William Arthur Owen, one of the leading real estate men of Fort Scott, who has represented his district in the state legislature, was born in Bourbon county, Kansas, Aug. 13, 1862. His parents were Demetrius and Martha (Marten) Owen, natives of Indiana, where they were reared and educated. There they met and were married and in the fall of 1857 left for the West. They spent some weeks in Missouri, and on Jan. 17, 1858, came to Bourbon county and located in Scott township, where Mr. Owen took up government land. They lived in the same neighborhood the remainder of their lives. At the outbreak of the Civil war Mr. Owen enlisted in the Sixth Kansas infantry and served in Kansas and Missouri. Mrs. Owen died in 1878, but the father lived until 1894. William A. Owen received his elementary education in the common schools and then entered the normal college at Fort Scott, which he attended at intervals—spending several weeks each year teaching in the public schools of his native city. After finishing his education he continued teaching until 1892, when he was elected county superintendent of schools and served four years. In 1896 he engaged in the mercantile business, but sold out three years later. He had always taken great interest in local affairs and, in 1900, was elected a member of the state legislature on the Republican ticket. The next year he became associated with W. C. Gunn in extensive real estate interests in Kansas and Nebraska, and has continued in the business with marked success. Mr. Owen is a Thirty-second degree and Consistory Mason, and belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America and to the Triple Tie. He has always been active in Republican circles, but has stood for clean politics and the best man for the position, rather than for party lines alone. He served on the city council one term. On Christmas day, 1890, Mr. Owen married Alice D., daughter of W. L. Bray, one of the pioneer settlers of Crawford county.