ALBERT D. BETHARD, who throughout his entire life has been connected with railroad service and has advanced through successive promotions to the position of superintendent of transportation of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad system, with headquarters at Denison, is a native son of Illinois, his birth having occurred in that state in 1858. His parents were D. M. and Louisa Melvin Bethard. The Bethards were early settlers of Ohio, in which state D. M. Bethard was born. In early life he removed to Illinois, becoming one of the pioneer residents there. He followed stock raising in Illinois, but his wife died in 1870. In their family were two sons and a daughter, Albert D., Flora, and William J.

Albert D. Bethard was reared to manhood in the state of his nativity and entered railroad service in the employ of the Rockford, Rock Island & St. Louis Railroad Company as telegraph operator at Astoria, Illinois. That road is now a part of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system. Later he was with the same road as train dispatcher at Rock Island and afterward became train dispatcher for the Iron Mountain Railroad at St. Louis, Missouri. His next promotion made him trainmaster and superintendent of telegraph for the Richmond & Allegheny Railroad at Richmond, Virginia, and he was next made superintendent of transportation of that road. 

In 1888 he came to Denison, Texas, as chief dispatcher and trainmaster and also superintendent of the Dallas & Fort Worth division of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad Company, with headquarters at Denison. He is now superintendent of transportation for the same road. Thus he has been advanced from one position to another until his place is now one of much prominence and responsibility.

In politics Mr. Bethard is a Democrat. In 1880, in Missouri, he married Miss Jennie Goodwin, of Illinois.

[Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, p. 625.]

Biography Index

Denison History