Biography of Charles Evans Barnes, Plant City, Hillsborough County, FL

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Transcribed from:  The History of Florida:  Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., Vol. 
III, page 91, 1923.

BARNES, CHARLES EVANS established his residence at Plant City, Hillsborough County, shortly 
after attaining to his legal majority, and in the intervening years he has become a leader 
in republican politics in this section of the state, has served as postmaster of his home 
city, and has gained precedence as a progressive exponent of the real estate, rental and 
insurance business at Plant City.

Mr. BARNES was born in Wood County, West Virginia, on the 19th of October, 1875, and the 
public schools of his native state afforded him his early education, which included the 
curriculum of the high school in the city of Parkersburg.  At the age of twenty-one years 
Mr. BARNES came to Florida and identified himself with business interests at Plant City.  
He soon made his influence felt in the local ranks of the republican party, of which there 
were at that time two factions in the state, one known as the regulars and the other as 
the "Lily Whites".  He cast in his lot with the regulars and has become influential in the 
councils and campaign activities of the republican party in the state of his adoption, with 
recognized leadership in its affairs in his section of the state.  In 1908 Mr. BARNES was 
appointed postmaster of Plant City, under the administration of President Roosevelt, his 
reappointment having been made by President Taft, and his effective and consecutive service 
in this office having continued until 1913, when President Wilson appointed a democrat as 
his successor.  It is pleasing to record in this connection that, through comparatively 
recent appointment, the wife of Mr. BARNES is now the efficient and popular postmaster 
of Plant City.

Mr. BARNES has proved one of the most loyal and progressive members of the City Council 
of Plant City, he having been the only republican elected out of a total of five, and 
there having been ten democratic candidates in the election that brought him victory and 
that gave evidence of his secure place in the confidence and esteem of the people of his 
home city.  It is needless to state that his service has fully justified the popular 
confidence thus shown in his election to this municipal office.  The year 1922 finds Mr. 
BARNES in service as secretary of the republican committee for the First Congressional 
District and also secretary of the republican executive committee of Hillsborough County.  
He took a vigorous and effective part in the national campaign of 1920, and was a delegate 
from Florida to the Republican National Convention that nominated President Harding, at 
Chicago.  Since his retirement from the office of postmaster Mr. BARNES has built up an 
extensive and important business in the handling of real estate, and in giving incidental 
attention to  rentals and insurance.  In connection with his real estate operations he 
is manager of the Barlow Land Company.  In the time-honored Masonic fraternity Mr. BARNES 
has completed the circles of both the York and Scottish Rites, in the latter of which he 
has received the thirty-second degree.  He is also a member of the Benevolent and Protective 
Order of Elks.  He is a charter member of the lodge of Knights of Pythias at Plant City.

Mr. BARNES wedded Miss NANNIE E. WHITEHURST, of Plant City, and they have two children, 
CHARLES OLIN and NOEL EVANS, aged, respectively, eighteen and sixteen years.  Mrs. BARNES 
is a popular factor in the representative social, cultural and church activities of her 
home city, besides having the distinction of being its present postmaster, an office in 
which she making a record that may put that of her husband, the former incumbent, into 
comparative shadow.