Erwin J. Tracy Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1193-1194 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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	ERWIN J. TRACY, son of Squire and Graty P. (Leonard) Tracy, is a 
native of New York, born in St. Lawrence county, that state, on the 21st 
day of July, 1846. When ten years old he was taken by his parents to 
Sterling, Illinois, where he entered the public schools, the training 
thus received being afterwards supplemented by a classical course in the 
Mt. Morris Seminary, from which institution he was graduated at the age 
of twenty-four. After finishing his education, Mr. Tracy, in 1871, went 
to Wisconsin, where he engaged in teaching, spending in all about two 
and a half years in that line of work, divided about equally between the 
states of Wisconsin and Illinois. Abandoning the school room, he next 
embarked in the mercantile business at Arcadia, Wisconsin, where he 
remained three and a half years and built up a lucrative trade, but at 
the expiration of that time he disposed of his establishment and in the 
fall of 1877 came to South Dakota, locating on a quarter section of land 
near the city of Sioux Falls. During the ensuing twenty years Mr. Tracy 
devoted his attention exclusively to agriculture, with a large measure 
of financial success, accumulating the meanwhile a sufficiency of this 
world's goods to place him in independent circumstances. In the fall of 
1897 he quit the farm and, moving to Sioux Falls, engaged in the real-
estate and insurance business, which he still carries on and in which he 
has built up a large, far-reaching and lucrative patronage. 

	Until 1888 Mr. Tracy was a Republican, but that vear he cast his 
lot with the Populist party, and became one of its active and 
influential workers in Minnehaha county. He was chosen delegate to four 
state conventions, was prominent in local politics, but put forth no 
efforts to advance his own interests, never having been an aspirant for 
public office. Subsequently he became dissatisfied with the principles 
and policies of Populism and this disaffection continuing to grow in 
intensity, he finally withdrew from the movement and returned to the 
folds of the Republican party, of which he has since been a zealous and 
uncompromising supporter. 

	Mr. Tracy, in 1879, was one of the organizers of the town of 
Wayne; he served as township clerk for some years, also held the offices 
of township treasurer, justice of the peace and road overseer, and took 
a leading part in forwarding the various interests of his community, 
materially and otherwise. 

	Mr. Tracy is in every respect a representative man, and his 
present commendable standing in business circles is the result of sound 
intelligence and clear judgment, directed and controlled by wise 
forethought. Fraternally he belongs to the Order of Home Guardians and 
the Improved Order of Red Men, in both of which organizations he has 
been honored with important official positions. Mr. Tracy was married in 
1871 to Miss Flora O. Kipp, the union resulting in the birth of two 
sons, Lloyd E., of Tacoma, Washington and Earle H., who makes his home 
at Hibbing. Minnesota.