Clarence L. Thompson

CLARENCE L. THOMPSON has been one of the virile and enterprising citizens of Sheridan County for a number of years. He is a versatile man, having been a farmer, newspaper man, lawyer, public official, and is at present county attorney.

He was born at Oregon, Missouri, August 10, 1870. His ancestors were prominent Kentuckians in the vicinity of Louisville. His great-grandfather was a Virginian who settled near Louisville early in the nineteenth century and was a butcher and had a market at Jeffersontown in Jefferson County. His grandfather was born in Virginia in 1811, and followed the meat business at Louisville, Kentucky, where he died in 1846. Lee Thompson, father of Clarence L., was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, in June, 1835. When a young man he left Kentucky and during the Civil war settled in Holt County, Missouri. He was a butcher and conducted a meat business in Northwestern Missouri. In 1885 he settled near Lebanon in Smith County, Kansas, and was a farmer there until 1903, since which date he has lived retired at Lebanon. He is a democrat and a member of the Masonic fraternity.

Lee Thompson married in Holt County, Missouri, Elizabeth J. Baker, born at Washington Court House, Ohio, in 1843, and died at Lebanon, Kansas, August 7, 1918. Clarence L. Thompson is the oldest of their four children: Nellie married A. W. Roberts, a farmer at Lebanon, Kansas; Cora is the wife of W. H. Conard, a merchant at Menlo, Kansas; Claude is an engineer with the Municipal Light Plant at Manhattan.

Clarence L. Thompson was fifteen years old when the family came to Kansas. He attended the public schools of Holt County, Missouri, and finished his education in Smith County, Kansas. To the age of twenty-seven his environment and experiences were almost entirely associated with his father's farm.

Mr. Thompson first came to Hoxie in 1895. He bought and edited the Hoxie Palladium until 1903, when, selling that paper, he moved to Wakeeney and was editor of the Wakeeney Independent for two years. He had studied law and in 1912 was admitted to the bar. For a year and a half he was manager of the Morrison Grain Company's elevator at Hoxie, and for four and a half years was local manager of the Foster Lumber Company. Since then most of his time has been devoted to the practice of law and his public duties. He was elected county attorney of Sheridan County in 1914 and re-elected in 1916, his present term expiring January 1, 1919.

Mr. Thompson owns a modern residence which he built at Hoxie in 1909, and he owns 320 acres of good wheat land in Sheridan County. Nothing will probably afford him more satisfaction in future years than the service he has been able to render in Sheridan County in maintaining that district in the forefront of Kansas war activities. He is the county food administrator, has served on the local draft board, and was chairman of the Liberty Bond Committee. He is a former district clerk of the county, having been elected to that office in 1896 and reelected in 1898. He is a democrat, is a member of the Kansas State Bar Association, and is affiliated with Hoxie Lodge No. 348, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Hoxie Camp No. 417 of the Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1897, in Sheridan County, Mr. Thompson married Miss Effie Dennison, daughter of John A. and Elizabeth (Richmond) Dennison. Her parents live at Hoxie, her father being a retired farmer and a homesteader in Sheridan County as early as 1885.