Gustaf A. Uline Biography


	This biography appears on pages 713-714 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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GUSTAF A. ULINE. is one of the representative citizens of Dell 
Rapids, Minnehaha county, with whose business and civic advancement and 
material progress he has been prominently identified, while he has 
gained a competence through his well directed efforts since coming to 
the state and is held in the highest popular confidence and esteem in 
his community. Mr. Uline is a native of Wermland, Sweden, where he was 
born on the 1 12th of October, 1849, being a son of Andrew and 
Charlotte (Biraths) Uline, who passed their entire lives in Sweden. The 
subject secured his educational training in the excellent schools of 
his native land, having taken a course of study in the Tecmcial 
College. As a young man of nearly eighteen years he severed the ties 
which bound him to home and fatherland and set forth to seek his 
fortunes in America. He located in Michigan, where he remained a few 
months, thence going to Wisconsin, where he was employed in different 
vocations for a short interval, after which he moved to Minnesota and 
was employed in railroad work. Later he moved to Lansing and Cherokee, 
Iowa, in the meanwhile gaining valuable knowledge in regard to the 
country and its language and business methods. From Iowa he went to 
Jackson, Minnesota, where he was employed in a clerical capacity in a 
mercantile establishment for three years, at the expiration of which, 
in 1874, he came as a pioneer to what is now the state of South Dakota, 
locating in Dell Rapids, where he opened a general store, being one of 
the first merchants in the town. He continued this enterprise for 
eighteen years, having initiated operations on a modest scale and 
having eventually built up a large and profitable business, through the 
conduct of which he had accumulated a competency. He disposed of his 
interests in this line in 1892, in which year he organized the Dell 
Rapids State Bank, of which he was elected president, an incumbency 
which he has ever since retained, while the institution has become one 
of the solid and popular financial concerns of the state and controls a 
large business. He is also a stockholder in the First National Bank of 
Dell Rapids and has been a member of its directorate for a number of 
years past. Mr. Uline is a man of distinctive business and executive 
ability and impregnable integrity of character, and is known as a loyal 
and public spirited citizen. He is a stalwart advocate of the 
principles of the Republican party and has been an active worker in the 
party cause and prominent in its councils, having been a delegate to 
various state and county conventions, while Governor Mellette appointed 
him a member of the first state board of charities and corrections in 
which capacity he served six years, being a valued member of this 
important body. In 1880 he was elected mayor of Dell Rapids, serving 
two years and giving a most able and satisfactory administration of 
municipal affairs, while for the past decade he has been a member of 
the local board of education. He is an active and influential member of 
the Baptist church, of which Mrs. Uline is also a zealous member, and 
fraternally is identified with the Masonic order, in which he has 
passed the Knight Templar degrees, and is also identified with the 
Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.  

On the 15th of November, 1877, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
Uline to Miss Minnie Friborg, who was likewise born in Sweden, and they 
have five children, Alma C., Mary D., Grace B., Minnie and Augusta D.