Sebastian County ArArchives Biographies.....Kelley, Leigh 
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Robert Sanchez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00027.html#0006574 July 17, 2009, 1:26 pm

Author: S. J. Clarke (Publisher, 1922)

LEIGH KELLEY.
    Prominent among the energetic, farsighted and successful Business men of
Fort Smith is Leigh Kelley, who is the vice president of the Kelley Trust
Company and the vice president of the Mansfield Gas Company. His activities and
interests are of an important character and he displays marked capability in
their management and control. Mr. Kelley comes to Arkansas from the neighboring
state of Kansas, his birth having there occurred in the city of Burlington on
the 15th of May, 1887, his parents being Harry E. and Kate (Henderson) Kelley.
His paternal grandfather, Captain Harrison Kelley, was a Civil war veteran,
serving with the Union army. The father, Harry E. Kelley, has been a prominent
figure in the business affairs of Fort Smith for many years. He has been active
in the real estate field and is now prominently known as a capitalist and
landowner and as the founder of the Kelley Trust Company.

    Leigh Kelley pursued his early education in the public schools of Fort
Smith, for during his infancy the family home was removed to this city. In fact
he was but three months of age when his parents came to Fort Smith and with the
interests of the city he has been closely associated throughout the intervening
period, save for the time when he was pursuing his education in the Leland
Stanford University of California, where he studied civil engineering. He then
followed his profession for three and a half years in various parts of Arkansas.
He has since been identified with financial interests of Fort Smith as vice
president of the Kelley Trust Company, which was organized in 1905. He has
closely studied all the problems relating to the business, has made himself
familiar with every phase of the work and has accomplished excellent results
through his superintendency of the interests of the corporation in the position
of vice president. He has also become the vice president of the Mansfield Gas
Company and in business affairs he displays notably sound judgment and
unfaltering energy.

    Mr. Kelley attended the First Officers' Training Camp at Fort Logan H. Roots
and was commissioned a first lieutenant, being assigned to the Three Hundred and
Thirty-fourth Field Artillery. In June, 1918, he was promoted to the rank of
captain and went overseas in August After reaching France he was assigned to the
training school at Bordeaux and while there he was placed on detached service on
the general staff of Base Section, No. 2. He was mustered out on the 7th of
March, 1919. He is a prominent and valued representative of the American Legion,
having been chosen state commander for a term of one year, beginning in 1920.

    Mr. Kelley was united in marriage to Miss Fay Alexander, a daughter of J. H.
Alexander of Port Smith, and they have become the parents of three children,
namely: Gordon, Elizabeth and Alexander. Mr. and Mrs. Kelley are well known in
Port Smith, where they occupy an enviable social position and where his standing
as a business man is very high. He possesses untiring energy, is quick of
perception, forms his plans readily and is determined in their execution, and
his close application to business and his excellent management have largely
brought to him the high degree of prosperity which is today his. It is true that
he became interested in a business already established, but in controlling and
enlarging such an enterprise many a man of even considerable resolute purpose,
courage and industry would have failed. Mr. Kelley, however, has demonstrated
the truth of the saying that success is not the result of genius but the outcome
of clear judgment and experience.


Additional Comments:
Citation:
Centennial History of Arkansas
Volume II
Chicago-Little Rock: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1922


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