Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 948 - 949

C. A. LATHAM, an enterprising manufacturer of Wichita, was the prime mover in the organization of the Kansas Pump Company, who are manufacturers of wooden and chain pumps. This enterprise occupies an important position among the many and varied industries of this busy and thriving metropolis of the Arkansas River Valley. It was first started by our subject in company with his father, whose sound judgment, ability, and wide experience in business, gave it the necessary stability, while the clear-headed energy and enterprise of the younger man were important factors in its success. In 1886 their trade amounted to from $15,000 to $20,000, being confined mostly to Wichita. Since then it has so increased as to authorize the formation of a stock company, which was organized in 1888 with a capital stock of $20,000. This company will manufacture pumps for the Southwest in general, and will greatly enlarge the works and extend the business. The following persons constitute the company: George P. Glaze, George L. Douglas, C. A. Latham, Beard Churchwood and Morton Woolman.

             Mr. Latham was born in Adrian, Mich., Dec. 19, 1861, and is the son of Robert and Lucretia (Cornwell) Latham, natives of New York State. Our subject received the basis of his education in the excellent public schools of his native city. In 1872, when a lad of ten years, he came with his father to Kansas, and in the State Agricultural College at Manhattan, by a thorough course in the scientific department, he finished the education so well begun in the State of his birth. He has a natural aptitude for all mechanical employments, and his careful training has made him very skillful therein. On leaving college and starting out in the world for himself, his first work was as a railway engineer, which occupation he pursued the two ensuing years. At the end of that time he turned his attention from engineering to the manufacture of wooden and chain pumps with his father, as before stated, and his friends have watched his progress with satisfaction.

             Mr. Latham has made a very successful start in life, and by his systematic methods of conducting his work, his strict attention to it in all its details, and his thoroughly upright dealings, has already made an honorable record in the business world, and is in a fair way to place himself among the wealthy men of Wichita. His culture, intelligence and geniality make him an important factor in social circles, and have secured him many warm friends.

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