Charlie R. Dolan Biography


	This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
 	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & 
	Co., Chicago, 1899. Pages 820-823

	Scan, OCR and editing by Maurice Krueger,mkrueger@iw.net, 1998. 

	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


CHARLIE R. DOLAN, one of wealthiest men of Brown county, has acquired 
his fortune since taking up his residence in South Dakota, through the 
exercise of executive ability and honest dealings. 

He makes his home in Verdon, and deals extensively in grain and has 
large land and cattle interests throughout the locality. 

Our subject was born in Dixon, Lee county, Illinois, in 1857, and was 
the son of Barney Dolan, who came to America from Ireland and settled 
in Illinois, engaging in farming. The mother of our subject died many 
years ago. 

Of a family of seven sons and one daughter our subject was the eldest. 
He was raised on the farm, and he never attended more than three weeks 
of public schools, acquiring his knowledge outside of the school-room. 
He left home at the age of twenty-two years and began contracting, 
building railroad grades in Iowa, where he spent seven years. He 
engaged in this work in Iowa, Colorado and South Dakota, and in the 
last named state built the grading for fifty miles of railroad, 
including twenty miles on two different branches of the Chicago & 
Northwestern railroad, eight miles on the Great Northern from Aberdeen, 
eleven miles on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, four miles near 
Ordway, and seven miles of the Aberdeen and Bismarck line, which is not 
ironed yet. He went to Dakota in the fall of 1882 and moved his family 
there the following spring. Upon his arrival he took land in the 
northeast corner of Spink county, and has engaged in farming 
continuously since. He made his home on the farm and spent the first 
three summers at the railroad work, and after the road was built 
through Verdon he moved his family to that village and started grain 
buying. He erected a small warehouse with three thousand bushels 
capacity, and used that building three years. He erected an elevator in 
1891 with a capacity of twenty thousand bushels, and in 1897 erected 
another alongside the first, the two having a capacity of thirty-five 
thousand bushels. He does the largest grain business of any man in the 
state, and in the winter of 1892 had his house full and forty-five 
thousand bushels on the ground, and again in 1898 he had twenty-five 
thousand bushels on the ground. Aside from his grain business he has 
seventeen quarter-sections of land in Brown and Spink counties, fifteen 
hundred acres in cattle pasture. He engages in cattle and grain 
raising, and has at present six hundred head of cattle. He was one of 
the first settlers of that region, and from a start of three horses and 
fifty dollars in money he has accumulated a fortune worth ninety 
thousand dollars. He is well known throughout the state as a successful 
business man, and makes his home in Verdon, where he is respected by 
every member of the locality. 

Our subject was married in March, 1882, to Miss Mary Mahon, the 
daughter of William Mahon, a farmer by occupation, who located in 
Dakota in an early day, and who is now a resident of Illinois. Mrs. 
Dolan is of Irish parentage and was born and raised in Illinois. The 
following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Dolan: Charlie, 
Mamie, Katie, Myrtle and Lucy. Mr. Dolan is a member of the Modern 
Woodmen of America and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He is 
politically a Republican and takes an active part in the affairs of his 
party, and has attended numerous county and state conventions. 
Portraits of Mr. Dolan and family appear on another page.