Charles A. Anderson

CHARLES A. ANDERSON - From the great Norseland has come a most valuable contribution to the social fabric of our national republic, and our Scandinavian adopted citizens have assimilated with the American body politic with completeness and rapidity. By as much as they have cherished the best heritages of their native lands and woven them into the fabric of their citizenship, by so much have they added fine and strong fiber to the American people. Wyandotte county can not claim a large percentage of citizens of Scandinavian birth, but those who have established homes within her borders have well upheld the high prestige of the races which they represent. Such a one is Charles A. Anderson, who is still a young man and who came to America as a youth of eighteen years, endowed with energy, well balanced mind, industrious habits and sturdy self reliance. It has been his to gain distinctive success in his chosen vocation and he is today numbered among the representative contractors and builders of Kansas City, Kansas, where his advancement has been gained through his own well applied energies, and where he has made for himself a stanch vantage ground in the confidence and good will of all who know him.

Charles A. Anderson was born in Sweden on the 4th of June, 1870, and in the schools of his native land he secured excellent educational training. In 1888, at the age of eighteen years, he severed the ties that bound him to home and native land and set forth to seek his fortunes in America. He landed in the port of New York city and thence came forthwith to Kansas City, Kansas. Here his first employment was that of driving a solemn and none too ambitious mule, the appendage of which was a dump-cart of the common type. After remaining here for a few months Mr. Anderson went to St. Louis, Missouri, where he served a thorough apprenticeship at the trade of stone mason and where he continued to be employed at his trade for a period of about eight years. Thereafter he was identified with government contract work at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he assisted in the erection of the prison buildings, and later he was similarly employed at his trade in government contract work at Fort Riley, this state, and Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In 1908 he superintended the erection of the Fifteenth street bridge at Kansas City, Missouri - a seventy-foot stone span structure and one of the noted bridges of the West. In 1909 he began independent contracting in Kansas City, Kansas, and also in the Missouri city of the same name, and he has been indefatigable in his application to work, with the result that his success in his chosen calling is certain to increase from year to year. At the time of this writing Mr. Anderson is engaged in the erection of the Central Baptist church, which will be one of the finest church edifices not only in Kansas City, Kansas, but also one of the best in the entire west. He has also contracted for the central stone work for the new city hall and for the erection of other important buildings, and he has thus become, within a brief time, one of the leading contractors in stone architectural work in Wyandotte county. He is loyal to all civic responsibilities and is fully appreciative of the advantages and attractions of the land of his adoption. In politics he is a stanch advocate of the cause of the Republican party, and his religious faith is that of the Swedish Lutheran church. He is a careful, conscientious and reliable business man, and his ability and energy have gained to him prestige and success in the work of his chosen vocation.