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GEORGE E. JAHN
Vol. 3, p. 970
Book has photo

The incident that resulted in making George E. Jahn a permanent
citizen of Oklahoma became one of historic value in the annals o the
state. After devoting a number of years to the newspaper business in
Monroe County, Illinois, and at St. Louis, Missouri, Mr. Jahn went
South to take charge of the Tribune at Fort Smith Arkansas, at that
time owned and edited by Captain EVERLY. While there he became
attracted by the novelty and change of frontier life in the Indian
nations just over the Arkansas border and resolved to enter that
interesting land. Accordingly he went to Muskogee, one of the oldest
towns of the Indian county, where he was employed for some months on
the Phoenix, at that time owned by Dr. Leo BENNETT, later United
States Marshal of the Eastern District of Oklahoma. From there he
transferred to Atoka, and set up in type and edited the compilation
of the Chickasaw laws and constitution in the Choctaw language and
also the translation into the English language. These two books were
published in the office of the Indian Citizen, at Atoka, one of the
oldest papers of the two Indian Nations, were bound at St. Louis and
became valuable contributions to the legal literature of that day.
Having by this work established himself in the Indian country, Mr.
Jahn determined to make it his home and in 1893 he established the
Coalgate Independent, which was one of the pioneer papers of the
Choctaw Nation. Succeeding consolidations and transfers of plants
have made this paper the beginning of the Record-Register, which is
now the leading newspaper of Coal County.

Mr. Jahn was born at St. Louis, Missouri, September 24, 1851, and is
a son of John T. and Katherine Elizabeth (KRAUS) Jahn, both parents
being born in Germany near the birthplace of the German emperor. His
father, who was a jeweler, came to America in 1849 and settled at St.
Louis. At the outbreak of the Civil war he entered at the Union army,
and while still a soldier died from exposure incurred during that
conflict. In 1852, the family moved to Monroe County, Illinois, and
it was there that George E. Jahn secured his public school education,
which he later supplemented with the training that comes from a
career in the profession of journalism. At the age of thirteen years
he entered that vocation, in whose ranks he remained a member for a
period of forty years. At one time he was the youngest newspaper
editor in Illinois and the youngest editor of a democratic paper in
the United States. Among his earlier experiences in the profession
was that as editor of the Waterloo Times which was owned by Col. Bill
MORRISON, for many years one of the leading men in Illinois. During
that period he revived his study of the German language which had
been neglected by his parents after they had become Americans, and
for three years he edited a German newspaper and also wrote articles
for German publications at St. Louis. He also taught in the German
schools of that section, but abandoned the educational profession to
accept a position on the Post-Dispatch, at St. Louis, where he was
employed for four or five years as proof-reader, resigning that
position to go to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Mr. Jahn recalls that during
his stay at Fort Smith he employed as reporter on the Tribune a
bright, energetic young man from Kansas, who it later developed was
Frederick FUNSTON, now a general in the United States army. At Fort
Smith, also, Mr. Jahn became acquainted with Doctor BENNET, who was
an Indian agent in the Choctaw country and who persuaded him to go to
Muskogee. The newspaper that he established a short time later at
Coalgate for a long time was the only democratic paper published in
the Choctaw Nation.

Throughout his life Mr. Jahn has been an active democrat who has
believed in fighting for the principles of his party. After having
concluded to remain permanently in the Indian country, he helped to
initiate a movement for the permanent organization of that party in
the Indian Territory as far back as 1892. For a number of years that
region had been ruled from Washington, where a republican
administration was in power, Robert L. WILLIAMS of Durant, Oklahoma,
now governor of the state; William H. MURRAY, of Tishomingo, now
congressman; Presley LESTER of McAlester, now postmaster at McAlester
and Presby B. COLE, now district judge at McAlester, were among the
representative men of the Indian country who joined in the movement.
The party was organized and began its fight for statehood. It's first
important participation in national politics was in 1896 when its
delegates sat in the convention at Vinita, where Bland was suggested
for presidency at the solicitation of Bryan, who was the favorite,
and who was nominated in the same campaign at Chicago.

Mr. Jahn acquired a general knowledge of the law through home study,
newspaper work and observation, and was admitted to the bar July 27,
1909, by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. The previous year he had been
elected a member of the Oklahoma legislature from Coal County and in
that body, as a member of the Committee on Printing, took a leading
part in printing matters and awarded contracts that effected a
considerable saving to the state over the cost of printing during the
First Legislature. For twenty-seven months he was in the district
clerk's office in Coal County, and he has also served as mayor of
Coalgate, as well as president of the Coalgate Commercial Club, of
which he is at this time secretary. He retains his loyalty to the
democratic party and participates actively in its campaigns. Mr. Jahn
has been a useful citizen of the town almost since the time of its
inception and has been a stirring part of the force that has been
developed an excellent water system, a modern sewer system, up-to-
date street pavement and other improvements, and procured for the
town a branch of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad that runs from
Atoka to Oklahoma City.

In 1888, at Wagoner, Indian Territory, Mr. Jahn was united in
marriage with Miss Alice JOHNSON, and to this union there have been
born three children, namely: Mrs. Katrina CUSENBERRY who is the wife
of an official of the Folsom-Morris Coal Mining Company, at Lehigh,
Oklahoma; Lota who is general manager in the Coalgate District for
the Pioneer Telephone Company; and Lester Bryan, who was named after
Presley LESTER of McAlester, Oklahoma and William Jennings BRYAN of
Lincoln, Nebraska, and who has just graduated from Coalgate High
School and in 1916 will become a student in the University of
Oklahoma. Mr. Jahn is a member of the Lutheran Evangelical Church,
and also holds membership in the bar association of Coal County and
Oklahoma. His residence is maintained at Coalgate.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Marti Graham, August 1999.