C. A. Horney

C. A. HORNEY is cashier of the Brewster State Bank, and is one of the most widely known citizens of Thomas County. The Brewster State Bank was established in 1905 under a state charter, and has a capital of $10,000, surplus of $15,000, and in the matter of sound banking and good commercial service it stands in the front rank of banks in that part of the state. The bank occupies a good building at the corner of Main Street and Kansas Avenue, and its officers are: Ike W. Crumly, of Rexford, president; V. C. Eddy, of Colby, vice president; C. A. Horney, cashier; and Clair R. McCall, assistant cashier.

C. A. Horney has spent most of his life in Western Kansas, but was born in DeWitt County, Illinois, July 16, 1876. His father, James A. Horney, now a retired resident of Brewster, was born in Ohio in 1839, and grew up in that state. He enlisted in 1862 in the Thirteenth Ohio Infantry, and saw three years of service during the most critical period of the Civil war. At the expiration of his term he re-enlisted and was in the service when the war ended. He was wounded at the battle of Stone River, and has a record as a soldier which his posterity will always cherish. After the war he located in DeWitt County, Illinois, where he became a farmer, and in 1823 moved out to Hamilton County, Nebraska. In 1886 he allied himself with the pioneers of Sherman County, Kansas, homesteading 160 acres two miles west of Brewster. He still owns it, and his total landed possessions in this vicinity are 320 acres. He is a democrat of the old school and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

James A. Horney married Elizabeth Boyd, who was born in Ohio in 1843. Of their five children C. A. is the youngest, the oldest, Emma, is the wife of Theodore Baker, a farmer in Hamilton County, Nebraska; Effie married George Baker, a retired farmer now living at Alma, Nebraska; Fred H. is a hardware merchant at Brewster; John P. is engaged in general merchandise at Brewster. Thus there are three brothers who are effective factors in the business affairs of Brewster.

C. A. Horney was educated in the public schools of Nebraska and of Sherman County, Kansas, and lived on his father's farm to the age of eighteen. His first experience away from home was as a railroad telegrapher and agent, serving different railroad companies in Kansas, Colorado and Utah. He was active in the railroad service until 1910, then for two years was in the hardware business at Brewster, and for a year and a half carried a rural mail route. In 1915 he entered the Brewster State Bank as assistant cashier, and has held the post of cashier since February, 1916. He is a member of the Kansas Bankers' Association and of the American Bankers' Association. He owns a farm of 320 acres in Sherman County. He is a democrat, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a member of the Topeka Consistory, and of St. Thomas Lodge No. 306, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Colby.

In 1899, at Jennings, Kansas, Mr. Horney married Miss Ida G. Strain, daughter of G. M. and Mary (Clay) Strain. Her mother now lives at Harrodsburg, Indiana, and her deceased father was a farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Horney have one son, Harland E., born in 1902, now a junior in the Norton High School.

Page 2241.