James Ernest Platt Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1531-1532 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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	JAMES ERNEST PLATT, cashier of the Security Bank of Clark, was 
born in Decatur, New York, on the 11th of March, 1866, and is a son of 
Rev. James Nelson Platt and Laura (Sibley) Platt, both of whom were 
likewise born in the old Empire state. The father of the subject, who is 
now president of the Security Bank of Clark, which was organized in 
1888, came to South Dakota in 1884, having been for twenty years 
previously a member of the Upper Iowa Methodist Episcopal conference. 
The subject of this sketch was graduated in the high school at 
Manchester, Iowa, as a member of the class of 1881, under Superintendent 
C. D. Clark, now United States senator from Wyoming. Thereafter he 
continued his studies in Cornell College, at Mount Vernon, Iowa; the 
Upper Iowa University, at Fayette; and in 1884 he was graduated in 
Epworth Seminary, at Epworth, Iowa, having taken a three-years classical 
course. During his vacations in his early youth he worked on various 
farms, but early manifested a desire to secure a position in a bank. 
After his graduation, when seventeen years of age, he came to Clark, 
South Dakota, in 1884, and secured a clerical position in the banking 
establishment of D. Wayne & Company, who later disposed of their 
interests in the line to G. C. Griffin, who organized the bank of Clark, 
Mr. Platt remaining with the new institution about a year, at the 
expiration of which he engaged in the real-estate and loan business in 
partnership with his father, and in September, 1888, they organized the 
Security Bank of Clark, of which he has since been cashier, showing 
distinctive ability in the handling of the affairs of the institution, 
which is one of the solid and popular banking concerns of the state. He 
has large real-estate holdings in the town and county; is treasurer of 
the Fraternity Gold Mining and Milling Company, operating in the Black 
Hills, with headquarters at Hill City, and he has been treasurer of the 
Clark Co-Operative Creamery Company since its organization, in 1898. He 
was elected cashier of the Security Bank when but twenty years of age, 
and has been prominently concerned in banking in Clark for a full score 
of years. In politics Mr. Platt is a stalwart Republican, taking an 
active interest in forwarding the party cause and having been a delegate 
to nearly all the state conventions of his party since the admission of 
South Dakota to the Union. He was for five years incumbent of the dual 
office of clerk and treasurer of the city of Clark, and for two years 
gave effective service as its mayor, his administration being marked by 
a progressive and business-like policy. In 1902 he was appointed major 
and paymaster of the South Dakota National Guard, his commission to 
extend over a period of five years. In 1895 he was elected treasurer of 
the state board of agriculture, of which office he has since remained in 
tenure. Fraternally he is identified with Clark Lodge, No. 42, Ancient 
Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is past worshipful master and 
present secretary; Olivet Chapter, No. 14, Royal Arch Masons; Watertown 
Commandery, No. 7, Knights Templar; Aberdeen Consistory, Ancient 
Accepted Scottish Rite, in which he attained to the thirty-second degree 
in January, 1902; El Riad Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of 
the Mystic Shrine, at Sioux Falls; Huron Lodge, No. 144, Benevolent and 
Protective Order of Elks; El Kim Ran Temple, Dramatic Order of the 
Knights of Khorassan, at Watertown; and Myrtle Lodge, No. 43, Knights of 
Pythias, at Clark. In 1899-1900 he was grand chancellor of the state 
grand lodge of the last mentioned order, and in 1903 he was elected 
supreme representative of the order for South Dakota, being a delegate 
to the general assembly of the same in Louisville, Kentucky, in August, 
1904. 

	On the 19th of June, in the First Methodist Episcopal church of 
the city of Chicago, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Platt to Miss 
Katharine A. Boyle, formerly of Jamestown, North Dakota, but a teacher 
in the public schools of Clark for a few years prior to her marriage.