Alex Rennie was born in Tishomingo in 1872, the son of Alex Rennie and Mary Humphrey.  

His father was a native of Toronto, Canada.  He came to Fort Washita, Indian Territory, in 1859. During the Civil War, he was a soldier in the Confederate Army. He was one of the first merchants in Tishomingo and, also, served a term as treasurer of the Chickasaw Nation.  His mother was a half sister to Homes Colbert.

Alex Rennie's paternal grandfather was a native of Scotland. His maternal great-grandmother was a full-blood Chickasaw. His maternal grandfather was a pioneer farmer in the Chickasaw country and operated a mill in Tishomingo.

Alex Rennie attended the public schools of Denison, Texas.  He graduated from Denison High School and the Denison Business College.  At the age of eighteen, he was employed by an uncle at Lehigh, Oklahoma, remaining there for three years. He, then, returned to Tishomingo and engaged in the insurance, real estate and loan business. It was partly under his supervision that the Tishomingo town site was laid out.  The original town site had been platted under tribal government which lacked uniformity in lots and streets and in making the new plat much confusion ensued.  Many of the streets of the town, which covers 545 acres, are named after prominent Indian families and other pioneers of the Chickasaw Nation.

Mr. Rennie also owned some valuable farms in Jackson County and was an advocate of scientific, progressive farming.  At one time he held a position under the tribal government as collector of the one per cent revenue tax on merchants.  His brother, William, was treasurer of the Chickasaw Nation during the first per capita payment to the tribe.

Alex Rennie married Miss Lulu Burris in 1900 at Stonewall.  She was a daughter of one of the leading men of the Chickasaw Nation who had held almost every office in the Indian government except that of governor.   Alex and Lulu Rennie had four children: Louise, Helen, Dorothy and Alexia.

Mr. Rennie was a member of the Presbyterian Church, of the Tishomingo Commercial Club, and of the Royal Arch and Scottish Rite divisions of the Masonic order.

His brother, John F. Rennie, was as railroad man in Denison, Texas.  His sister, Mrs. U. S. Allender, was the wife of a druggist at Pauls Valley.

[Source: A Standard History of Oklahoma, by Joseph B. Thoburn, Vol. IV, 1916, transcribed by Sandra Stutzman)