Eldred Lloyd Eaton
ELDRED LLOYD EATON has been engaged in practice as a lawyer for the past six years, and in many ways has justified his choice of a profession and calling. In attainments and ability he now ranks as the leading lawyer of Chase County, his home and offices being in Cottonwood Falls.
Mr. Eaton has had a very active career, and he entered the legal profession after considerable experience as a teacher and business man. He was born at Hillsboro, Iowa, November 23, 1876, a son of Eugene E. and Etta Charity (Fligg) Eaton. His grandfather, Ebeneser Ancel Eaton, was a native of Needham, Massachusetts. Eugene E. Eaton was born in Lee County, Iowa, January 3, 1851, and spent the greater part of his life as a farmer and stock grower. He died April 6, 1906, at Stratton, Nebraska. Mr. Eaton's parents were married in Van Buren County, Iowa, in 1874. The mother was born in that county September 14, 1854, and she is now living at Whittier, California. There were six children in the family, four sons and two daughters: Edith, born in 1875, died in 1876; Eldred L.; Gussie E., born August 20, 1879, unmarried and living with her mother; Glenn F., born October 7, 1882, a contractor and builder at Sioux City, Iowa; William D., born September 20, 1885, a resident of Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Paul H., born September 14, 1889, a lawyer at Lincoln, Nebraska.
In 1878, when Eldred L. was two years of age, his parents removed from Iowa to Hamilton County, Nebraska. He grew up on his father's stock ranch there and acquired his education in the country schools, in the Freemont College, and the Grand Island Business and Normal College at Grand Island, Nebraska. In the meantime he was getting in close touch with business life, and for five years taught school, worked in a railroad office three years, spent one year in a law office at Kansas City, Kansas, and for five years was in the Land Title and Traffic Department of the Long-Bell Lumber Company of Kansas City, Missouri. While at Kansas City he attended the School of Law and was graduated LL. B. in 1911. He had some experience in active practice at Kansas City, Kansas, and for 5 1/2 years was established at Bonner Springs in Wyandotte County, Kansas.
Mr. Eaton came to Cottonwood Falls in 1917, and has rapidly won a leading position in the bar of this county. He has the largest law library of the county, and the future contains great promise for him in his trade and profession. Politically he is a republican.
September 19, 1907, at Havelock, Nebraska, he married Miss Lillian Rankin. She was born at Plattsmouth, Nebraska, December 19, 1881. They have one child, Edith L., born January 20, 1910, at Kansas City, Kansas.
A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelley, Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, copyright 1918; transcribed 1997.