1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

John Davis, of Cherokee, has been connected with the coal-mining industry practically all his life, and is one of the most active, energetic and enterprising' young men engaged in that line of work in Crawford county. At the present writing he is manager of shaft No. 5 at Cherokee. This was opened in February, 1904, and at a depth of forty-seven feet a vein of twenty-six-inch coal, of fine quality, easily accessible, was reached, and the output of the shaft is now about seven hundred tons per month. Fifteen men are employed at the shaft. Mr. Davis, having worked his way up through all the details of the mining industry, is not only efficient in the work himself but is also a most capable director, and his popularity among his men is voiced unanimously by all who know him or of his work.

Born in Staffordshire, England, thirty-two years ago, at the age of nine years he accompanied his parents to the United States and settled with them at Streator, LaSalle county, Illinois. He was a son of Richard and Mary Davis, both natives of England. The former was a brickmaker by trade, and a good one at that, and made a good living for his family. Politically he was a Democrat. He died at the age of forty-seven, and the mother, who was a member of the Methodist church, died at the age of forty-three.

At the age of fourteen Mr. Davis began his acquaintance with the coal industry, and for the past eighteen years has been steadily and progressively in that line of occupation. He was married at Cherokee at the age of twenty-one to Miss Cora Fulton, who died when twenty-eight years old, leaving three sons, Richard, Earl and Homer. Mr. Davis has fraternal affiliations with the Improved Order of Red Men, and politically is a Democrat.