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DENZIL A. DRAKE
Vol. 5, p. 1822

A significantly varied and interesting career has been that of Mr.
Drake, who has been a resident of Oklahoma since the year that marked
its organization under territorial government, and who is now one of
the most liberal and progressive citizens of the Village of
Hitchcock, Blaine County, where he is not only engaged in the real
estate business but where he is also the senior member of the firm of
D. A. Drake & Son, publishers and editors of the Hitchcock Clarion, a
weekly paper that has been brought up to high standard under his
administration and control and in the directing of the affairs of
which he has given new evidence of his versatility.

Mr. Drake has been distinctively one of the world's workers, he has
gained varied experience in divers sections of the Union, he has been
steadfast and sincere in all of the relations of life, has shown
initiative ability and a master of expedients in varied fields of
endeavor, and in Oklahoma he has found ample scope for the achieving
of success and for exerting admirable influence in the furtherance of
general civic and material advancement and prosperity.

A due amount of satisfaction is given to Mr. Drake in claiming the
fine old Buckeye State as the place of his nativity and as a
commonwealth in which the family of which he is a scion was founded
in the early pioneer era of its history. He was born in Summit
County, Ohio, on the 26th of April 1859. His paternal great-
grandfather was one of three brothers who immigrated to the United
States from Wales, and his grandfather became a pioneer of Ohio,
besides which he manifested his loyalty to the land of his adoption
by serving as a valiant frontier soldier in the War of 1812. Both he
and his wife were residents of Summit County, Ohio, at the time of
their death, and he had taken well his part in the development of
that section of the Buckeye State.

Denzil A. Drake is a son of Jasper B. and Caroline (HARDY) Drake,
both natives of Summit County, Ohio, where the former was born in
1814 and the latter in 1819 -- dates that clearly indicated that the
respective families were early pioneers of that section. Jasper B.
Drake and his wife passed the closing years of their long and worthy
lives at Ness City, judicial center of Ness County, Kansas, where he
died in 1899, and where his widow was summoned to eternal rest in
1904, at the venerable age of eighty-five years, both having been for
many years zealous members of the Christian Church, and the entire
active career of Mr. Drake having been one of close identification
with agricultural industry. Just prior to the outbreak of the Civil
War Jasper B. Drake removed with his family to Cedar County, Iowa,
where he became a pioneer farmer in the vicinity of the present Town
of Durant. In 1866, shortly after the close of the war, he removed to
Cass County, Missouri, and later he became a representative farmer of
Ness County, Kansas, where he passed the remainder of his long and
useful life, the closing period of which was spent in well earned
retirement, at Ness City.

He whose name introduces this article, was a child of about four
years at the time of the family immigration to Iowa, and there he
acquired his rudimentary education in the pioneer rural schools of
Cedar County, his studies having later been continued in the little
frame school house near his father's farm in Cass County, Missouri.
He applied himself to study at home during his youth and through his
self-application and broad and varied experiences in later years he
has rounded out what may consistently be termed a liberal education.
He continued to be associated with his father in farm work until he
was sixteen years of age, when he initiated his independent career.
This initiation was far from being one of prosaic order, for in 1875,
soon after celebrating his sixteenth birthday anniversary, he made
his way to California, where he proceeded up the Sacramento Valley
and devoted his attention to the selling of books and periodicals, a
line of enterprise which he followed during the first years of his
residence in the Golden State. During the second year he "held down"
a comparatively profitable position as collector for the waterworks
at Colusa, that state.

Remaining in California about two years, young Drake then returned
to Cass County, Missouri, in 1878, and in February of the following
year he there took unto himself a wife, who remained his devoted
helpmeet until her death, about thirteen years later. After his
marriage Mr. Drake removed to Ness County, Kansas, where he took up
homestead and, timber claims and instituted the reclamation and
development of a farm. There he continued to devote his attention to
agricultural pursuits and stock raising for a period of five years,
within which he perfected his title to his homestead. At the
expiration of the interval noted he exchanged his farm and livestock
for a stock of goods and engaged in the general merchandise business
at Buffalo Park, Gove County, Kansas, where he continued his
operations in this fine of enterprise from 1884 until 1887, when he
again exercised the true Yankee trading proclivity by "swapping" his
stock of merchandise and the good will of the business for a bunch of
cattle. He there upon returned to Ness County and filed entry on a
pre-emption claim, where he placed his cattle and resumed his
activities as a farmer and stock raiser. He remained on this farm one
year and proved up on the property. From his farm he removed to the
Town of Utica, Ness, County, and there established a real estate
office. He developed a substantial business in the handling of Kansas
land, and at one time owned fully thirty quarter-sections, but
depreciation in the prices of land in that section of the Sunflower
State led him to dispose of his holdings by his favored method of
making exchange of properties, and in 1890, the year that marked the
organization of Oklahoma Territory he came to the present Oklahoma
County and was a pioneer of the Town of Edmond. He remained only a
few months, however, and then returned to Missouri, where he devoted
one year to farming, in Jasper County.

