STUDER, FLOYD V.
(1892-1966)
Floyd V. Studer,
businessman, civic leader,
and amateur archeologist, one of six children of Julius Caesar
and Ella
(Gallaher) Studer, was born on
In 1907, at the age of fifteen, he accompanied T. L. Eyerly, his history professor at
From that time on, Studer
made numerous field
trips in which he gained intimate knowledge of the archeology
of the
Studer
became an owner in
his father's cattle-ranching firm, J. C. Studer
and
Sons, in 1913; he was also an officer of the First National
Bank of Canadian.
He married Annie Ball Cooper on
In addition, he was the first president of the
Annie Studer died in 1957,
and on
During his lifetime he explored the
He was influential in the establishment of the
During his later years he was a leader in securing the
preservation of
the Alibates Flint Quarries and
the establishment of
the
Studer died
of a heart
attack in
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Frederick W. Rathjen
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STUDER, JULIUS CAESAR
(1863-1953)
Julius Caesar Studer,
rancher, the son of Ben
and Elsie Studer, was born on
In 1885, shortly before his nineteenth birthday, he
moved to Kiowa,
Studer sold
this claim in
1887 and moved to the new rail town of Canadian, where he
opened a blacksmith
shop. There he manufactured gun parts, bridle bits, and spurs
and also
purchased a livery stable and feed store. In addition, he
bought eight sections
of ranchland northeast of town from Sam Pollard and became the
first rancher to
place registered bulls, which he imported from
For a brand, Studer used
the Anvil, after the
symbol of his trade. On
Studer
married Ella
Gallaher, sister of
In 1912 he established a new market and bakery and
reorganized his
ranching enterprise as J. C. Studer
and Sons. When
asked why he had so many different kinds of businesses, he
replied, "I
have so many different kinds of sons." For over twenty years
the Studers themselves provided
the stock and managed the
annual rodeo at
In 1915 Studer retired from
management of his
various businesses to devote full time to his ranch, but he
again took over
briefly in 1917-18, when his sons entered the service in World
War I.
Afterward, he continued breeding Herefords and managing his
ranch for the
remainder of his life. He was a founder and charter member of
the Panhandle and
Southwest Livestock Association, which later merged with the
Cattle Raisers
Association of
Studer was
also active in
community and church work, and bought and sold several town
lots in Canadian.
In 1950 he sold 5,000 acres of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gus L. Ford, ed.,
H. Allen Anderson
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WILLIS, FRANK
(ca. 1840-1894)
Frank Willis, attorney and judge, son of Benjamin
Franklin Willis, was
born at
Lew Wallace
and Senator
Daniel W. Voorhees became Willis's two chief role models, and
he spent much of
his spare time at the county courthouse, where he heard legal
proceedings. His
first business venture was in photography, which he mastered
with his brother
S. H. Willis at
By much reading at home and in law offices, Willis
succeeded in
obtaining an attorney's license and began practicing law at
In 1875 Willis moved to
In the spring of 1881 Governor
Temple L. Houston, W. H. Woodman, James N. Browning,
Benjamin M. Baker,
and William B. Plemons were among
Willis's colleagues
in the Thirty-first District. During his ten-year
administration, Willis saw the
organization of Hall and Childress counties and the awarding
of the disputed
He became involved in the bitter controversy between
Panhandle
cattlemen and state authorities over the former's use of state
lands without
compensation. Because Willis sided with the cattlemen on this
issue, the
attorney general of
Willis subsequently was hailed as a hero by
He died on
BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Stanley,
H. Allen Anderson
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YOUNG, ROBERT RALPH
(1897-1958)
Robert Ralph Young, businessman, youngest of four
children born to
David John and Mary Arabella
(Moody) Young, was born
on
His mother, the daughter of Robert Moody, died when he
was ten, and his
father, a strict man, did not quite know how to control their
precocious son,
whom neighborhood boys nicknamed "Pumpkin" because of his
auburn
hair. In his teens Robert was sent to
He then entered the
Within a short time, Young worked his way up to the
DuPont
Corporation's treasurer's office, where he learned much about
finance and
advertising. By 1920 he had left DuPont and, using a $5,000
inheritance from
his grandfather, speculated in securities. Although he lost
everything in that
venture, Young's interest in Wall Street and the stock market
was aroused.
He joined General Motors in 1922 and was made assistant
treasurer in
1928. He soon became associated with John J. Raskob,
the head of the corporation, and left it shortly afterward to
handle Raskob's finances, when Raskob,
who was also chairman of the Democratic National Committee,
took a temporary
sabbatical to manage Al Smith's presidential campaign.
Early in 1929 Raskob
vehemently disagreed
with Young's predictions of a stock market crash, and the two
men parted
company. Subsequently, Young netted a fortune selling stocks
short of their
original value.
In 1931 Young formed a brokerage partnership with Frank
Kolbe and
bought a seat on the
Nevertheless, he maintained close ties with family and
friends in
Canadian, kept his membership in its Presbyterian church, and
helped restore a
local cemetery, which he named after Edith Ford, the aunt who
helped rear him
after his mother's death. By 1941, in alliance with Allan P.
Kirby, a retail
merchant, Young owned a controlling interest in the Allegheny
Corporation, a
railroad holding company previously owned by the Van Sweringen
family.
As chairman of the board of the
The "Populist of Wall Street," Young regarded himself as
a
crusader against the mismanagement of railroads by banking
interests; his most
famous advertisement slogan was "a hog can cross the country
without
changing trains-but you can't." When his attempt to obtain a
central
position at the Pullman Company after World War II failed, he
turned to the
In 1954, after a long proxy struggle, and with the aid
of
Young preferred to do most of his office work in the
privacy of the den
of his mansion at
Young was also an amateur poet and bibliophile. In 1953
he donated a
number of documents dealing with
The dreams of Young and Alfred Perlman, whom he selected
as president
of the Central in 1954, to form a true transcontinental line
were frustrated by
antitrust suits and by lack of interest on the part of the
western lines to
merge with the nearly bankrupt corporation. What was more,
Young's daughter,
who had risen prominently in high society, had died in a plane
crash near
Consequently, he often experienced moods of depression.
On
Young's attempts toward merging the Pennsylvania and New
York Central
lines came to fruition in 1968, when the Penn Central
Transportation Company
was formed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Joseph Borkin,
Robert R. Young,
the Populist of Wall Street (New York: Harper and Row, 1969).
Dictionary of American Biography.
Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen
and Ladies: A History of
H. Allen Anderson