Ike W. Crumly

IKE W. CRUMLY has been a figure of more than ordinary importance and influence in the northwestern counties of Kansas during the past thirty years. He homesteaded a claim and led the lonesome life of a frontiersman, but in later years his interests have become widespread and he is in close touch with all the leaders in business and social affairs. Mr. Crumly resides in Colby and is cashier of the Rexford State Bank, vice president of the Thomas County State Bank and president of the Brewster State Bank, these banks, however, representing only a part of his various business interests in that section of the state.

Mr. Crumly was born in Jefferson, Iowa, January 18, 1862. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry and his people were early settlers in Virginia. His father, Alfred Crumly, was born in what is now the State of West Virginia. When he was a young man his parents moved out to Jefferson, Iowa, and for several years he followed different lines of employment, including the milling trade. In 1885 his father homesteaded 160 acres near Stockton in Rooks County, Kansas, and that was his home for nine years. Alfred Crumly was early made a local minister of the Methodist Church. With all his other interests and activities he responded to every call for his services as a minister and preached in many isolated communities in Northwestern Kansas. Leaving his homestead, he moved to Bothell, Washington, continued preaching there for a number of years, and died there in 1911. He was a republican and was a veteran of the Union army, having enlisted for such service before he was twenty-one years of age.

Alfred Crumly married for his first wife Matilda Rhinehart. She was born in Illinois, and died at Colby, Kansas, in 1893. Ike W. Crumly was the only one of her four children to reach maturity, one daughter Carrie Louisa, dying at the age of twelve years and the other children even younger. Alfred Crumly married for his second wife Maggie Bird, who was born near Jefferson, Iowa, and is now living at Bothell, Washington.

Ike W. Crumly attended the public schools of Iowa and was twenty-three years of age when he came to Kansas. Near Colby he homesteaded a quarter section and took a timber claim also, and lived on and improved this property for 2 1/2 years when he sold it. For two years he clerked in a store at Colby and then engaged in the abstract and insurance business, and has continued that line of work for twenty-eight years at Colby. Early in his business career he became associated with W. S. Ferguson in the Thomas County Bank, in which he is still interested as a stockholder and vice president. In 1905 he and Mr. Ferguson organized the Brewster Bank, of which Mr. Crumly is now president, and for six years he was its cashier and active manager. The Brewster State Bank is capitalized at $10,000 and has a surplus of $15,000. In 1916 Mr. Crumly bought this bank and has given much of his time to its affairs. Mr. Crumly owns jointly with the W. S. Ferguson estate, two farms of 640 acres adjoining Colby, and in the last twenty-five or thirty years has owned many broad acres in the western part of the state, having been interested with Mr. Ferguson in 16,000 acres in Thomas and Sherman counties. He and his partner own three dwellings, the postoffice building, a brick building containing two stores, and many lots in Colby. Mr. Crumly also owns his home on School Street in Colby. His real estate and abstract business in Colby is now handled by his son Ray.

Mr. Crumly's standing as a citizen is well indicated by the fact that for three terms he represented Thomas County in the State Legislature and for two terms he was also county clerk of Thomas County. He is a republican, a member and elder of the Presbyterian Church, belongs to the Kansas and American Bankers' Association, and is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America and the Ancient Order of United Workmen at Colby.

In 1888, at Nebraska City, Nebraska, Mr. Crumly married Miss Etta Nicholson, daughter of William T. and Ann (Houndsley) Nicholson, both now deceased. Her father was a farmer in Otoe County, Nebraska. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Crumly: The oldest is Ray H., a graduate of the Thomas County High School at Colby, and has already been referred to as the manager of the insurance and abstract business at Colby. Glenn T., also a graduate of the Thomas County High School, is with the famous Marines organization, and was with them in service in France. Verna D. is a graduate of the Thomas County High School and is still at home. Dot, a high school graduate, married Hayes B. Ackerd, who is in the real estate and insurance business at Denver, Colorado. Kenneth is a junior in the County High School, and Lucile, the youngest, is a grammar school student.

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