Carl J. Brodrick

CARL J. BRODRICK, partner and manager in the Plainville Lumber Company, is a business man whose experience has not been confined to one locality. He has spent most of his life in a number of different states, but probably has been longest a factor in Kansas affairs and as a lumber merchant.

Mr. Brodrick was born at Elkhart, Indiana, February 21, 1868. In a history of Elkhart City hardly any other family has so many claims to distinction by reason of early services. Grandfather N. F. Brodrick is named in all the histories of Elkhart as the pioneer school teacher of the village. He went there in the early '30s, and after teaching school he followed the profession of civil engineer. He died at Elkhart in 1890, when in advanced age. The Brodrick family came originally from Ireland. In October, 1835, at Elkhart, was born the first white child in the community, John H. Brodrick, who afterwards was known in that community as a merchant and banker. In 1878 he came out to Kansas and established a home in Mitchell County. He owned the Pleasant Valley Mill near Boloit. In 1879 he removed to Osborne County, built a hotel, but soon afterwards sold it and returned to Elkhart, where he died in 1904. He served four years as a soldier in the Civil war with an Indiana regiment. He was always a republican in politics. John H. Brodrick married Eleanor S. Maxwell, who was born at Sidney, Ohio, and is now living at Osborne, Kansas. Her children were: Lola E., who died at Osborne, Kansas, in 1916, wife of C. W. Baldwin, the pioneer druggist of Osborne; Alberta M., who died at Manhattan, Kansas, in 1910, wife of S. E. Ruede, now a newspaper man in Florida; Carl J.; Harry M., editor of the Advocate-Democrat and postmaster at Maryville, Kansas; Ralph E., a general merchant and lumber dealer at Osborne, Kansas.

Carl J. Brodrick attended school in Elkhart until about fourteen years of age. He came with his parents to Kansas, and was employed in a drug store at Osborne until 1893. The following year he clerked in a store at Brookfield, Missouri, and in 1895 went south and was a truck farmer at Auburndale, Florida, a year. He next became a merchant at Bosworth, Missouri, for another year, and, returning to Elkhart, Indiana, entered the service of a jobbing house as a shipping clerk and finally became its manager. For two years he was also manager of a paper-mill at Elkhart.

Mr. Brodrick came to Salina, Kansas, in 1904, and for a year was employed as yardman with the Richolson Lumber Company. In February of the following year he came to Plainville and established the Plainville Lumber Company, a copartnership with Clinton L. Scott. Mr. Brodrick has the active management of the business, while Mr. Scott is manager of the Richolson-Scott Lumber Company at Lucas, Kansas.

In politics Mr. Brodrick is a republican and for four years was a member of the Plainville City Council. He is affiliated with Plainville Lodge of Odd Fellows, also the local lodge of Brotherhood of American Yeomen, and is a member of Elkhart Lodge No. 425 of the Order of Elks. In 1892, at Osborn, Kansas, he married Miss Alice L. Richolson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Richolson, her father is still living and is a retired lumberman of Salina, Kansas.

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