Edward W. Stone

Public honors as well as financial success have attended the career of the substantial business man and representative citizen whose name furnishes the caption of this biographical review. For a number of years prominently identified with the commercial business of his own city and other towns and also having mineral interests in various sections of the state, he has been a forceful factor in the industrial development of Wyoming, besides taking an active part in political and public affairs as a leading politician and as an official empowered with honorable trusts. Edward W. Stone is a native of Ohio, a state which doubtless has furnished the West more clear-brained men of definite purpose than any other section of the American commonwealth. He was born in the town of Belpre, Washington County on February 8,1862, being the only child of Loring and Joanna Stone, natives of Ohio and Indiana respectively. By occupation Loring Stone was a miller, in connection with which trade he also carried on the mercantile business in Belpre. He was a man of considerable local prominence and the success which marked his business career shows him to have been the possessor of judgment, discretion and capacity of no mean order. At the proper age Edward W. Stone entered the public schools of his native town and in due time completed the full course, graduating from the high school with an honorable record as an industrious and consecutive student. Actuated by a desire to prosecute his studies still further, he afterwards entered Oberlin College, where he pursued the higher branches of learning for two years, thus laying a substantial foundation for the active and successful career which followed in due course of time. At the age of twenty he began working in his father's flouring mill at Belpre and after spending one year in that capacity, came west, arriving at Cheyenne, Wyo., in January, 1884, where he soon became bookkeeper for Mr. J. S. Callins, one of the city's leading businessmen. Mr. Stone continued in the employ of that gentleman about five years, when he became associated in the grocery business with Pitt Covert, the firm thus constituted lasting until Mr. Stone sold out to his partner and effected a business relationship with John E. Vreeland. The well-known business house of Vreeland & Stone is still in existence, being one of the largest and most successful commercial firms of Cheyenne, with a branch store at the town of Uva, which carries on an extensive trade in that section of the state. While meeting with success in his business affairs such as few merchants attain, Mr. Stone has by no means devoted all of his time and attention to private interests. Mindful of the duties which every true citizen owes to the community in which he lives, he early began taking an active part in the public affairs of his city and county, and in recognition of valuable services rendered to his party, as well as by rea-son of his eminent qualifications for the office, he was elected in 1889 the treasurer of Laramie county. This was the first election under the present constitution, consequently to Mr. Stone belongs the honor of serving as the first custodian of the public funds after Wyoming was admitted to statehood. In the fall of 1898 he was elected on the Republican ticket a member of the upper house of the General Assembly and his senatorial experience was characterized by a faithfulness to his constituency that won him the high regard of his district and, when he retired from that body he carried with him the good will of the people, irrespective of political affiliation. His career as county treasurer was also above reproach, for he discharged the duties of that office with a fidelity to the interests of the public, which earned him the reputation of being one of the ablest officials by whom the county, was ever served. Mr. Stone has ever maintained an enviable standing among the business men of Cheyenne and by a course of conduct beyond adverse criticism has proven himself eminently worthy of the high esteem in which he is held. He is a true type of the successful self -made man, having risen to his present place in business and political circles with no assistance beyond his own talents and well directed energies. In the true sense of the term he has been "the architect of his own fortune" and, measured by the correct standard of success, his life affords many lessons, which, if properly studied, cannot fail to lead others into the highway whose ultimate goal is position and competency. Mr. Stone is a Thirty-second degree Mason and occupies a conspicuous place among the leading members of the fraternity throughout Wyoming. He has also held distinguished positions in the Pythian order, having been grand chancellor; besides in other capacities contributing to the success of the local lodge with which he is identified. Mr. Stone is a married man, having a comfortable and attractive home in Cheyenne, where he delights to meet his many friends and dispense a generous hospitality which bespeaks the large mind, warm heart and liberal hand. His wife, whom he married at Belpre, Ohio, in January, 1888, was formerly Miss Mary Harrison, the accomplished daughter of Capt. Jackson Harrison, for so many years a popular steamboat man, plying the Ohio and other rivers.