Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas W. E. Stone Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

W. E. Stone

(Transcribed by Lori DeWinkler)

W. E. Stone, whose death occurred Sunday after a residence in and near El Dorado of fifty-four years, was essentially a man of business. A study of his life reveals the fact that he possesed not so much a magical, golden touch but rather that his outstanding material success came by reason of great native shrewdness, practice of the utmost frugality and an industry far beyond that of the average man. When a boy of eight, he removed with his parents from Germany to "the land of opportunity". It was decidedly not easy sailing for this family which, after gaining a foothold, saw all its savings wiped away in an unfortunate investment in Michigan lands. The experience was repeated in the life of Mr. Stone. Starting with little or nothing, he slowly worked his way up only to see his first considerable savings lost in a market collapse. The test of his character was that he did not allow this initial setback to crush him. He came to Kansas, settled on a farm and went to work with outstanding patience, zeal and fortitude. His success as a wheat raiser, in the days long before Kansas became known as the great wheat granary of the nation, still ranks among the epics of Butler County's achievement.

Mr. Stone applied himself to his tasks and to his enterprises with a singular pertinacity of spirit. It was the long, hard way he chose for himself. There was a vast amount of Spartan simplicity and granite in his character.

Mr. Stone was an individualist. In no other action of his life was this trait shown more clearly than when, at the age of seventy, he personally supervised the financing and building of the Hardtner & Kiowa Railroad to serve a section of the state in which he was interested. That venture proved its own worth and the line eventually was absorbed into the Missouri Pacific system and is still in use.

Mr. Stone possessed in high degree those rare qualities which we like to think are strictly American, but which after all are universal--of sobriety, diligence and perseverance. It was given to him in his long span of ninety-three years to lave a definite imprint upon the commercial and business life of Kansas, and the stories about his sagacity will become legand.--October 31, 1933.