John A. Anderson

JOHN A. ANDERSON, formerly a banker, has large and important interests at Bird City in the management of a local grain elevator and as a farmer and stockman. He has lived in Kansas for forty years and his experience has been in a varied line of business affairs.

He was born in Washington County, Iowa, December 27, 1874. His paternal ancestors came from England to New York in colonial times. His grandfather was born in Pennsylvania in 1805, and in the course of his migrations westward was a pioneer farmer in Bureau County, Illinois, for a number of years and later went to Washington County, Iowa, where he lived a few years before his death in 1899. William Anderson, father of John A., is a Kansas pioneer. He was born in West Virginia in 1845, and grew up in Bureau County, Illinois. He went to Washington County, Iowa, married there, and in 1878 brought his family to Smith County, Kansas. Most of that country was still open and he homesteaded 160 acres. He developed a good farm and lived on it until 1905. After selling his property in Smith County he moved to Franklin, Nebraska, where he is now living retired. He is a democrat and a very active member of the Baptist Church. William Anderson married Elsie Roseborough. She was born in Ohio in 1850, and John A. is the oldest of their six children.

John A. Anderson was almost too young to remember when the family moved to Kansas. He grew up on his father's farm in Smith County, attended the rural schools and also the Franklin Academy in Nebraska, where he was graduated. For several years he farmed in Smith County and in 1904 was a successful winner of a homestead at the opening of the Rosebud Indian lands in South Dakota. He lived on and conducted his quarter section farm there three years, then sold out and returning to Kansas located in Bird City in 1907. For two years he was a lumber merchant, then transferred his interests to the grain business, which he still continues. His elevator has been the scene of concentration and shipment of a large share of the grain raised in Northwestern Kansas. In 1911 Mr. Anderson entered the Bird City State Bank, and was identified with it seven years, two years as vice president and five years as cashier. He sold his banking interests and now gives all his time to his grain elevator and the operation of a well developed grain and stock farm of 880 acres in Cheyenne County. In December, 1918, he completed a modern residence at Bird City, among the best homes in the town, surrounded with a quarter of a block of ground.

For one term Mr. Anderson was mayor of Bird City. He is an independent republican and is on the official board of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a Past Noble Grand of Bird City Lodge of Odd Fellows.

Mr. Anderson married at Bird City in 1913 Miss Nellie Skepper, daughter of J. W. and Nellie Skepper, resident of Bird City, where Mr. Skepper is in the real estate business.

Pages 2327-2328.