Willis R. Wood Biography


	This biography appears on pages 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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	WILLIS R. WOOD, who is engaged in the lumber business at Parker, 
Turner county, is a native of the Badger state, having been born on a 
farm in Columbia county, Wisconsin, on the 23d of October, 1859, a son 
of Norman I. and Julia A. (Welliver) Wood, who were pioneers of that 
state, where the former was a successful farmer. The parents are now 
living in Green Lake county, Wisconsin. After completing the curriculum 
of the public schools the subject supplemented this discipline by a 
course of study in the Wisconsin State Normal School at Oshkosh, this 
being in the year 1880. He thereafter taught school for a short time in 
his native state, after which he removed to Winterset, Iowa, where he 
was identified with the lumber business until August, 1884, when he came 
to Parker, South Dakota. as manager of the local interests of the 
Oshkosh Lumber Company, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which then maintained a 
number of lumber yards along the line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul Railroad. He thus continued in the employ of this company about 
five years, at the expiration of which he became associated with Charles 
W. Davis, of Oshkosh, in the purchase of the interests of the afore 
mentioned company in Parker and Alexandria, South Dakota, and since that 
time the enterprise has been continued under the firm name of W. R. Wood 
& Company, the business having become one of no inconsiderable scope and 
importance. In 1895 Mr. Wood purchased of Vale P. Thielman his abstract, 
land and loan business, at Parker. This enterprise was established by 
Mr. Thielman in 1870 and was conducted by him for a quarter of a 
century, thus having the prestige of being the oldest of the sort in the 
county, its foundation having been contemporaneous with the issuing of 
the patent of the first quarter section of land in the county, so that 
it figures as a distinctively pioneer institution. In politics Mr. Wood 
has ever been staunchly arrayed in support of the Republican party and 
its principles, and while he takes a deep interest in public affairs of 
a local nature he has never been a seeker of official preferment. 
Fraternally he is identified with Parker Lodge, No. 30, Free and 
Accepted Masons; Parker Lodge, No. 88, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; 
and Monitor Lodge, No. 57, Knights of P3rthias, all of Parker. On 
January 19, 1904, Mr. Wood was united in marriage to Miss E. Belle 
Waterbury, of Nashua, Iowa.