Charles C. Holden. When Charles C. Holden organized the First State Bank of Willow in 1910, he was elected to the post of cashier of the bank, and he has held that position down to the present date. Mr. Holden was born in Wise County, Texas, on October 27, 1887, and is a son of J. H. Holden, who was born in Missouri in I860.

The Holden family was established in Kentucky in pioneer days and men of that name helped to mold the fortunes of the state, and many of them are to be found within her borders today. The branch with which we are concerned at this writing pioneered into Missouri a good many years before the Civil war period and there J. H. Holden was born. From Missouri he moved to Wise County, Texas, as a young man, and there married. He came to Grier County, Texas, in April, 1888, a pioneer to another new country, and homesteaded 160 acres of land about four and a half miles southeast of what is now the Town of Willow. Today Mr. Holden owns eight quarter section tracts of land in addition to the original quarter section which he got on his homestead rights. He has devoted his time to farming and stock raising there, a business in which he has spent his life, and in which he has been very successful. Diversified farming, and the breeding of blooded cattle and horses, occupy him on his Oklahoma farm.

Mr. Holden is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and an elder in it. He is a member of Willow Lodge No. 488, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is president of the First State Bank of Willow, of which the subject is cashier.

Mr. Holden married Starr Craven, born in Texas in 1869, and seven children were born to them. They are briefly mentioned as follows: Charles C. of this review was the first born. Lula married Charles McKinney, and they live in Denison, Texas, where Mr. McKinney is a fireman on the K. T. line. Annie married Roy Gaither, manager of the Cameron Lumber Company of Willow, where they have their home. Esther remains with her parents. DeWitt is in high school in Granite, Oklahoma. James and Frank are in the public schools.

Charles C. Holden attended the public schools in Grier County and after his graduation from high school entered the Central State Normal, where he spent two years, leaving in 1906, to assume the principalship of the Grier County schools. He served in that office from 1906 to 1910, and in the latter year he organized the First State Bank of Willow, in company with his father who became president of the new concern. W. J. Underwood is vice president, and Mr. Holden is cashier. The bank has a capital of $10,000 and a surplus of $1,000. In 1912 Mr. Holden brought about the erection of a modern bank building for the First State Bank, located advantageously on Main Street.

Mr. Holden is a democrat. He has served worthily on the local school board, has been town treasurer, and is now a member of the council. He is a member of the U. S. A. Presbyterian Church and an elder therein. His fraternal affiliations are with the Odd Fellows, Willow Lodge 488, the Modern Woodmen of America, of Granite, Oklahoma, and Willow Camp, Woodmen of the World. He is a member of the Oklahoma State and American Bankers associations.

In 1910 Mr. Holden was married in Willow to Miss Zuna Ross, a daughter of A. T. Ross, a farmer of Granite, Oklahoma. The Holdens have two children,– John, born June 20, 1911, and Ruby, born June 12, 1914.