Deloss B. Gurney Biography


	This biography appears on pages 516, 519 in "History of Dakota Territory" 
	by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				DELOSS B. GURNEY.  

	The name of Gurney is inseparably interwoven with the history of 
Yankton and South Dakota and is a synonym for activity in the nursery 
business from pioneer times to the present. Through three successive 
generations the family have been successfully engaged in business as 
seedsmen and nurserymen. The ancestral line in America is traced back 
to 1658, when Alonzo Gurney landed in the new world and hewed out a 
home for himself in the wilderness of Massachusetts. His son or 
grandson married a descendant of Francis Cook, one of the little 
company that came over in the Mayflower, and thus all of their 
descendants are eligible to membership in the Mayflower Society, as 
they are also to the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, for 
a number of the ancestors fought for the independence of the nation. 
The ancestors of the family through various generations were known for 
their successful cultivation of garden products and flowers and Alonzo 
Gurney, the grandfather of Deloss B. Gurney, began in a small way the 
growing of trees as a business at Cummington, Massachusetts. With him 
was associated his son, Charles W. Gurney, until after the call to arms 
following the outbreak of the Civil war in 1861 He had in that year 
come to the middle west intending to establish the business in Iowa in 
order to supply the growing territories with trees. But at the outbreak 
of the trouble between the north and the south, Mr. Gurney enlisted as 
a private of the Third Iowa Infantry and when the Second and Third 
regiments were consolidated as the second, Mr. Gurney veteranized and 
at the close of the war was mustered out as lieutenant colonel of his 
regiment, returning home with a military record of which his children 
may well be proud.  

	After the war Colonel Gurney established a nursery at Monticello, 
Iowa, and for sixteen years his business constantly increased, 
extending more and more largely to the west. It was this western trend 
of his patronage that prompted him in 1882 to remove to Concord, Dixon 
county, Nebraska, where he established his business on as firm and 
substantial a basis as he had previously done at his former location. 
With him were associated his sons and later a nephew, who was attracted 
to the family vocation after it had lapsed for one generation in his 
line.  

	Deloss B. Gurney, one of the brothers now heavily interested in 
the incorporated business, arrived in Yankton in October, 1892. He 
looked over the prospects and possibilities of the locality as a 
favorable place of business and found conditions largely as he desired. 
Accordingly, he decided to make Yankton his headquarters for the seed 
business, which has since grown to be one of the largest and best seed 
and nursery enterprises in the west. After conducting the business 
under partnership relations for more than a decade Colonel Gurney 
together with his son, Deloss B., and his nephew, E. R. Gurney, of 
Fremont, Nebraska, incorporated as The Gurney Seed & Nursery Company, 
with a paid up capital stock of ten thousand dollars. The first year 
all of their business was transacted in a small one-story building on 
Third street, in Yankton, only eighteen by twenty-eight feet, and their 
total sales amounted to but twenty thousand dollars. The next year they 
leased a two-story building forty-eight by eighty feet at the corner of 
Second and Douglas streets and with their increased sales they found it 
possible to purchase forty acres northeast of Yankton; having planted 
in leased ground prior to that time. After two years of substantial 
growth, the business continually taking on larger proportions, the 
building was found to be too small and they purchased ground between 
Capitol and Pine streets, erecting thereon a three-story building of 
brick and concrete seventy-five feet square with a twelve foot 
basement. It was expected that that building would be adequate for many 
years. About that time, however, they added a nursery business and 
purchased a forty acre tract northwest of the town. The following year 
a further increase in their trade necessitated the building of drying 
sheds and a small building at the nursery and the rental of a three-
story building. In this way they managed to care for their growing 
business. By that time the sales had amounted to a quarter of a million 
dollars annually and were increasing all the time, necessitating 
additional buildings each year. In 1909 a new storehouse and office 
building was erected sixty-four by one hundred feet and three stories 
in height, together with a high basement. They purchased one hundred 
and twenty acres adjoining the city on the north and they now use 
annually in owned and leased ground over four thousand acres for seed 
and nursery stock.  

	In 1906 Colonel Gurney and his seven sons, H. J., of Corpus 
Christi, Texas; and D. B., P. S., S. S., G. W., C. A. and D T., all of 
Yankton, together with his nephew, E. R. Gurney, of Fremont, Nebraska, 
incorporated the business under the name of The Gurney Seed & Nursery 
Company and the business has since been increasing rapidly until it is 
now one of the foremost enterprises of this character in the northwest. 
Believing a greenhouse would find liberal patronage in Yankton and 
vicinity, D. B. Gurney and his cousin, E. R. Gurney, together with A. 
C. Topp, a florist, who had learned the business in his native Denmark 
and supplemented his knowledge by later study in Germany, Holland and 
Belgium, incorporated The Gurney Greenhouse Company, erecting their 
first building in the spring of 1914. This was increased to three times 
its capacity before the summer was over.  

	Colonel Charles W. Gurney, the founder of the present business, 
was born in Massachusetts, May 13, 1840, and died in Yankton, March 25, 
1913. Shortly before his death he put into writing for preservation by 
his children his creed, which is reproduced on another page of this 
volume. The work instituted by Colonel Gurney and so long successfully 
carried on by him is being continued by those who became his partners 
in the undertaking and the name is one of the foremost in the business 
circles of South Dakota.