David L. Fairbanks Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1736-1737 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

	This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit 
	organizations for their private use. 

	Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval 
	system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other 
	means requires the written approval of the file's author.


	DAVID L. FAIRBANKS, one of the extensive stock growers and land 
owners of South Dakota, whose finely improved home ranch is located in 
Sully county, about twenty miles southwest of the city of Gettysburg, in 
Potter county, was born in Dodge Center, Minnesota, on the 11th of 
November, 1868, and is a son of Henry C. and Harriet Allen Fairbanks, 
both of whom were born in the state of New York. The Fairbanks family 
was established in America more than two centuries ago, and the name has 
been prominently identified with the annals of our national history, 
both in New England and divers other sections of the Union. A complete 
genealogical record has been compiled, touching also the allied 
families, and a copy of this valuable work is in possession of our 
subject, the data of course being too comprehensive to admit of 
consideration in so necessarily circumscribed a publication as this 
history of South Dakota. When Henry C. Fairbanks was a child of four 
years his parents removed to Wisconsin in the year 1834, becoming 
numbered among the pioneers of that state. In 1854 he removed to Dodge 
county, Minnesota, where he was engaged in farming until 1883, when he 
located in Yankton, South Dakota, where he continued to be identified 
with farming and stock growing until 1898, when his cherished wife was 
summoned into eternal rest, and he has since resided in Edgerly, North 
Dakota, where he is living practically retired. 

	The subject was reared in Dodge Center, Minnesota, where he duly 
availed himself of the advantages of the public schools, and he 
accompanied his parents upon their removal to South Dakota, continuing 
to be associated with his father until he had attained his legal 
majority, when he initiated his independent career, being for four years 
in the employ of the mercantile firm of Lea & Prentice, in Vermillion, 
and thereafter engaging in farming and stock dealing in that locality 
for the ensuing seven years, meeting with distinctive success in his 
individual operations. He passed the next two years in Charles Mix 
county, running his stock on the reservation. He then came to Sully 
county, where he became associated with Alfred Hallam in the stock and 
land business, under the firm name of Stone Lake Stock Company, and here 
they have since continued operations with gratifying success. They 
raised cattle of high grade, giving preference to the Durham type and 
also having a considerable number of the Polled Angus and Hereford 
grades, usually running an average of one thousand head of cattle, while 
they keep an average of two hundred head of horses, principally 
Percherons, with a proportion of the Hambletonian line. In sheep they 
run an average of twenty-five hundred head, all being bred from full-
blood sires of the Ramboullet and Shropshire lines. In the home ranch 
are comprised eight thousand acres, and here water is supplied from a 
fine artesian well, sunk to a depth of fifteen hundred and ninety-five 
feet and flowing eighty gallons a minute, while on the place is secured 
a supply of natural gas adequate for light and fuel should it be deemed 
expedient to thus utilize the same. The buildings on the ranch are 
substantial and well-arranged structures, including an attractive modern 
residence. Twenty miles east of this place the firm have the Stone Lake 
ranch of about thirty-five hundred acres, with an inexhaustible supply 
of water available at a depth of thirteen feet, and on their ranches is 
raised an ample supply of fodder to provide properly for the care of 
stock during the winter seasons. Mr. Fairbanks is a man of progressive 
ideas and through his well-directed efforts has gained a position as one 
of the representative and prosperous stockmen of the state. In politics 
he exercises his franchise in the support of the principles of the 
Republican party, and fraternally holds membership in the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows. 

	On the 9th of August, 1892, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
Fairbanks to Miss Gertrude Olsen, who was born in Clay county, this 
state, being a daughter of C. Olsen, a successful farmer and stock 
raiser of Vermillion, Clay county. Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks have five 
children, Hattie, Mabel, Ruth, and Frank and Francis, who are twins.