Sedgwick County KS Archives Biographies.....Kirkpatrick, R. F. 1861 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 5, 2007, 1:50 am

Author: O. H. Bentley (1910)

    R. F. Kirkpatrick, head of the Cement Stone Manufacturing Company, No. 505
West Douglas avenue, Wichita, Kan., is a native of Ohio, having been born at
Decatur, Ohio, on January 24, 1861. His parents were Newton and Sallie (Sutton)
Kirkpatrick, both natives of Ohio, and who were both lifelong residents of Brown
county, in that state. R. F. Kirkpatrick was reared on a farm, where he was
engaged in the cultivation of tobacco until the age of thirty-two. Much of his
education was obtained at night by private study after the day's work was ended.
In the spring of 1893 he came to Kansas and for a short time resided at Mount
Hope, in Sedgwick county, but in the fall of the same year he removed to Johnson
county, Nebraska, where he farmed for one year. At the opening, in 1893, of the
Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma in 1894 he took a chance on the new country, and
bought a quarter section in the northeast corner of Garfield county. He built a
sod house, removed his family thereto, and began life in a primitive fashion,
improving the land until it became one of the best farms of the locality. In the
spring of 1897 the sod house was supplanted by a modern frame house and other
improvements, in keeping with the demands that labor and energy had brought
about. Mr. Kirkpatrick still owns this farm. December 19, 1903, Mr. Kirkpatrick
came to Wichita and began his concrete plant in the spring of 1904,
manufacturing the first cement stone on March 6, 1904, and has since
manufactured everything needed as to size or style in the cement line for
Wichita and the nearby towns. After getting the plant in operation he had a
working capital of only $40. The business of the first year amounted to $12,000,
and it has continued to progress until it has now reached $100,000 annually. Mr.
Kirkpatrick is a member of the Central Christian Church. He was married in 1882
to Miss Mary J. McEfresh, of Dayton, Ohio. Of this union two children have been
born, Myrel, wife of William Williams, of Saratoga, Okla., and Bessie P.
Kirkpatrick, of Wichita, who was married November 6, 1910, to Leroy Solander, of
Wichita.

Additional Comments:
Extracted from 

History of Wichita and Sedgwick County: past and present, including an account
of the cities, towns and villages of the county

Editor in chief: O. H. Bentley
Chicago: C.F. Cooper & Co. (1910)


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