Charles Albert Milton

CHARLES ALBERT MILTON, M. D. Dodge City in the year 1882 was a far western frontier town, known chiefly as a brief halting place for transcontinental trains. It was in that year that the character and services of Dr. C. A. Milton became identified with the community. Doctor Milton remained as both a kindly and capable physician and surgeon and an active citizen of that community for many years and is still living there, though largely retired from the routine work of his profession. In his abundant leisure and with his liberal means he takes his greatest pleasure in beautifying his own home and spacious grounds and also in setting an example and proving the possibilities of what may be accomplished in the growing of trees in this once forestless area.

Dr. Milton has a substantial ancestry behind him. He was born at Plymouth, Illinois, October 15, 1852. His grandfather, Matthew Milton, was a Virginian who went in pioneer times to Tennessee and whose wife was a daughter of Captain Williams of the Revolutionary war. Dr. Milton's father, William Milton, was born and reared in Tennessee, but moved to Illinois about 1830 and not long afterward volunteered his services for the Blackhawk Indian war. From Illinois he moved to Clinton, Missouri, where he died in 1883, at the age of seventy-seven. The maiden name of his wife was Eleanor Hendricks, a family that was early established in Pennsylvania. Her father was an architect and building contractor and filled a number of contracts for the construction of state capitol buildings. He died of yellow fever while constructing such a building in one of the southern states. Mrs. Eleanor Milton died at Dodge City, Kansas, in 1895, at the age of seventy-six. Practically all of their sons attained to more than the ordinary positions in life. William E., the oldest, served with the Seventy-Eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry in the Civil war and is now successfully engaged in the nursery business at Durango, Colorado. George W., who enlisted and served three years in the Seventy-Second Illinois Infantry, was wounded during the battles around Vicksburg and never fully recovered his health, though he took up the practice of dentistry and closed his life in Denver, Colorado. Samuel A., the next child, is a retired dentist at Clinton, Missouri. James H. is a farmer at Ballinger, Texas. The next in order of birth is Dr. Charles A. The youngest, Benjamin F., who died in Dodge City in 1915, was a prominent Kansan, a lawyer, a number of years judge of the Appellate Court and also a member of the Kansas State Tax Commission.

Dr. Milton received his early education in the common schools of Plymouth, Illinois, and when about sixteen accompanied his parents to Clinton, Missouri, where he completed his literary training in the city high school. As a boy he had worked on his father's farm and in a nursery during the summer months, and for several winter seasons he taught district schools. While still teaching, in 1877, he began the study of medicine with Drs. Britts and Jenning, and from their office matriculated in the Missouri Medical College at St. Louis, under Dr. Robertson, the dean. After one term there he continued his studies in Rush Medical College of Chicago, while Dr. J. Adams Allen was president. Dr. Milton took the full medical course and graduated M. D. in 1881, then returning to Clinton and for a year assisting his former preceptors in their office without attempting to establish a practice of his own.

In 1882 he came to Dodge City. Here he practiced alone two years, and then became associated with the pioneer doctor, T. L. McCarty. Their partnership and associations continued for twelve years. In that time they extended their small country town practice all over this section of the state and filled their offices with the most modern equipment and appliances. Dr. Milton retired from this partnership in 1897 and continued practicing alone until 1905, when he associated with him Dr. W. O. Thompson and about 1907 Dr. W. F. Pine was added to the firm. About that time Dr. Milton retired from active practice, but is still retained on the hospital corps and is often called in as a consulting physician.

October 9, 1900, Dr. Milton married Frances G. Hudson. Mrs. Milton was born July 31, 1871. Her father, William Hudson, was born and reared at Jamestown, Indiana, served as a captain in the Seventeenth Ohio Infantry and was captured but escaped before immured in a southern prison. After the war he became a merchant and in 1883 came to Harper County, Kansas, and engaged in the real estate business. His death occurred in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1910, at the age of seventy-three. Captain Hudson married Sarah F. Brown, who was born in Boone County, Indiana, in 1841, and whose ancestors came from France. Mrs. Hudson died in May, 1918, at the age of seventy-eight, while making her home with Dr. and Mrs. Milton. The Hudson family were pioneers in Boone County, Indiana, and acquired Government land. The children of Captain Hudson and wife were: Orth, a lawyer at Kansas City, Missouri; Stephen C., an oil man at Bakersfield, California; Mrs. Milton, who was a school teacher in Kansas City, Missouri, before her marriage; Jennie E., a graduate of the State Normal at Emporia, Kansas, and now a successful teacher in the public schools of Hutchinson, Kansas. Dr. and Mrs. Milton have one child, Frances Eleanor, now a student in the Dodge City High School.

Dr. Milton is a member of the County, District and State Medical societies and the American Medical Association. He is a stockholder in two banks and other institutions and owns considerable business and residence properties in Dodge City, besides farm lands. In matters of politics he is a democrat in national affairs and strictly independent locally. He has done much in behalf of good government in his home city and county, but has never sought any office for himself. However he was a member of the city council at the time the water works were municipalized, this being one of the chief steps in making Dodge City a "first class" town. Dr. Milton is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, a Knight of Pythias, a Yeoman, a Modern Woodman of America and belongs to the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Mrs. Milton is active in the Eastern Star and the Study Club known as the Philomath.

It is noticeable that many men after the strenuous toil of their active years have passed resume and cultivate some of the interests of their younger days. This has been true of Dr. Milton. Reference has already been made to the work he did in a nursery, and that experience gave him a fondness for tree study which has never deserted him and which he has developed as an important recreation, not without profit and benefit to a large community. This interest has prompted him to set out numerous groves on tracts of his land, and as a practical forester he has enjoyed this work in the treeless regions of Western Kansas. Much of his work is in evidence around his fine modern home at 910 Central Avenue in Dodge City. More than thirty years ago he planted walnut seed and now has the finest row of walnut trees in all Western Kansas. These trees furnish a beautiful border for his fine lawn and they are truly appreciated and a joy not only to Dr. Milton but to the other residents of Dodge City. Dr. Milton is not without practical experience in farm enterprises. For twenty-five years he raised wheat on an extensive scale. He also had thirty acres in orchard and at one time had 1,300 bearing cherry trees. It was his custom to permit people from far and near to come and pick this fruit, and sometimes as many as 400 pickers were in his orchard at once.