1905 History of Crawford County Kansas

O. A. Rees is lessee of one of the large coal mines of Crawford county, Cherokee Coal and Mining Company No. 1, located at Cherokee, and he is well known both as a business man and public-spirited citizen. He has been connected with the coal mining industry most of his active life, and has been singularly successful in this line of work. At the mine where he now has charge the monthly output runs from two to three thousand tons per month, of several grades, obtained from a fine three and a half foot vein. Between fifty and a hundred men are employed at good wages at the mine, and the entire operations are conducted in such a way as to reflect credit upon the manager. Mr. Rees is both a theoretical and practical miner, has studied and worked at the industry in all its details, and is recognized as one of the most progressive and successful operators in Crawford county. He was located at Fleming in this county for three years, where he was superintendent of W. Coal Mine Company No. 3, and for some fourteen years was at the Osage mines.

Mr. Rees was born in Brooklyn, New York, forty-five years ago, being a son of John and Elizabeth (Mills) Rees. His father died in Kansas at the age of sixty-four. He was a merchant for many years. He was one of the most ardent supporters of the Republican party from the time of its organization until his death. He was at the convention which first established the party in national politics, when General Fremont was nominated for the presidency, in 1856. Fraternally he was an Odd Fellow. His wife was a native of Liverpool, England, of a good English family, and she too is now deceased.

Mr. Rees was reared in New York and Vermont, and has supplemented his public school training by practical and close attention to affairs, and has always been successful in his various undertakings. At the age of twenty-three he was married in Osage county, this state, to Miss S. Jenkins, who was born in Pennsylvania, but was reared and educated in Kansas. By this union there are eight children, as follows: Anna, Stella, Fred, Thomas, William, Mattie, John and Irene. Mr. Rees affiliates with the Masonic order at Osage City, and in politics he is liberal in his beliefs. He assisted in making up the reports for this district of the United States government geological survey in 1904. He is popular with his employees, and frank and cordial with all his associates.