Glen E. Kiser

GLEN E. KISER is a member of an old and substantial family of Butler County, and on assuming the responsibilities of manhood he himself took up newspaper work, and experience has developed many exceptional qualifications in that profession. He is now editor and proprietor of the Augusta Gazette.

Mr. Kiser was born in Leon, Kansas, April 11, 1891, was educated in the public schools at El Dorado and graduated from high school in 1909. After one year in the University of Kansas he joined the staff of the El Dorado Times and had a great variety of newspaper experience for the next three years. In 1914 he went out to Colorado, continued there in newspaper work for a year, and on returning to Kansas he was connected with the Wichita Beacon one year. Mr. Kiser in January, 1907, bought the Augusta Gazette and is now both its editor and proprietor. The Augusta Gazette was established as a daily paper in 1902, but for a number of years before that had been published as a weekly issue. It is a republican paper and has a large circulation and influence throughout Butler and surrounding counties. The office and plant are well equipped and the paper is growing rapidly in proportion as Augusta is becoming more and more an important center in the oil and gas region of Southern Kansas.

Mr. Glen Kiser is a republican, is a member of the Christian Church, and is affiliated with Patmos Lodge No. 97, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at El Dorado. On January 1, 1916, at Douglass, Kansas, he married Miss Jennie Satterthwaite. Mrs. Kiser is a daughter of Senator J. M. and Mattie (Duttom) Satterthwaite, of Douglass.

Mr. Kiser's paternal ancestors have been Americans since Colonial days. He is a son of L. L. Kiser, long and favorably known in Butler County. L. L. Kiser was born in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, November 2,1855, a son of Levi and Elizabeth (Chester) Kiser Levi Kiser was born in Ohio and his wife in New Jersey. When a child Levi went to Indiana with his parents, grew up there and in 1856, after his marriage, he moved out to Iowa, locating near Iowa City in Johnston County. He was one of the very early pioneers in that region and lived there until 1878. He then brought his family to Kansas locating in Little Walnut Township of Butler County. Butler County was still only a short distance removed from the period of pioneer settlement, and Levi Kiser became one of the incorporators of the Town of Leon. He was a member of the Town Site Company, and for several terms was mayor of the village. For a number of years he was among the merchants of Leon, but finally retired, and his death occurred at Leon in 1908, at the age of eighty-four. His wife died in Iowa in 1872.

L. L. Kiser was a young man of twenty-three years when he came to Kansas. His father had seven children who reached maturity, and he grew up in this large household and gained his education in the schools of Iowa. In 1878 he came to Butler County, Kansas, and he and his two brothers were associated in the contracting and building business for fifteen years. This was followed by an extensive experience in the real estate, loan and insurance business at El Dorado, but in 1915 Mr. L. L. Riser moved out to his farm three miles south of El Dorado, where he has developed a splendid general farm and stock ranch consisting of 280 acres.

While his business career is but briefly noted, mention should also be made of his active and public spirited part in local affairs in Butler County during the past forty years. He has done. much to develop and increase the power and prestige of his home city of El Dorado. He served as chairman of the Commercial Club for a time and was especially active in the exploitation and development of the oil and gas resources of Butler County. He stood always for a sane and common sense administration of local affairs, divorced as far as possible from the interference of partisan politics. For twenty years he took a firm stand against the mingling of partisanship with city and local government and finally had the satisfaction of seeing his principles given a practical application as far as El Dorado was concerned. Mr. L. L. Kiser has long been one of the prominent members of the Christian Church at El Dorado, served a number of years as elder, was a member of the building committee when the handsome new church edifice was erected at El Dorado, and has allied himself with much of the practical philanthropy of which the church is an expression. Fraternally he is a member of the Fraternal Aid and the Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1882 L. L. Kiser married Miss Grace A. Gard, who was born in Illinois. Her death occurred in 1887, and she left two children: Louis, of Bristol, Colorado, and Clara, wife of Jesse L. Biggs, of Potwin, Kansas. In 1889 L. L. Kiser married Miss Mary L. Applegate. She was born in Winterset, Iowa, came to Kansas in 1882, and for a number of years before her marriage was a teacher in Butler County. To this second union were born three children: Glen E., editor and proprietor of the Augusta Gazette; Ruth, a stenographer at El Dorado; and Celeste, still living at home with her parents. All the children by both marriages except Louis are graduates of the El Dorado High School.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME 1 & 2
BIOGRAPHIES — VOLUMES 3, 4, & 5
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z