| WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS. | 169 cont'd |
WILLIAM J. EVANS.
WILLIAM J. EVANS was reared and educated in Carlyle and Geneva, Kansas. He was eighteen years of age when he came to Iola and he worked at odds and ends, hauling coal among the rest, till he entered the
| 170 | HISTORY OF ALLEN AND |
drug house of R. B. Stevenson as a clerk. When the Missouri Pacific railroad was building through Iola he had a place on the engineering force for a time. After this he was in Topeka, Kansas, occupying a position as a drug clerk for some months and upon his return to Iola in 1882 bought the drug business of Richards, Lakin and Ireland, a prominent firm twenty years ago. In 1883 in company with William Goodhue he purchased the drug stock of R. B. Stevenson and has since made drugs, books, stationary and paints his business. Upon the retirement of Mr. Goodhue the firm became W. J. Evans and remained so till the partnership of William J. and Tell Evans was entered into in 1892. This stand has always enjoyed a prosperous business. It has been the popular corner since the day Stevenson opened his paper stand, and later his little drug store, and its magnitude and importance has increased with the demands of a metropolitan city. The firm of Evans Brothers is nothing if not progressive and public spirited. They get all that their legitimate business will earn but they do not keep all they get. Their liberality toward worthy charities and mentorions enterprises is well known and the money that they thus dispose of annually is in liberal proportion to their net incomes.
Mr. Evans has been a member of the State Pharmaceutical Association for near a dozen years, has been active on some of the committee work and in 1896 was elected president of the Association, serving the usual term of one year.
In politics there never was a time when the Evans' were not on the side of patriotism and the flag. Whigs predominated in the household in the days of Webster and Clay and Scott but with Fremont they became Republicans and have remained so through all the history of that party.
William J. Evans was married in Iola January 26, 1888, to Jessie, a daughter of William Buchanan.
Mr. Evans is a Mason, a Knight of Pythias and a Workman.
The foregoing brief record and the more extended sketch of J. M. Evans, previously given, is the story of lives well and honorably spent. It covers the period of Allen county's development and testifies to the part which one of its pioneer families took in that development. It is fortunate that the facts of genealogy herein contained have been so well preserved to us and that the brief reference to the first settlement of our county is thus vividly portrayed. The student of our times in the future, will gain information and find much to satisfy in the perusal of the lives of our worthy pioneers.
Pages 169-170, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.
