Sela Ellis Crans Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1014-1017 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) 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.

	This file is part of the SDGENWEB Archives. If you arrived here inside
	a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at

	http://usgwarchives.org/sd/sdfiles.htm


				SELA ELLIS CRANS. 

	Sela Ellis Crans, of Lead, is first deputy state fire marshal and 
has proved energetic in the discharge of his duty of investigating the 
origin of fire and the detection of the work of incendiaries. He is 
also engaged in the insurance and real-estate business in Lead and is a 
successful business man. He was born in New York city, February 2, 
1861, a son of B. M. and Elizabeth (Myers) Crans. The father was an 
engineer in the early '50s on the York & Erie Railroad and in the 
latter '60s went to California, where he remained until 1869. He then 
removed to Illinois and later to Fort Madison, Iowa, but died in 
Burlington, Iowa, in 1889. He survived his wife for two decades, as she 
passed away in 1869. The family is of German ancestry, but some of its 
members settled in Pennsylvania in the early days of the history of 
that commonwealth. 

	Sela Ellis Crans is the youngest in a family of eight children 
and was but eight years of age when his mother died. He attended school 
in Princeton, Illinois, also the Fort Madison Academy and schools 
elsewhere until he was seventeen years of age. He then entered a 
newspaper office at Milton, Iowa, where he worked for three years, and 
was then employed in Denison, Iowa, until 1884. He next went to Albion, 
Nebraska, and ran a newspaper until 1897. 

	In that year Mr. Crans came to Lead, South Dakota, and engaged in 
newspaper work on the Lead Daily Tribune for two years. In 1899 he 
entered the real-estate and insurance business and has continued to 
devote his time to that line of work since. He transacts a constantly 
increasing volume of business and gains a good annual income therefrom. 
In 1901 he was appointed city auditor of Lead under Mayor Erwin and by 
reappointment held the office until the close of 1904. In 1909 he was 
appointed first deputy state fire marshal under Governor Vessey and is 
still serving in that capacity, having been reappointed a number of 
times. His official duties require a great deal of his attention and he 
is conscientious in their discharge, prosecuting without fear or favor 
those charged with incendiarism. 

	At Albion, Nebraska, on the 19th of January, 1888, was solemnized 
the marriage of Mr. Crans and Miss Caroline Miller Cline, who passed 
away on the 12th of May, 1913, after a quarter of a century of happy 
married life. 

	Mr. Crans is a republican and has been quite active politically. 
Fraternally he belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America and the Blue 
Goose, which is an insurance association. He is also a member of the 
Deadwood Commercial Club and Pierre Commercial Club and is thoroughly 
in sympathy with the aims and purposes of those organizations, which 
seek to advance the interests of the state along business and 
industrial lines. As a business man, as a state official and in the 
private relations of life he has always measured to high standards of 
manhood and justly deserves the respect which is freely accorded him.