Harvey Samuel Givler

HARVEY S. GIVLER, proprietor of the Western Kansas World at Trego, learned the printer's trade as a boy in Pennsylvania and for thirty years has been identified with Kansas journalism. He is one of the veteran editors and publishers of the State, and is proprietor of one of the oldest papers in Western Kansas.

The Western Kansas World was founded in 1879, the same year that Trego County was organized. Its founder was W. S. Tilton and it was published as the Wakeeney Weekly World until 1885, and it is now in its fortieth year.

Harvey Samuel Givler was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, January 19, 1863, The Givler family came originally from Holland and settled in Pennsylvania in colonial times. Levi Leonard Givler, his father, gave up his life on the battlefield of Antietam September 17, 1862, four months before Harvey S. was born. The father was born in Cumberland County, grew up and married there, and was a miller until the outbreak of the rebellion. He enlisted in the One Hundred and Thirtieth Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, and was a second lieutenant in that regiment. He was a republican in politics and an active member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the order which had charge of services at his burial. Mr. Givler, Sr., married Mary E. Bricker, who was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, in 1834 and died at Wakeeney, Kansas, in 1895. She was the mother of three children: Valeria Lestelle, who lives at Fort Scott, Kansas, widow of Peter Gayhart, a butcher and a veteran of the Union army, who died at Topeka. Levi Leonard went to California when about nineteen and his subsequent experiences have remained unknown to his family.

Harvey S. Givler, as a child, was placed in the Soldiers Orphans Home near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and received his early education there. He left the institution at the age of sixteen and learned the printer's trade at Harrisburg and Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 1881 he came to Leavenworth and for one year worked on the old Leavenworth Times under the late Col. D. B. Anthony. After that he was with the Topeka Capital, now Governor Capper's paper, until 1885, when he came to Wakeeney with his mother. She proved up a homestead of 160 acres and during the next five years Harvey S. assisted her in developing that claim. In 1890 he and his mother went out to Grant's Pass, Oregon, and remained there about a year.

Returning to Kansas in 1892, Mr. Givler was again with the Topeka Capital and remained so until 1893. In that year he returned to Wakeeney, was with the Western Kansas World one year and then bought the plant and has since been its editor and proprietor. He has made of this one of the influential papers in Western Kansas, and has a well equipped plant and offices on Washington Street. It is a republican paper, and its editor is himself a stanch republican.

Mr. Givler served fourteen years as postmaster of Wakeeney during the administrations of McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft. He is affiliated with Wakeeney Lodge No. 148, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. In November, 1896, at Hays, Kansas, Mr. Givler married Miss Bessie Danford, daughter of Attorney Frank Danford and wife, both now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Givler's only child, Margaret Lestelle, died at the age of four years.

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