Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas John W. McClure Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

JOHN W. McCLURE

(Transcribed by Lori DeWinkler)

John William McClure, automobile dealer, financier and stockman, was born on October 23, 1874, at Cameron, Missouri, and has lived all of his life in Kansas.

Mr. McClure’s life combines rugged pioneer adventure with modern business achievement. At the time of his birth his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert B. McClure, owned a 160-acre homestead in Towanda Township, Butler County, but, their resources limited because of the grasshopper plague of 1874, were forced to go to Cameron for a year to enable the father to earn a new “nest egg” by teaching school. When their son was six months old they returned to their Butler County home and made of it a successful farm that is still owned by the family and never has had a mortgage recorded against it.

Young John William McClure spent his early years as a farm boy, attended public school in Towanda Township and learned at first-hand some of the colorful history of the vanished frontier which still remains his greatest enthusiasm. Until 1913 he was a successful farmer, moving them to El Dorado, where he entered the automobile business. In 1921 he built his present well located and well equipped plant, known as the McClure Motor Company, housing garage and sales departments, at318-326 South Main Street. He is the authorized Ford dealer for the El Dorado territory. For eight years he has been part owner of Braden and McClure, oil contractors, drillers and producers, with headquarters at the Stamey Hotel at Hutchinson, Kansas. He is president of the Mid-Continent Building and Loan Company of El Dorado, a director of the Citizens State Bank, and one of the best liked and most dependable citizens of Butler County.

His enthusiasm for ranching has never abated, and he is a well known stockman, feeding cattle and renting land in Greenwood and Butler counties. From boyhood he has been interested in the defeated monarch of the plains—the American bison—and is doing his part to keep this picturesque animal from extinction. With his son, Boyd McClure, and Eldon Teter, he owns a herd of 76 bison on the Teter Ranch, northeast of El Dorado, one of the only two such herds in the state.

Mr. McClure’s parents, Robert and Julia (Millholland) McClure, were natives of New Concord, Ohio. His father served the Union Army during the Civil War and following the declaration of peace looked to the newly opened west as a land of opportunity. He and his wife journeyed to Kansas in 1870 and took up the claim which became John William McClure’s boyhood home.

Robert B. McClure left the Towanda Township homestead about thirty-five years ago and moved to El Dorado where for a number of years he was secretary of the Butler County Mutual Insurance Company. He died in 1914, and his wife died on June 3, 1926. Five children were born to their union.

John W. McClure is a member of the Knights of Pythias and of the Presbyterian Church. He has kept an exceptional interest in affairs throughout the world, and in 1926 he and Mrs. McClure spent three months abroad with a party of fellow-Kansans, visiting ten countries of Europe. They have traveled extensively in America and have spent several winters in the South.

Mr. McClure married Miss Icy May Hess on January 26, 1896. Mrs. McClure was born in Jasper County,Indiana, February 9, 1877, and was reared and educated there. Her parents, Adam and Rebecca (Coppess) Hess, were successful farmers. Mr. Hess was born in Ohio, December 3, 1845, and came to the then open country of Indiana with his parents when only eight years of age. He died in Newton, Kansas, on January 8, 1925. Mrs. Hess was born in Jasper County, Indiana, on October 3, 1852, and now lives at 427 Houser Driver, El Dorado.

Mr. and Mrs. John William McClure have three children. Milton Claude McClure, the eldest, was born February 15, 1897, attended public schools at El Dorado and for several years has had charge of the Ford Agency at Augusta, Kansas. He married Iva Moore and has two children, John William, born April 10, 1922, and Marilyn Jeanne, born October 9, 1927. The second son, Boyd Hess McClure, was born December 15, 1898, was educated at El Dorado and for several years was in the automobile business at Eureka, Kansas. Later he sold his business and is now also associated with his father’s enterprises. He married Florence Lambert and has a daughter, Madelon, born March 11, 1925. The only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John William McClure, Lucille Fern, was born on August 2, 1902. She was a graduate of El Dorado High School. She married Floyd Wallace, prominent young business man of El Dorado, and has two daughters, Margaret Lea, born March 26, 1923, and Geraldine May, born June 14, 1925.