Thomas Benton Pruett. No man bears a finer record in Pecos and Beeves county, Texas, than Thomas Benton Pruett, one of the most prominent business men in this section. He was one of the early settlers of this region, and as one of the pioneer lumbermen did much for the development of the country around Pecos. He is now the head of one of the largest lumber concerns in western Texas, and is considered one of the most influential men in the business world of this section. But his success in business is not what has given him his wide popularity, it is rather the way in which he has earned this prosperity, for no more honorable career can be pointed to than Mr. Pruett 'a. He has the highest reputation for honor and integrity and possesses the confidence of the entire business world, for he has never been known to conduct a business deal in anything but the most honorable way. His geniality and ability to make friends has won for him a large circle of warm friends both in Pecos and in the other sections where he has lived. Thomas Benton Pruett was born on the 7th of January, 1855, in White county, Arkansas. His father, Benjamin H. Pruett, was born in Kentucky. He lived there until after his marriage to Nancy McBride, who was also a native of Kentucky and in 1849 they removed to White county, Arkansas. Here Mr. Pruett became fairly successful as a farmer, dying in 1892. He was born in 1808 and was eighty-four years of age at the time of his death. Mrs. Pruett, who was born in 1817 lived until 1898, when she died at the age of eighty-one. Nine children were born to Benjamin Pruett and his wife, and five of this number are deceased. In addition to Thomas B. Pruett, those, living are Phillip H. Pruett, who is a prominent stock man of Alpine, Texas; James B. Pruett, who is engaged in farming in Hopkins county, Texas, and Diana, who is the wife of W. W. Hinson, of Alpine, Texas. Thomas B. Pruett was the next to the youngest child and the education which he received was very meager, amounting to twelve months in all. Even this little schooling, which was had in the private school of White county, Arkansas, was received at the rate of two months a year. Not only were the country schools of the poorest but it was a hard struggle for existence in those days and children had to get what education they could and be thankful for it, no matter how little it was. At the age of eighteen he began farming in Wliite county, and for fourteen years followed this occupation. During this period, in September, 1874, he was married to Miss Minerva Hammons, who was born in White county, Arkansas. In 1887 he sold his farm and moved to Texas where he located at Fort Davis. Here he went into the mercantile business and became very successful. He preferred the farm, however, and so after a time sold his business to good advantage and moved to Fannin county, Texas, where he bought a farm and settled down to the old life again. He lived here for three years when his wife died, leaving him with the care of a family of seven small children, the youngest of whom died eight months after the death of the mother. With six children to rear and educate and no wife to help him. life looked pretty gray to Mr. Pruett about this time, but he was not to be discouraged, and so selling his farm in Fannin county he removed to Mitchell county, Texas, where he farmed for a year. It was in 1892 that he moved to Pecos and here his real prosperity began. His first essay at business was ns the owner of a transfer and drayage business and for four years he followed this line successfully. He then engaged in the lumber business, being one of the very first men to enter this field in this section. He has been very successful and between 1896 and 1905 established five lumber yards. These are located at Pecos, Toyah, Barstow. Monahans and Grand Falls. In 1905 he organized the Pruett Lumber Company, having previously been in business by himself. The capital was twenty-five thousand dollars and in 1907 this capital was increased to one hundred thousand dollars. He served as president of the company for two years and during this time has added three more yards to those already in operation. The new yards are located at Pyote, Saragossa and Balmorhea, Texas. He has considerable capital invested in real estate in this section of Texas, owning in addition to his fine home in Pecos, four sections of land in Reeves county. Mr. Pruett should be credited with the success of his children as well as his own success for it is largely due to his careful training and the good education which he has given them that they are the successful and useful men and women which they have become. The eldest, Vida Pruett, is now the wife of the Reverend Joel F. Hedgpeth, the minister of the Methodist church in Pecos. Tina is the widow of William Adams, who died in 1909 at Barstow, Texas, as the county clerk of Ward county, and she now makes her home in Pecos. Verde Elmer Pruett is the manager of one of the Pruett Lumber Company's yards, located at Balmorhea, Texas. Mamie married A. Graves Taggert, who is the bookkeeper of the Pecos Mercantile Company at Pecos. Lilian Pruett is a successful teacher of music at Pecos. Pear, the youngest, married Charles Jorden, who is connected with the Pecos Valley State Bank of Pecos. In 1899 Mr. Pruett was married again, his wife being Miss Mamie Taylor, the daughter of Ira and Mrs. A. O. Taylor. Two children have been born to this union, as follows, Ora, who is now twelve years old, and Thomas Benton Pruett, Jr. Mr. Pruett is a member of the Methodist church, and for twenty-one years has served as a steward in this church. He is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, being a Royal Arch Mason. He also belongs to the Woodmen of the World. A history of Texas And Texans 1914 Jrice

