James F. Summers Biography


	This biography appears on pages 247-248 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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			JAMES F. SUMMERS.  

	There are certain rules which must be followed if success in 
business is attained and these rules are as inflexible as the laws of 
the Medes and Persians. Advancement in any line of legitimate business 
can only be won through close application, intelligently directed 
energy and thorough reliability, all of which Mr. Summers has included 
in his daily business life, which has at length brought him to a 
prominent place in financial circles in the western part of the state, 
for he is now president of The Bank of Spearfish. He was born in 
Bedford county, Virginia, September 15, 1850, a son of Castlereigh and 
Agnes J. (Tinsley) Summers, both of whom were natives of Virginia. The 
father, who was born in 1816, died in 1911 and the mother passed away 
in 1861, when less than thirty years of age. The father was in early 
life a wagon maker and blacksmith but later engaged in the general 
contracting business and subsequently became a farmer. He emigrated to 
Kansas in 1868, settling in Atchison county, and about 1871 he removed 
to Sedgwick county, locating near Wichita, where he spent his remaining 
days to the last two years of his life, which he passed with a daughter 
in Oklahoma. He served for two years as a soldier in the Confederate 
army during the Civil war.  

	In his father's family of five children James F. Summers was the 
second in order of birth. He attended school in Newcastle, Virginia, 
and after completing the high-school course matriculated in a college 
at Roanoke, that state. He pursued a course in law in his native state 
and was admitted to practice in Kansas. In the meantime, however, other 
business interests had occupied his attention. He engaged in railroad 
work in Kansas during the years 1868 anti 1869, being employed on the 
Missouri River Railroad from Atchison. He afterward rented land and 
engaged in farming in Atchison county, Kansas, until 1870, when he went 
to the southwestern part of that state, where he took a claim before he 
had attained his majority. After reaching the age of twenty-one he 
filed and proved up the claim and continued there until 1876. He 
engaged in ranching and in driving cattle from Texas but at length he 
disposed of his holdings in the Sunflower state and made his way to the 
Black Hills country, going by way of Denver and Cheyenne, traveling on 
foot most of the way. He proceeded to Custer and on the 7th of March, 
1877, arrived in Deadwood. He first worked in the Aurora, an 
underground mine, for a short time and afterward spent a few months in 
speculating in Deadwood real estate. He next turned his attention to 
the boot and shoe business, in which he continued for about two months, 
when he engaged in prospecting. In the fall of 1877 he was employed as 
a copyist in the office of the register of deeds and there remained 
until January 26, 1878, when he went to Denver by stage to assist his 
sister, whose husband had died, in the settlement of her real estate 
interests.  

	On the 12th of April of the same year Mr. Summers returned to 
Deadwood and purchased an interest in a cigar and tobacco business, 
continuing therein until the 26th of September, 1879, when his 
establishment was destroyed by fire. He then disposed of his interests 
along that line and entered the Merchants, National Bank as general 
bookkeeper, continuing there until November, 1882.  

	He then removed to Spearfish and established a bank under the 
firm name of Stebbins, Fox & Company for the conduct of a general 
banking business. The institution existed as a private bank until 1887, 
when it was incorporated under the state laws. Three years later it was 
reincorporated under the laws enacted in 1890. Mr. Summers was cashier 
and manager of the institution from its establishment until 1904, when 
he was elected to the presidency of The Bank of Spearfish. In 1883 he 
erected the building occupied by the bank, it being the first brick 
building in Spearfish and the first bank building. In addition to his 
large holdings in the bank Mr. Summers is the owner of a mercantile 
establishment at Clearmont, Wyoming, and is the owner of considerable 
land in South Dakota and other states. He operates a ranch of four 
hundred and eighty acres as a stock farm, breeding first class stock, 
making a specialty of Percheron horses and Polled Hereford cattle. His 
various business interests have been carefully conducted. He displays 
sound judgment and keen discrimination and allows no obstacles to block 
his path if they can be overcome by determined and honorable effort.  

	On the 30th of October, 1878, Mr. Summers was married to Mrs. 
Elizabeth J. (Murray) Fisher. She was born of English parentage, and 
her father, mother and sister were all lost on the steamer Atlantic 
while en route to the United States.  

	In politics Mr. Summers is a stalwart democrat and when but 
twenty-one years of age he served as justice of the peace in Kansas, 
being well qualified for this position owing to the fact that he had 
previously studied law in Virginia and had been admitted to the bar in 
Kansas. He was the first mayor of Spearfish and has filled that 
position for a number of terms since, giving to the city a businesslike 
and progressive administration characterized by various needed reforms 
and substantial improvements. He was one of the first members of the 
state normal school board and did much toward securing the building of 
the school. He holds the oldest continuous notarial commission in 
Lawrence county, his papers dating from 1879. Fraternally he is a Mason 
and has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and the 
Knights Templar degree in the York Rite. He has been in business 
continuously in Spearfish for a longer period than any other man, 
having been identified with the commercial and financial interests of 
the city for thirty-two years. He has contributed much to its material 
upbuilding and progress and his well directed life work has brought to 
him a very substantial measure of success which is the merited reward 
of his energy and his ability. What he has done for Spearfish places 
him among its foremost citizens and men of prominence and his worth is 
widely acknowledged by all.