Thomas H. Ayres Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1421-1422 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	THOMAS H. AYRES, president of the Gas Belt Land and Abstract 
Company, with headquarters at Pierre, was born on a farm four miles from 
Akron, Summit county, Ohio, on the 3d of October, 1865, and is a son of 
Homer C. and Emma T. (Fessenden) Ayres, who removed to Osceola, Iowa, 
when he was a child. There the subject attended the public schools until 
he had attained the age of fifteen years, and his further discipline was 
secured under those conditions which have been consistently designated 
as offering the advantages of a liberal education, that is, he 
thoroughly learned the printer's trade. In 1884, at the age of eighteen 
years, he came to the territory of Dakota, and began the publication of 
a paper known as Plain Talk, in Vermillion, Clay county, continuing its 
publication until 1891 and making it a potent factor in local and 
political affairs. He then went to North Dakota and assumed the 
editorial management of the North Dakota Independent, at Grand Forks, 
the same being the official organ of the Farmers' Alliance of the state. 
During the campaign of 1892 he was secretary of the Populist state 
central committee of North Dakota, Governor Shortridge and the other 
candidates on the fusion state ticket being elected. He was later 
associated with W. R. Bierly in the publication of the Daily Grand Forks 
News, but in 1893 returned to Vermillion and resumed the publication of 
Plain Talk, being thus engaged until August, 1901, when he sold the 
plant and business to W. R. Colvin, the present owner and publisher. On 
the 12th of January, 1897, Mr. Ayres was appointed secretary to Governor 
A. E. Lee and retained this incumbency during that executive's two 
terms. In 1900 he did special newspaper work during the session of the 
legislature, and in July, 1901, he here engaged in the real-estate 
business, in which he individually continued operations until December, 
1901, when he associated himself with John I. Newell in the organization 
of the Gas Belt Land and Abstract Company, which is incorporated for ten 
thousand dollars and which already controls a large and important 
business and which is exerting distinctive influence in furthering the 
progress of this section of the state, Mr. Ayres having been president 
of the company from the time of its inception. In February, 1903, he was 
chosen a member of the Pierre capital committee and is taking a most 
active interest in the work of the committee in connection with 
strenuously maintaining the claims of Pierre against other towns which 
are striving to wrest the capital from the city. Fraternally he is 
identified with the Knights of Pythias. 

	In Sioux City, Iowa, on the 11th of June, 1892, Mr. Ayres was 
united in marriage to Miss Cora Kelsey Smith, who was at the time a 
teacher in the public schools and who was born in Florence, Vermont. 
They have four children, Clara, Fanny, Homer and Rollin.