Mention has already been made of the fact that Mr. Drake is
possessed of marked versatility, and after leaving the Jasper County
farm he engaged in work at the stone mason's trade, at Carthage, that
state, this trade having been learned by him in earlier years. He
resumed work in this line principally for the benefit of his health
and after following the same during one summer he removed with his
family to the City of Wichita, Kansas, where he engaged in the
furniture business until the financial panic of 1897 compelled him to
sacrifice the same. From that time forward until 1900 he served as a
commercial traveling salesman handling queensware.

In 1900 Mr. Drake purchased a general store situated, five miles
southeast of Hitchcock, Blaine County, Oklahoma, and after conducting
this rural store one year he removed, in 1901, to Hitchcock, becoming
virtually one of the founders of the town, in which he erected the
first building and in the same opened the first stock of merchandise.
He named his establishment the Pioneer Store, and conducted the same
from August 1901, until the following February, when financial
circumstances compelled him to abandon the enterprise. In the same
spring, however, he opened the first drug store in the village, and
after conducting the same four years he sold the stock and business
and turned his attention to the handling of real estate, in which he
has since continued with distinctive success, his operations having
been of broad scope and importance and having been potent in
furthering the settlement and development of this section of the
state.

In October 1908, Mr. Drake purchased a half interest in the
Hitchcock Clarion, and in the following year he acquired the full
ownership of this newspaper property and business. As editor and
publisher of the Clarion he has made the paper a most effective
exponent of local interests and has made it a valuable factor in the
directing of popular sentiment and action in the community. In the
editing and publishing of the Clarion Mr. Drake has an able coadjutor
in the person of his son, Frank, though the latter gives the major
part of his time and attention to the Stratford Tribune, at
Stratford, Garvin County, of which he is editor and publisher, the
business at Hitchcock being conducted under the firm name of D. A.
Drake & Son. Mr. Drake was assisted greatly in the movement that
resulted in the founding of the Hitchcock Clarion, which dates its
inception from March 27, 1908, as previously intimated, he soon came
into control of the property and business, the paper being
independent in politics and having an excellent circulation in Blaine
and adjacent counties.

Mr. Drake has been one of the most vital, far-sighted and
progressive of the enterprising citizens who have wielded great
influence in the development and upbuilding of the town of Hitchcock,
and he has served two terms as mayor of the village, besides which he
here held the office of justice of the peace eight years. He has
served two terms as clerk of the school board, and within his
incumbency of this position he was one of the foremost in the
movement that brought about the consolidation of six school districts
and the erection, at Hitchcock, of a substantial and thoroughly
modern building for the accommodation of these combined districts,
this action having made possible the bringing of the school work up
to a far higher plane of efficiency than was previously maintained,
this being one of the first of such consolidated school districts in
this part of the state.

Mr. Drake has been a member of the Christian Church since he was a
lad of twelve years, and amid "all the changes and chances of this
mortal life," his abiding Christian faith has dominated his course
and constituted a bulwark of defense and reconciliation. He was one
of the founders of the Christian Church at Hitchcock and is earnestly
and ably serving the same in the office of elder, his wife likewise
being a zealous and valued member. Mr. Drake is affiliated with
Watonga Lodge, No. 176, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Watonga,
the county seat of Blaine County, and is an appreciative and popular
member of the Oklahoma State Press Association.

In February 1879, at Harrisonville, Cass County, Missouri, Mr. Drake
wedded Miss Alma ROBERTSON, whose father, William A. Robertson, was a
merchant of that place, though he passed the closing period of his
life as a farmer in Oklahoma. Mrs. Drake was summoned to the life
eternal in 1892 in Jasper County, Missouri, and she is survived by
five children, concerning whom brief mention is here made: Caroline
is the wife of William E. BEARD and they reside in the City of
Claremore, Oklahoma, where Mr. Beard conducts a garage. Hattie is the
wife of Ford O. SHOEMAKER, of Wichita, Kansas. Pearl is the wife of
Oscar BURTON, a merchant at Caldwell, Kansas. George is engaged in
the grocery business at Wichita, Kansas. Florence is the wife of
Harry SUMPTION, who is engaged in the jewelry business in the City of
Seattle, Washington.

In February 1893, was-solemnized the marriage of Mr. Drake to Miss
Hattie ROBERTSON, a sister of his first wife, and their only child is
Frank, who was born in March, 1894, who was graduated in the Watonga
High School, and who is associated with his father in the newspaper
business at Hitchcock. He is one of the alert, successful and
representative young newspaper men of Oklahoma, and has shown marked
ability in his chosen field of enterprise.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Jack Wood July 21, 1999.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916)