LEMUEL G. KNOTTS was born in New Virginia, Warren County, Iowa, April 3, 1865 and was reared from his fourth year in Council Bluffs, receiving his education here except one winter at Denison, Texas.

During the summer months previous to the completion of his sixteenth year he worked on his father's farm, after which he devoted his entire time to his studies. At the age of eighteen he spent a year in Mexico, in the study of Spanish and mining. Returning to Council Bluffs he graduated here in the class of 1885. He went again to Mexico to look after the mining interests of his father at Parral in the State of Chihuahua and at Mapimi in the State of Durango, and was there about eighteen months. Returning here he engaged in various pursuits.

In the summer of 1887 he took a course at the commercial college here, and then entered the office of Wright, Baldwin & Haldam, to study law, and was there one year, when he engaged in his present business, dealing in coal and wood, in partnership with W.F. Sapp, Jr. On September 2, 1890, Mr. Sapp withdrew from the partnership firm of Sapp & Knotts, since which time Mr. Knotts had been conducting the fuel business alone.