James N. Deitz

JAMES N. DEITZ - Noteworthy among the enterprising citizens of Kansas City, Missouri, who through their own efforts accumulated a competency was James N. Deitz, who is now deceased. He had of late years retired from active pursuits at his pleasant home, which is near the state line, at the corner of Twenty-seventh and Wyoming streets. He was born, October 8, 1833, in Clark county, Indiana, where his parents, who were of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, were pioneer settlers, and died June 19, 1911, aged seventy-seven years, at Southside Hospital Kansas City, Missouri.

Leaving home at the age of twenty years James N. Deitz began life on his own account, spending a year on the Gulf coast. Returning home, he lived a brief time in Indiana, and then went to Rock Island County, Illinois, to assume possession of forty acres of land near Port Byron, it being the tract for which his father had drawn a warrant for his services in the War of 1812, and which he presented to his son James. Mr. Deitz afterwards bought another tract of forty acres of prairie land, and sixteen acres of standing timber. This entire property he sold at an advantage, and moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he purchased an interest in the Clark & Reese addition of eighty acres, which was soon sub-divided, and sold off in lots in due time. After living in Leavenworth about ten years, Mr. Deitz carried on freighting between Leavenworth, Denver and Fort Union for three years, later spending a year at Fort Zaro. Returning to Kansas, he took up a claim of one hundred and sixty acres in Saline county, and erected the first good house in Salina. He soon sold one half interest in that property to a Mr. Nutter, of Council Bluffs, and later disposed of the remaining half.

Coming then to Kansas City, Mr. Deitz purchased three five acre lots in Armstrong float, and invested, likewise, in much adjoining land, the greater part of which he subsequently sub-divided and sold. He still retained, however, his home property of one acre, which is well located and quite valuable. Mr. Deitz possessed good mechanical ability and inventive genius, and in 1873 took out a patent on a windmill for power and grinding purposes. He built many of the windmills and shipped them to various places, even to countries as far distant as Australia. One of them is now in use on the Female Institution in Topeka, Kansas.

Mr. Deitz was twice married, and has four sons and one daughter living, three by his first marriage, namely: Edward, of Washington, D. C., a department clerk; Albert; Arthur; and his daughter Frances. And by his second union one son, James, night superintendent in the Kansas City, Missouri, post office.