Willard P. Carr Biography This biography appears on pages 487-488 in "History of Minnehaha County, South Dakota" by Dana R. Bailey and was scanned, OCRed and edited by Joy Fisher, http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00001.html#0000031 . 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://www.usgwarchives.net/sd/sdfiles.htm CARR, WILLARD P., is a native of Ashfield, Franklin county, Massachusetts, and was born August 4, 1834. Until seventeen years of age he attended school and worked on a farm, and then commenced clerking in a store at Conneaut, Ashtabula county, Ohio, where he remained one year, and then went to Cleveland, Ohio, following the same occupation until the spring of 1855. He then went to New Lisbon, Wisconsin, and entered into a copartnership in the mercantile business with a brother-in-law under the firm name of Surdam & Carr. This firm was dissolved at the end of four years, and Mr. Carr continued in trade twelve years longer at the same place. He was city treasurer of Lisbon for four years. In 1871 he removed to Vermillion, Dakota, and engaged in business as a merchant for nine years and came to Sioux Falls, August 13, 1882. He had been successful in business, and after having taken up his residence in Sioux Falls he engaged in loaning money. He was appointed postmaster of Sioux Falls by President Cleveland in 1885, and. held this office the full term of four years. In 1892 he removed to River Falls, Wisconsin, and in connection with Nelson B. Bailey started the Farmers and Merchants bank at that place, of which he was president. Mr. Carr about the same time started another bank in Wisconsin, which is managed by his son-in-law. Mr. Carr has always been known as a good business man and reliable citizen. Notwithstanding his residence in Wisconsin he has retained a large and valuable property in Sioux Falls, and upon the assessment roll in the amount of taxes set against his name he is nearer the head of the list than he is alphabetically.