Kansas History and Heritage Project-Reno County Biographies

Reno County Biographies
"The History of Reno County, Vol. 2," Sheridan Ploughe, 1917


WILL S. THOMPSON.

Will S. Thompson, a former city councilman and past president of the Hutchinson Commercial Club, successfully engaged in the real-estate and insurance business at Hutchinson and prominently identified with numerous enterprises in and about that city, is a native of Missouri, but has been a resident of Hutchinson since 1894 and for years an active supporter of all measures designed to advance the best interests of that flourishing city.

Mr. Thompson was born in the city of St. Louis and received his education in that city. He early began his business career as an employee of the wholesale dry goods firm of the Hargadine McKittrick Dry Goods Company in that city and remained with that concern until he came to Kansas, locating at Hutchinson on September 19, 1894. There he engaged in the retail dry-goods business, opening a store at 112 North Main street, where he remained in business for one year and six months, at the end of which time he sold his store and engaged in the real-estate and insurance business, in which he ever since has been quite successfully engaged, with offices in the Rorabaugh-Wiley block. Mr. Thompson has not confined his business interests wholly to the one line. He is a director of the Kansas Chemical Manufacturing Company; a director of the Kansas State Fair Association, as well as a director of the Hutchinson Young Men's Christian Association. He is public spirited and enterprising and is, identified with all forward-looking movements in the city. As a Republican he was elected to the city council and served in that body for six years before the change to the commission form of government. He is now and has been for nearly twenty years a director of the Hutchinson Commercial Club and has served for three terms as president of that important organization, 1904-1906 and 1909.

In 1896, two years after locating in Hutchinson, Will S. Thompson was united in marriage to Maria L. Donnell, who was born in St. Louis. Mr. Thompson is a member of the Presbyterian church. Mr. Thompson is a thirty-second degree Mason, a member of the blue lodge at Hutchinson and of the consistory, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, at Wichita. He also is a member of the local lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and of the Workman Lodge.

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