Johnson-Miami County KS Archives Biographies.....Smith, E. L. 1866 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 22, 2008, 12:18 am

Author: Ed Blair (1915)

  E. L. Smith, manager of the Olathe Gas Company, is a representative of that
type of men who are doing things in the industrial world of today. Mr. Smith is
a native of Illinois, born near Litchfield, July 18, 1866, and is a son of Allen
G. and Martha (Kinder) Smith, the former a native of the Old Dominion and the
latter of Illinois, born of pioneer Illinois parents, who settled in that State
when it was one broad expanse of unbroken prairie. The mother remembered,
distinctly, when game was abundant in Illinois and saw deer by the hundreds,
roaming over the plains. Allen G. Smith removed from his Virginia home to
Kentucky with his parents when a mere boy, and while yet in his teens hired out
to drive cattle from Kentucky to Indiana and made a similar trip from the latter
State to Alton Landing, Ill., about 1830, and made his home in Illinois after
that. He located in Macoupin county, near Litchfield. He broke the prairie where
the city of Litchfield now stands, and for a time in the early da3^s was engaged
in freighting, before there was scarcely more than trails across the plains. In
1880 he removed to Cass county, Missouri, where he died two years later, aged
sixty-seven years. He was a strong anti-slavery advocate and a man of positive
convictions. He was a Republican and member of the Baptist church and a very
religious man. His wife died in 1892, aged sixty-two years. They were the
parents of five children, namely: H. T., Harrisonville, Mo.; Martha M., married
William T. Wilson; S. P., died at the age of forty-three, in 1903; E. L., the
subject of this sketch, and Allie, married M. L. Dollar, Paola, Kan. E. L. Smith
attended the public schools in Illinois until the age of fourteen, when he came
to Cass county, Missouri, with his parents. He was engaged in farming in that
section for eight years, and in 1888 came to Kansas as an employ of the Missouri
Pacific Railway Company at Osawatomie, Kan., and remained with that company
until 1897 when he entered the employ of the Pennsylvania Oil, Gas and Mining
Company., at Osawatomie. He was in the operating department of that company in
connection with their Miami county development until 1898 when they came to
Johnson county and drilled the first well in Johnson county, which was at Old
City Park, Spring Hill, where they struck a good flow of gas at a depth of 610
feet. That was the beginning of the gas development of Johnson county. Mr. Smith
began at the bottom in the oil business and has had experience in drilling, pipe
line construction and everything in connection with the business. lie remained
with that company until 1904, when he engaged in drilling as an independent
contractor and followed that vocation in Miami county until 1910, when he came
to Olathe as manager of the Olathe Gas Company and still holds that position.
Mr. Smith was married July 3, 1888, to Miss Mattie Naylor, a native of Jefferson
City, Mo., but resided in Cass county at the time of her marriage. She is a
daughter of Benjamin Robert and Margaret Elizabeth (Hall) Naylor, both now
deceased, the former a native of Missouri and the latter of Kentucky. To Mr. and
Mrs. Smith have been born two children: Benjamin Earl, operating a drilling rig
for his father in Johnson county, and Euphemia, died at the age of three years,
October 30, 1897. Mr. Smith is a member of the Masonic lodge. Ancient Free and
Accepted Masons. No. 19, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. No. 11, Paola,
The Fraternal Order of Eagles. Aerie No. 400, Olathe; Ancient Order of United
Workmen, Homestead No. 1000, and the Yoeman, Paola, Kan. He is a Republican and
a member of the Christian church. Mrs. Smith is also a member of the Christian
church and the Order of the Eastern Star and Rebekahs.

Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

HISTORY OF Johnson County Kansas
BY
ED BLAIR

AUTHOR OF
Kansas Zephyrs, Sunflower Sittings and Other Poems and Sketches

IN ONE VOLUME

ILLUSTRATED
STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
1915


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