William D Cowen

William D. Cowen. As is usually the case with the leading business man of a place, William D. Cowen, who occupies this position in Pecos, Texas, grew up in the hard school of experience and his early years were full of hard knocks. He started in life as a rancher, in the same way that hundreds of men have started, but he succeeded where many men have failed, through the qualities which he possessed of being able to work early and late and of possessing perseverance enough to cling to a thing until it was accomplished. He is now one of the most influential men in the whole of west Texas, influential not only on account of his wealth, but also on account of the strength and force of his personality. William David Cowen was born on the 25th of July, 1851, in Gonzales county, Texas. His father, John Cowen, was a native of Ireland and his mother, Elizabeth (Nations) Cowen, was born in Mississippi. When a young man John Cowen emigrated from Ireland to this country, settling in South Carolina. He later moved to Mississippi and there in the fall of 1849 he was married to Elizabeth Nations. He came with his wife to Texas and they located in Gonzales county, near Belman, where they lived until 1852, when they moved to Fayette county. Here Mr. Cowen died in 1886. He spent all of his life as a rancher and stock raiser. Mrs. Cowen died in 1892, and of the seven children born of this union five grew to maturity. Of these Robert B. Cowen is a prominent farmer near San Marcos, Texas, and Willis Cowen is a teacher in San Marcos. William D. Cowen was the eldest of the children. Owing to the fact that William Cowen was the eldest and that his father's family was large, he received only a limited education, attending the country schools in the winters and assisting his father or working on the neighboring ranches during the summers. When he was old enough to start out for himself he went into cattle raising on a very small scale in Fayette county. His herds grew and he later transferred them to Gonzales county, where he remained until 1883. Then he moved to Brewster county, and in 1884 came to Reeves county. During these years he had been continuously successful, everything that he had undertaken had turned out well, and this was not due to good luck, but to careful management and the use of good sense. In Reeves county he operated on a large scale, owning a ranch of thirty thousand acres, and his herds had become immense. After making so fine a success of ranching, he turned to other fields, and '8 now the leader in all of the important business enterprises in Pecos. Mr. Cowen became the president and is the principal owner of the Pecos Valley Bank, in 1901. He is a prominent member of the Pecos Land Company and was one of the leaders in the movement which resulted in the growth and development of Pecos. He is president of the Pecos Valley and Southern Railroad Company and is one of the largest stockholders in this enterprise. Financial enterprises have claimed the larger share of his time of late, and he organized the Bank of Barstow, at Barstow, Texas, and is vice president of the Toyah Citizens' Bank, at Toyah, Texas. He is actively interested in the welfare of these various institutions and spends much of his time looking after their affairs. Mr. Cowen was married on the 3d of January, 1870, to Miss Josephine Darling, a native of Texas and the daughter of Socrates Darling, who was one of the early pioneers of Texas, having settled here in 1834, and also being a veteran of the Mexican war. Mrs. Josephine Cowen died in 1889 and is buried in Toyah. Six children were born of this marriage, as follows: William Cowen is a prominent rancher of Culberson county, Texas; Lou married J. L. Duncan and lives in Jeff Davis county, Texas; John Cowen is a successful ranch owner of Reeves county; Frances is the wife of J. B. Pruett, a merchant of Pecos; Sidney Cowen is also successfully engaged in ranching in Reeves county, and Myrtle is the widow of Judge Ben C. Thomas and now makes her home with her father in Pecos. Mr. Cowen was married for the second time in 1891 to Lethia Porter Phil lips, the widow of John Phillips, Mrs. Cowen being a native of the state of Missouri. One son, Marvin Cowen, has been born to this marriage, and he is at present a student in Baylor University, at Dallas, Texas. Mr. Cowen has taken especial care in seeing that all of his children received a fair education. In speaking of the leading business man of a town, a picture always comes to mind of an arrogant, domineering sort of a man, who considers himself not only the owner of the land and buildings of a town, but also of the people living therein, but one must draw a very different picture of William D. Cowen. He is a plain, simple business man, modest and of retiring disposition, prone to consider what he has accomplished in life as being possible of accomplishment by any man who works hard enough. He is highly respected and heartily liked by his fellow citizens, which is sufficient evidence that he does not stoop to take an unfair advantage of his influence and power. A history of Texas And Texans 1914 Jrice

