HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                              207

    His first trip to Colorado was made when it was a territory, in 1865,
the year after the great Indian raid up the Little Blue river, and Platte
and Lodge Pole creeks. The trip was made with a wagon train from
St. Joseph, Mo. The train carried supplies for troops who were being
fitted out at Fort Larimer for an expedition against the Indians, on
Powder river to the northward from that point. He passed through the
northwestern portion of the territory, crossing the South Platte river
at Julesburg, thence up Lodge Pole creek to North Platte river, and
thence to Fort Larimer in what was then Nebraska Territory.

    Amos J. Fires, native of Clay county, only son of Thomas J. and
Emeline (Baber) Fires, born June 15, 1860, on the old Baber place, in
Lewis township, where he continued to live and attend the public school
at the Fires school house until the month of August, 1875, when the
family moved to Worthington, Greene county. Here he assisted his father
on the farm and attended the Worthington high school until eighteen
years of age, when he took instructions in telegraphy, then again attended
high school, and at the age of twenty years began teaching in the country
schools. Two years later he took the commercial course at the Northern
Indiana Normal school, Valparaiso, after which he taught penmanship,
book-keeping and commercial law in the Bloomfield (Indiana) Normal
and Elkhart high school for three years: Preparatory to entering law
school at Louisville, Kentucky, he read law in the office of Hon. S. S.
Johnson, at Jeffersonville, passing examination in the fall of 1885, then
carrying the two years’ course in the Louisville institution, graduating
with honors in the month of April, 1886. Prior to this, however, he had
been admitted to practice at the Greene County bar in August, 1885.
Very soon after graduating Mr. Fires was offered the deputy prosecutor-
ship for Greene and Sullivan counties, under Prosecutor S. W. Axtill,
but impressed with the belief that there were better opportunities for
young men of energy with no money, in the Southwest, he made up his
mind to go to Texas. Leaving Jeffersonville (Indiana) on the 7th day
of July, 1886, he landed in Texas on the 11th day of the same month,
deciding, after four months’ prospecting in the south and west parts of
the state, to locate in Childress county, which was then unorganized and
eighty-five miles from the terminus of the Fort Worth and Denver Rail-
road. At that time he had $35 in cash, owed $160 on his tuition at the
law school, and was in a strange country. Just then there were but two
houses within the territory to be known as Childress county, but there
was a rapid influx of population, so that by the following spring there
were settlers enough to proceed to organize the county, in which the
subject of this sketch played an active and prominent part and at the first
election, April, 1887, was elected judge, having then been in the state but
nine months, during which time, however, he had been fortunate enough
to be engaged in several cases in which he had won some reputation as
a lawyer. Having held the judgeship eighteen months, he voluntarily
retired from the position, to again enter actively into the practice, to
which he devoted his time and talent until the spring of 1891, when, in
company with several associates, the First National Bank of Childress
was organized and he elected vice-president. Two years later (1893)
he bought the controlling interest in the bank and was elected president,
serving in this capacity until 1897, when the bank was located at Quanah
(Texas) and reorganized as the First National Bank of Quanah, of