Allen D. Dougan Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1742-1743 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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	ALLEN D. DOUGAN, one of the prominent and successful citizens of 
Aurora county, is a native of Dodge county, Wisconsin, where he was born 
on the 14th of December, 1856, being a son of John and Eliza (Nickerson) 
Dougan, who now reside in Mason City, Iowa, the former being seventy-
three years of age at the time of this writing. The paternal 
grandparents of the subject were born in Ireland, whence they emigrated 
to America in an early day and located finally in Warren county, New 
York, where their son John was born and reared. In 1845 they removed to 
Wisconsin and located on a farm in Dodge county. At the age of twenty-
one he left home and learned the carpenter's trade and was foreman and 
had charge of the woodwork in John S. Rowell's manufacturing 
establishment at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, for ten years. In the fall of 
1869, he, with his family, removed to Mason City, Iowa, where he formed 
a co-partnership with E. R. Loyd for the sale of farm machinery. Their 
efforts were very successful. For the past twenty-five years he has not 
engaged in any active business, only giving attention to his landed 
interests. He has been an ardent Republican from the time of the 
organization of the party. Fraternally he is a member of the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows, and it is largely through his efforts that the 
organization has completed a fine business structure and lodge rooms, 
also having succeeded in securing the location of the State Orphans' 
Home at Mason City, Iowa. Of their eight children only three are now 
living. 

	The subject of this sketch received his early educational 
discipline in the public schools of his native county and supplemented 
this by a course of study in the Shattuck Military Academy, at 
Faribault, and a six-months course at a business college in St. Paul, 
Minnesota, after which he was engaged in teaching school about three 
years, meeting with success in his pedagogic efforts. Later he was 
employed for four years as a salesman in a mercantile establishment in 
Mason City, Iowa, and in 1883 established himself in the hardware 
business in Plankinton, South Dakota, to which he continued to devote 
his attention for twelve years. He has been in a significant sense the 
architect of his own fortunes, and the marked success which stands to 
his credit thus represents the tangible result of his own well-directed 
efforts. In 1882 he came to Aurora county, South Dakota, where he took 
up government land in Palatine township, the same constituting an 
integral portion of his present valued homestead ranch of four hundred 
and eighty acres, most eligibly located nine miles northeast of 
Plankinton, the county seat, where he has maintained his home since 
1896. His entire ranch is well fenced and equipped with substantial and 
attractive buildings and other permanent improvements of the best type. 
In addition to the original homestead, Mr. Dougan also took up a tree 
claim, and that he has accomplished more than the required amount of 
work in the matter of planting trees is evident to even the casual 
observer, for his place is made doubly attractive by the many fine trees 
planted by him and now well matured. In addition to the various cereals, 
he has given special attention to the raising of potatoes, to which he 
devotes about six acres of ground, from which he secures an annual yield 
of about one thousand bushels. He also has a good orchard on his place, 
and in the agricultural and pomological and horticultural departments of 
his farming enterprise he is particularly favored through the providence 
afforded by his fine artificial lake, which covers a tract of fourteen 
acres and which varies in depth from seven to nine feet. From the 
surface of the same he can draw off the water to a depth of thirty-three 
inches for irrigation purposes, while the supply is unfailing, being 
secured from one of the finest artesian wells in this section of the 
state. The well has a diameter of four and one-half inches and is five 
hundred and twenty-three feet in depth, the sinking of the same having 
been accomplished at a cost of eight hundred dollars. In the line of 
live stock, Mr. Dougan gives special preference to the Black Polled 
cattle, while he also raises an excellent grade of horses and swine. In 
addition to this homestead ranch he owns seventy acres of valuable land 
adjoining the town of Oacoma, Lyman county, where he lived during the 
year 1889, after which he returned to his home place. In politics Mr. 
Dougan had always been a Republican until the campaign of 1896, when he 
advocated the policy as adopted by the Chicago and later the Kansas City 
platforms, believing the volume of the money regulates the prices of all 
commodities, but in no sense is he in sympathy with what is known as 
Cleveland Democracy. He served one term each as mayor of Plankinton and 
as a member of the board of supervisors of Palatine township. He is 
affiliated with the Brotherhood of American Yeomen, Knights of Pythias 
and also was a charter member and the first noble grand of the 
Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Plankinton. 

	On the 6th of September, 1883, Mr. Dougan was united in marriage 
to Miss Katherine E. Dunn, who was born in Crawford county, 
Pennsylvania, and reared to maturity in Iowa. She is a daughter of 
Philip and Rebecca (Greenlee) Dunn, who removed from Pennsylvania to 
Cerro Gordo county, Iowa, in 1876, where Mr. Dunn became a successful 
farmer, and where he remained until his death, which occurred in 1893, 
in Plankinton. His widow now has her home with her daughter, the wife of 
the subject. Mr. and Mrs. Dougan have three children, Lee, Blanche and 
Lynn, all of whom remain at the parental home, the two elder children 
having completed their education in the Plankinton high school, in which 
they were graduated as members of the class of 1903. Lee is at present 
taking a course in the State University at Vermillion, South Dakota, and 
Blanche, having completed a successful term of school the past winter, 
is at present studying music at Mason City, Iowa.