James B Gibson

Hon. James B. Gibson. One of the most prominent men in the business and political world of Pecos, Texas, is the Hon. James B. Gibson, the present mayor of that place. He is one of the prominent lawyers of Reeves county and has been a resident of Pecos for many years. He comes of pioneer stock, his ancestors having not only been early settlers in Texas, but further down the line they were early settlers in the central states and still earlier in the history of the country were pioreers when the known western hemisphere was a narraw strip along the Atlantic seaboard. Mr. Gibson was himself born in Texas and is therefore even more deeply interested in the welfare of the state than are most of her citizens. As a public official he has given great satisfaction and he has shown that he possesses no small amount of executive ability. The father of James B. Gibson was Robert A. Gibson and he was a native of Tennessee. He came to Texas In 1845 and joined the army of General Taylor, serving in his command throughout the war with Mexico. After the close of the war he located in Burnet county and was there married. He engaged in stock raising and farming there until 1861, when he moved to Gillespie county. Here he followed stock raising for a time but when the call to arms was issued by the Confederate government, Mr. Gibson, although he was fifty years of age at the time, volunteered his services and joined a battalion of frontier troops, serving with them until the end of that war. Just after the close of the war he, with a band of twenty-five men, crossed the border to Mexico, and here they were arrested as spies and thrown into prison. After much cruel treatment, such as being rjut into stocks and chained in their prisons, Mr. Gibson who was a fluent speaker of Spanish, managed in some way to make his escape. Although he was handicapped by a ball and chain he was almost safe, but in attempting to cross the Rio Grande he was shot and killed by a Mexican soldier. The mother of James B. Gibson was Celestine (Banta) Gibson, and she traces her ancestry back over a ptriod of three hundred years. Her forebears came to New Jersey from Amsterdam and the banks of the Zuyder Zee, and these sturdy Hollanders were among the first settlers of the new colony to the south of New York. When this part of the country became pretty well settled up, some of the family emigrated to Kentucky, making the long journey on horseback and on foot, settling near Boonesborough, over one hundred years ago. Later they made their way into Indiana and there set-tled near Bloomington. Mrs. Gibson, mother of J. B. Gibson, was born in Indiana, at Bloomington, and she remembers very well how as a child of eleven years she walked beside the oxen drawing the heavily loaded emigrant wagons in which her mother and father were moving their household goods to Texas. They had their milch cows and all their property that was movable and the journey was a perilous one. Upon their arrival Mr. Banta took up six hundred and forty acres of land in Fannin county, and here they settled. It was in the days when Indian uprisings were frequent and the Banta "family endured many of the trials and dangers that their ancestors had suffered in the days when civilization was blazing the trail across the Allegheny mountains. Mrs. Gibson comes of a family that has given a number of prominent men to this country, among whom may be mentioned an uncle, David Banta, who became dean of the law department of the University of Indiana. Mrs. Gibson is living today in Reeves county, Texas, and although aged eighty-two is as bright and courageous as she was in the early days which she remembers so well. James B. Gibson was born in Burnet county, Texas, on the 23rd of December, 1857. He was the oldest of the four children of his parents, the other three being Boxie, who is the widow of James Sharpless and is now postmistress of Lagoona, Texas; Conn Oibson, who was two years younger than James Gibson, was a railway contractor and was shot to death at Carlsbad, New Mexico, in 1894; Mary Louise Gibson died at the age of nineteen years. James Gibson received his education in the common schools of south Texas and since means for an education were limited, both on account of the scarcity of money and the lack of good schools, he went to work at the age of sixteen. His first pay was earned as a cowboy and at this early age he drove cattle across the state of Texas and into Kansas. He then went to farming in Kerr county, Texas, in which he was engaged for about three years. The old military spirit which had inspired the father now began to show in the son and he joined the frontier battalion, becoming a member of Company C, which was under the command of Captain G. W. Arrington, and was stationed at old Fort Griffith, in Shackelford county. In 1878 the company was transferred to the headwaters of the Brazos river in Blanco canyon, where there was plenty of active work. James Gibson was promoted over the heads of older companions to the rank of second sergeant, both for bravery and efficiency. • He did frontier duty for three years and during this time endured untold hardships, such as going without water for forty-eight hours and without very much in the shape of food for three days, during which he and his companions were pursuing Indians who were on the warpath. In 1886 he resigned from the command and returned to his home and mother. They now sold their home in Gillespie county and removed to Pecos, in Reeves county. For two years Mr. Gibson was engaged in ranching and stock raising across the border near Seven Rivers, New Mexico. In the fall of 1888 he was elected to the office of county and district clerk of Reeves county, and his services in this office were so satisfactory that he was re-elected for seven terms, serving fourteen years in the office. During this time he took up the study of law and in 1890 was admitted to the bar. Now begins a new phase in the life of Mr. Gibson. He was elected to the office of attorney for Reeves county and served for two terms. He has been practicing law since that time, giving part of his time, however, to his ranching interests. He is a member of the firm of Gibson & Wilson, and they have one of the best practices in the county. He purchased his present ranch in 1892, in partnership with his brother-in-law, George Mansfield, and they engaged in stock raising on a large scale in Beeves county. This partnership continued for six years and then Mr. Gibson sold his interests for the sum of seventy thousand dollars. He invested this money in real estate in Pecos, owning both residences and business blocks, his own home, which is worth about ten thousand dollars, being his property. Mr. Gibson was elected mayor of Pecos in April, 1912, and is filling this office to the satisfaction of the citizens of Pecos. In 1894 Mr. Gibson was married to Miss Key Mansfield, who was born in the southern part of Texas, and is a daughter of George T. and Amalda (McKinney) Mansfield. No children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Gibson, but they have adopted little five-year-old Leo Ney McDaniel, and it is their chief desire to bring her up and educate her as though she were their own child. A history of Texas And Texans 1914 Jrice

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