|
|
Todd County |
Biographies
|
|
Todd County |
William E. Lea
William E. Lea of Long Prairie Has Done Much for Farm Implement Department
William Edwin Lee, superintendent of the Machinery department, manufacturers, farm implements and carriages at the Minnesota, State Fair, was born in Alton, Illinois, January 8. 1852. His parents came from England in 1851 and first settled at Alton. They removed to Minnesota in 1857 and settled at Little Falls, where they removed to Long Prairie, but returned to Little Falls during the Indian outbreak of 1862. Mr. Lee lived on a farm near there until he left home to take up his residence at Long Prairie in 1875. While a young man he worked on the farm and with his father at millwright and carpenter work, also worked in the lumbering woods and on the river. While working as a millwright he invented a valuable improvement in grain cleaning machinery, which was extensively used in the mills of the country and was the subject of considerable litigation between the inventor and the millers.
In 1876 he opened a store, at Pillsbury, Minnesota, and in 1877 was elected register of deeds of Todd County, Minnesota, and held the office four years. In January, 1882, he established the bank of Long Prairie, the first bank in Todd county, and has been one of its officers ever since. Mr. Lee represented Todd county in the legislature of 1885, 1887 and 1893, being speaker of the house during the session of 1893. In 1894 he was appointed superintendent of the Minnesota state reformatory at St. Cloud, which position he filled for two years. He was appointed by Gov. Van Sant one of the first members of the state board of control and served upon that board about two years, he also served one term on the state normal school board and has been four years on the State Fair board. He is president of the First National Bank of Browerville; First National Bank of Eagle Bend; First State Bank of Burtrum; Vice President of the First State Bank of Thompson Falls, Thompson, Mont, and cashier of the bank of Long Prairie.
[The Bemidji daily pioneer (Bemidji, Minn.), November 05, 1908]
Copyright ©Genealogy Trails
