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CYRUS S. AVERY
Vol. 3 p. 981
Book has photo

A vigorous and resourceful man of marked initiative and
administrative ability, Mr. Avery has been prominently identified
with the civic and industrial development and progress of Oklahoma
within whose borders he has maintained his residence since the early
territorial era of its history. He has been continuously an exponent
of progressive policies in business and public affairs, has done much
to exploit the attractions and resources of the state of his adoption
and to insure development along normal and legitimate line, the while
he has so taken advantage of opportunities here afforded as to
achieve distinctive and merited success. Mr. Avery is today a leading
exponent of agricultural, live-stock and oil and gas industries in
Oklahoma, and every enterprise with which he has identified himself
has felt the invigorating power of his strenuous, sincere and
versatile personality.

Mr. Avery takes justifiable pride in claiming the fine old Keystone
State as the place of his nativity, but his loyalty and progressive
spirit are distinctively of the true western verve and are shown in
his deep appreciation of the manifold attractions of the state of his
adoption. He was born at Stevensville, Bradford County, Pennsylvania,
on the 31st of August, 1871, and in the same state were born his
parents, James and Ruie (STEVENS) Avery, of whose three children he
was the second in order of birth; his elder sister, Caroline, is the
wife of James STAUBER, of Noel, McDonald County, Missouri; and Bertha
is the wife of Dr. Walter E. SMITH, a representative physician and
surgeon at Collinsville, Rogers County, Oklahoma.

James Avery became a successful merchant at Ridgeway, the judicial
center of Elk County, Pennsylvania, where he remained until 1881,
when he removed with his family to Missouri and settled in McDonald
County, near Southwest City, a village that is situated in the
extreme southwestern corner of the state and in close proximity to
the Oklahoma and Arkansas lines. There he was successfully engaged in
farming and stock-growing until his death, in 1906, at the age of
sixty-three years, his widow being still a resident of Missouri and
having celebrated in 1915 her seventieth birthday anniversary; she is
a zealous member of the Baptist Church, as was also her husband, and
in politics he was a democrat. At the inception of the Civil war
James Avery enlisted in a Pennsylvania volunteer regiment, but after
he had gone to Gettysburg to enter active service it was found that
the requisite quota of volunteers had been filled and he was
accordingly mustered out.

Cyrus S. Avery gained his rudimentary education in Pennsylvania and
was a lad of about ten years at the time of the family immigration to
Missouri. At Liberty, Missouri, he finally entered William Jewel
College, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1897.
In the same year Mr. Avery came to Oklahoma Territory and established
his residence in Oklahoma City, where he continued to be identified
with the life insurance business until 1904. He then removed to
Vinita, Craig County, where he was a successful representative of the
real estate and loan business until 1908, when he transferred his
residence and business headquarters to the City of Tulsa, where he
has continued operations in the extending of financial loan on
approved real-estate security and where he has become prominently
concerned with the oil and natural gas industry, as well as with
agriculture and stock-growing. He is president of the Avery Oil & Gas
Company and secretary and treasurer of the Togo Oil Company, both of
which control valuable producing properties and undeveloped projects
in the Oklahoma oil and gas fields. Mr. Avery has other important
capitalistic interests, including the ownership of a finely improved
farm of 700 acres, eligibly situated near Tulsa, and devoted to
diversified agriculture and the raising of high grades of live stock,
especially full-blood Holstein cattle. As an agriculturist Mr. Avery
has been specially successful in the raising and of alfalfa, and for
his progressive policies in agriculture and stock-raising he has
received high compliments on the part of the official of the
agricultural department of the state. he has been zealous and liberal
for the material benefit of the state, and is vice president of the
Ozark Trail Association, as a member of which he was successful in
bringing about a meeting, at Tulsa, in which were formulated plans
that resulted in the marking in proper way the old Ozark trail
through this section of the state, this being an enterprise of
enduring historic value. Even the foregoing brief statements show
that Mr. Avery has had the energy and good judgment to avail himself
fully of the advantages afforded in Oklahoma, where he has acquired a
substantial competency through his worthy and well ordered endeavors.

A staunch advocate of the principles of the democratic party, Mr.
Avery has had no special ambitions for public office, but he has not
been permitted to deny his service in positions for which his marked
eligibility has been recognized. He is now serving as a progressive
and valued member and for three years as chairman of the board of
county commissioners of Tulsa County, to which position he was first
elected in 1913 and to which he was re-elected in 1915. He is a
member of the directorate of the Tulsa Commercial Club and also a
director of the Tulsa Automobile Club, besides holding membership in
the local Country Club. Mr. Avery is affiliated with Tulsa Lodge, No.
71, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, as well as with other local
organizations of the York Rite of Masonry, and in the consistory of
the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite at McAlester he has received the
thirty-second degree.

On the 23d of December, 1907, Mr. Avery married Miss Essie
MCCLELLAND, who was born at Liberty, Clay County, Missouri, and they
have two sons - James L. and Gordon S.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Earline Sparks Barger, December 16, 1998.