Volume 9 , Issue 50

Pioneer Albert Wesley Lewis - Dacoma, OK

Here is another Dacoma, Oklahoma pioneer from the earlier days, Albert Wesley Lewis. Anyone out there remember Mr. Albert W. Lewis?

Albert Wesley Lewis was the manager and treasurer of the Dacoma Lumber Company and the Dacoma Grain Company. Albert was a resident of Dacoma beginning in 1904. Since that time he had participated in all movements that were made for Dacoma's growth and development.

Albert W. Lewis was born on a farm in Iowa county, Iowa, July 19, 1867, a son of William Wesley and Susan Jane (Rogers) Lewis.

Albert's Father
Albert's father was born in he City of Cincinnati, Ohio, of Scotch ancestry, and had spent his entire career in agricultural pursuits. As a young man he removed to Iowa, where he resided until 1877, in that year removing to Kansas and locating on Government land in Pratt County, where he served as postmaster of the Town of Naron for eight years, during 1879 and 1880. In the turbulent period regarding the location of the county seat, he was a member of the board of county commissioners.

In 1888, with his family, he removed to "No Man's Land," a strip ceded to the United States by Texas in 1850, for many years without any government, and now constituting Beaver county, Oklahoma, where he handled cattle on the open range.

In 1892 Mr. Lewis participated in the opening of the Sac and Fox Indian Reservation, taking claims with his four sons in what was in 1916, Lincoln County, where he continued to be engaged in farming for nine years. At the end of that time he moved to Alva, where he was living in comfortable retirement, in 1916.

Mr. Lewis was married in 1850 to Susan Jane Rogers, who was born March 13, 1837, in Pennsylvania, a daughter of Samuel Rogers, a native of the keystone state. Five sons and four daughters were born to this union, as follows: Ida, wife of Henry Burns, of Prague, Oklahoma; Margaret, wife of W. R. Dennison, of Alva, Oklahoma; Dewey, resident of Meeker, Oklahoma; Austin, of Carmen, Oklahoma; George, died in infancy; Columbus W., of Hardtner, Kansas; Albert Wesley, of Dacoma; Carrie, married in 1893 to Jon Godfrey, and died in 1911 at South Greenfield, Missouri; and Laura, died in 1910 at Pawnee, Oklahoma, as the wife of Charles Stevens.

Albert Lewis was educated in the public schools of Pratt county, Kansas, and grew up in the atmosphere of the farm. When he was 21 years of age he accompanied his parents to "No Man's Land," so that he may be said to be something more than a pioneer of Oklahoma. Later he was one of the first settlers of what is now Lincoln county, Oklahoma, himself proving up land, and for a number of years divided his time between farming and teaching in the public schools.

In 1900 Albert entered the employ of Crowell brothers, at Alva, with whom he thoroughly initiated himself into the mysteries of the grain and lumber business, and in 1904 was sent by his employers to Dacoma, to open a branch lumber yard, this city having since been his home.

In 1908 he established the Dacoma Grain Company, which in 1914, handled almost 1, million bushels of wheat. The officers of this large concern being: George W. Crowell, president; George Weaber, secretary, and Albert W. Lewis, manager and treasurer.

The Dacoma Lumber Company was organized in 1913, with main office at Dacoma and branch yard at Hopeton, Oklahoma. The officers of this enterprise being the same as those of the Dacoma Grain Company. For eight years, Albert Lewis served as Mayor of Dacoma, Oklahoma.

On October 9, 1888, at Englewood, Kansas, Albert Lewis was married to Mary B. Kees, who was born September 17, 1870, in Ohio, daughter of A. W. Kees, of Gate, Oklahoma. At the time of their marriage, the young couple were living in "No Man's Land, " where there were no courts of record, nor clergy, and Mr. Lewis and his bride went to Englewood, Kansas, to have the ceremony officially and legally solemnized. They were the parents of four children:

William R., born August 23, 1890, married December 25, 1910, Josie B. Frye, born in Iowa, July 17, 1890, and they have two children -- Albert William, born August 28, 1912, and Audrie, born January 20, 1915;

Nettie, born December 8, 1892, married in 1911 to W. F. Hiatt, and had two children -- Eldora and Walter;

Erdice, born February 25, 1894, died May 25, 1910;

Alta Maud, born September 9, 1898, lived with her parents in 1916.

-- The Standard History of Oklahoma, Vol 4, pg 1351.
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