Grover C. Caylor Biography


	This biography appears on pages 488-491 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				GROVER C. CAYLOR. 

	Grover C. Baylor is one of the leading citizens of Ardmore, South 
Dakota, and is connected with many lines of activity there. He is 
United States commissioner, owns the Ardmore American, is interested in 
a hardware business and also practices law to some extent. He was born 
at Harrison, this state, on the 11th of July, 1886, a son of William E. 
and Ada Z. (Peerman) Caylor, natives respectively of West Virginia and 
Ohio. The father, who devotes his active life to farming, came to South 
Dakota in 1880 from Minnnesota. While living in that state he became 
acquainted with his future bride, who was a neighbor girl, but they 
were married in South Dakota. In 1884 they located at Harrison, where 
the father homesteaded land and engaged in farming and stock-raising. 
In 1911 they removed to Fall River county and there he is still active, 
devoting his entire time to farming and ranching. 

	Grover C. Caylor is the oldest of a family of seven children and 
was reared under the parental roof, attending the common schools near 
the homestead and the high school at Harrison. In 1905 he was graduated 
from the latter institution and after teaching for one year entered the 
State Agricultural College at Brookings, where he took the first year 
of the mechanical engineering course. At the end of that time he 
decided that the law would be more to his liking and accordingly became 
a student in the University of South Dakota at Vermillion, from which 
he received his LL. B. degree in 1911. When eighteen years of age he 
learned the trades of masonry and cement laying and during his 
vacations worked at those occupations, thus securing the money with 
which to pay his school expenses. 

	In the summer of his twenty-third year, Mr. Caylor was employed 
in the office of E. P. Wanzer at Armour, South Dakota, but in the 
following summer he went to the western part of the state and 
homesteaded land near Ardmore, Fall River county. In the summer of 1911 
he opened a law office in Ardmore and still devotes some of his time to 
the practice of his profession. He is also United States commissioner 
and since April, 1912, has been sole owner and editor of the Ardmore 
American, an attractive and interesting weekly paper. His printing 
office is also equipped for job work and he gets practically all of the 
local business in that line He has also been engaged in the real-estate 
business in partnership with C. B. Stoops since April, 1914, and since 
the fall of that year this firm has owned a hardware and implement 
store at Ardmore. Mr. Caylor is also secretary for the Ardmore Oil 
Company and is one of the leading business men of the town. 

	On the 24th of October, 1914, Mr. Caylor married Miss Minnie 
Ingersoll, who was born at Titusville, Pennsylvania. The father, 
William H. Ingersoll, was engaged in the oil business in that state. In 
the fall of 1912 she came to South Dakota with her brothers, who are 
oil well drilling contractors and are drilling the wells at Ardmore for 
the Ardmore Oil Company. 

	Mr. Caylor is a democrat but has never been an office seeker 
although he is at present United States commissioner. His religious 
faith is that of the Presbyterian church. The greater part of his time 
is given to his home and his many business interests but he is not 
remiss in his duties of citizenship and is always willing to further a 
public measure of merit.