WINFIELD GAS COMPANY.

Winfield Gas Company.

Lynn became a member of the “Winfield Gas Company,” formed on October 18, 1883, to build gas works under franchises granted by the city to Col. Whiting. The incorporators of this company were J. C. Fuller, Col. Wm. Whiting, J. B. Lynn, Ed. P. Greer, and Frank Barclay. Officers: J. C. Fuller, President; Col. Wm. Whiting, Vice President; Ed. P. Greer, Secretary; J. B. Lynn, Treasurer.

James C. Fuller, President of Winfield Gas Company.

In early August 1870 J. C. Fuller and D. A. Millington, residents of Fort Scott, Kansas, became proprietors of a new town called Sumner located in Sumner County, Kansas. Among others who formed this town were J. M. Steele, C. S. Roe, and J. H. Liggett of Wichita; J. Jay Buck and E. W. Cunningham of Emporia; Maj. Woodsmall, of Gosport, Indiana; and Col. J. C. McMullen, of Clarksville, Tennessee. Col. McMullen stayed in Sumner County for some time before going to Arkansas City, where he started a private bank.

Fuller and Millington left the town of Sumner soon after its formation in August 1870, becoming members of the Winfield Town Company. In late November 1870 the first newspaper printed in Winfield, the Winfield Censor, had the following item: “The President of the town Company, Mr. J. C. Fuller, informed us the other day that twenty-three business houses were now under contract and in course of construction. How’s that for a town only four months old?”

A small frame structure, the “Winfield Bank, of J. C. Fuller,” the first bank building in Winfield, was completed in the spring of 1871 at the corner of Main Street and 9^th Avenue.

Col. Wm. Whiting, Vice President, Winfield Gas Company.

Col. Wm. Whiting became the active U. S. Indian Agent for the Ponca Indians upon his arrival at Ponca Agency in April 1880. He was replaced in June 1881 by Thos. J. Jordan.

Col Whiting and his sons began running a meat market in Winfield in July 1881. In August L. C. Woodruff was arrested, accused of stealing a steer from the Deer Creek ranch in Indian Territory during the sale of stock by Whiting Bros., and drawing a revolver on Capt. William O. Whiting. The case was settled in November 1881 by Woodruff paying for the cattle and the costs of the suit. In December 1881 Whiting Bros. erected a large cook room and smoke house in the rear of their shop on Main Street, Winfield. They advertised that they kept fresh, salt, and smoked meats as well as poultry, game, and fish in season.

The following article appeared in December 29, 1881, in the Winfield Courier.

“Among the many nice displays made in show windows and shops Saturday, that of Whiting Brothers carried off the honors. In the evening it was lit up with Chinese lanterns and presented a beautiful sight. Great quarters of beef trimmed in evergreens, trees with little roast pigs crawling up the trunks, and stuffed birds swinging in the branches, live raccoons, and red-birds, and everything that would make the thing look cheerful, bright, and airy, filled the room and made it look more like a miniature forest than anything else. Crowds of people thronged the market all day looking at the display and congratulating Col. Whiting and his enterprising boys on the good taste exercised in the decorations.

“Our reporter dropped in during the evening and went home with a roast pig under his arm, which played no small part in the festivities of the next day.”