth operations in the telephone field Mr. Lane is president of the Western Empire Fire Insurance Company of Spokane and a director of the Montana National Life Insurance Company. He is also a director and vice president of the Silver Bow National Bank of Butte, Montana. The number of corporations in which Mr. Lane is a director is thirty-eight.
In 1897 Mr. Lane was married in New York city to Miss Lilian Payntar, a daughter of George Hoagland and Irene (Merkle) Payn- tar. They have one child, a daughter, Lilian, aged ten, who is a student at Brunot Hall. Mr. Lane has purchased the Gordon home at No. 1323 Eighth avenue and with his family regards this as his per- manent residence. He has never sought political nor fraternal prom- inence and belongs to no lodges nor societies save the Benevolent Pro- tective Order of Elks. Of him it has been written: "Thaddeus S. Lane of the United States might as well be his address because he seems to go everywhere, and if you frequent the best clubs of Chicago, Minneapolis, Salt Lake or 'Frisco, you are just about as sure to see him sitting in the evening at a quiet game of slough in any one of them as in the Montana Club at Helena, the Spokane Club of Spokane or the Silver Bow at Butte. Mr. Lane is something more and better than a 'promising young man.' He is a performing young man, a very dynamic personage of wholesome and captivating personality, but of an exhaustless energy which is the wonder of his friends, and the despair of his rivals. Imperturbability fits Mr. Lane like his business suit but for all his seeming calmness he is endowed with a physical alertness and mental celerity that are the essentials of his remarkable success. His constructive talents are touched with the
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daring of all self-reliant men. He infuses others with his own same optimism and demonstrates his own faith by the performances of his busy days. With men like him nothing is final and failure is not a word at all. His industry is insatiate and yet he loves life and lives it with every creditable zest for happiness."
L.B.
I. B. Talbitten
A WELL spent life has brought to L. B. Whitten sub- stantial success in a business way, and sound judg- ment has prompted judicious investment in real es- tate until he is now the owner of valuable city and farm property. Moreover, he is numbered among the early residents of eastern Washington, having for thirty-one years resided in this district, so that he is largely famil- iar with its upbuilding and progress, while toward its growth and development he has contributed.
He was born in Alleghany county, Virginia, November 15, 1850, and is a son of James and Sidney (Hook) Whitten, who were early residents of Pennsylvania and were descended from old families of the east. In the public schools of his native state L. B. Whitten pursued his education and then, turning his attention to the carpen- ter's trade, became familiar with that business in its various phases. It was his father's wish that the son should remain in Virginia and become a farmer, but this seemed to limit his opportunities, and when he had mastered the carpenter's trade he left the Old Dominion and made his way to the state of Missouri. There he conducted a photo- graph gallery for a short period but was still not content with his location. The west seemed to call him and he started overland with a mule team for the Pacific coast country.
Mr. Whitten first made his way to Oregon, settling at The Dalles, but after a brief period came to Spokane, where he arrived on the 3d of January, 1880. He bought a lot on Front street, where he erected a carpenter shop and worked for several years. In 1881 he purchased a lot and erected a frame building at No. 19 Howard street, there establishing a drug store which was destroyed by fire in 1888. In the spring of 1889 he replaced this by a three-story brick building and again suffered heavy losses in the great fire which oc- curred in the fall of the same year. Still undiscouraged, he at once rebuilt upon that site and also erected the fine five-story Whitten block which occupied the corner of Sprague and Post streets. In 1890 he erected a brick residence at the corner of Sixth and Madison streets and in 1893 built a two-story building at 616 Front street
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