HON. THOMAS LONG.
  
HON. THOMAS LONG.
Hon. Thomas Long engaged in the insurance and real estate business in Powell, was one of the early pioneers of the northwestern section of the state and has from that time to the present been closely identified with the work of general improvement and development. He was born in Indiana county, Pennsylvania, January 22, 1855, a son of John and Rachel (Longwell) Long, who were natives of the Keystone state. The father was a Presbyterian minister, devoting his life to that holy calling, in which his labors were attended with excellent results. He died in Waterloo, Pennsylvania, about 1880, at the age of forty-nine years, and is still survived by his wife, who has reached the age of eighty-four or eighty-five years and resides in Utica, Pennsylvania.
Thomas Long was educated in the common schools of his native state and in his youthful days became acquainted with mercantile pursuits, serving as a clerk and general utility boy in a general store in Waterloo, where he remained until his twenty-fourth year. In 1879, attracted by the opportunities of the growing west, he removed to Colorado, locating in Leadville, where he found employment in a hardware store, in which he remained for two years. He then went to Starkville, Colorado, where he worked at the carpenter's trade for two years and later he removed to eastern Kansas, where he was employed in various ways for a period of six years. In 1889 he became a resident of Wyoming, settling first at Newcastle, where he engaged in contracting and building. He served as deputy sheriff for two years while living there and was otherwise prominently identified with public affairs. He filled the office of county assessor for two years and did everything in his power to promote public progress and improvement in that locality. In 1900 he came into the Big Horn basin, taking up his abode at Garland, and with the building of the railroad to that point he erected the building for the Garland Mercantile Company, of which he was one of the stockholders and the secretary and treasurer during the existence of the business, which was closed out in 1913. In the same year Mr. Long came to Powell, where he has since been engaged in the insurance and real estate business, winning a liberal clientage in this connection.
In 1882 Mr. Long was joined in wedlock to Miss Mary E. McKissick, of Waterloo, Pennsylvania, by whom he had four children, two of whom survive, namely: Vinnie R., who is the wife of R. E. Naylor, of Denver, Colorado; and Carl 0., who is engaged in the men's furnishing goods business at Hardin, Montana, and is also filling the position of deputy county treasurer.
Politically Mr. Long is a republican and in 1910 was elected to the Wyoming state legislature to represent Bighorn county and the newly created county of Park, serving through the eleventh general assembly. His wife is a member of the Presbyterian church. Both are well known in this section of the state and enjoy the warm regard of those with whom they have been brought in contact. Mr. Long has made for himself a creditable place in business, and in political circles, and possessing a strong spirit of initiative and enterprise, has become a leading factor in much that has to do with the general welfare and improvement.