Eugene O. Humes

EUGENE O. HUMES has lived in Russell County more than forty years and since early boyhood. During that time he has been identified with the basic industry of farming and agriculture, was entrusted with the management of the county schools for several years, and during the past fifteen years has been actively identified with the Bunker Hill State Bank, of which he was one of the founders and which he has served as cashier from its establishment.

Mr. Humes was born in Adams County, Indiana, near the City of Decatur, February 10, 1859. His ancestors came from England and settled in Rhode Island in colonial times. His father, George Humes, who was born in Connecticut in 1813, went out to Ohio when about twenty-one years of age, was a farmer there, and shortly after his marriage moved to Adams County, Indiana, and had much to do with the early development in that county. He again became a pioneer when he moved to Kansas in 1874, homesteading a claim of 160 acres two miles south of Bunker Hill. Conditions did not favor immediate development of the claim since the grasshoppers destroyed everything green in Kansas in that year and the next, and he therefore returned to Indiana. In 1876 he settled permanently on his claim and subsequently developed it into a good farm. Eventually he retired to Bunker Hill, where he died in 1895. In politics he was a republican and was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He had an army record in the Civil war. He enlisted in 1862, and for three years was a member of the Forty-seventh Indiana Regiment of Infantry. George Humes married Mary Luckey, who was born in Ohio in 1818 and died at Bunker Hill, Kansas, in 1886. She was the mother of five children, Eugene O. being the youngest. Eliza, who died at Decatur, Indiana, was the oldest and married for her first husband William Suttles, a farmer, and for her second husband, John McConnahey, who was also a farmer. Harriet, the only other living child, is unmarried and lives with her brother at Bunker Hill. Melissa died in infancy, and her twin sister, Mary Ellen, died at the age of four years.

Eugene O. Humes was about seventeen years of age when the family came out to Kansas. He completed his education at Bunker Hill, and had the equivalent of a high school training. For a number of years he devoted his energies during the summer seasons to farming and taught school in the winter. With his growing popularity and experience as a teacher he was elected in the fall of 1894 to the office of county superintendent in Russell County. He filled that office for three elective terms and one appointive term, and for 6 1/2 years the county schools were under his capable supervision. In 1901 he moved out to his ranch four miles north of Bunker Hill and is now the owner of 3,000 acres north of and around that town, this large estate having been capably developed and managed by himself and his sons.

Mr. Humes organized the Bunker Hill State Bank in 1904. He accepted the post of cashier and has been its chief executive officer ever since. The president is C. Shaffer and the vice president, Daniel Gross. The prosperity of the bank is reflected in the fact that besides its capital of $20,000 it has surplus and profits of $45,000.

Mr. Humes has lent his influence and efforts unreservedly to the prosperity and welfare of his home locality. He has served several different terms as mayor of Bunker Hill and still holds that office. He was also elected a number of times to the city council and is now clerk of the school board. He is a republican, is affiliated with Beulah Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Bunker Hill, Russell Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, Ellsworth Commandery, Knight Templar. Consistory No. 3 of the Scottish Rite, and Isis Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Salina. He also served as patron several years of Bunker Hill Chapter of the Eastern Star. He is a member of Russell Lodge of Odd Fellows, and for several years was president of the Farmers Elevator at Bunker Hill.

In 1890, at his home town, he married Miss Alberta Markley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Markley, both now deceased. Her father was a farmer in Russell County. Mr. and Mrs. Humes are the parents of six children: Eugene Earl, born June 1, 1891, now has the active responsibilities of his father's ranch. George Markley, born July 1, 1893, graduated A. B. from the Kansas University at Lawrence, and is now manager of the Reed Drug Store at Salina. Clayton Kenyon died when fourteen years of age. Paul G., born in 1896 graduated from the Bunker Hill High School and from the Kansas Wesleyan Business College at Salina, and in July, 1917, enlisted at the Great Lakes Naval Station at Chicago, and is now a first class yeoman connected with the supply department. David Theodore, born in 1903, and Mary Louise, born in 1907, are both students in the public schools at Bunker Hill.

Pages 2119-2120.