Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas Joseph Liggett Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

JOSEPH LIGGETT

(Transcribed by Lori DeWinkler)

Joe Liggett is gone and the loss of a heavy one. For he was one of the ablest citizens of any county—a big, fine, upstanding, honest-faced, soft-spoken man who drew friends to him by the medium of an enduring personality. He was of such size, physically and spiritually, that he could not be cramped into any 9x12 business office—and he found release for his vibrant energies in the great out-of-doors. During his earlier days he was a stockman and the ranges of the Flint Hills of Eastern Butler County gave him the freedom and the space that his spirit craved. When oil came to his country, he was one of the first to profit by it, and he threw himself into this new and fascinating business with all the vigor of his hardy nature. He and his friends prospered, and Mr. Liggett in the time of plenty remembered the little town of Rosalia where his family had lived for many years. The brick hotel and theater buildings he erected there proved unhappy from the standpoint of permanent investment, for the oil tide soon rolled to newer fields, but they were significant of the thoughtfulness and price that Mr. Liggett always had for the little town he called home.

As the oil development spread over Kansas, Mr. Liggett followed it. The lure of petroleum was a challenge to his robust spirit. He learned the technique of drilling, he played square with everybody with whom he came into contact, and he was known far and wide as a man whose word could be trusted. He was among the early exploiters of the fields in Russell County and many of the new areas of Western Kansas were helped into a state of commercial development by his ever-ready helping hand. A year or two ago, he moved to Hutchinson to be closer to his work, but always made it clear to his friends that when his working days were over he was coming back to Butler—which was ever home to home. Death came to him, if not in the prime of years, at least when his great body and mind were unimpaired and with no lingering illness to hamper and harass his restless spirit.

Joe Liggett was one of the upright men of his generation, with a sturdy individualism that is a true American heritage and which no amount of fanciful idealism will erase. He built substantially, he reared an excellent family, he was a loyal neighbor and friend and he always played the game square and true. What finer eulogy can be written of many man?