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SAMUEL I. MCELHOES
Vol. 3, p. 1240-1241

Not only as distinctively a pioneer member of the bar of Comanche
County, where he established his residence when that county was still
a part of well known Kiowa and Comanche Indian country of this
vigorous young commonwealth, but also as one whose fine achievement
marks him as one of the able and representative lawyers of the state,
does Mr. McElhoes merit specific recognition in this history. Further
than this it may be stated that he served for a time on the bench of
the County Court of Comanche County, and later as assistant attorney
general of the state, since his retirement from which latter office,
in January, 1915, he has given his undivided attention to the private
practice of his profession, with residence and headquarters at
Lawton, the progressive and attractive judicial center of Comanche
County. Mr. McElhoes gave distinguished service as a soldier in the
Philippine Islands incidental to the Spanish-American war, and he
holds a medal presented to him by act of the United States Congress
for bravery and gallant service in this connection.

Mr. McElhoes was born in Madison County, Nebraska, in the year 1876,
and is a son of Jesse S. and Elmira (SWITZER) McElhoes, both natives
of Pennsylvania, the lineage of the father tracing back to staunch
Scotch origin and the mother being of Swiss and German ancestry.
Jesse S. McElhoes was a blacksmith by trade and vocation, as was also
his wife's father, and he became on of the pioneer settlers of
Nebraska, where he was successfully engaged in the work of his trade
for many years. Of the four surviving children, Samuel I., of this
review, is the only son; Mrs. Frank UPTON resides near Madison,
Nebraska, her husband being a farmer; Mrs. August SHOERLUKE is the
wife of a farmer in the vicinity of Plainview, that state; and Mrs.
Albert UPTON is a resident of the City of Los Angeles, California,
where her husband is engaged in the lumber business.

After duly availing himself of the advantages of the public schools
of his native state Samuel I. McElhoes completed a course in the
Northeastern State Normal School, of Nebraska, where he was a student
in 1892-93. There after he devoted his attention to teaching in the
public schools of Nebraska until the outbreak of the Spanish-American
war. He had previously served two years as a member of the Nebraska
National Guard, in which he had attained to the rank of sergeant, and
in 1898 he was mustered into the United States service as sergeant of
Company Fm First Nebraska Volunteer Infantry. His regiment was sent
to the Philippine Islands and stationed in the City of Manila. During
the year that he was with his command in the Philippines Mr. McElhoes
participated in all but five of the twenty-seven fights, Skirmishes
and expeditions in which his company was involved. In February, 1899,
he was commissioned second lieutenant of his company, and he was in
command of the company in more than one-half of the engagements in
which it participated, owing to the fact that its captain had been
wounded and thereby incapacitated. The first Nebraska Infantry was
the first regiment to march through Manila and it took down the
Spanish flag of the captain of the port of Manila, which standard the
regiment captured. As a member of a debating club organized in his
company, Lieutenant McElhoes made the first speech delivered in the
Philippine Islands in opposition to their retention by the United
States. An associate of Lieutenant McElhoes in his scouting
expeditions was A. W. Gilbert, who is now United States Consul at Che
Foo, China. Lieutenant McElhoes was mustered out on the 23rd of
August, 1899, and within a short time after his return to the United
States he entered the college of law of the University of Nebraska.
In this institution he was graduated on the 13th of June, 1901, with
the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and on the same day he was admitted
to practice in the Supreme Court of his native state. A few weeks
later Mr. McElhoes come to Oklahoma Territory and established his
residence at Lawton, Comanche County, where he has since continued to
maintain his home and where he has been closely identified with the
civic and material development of the fine little city. Here he
formed a law partnership with Martin COFFMAN, with whom he continued
to be associated in practice under the firm name of McElhoes &
Coffman until 1904, when Mr. Coffman removed elsewhere. Mr. McElhoes
then formed a professional alliance with Hon. Scott FERRIS, who later
became a representative of Oklahoma in the United States Congress,
and the firm of McElhoes & Ferris built up a large and representative
law business, which it still controls, Joel S. RHINEFORT having been
admitted to the firm in 1910.

In 1912 the bar of Comanche County elected Mr. McElhoes county
judge, to fill a vacancy, and he continued his service on the bench
for a period of seven months, when a regular incumbent was chosen. In
September, 1913, he was chosen assistant attorney general of the
state, under Attorney General Charles West, and he continued to
tenure of this position until January, 1915, in the meanwhile having
been actively identified with a large amount of important legal work
for the state. He is at the present time serving as city attorney of
Lawton, besides being president of the Comanche County Bar
Association, 1915, and an active member of the Oklahoma State Bar
Association.

Mr. McElhoes has shown a vital interest in all that has tended to
conserve the progress and prosperity of his home city and he gave a
most vigorous administration during his incumbency of the position of
president of the Lawton Chamber of Commerce. While he was in tenure
of this position it was principally through the influence of the
organization that the Cameron School of Agriculture, a state
institution, was secured to Lawton. Within the period of his
presidency of the Chamber of Commerce Mr. McElhoes further aided in
the advancing of its vigorous civic policies and supported its
activities in bringing about the erection of the city's fine high
school building, besides which the Gore Addition to Lawton, a tract
of Indian land adjoining the city of the north, was obtained for the
city, the same having been platted and sold under the direction of
the Department of the Interior of the Federal Government. Mr.
McElhoes was a member of the board of freeholders that prepared the
charter on which the municipal government of Lawton is based.

Prior to the removal of its headquarters from Lawton to Norman, Mr.
McElhoes was a second lieutenant of the engineering corps of the
Oklahoma National Guard, this organization having been called into
service at the time of the disastrous tornado at Snyder, Kiowa
County, and also to forestall a contemplated lynching incidental in a
murder committed at Lawton. This engineering corps captured a prize
of $750 offered by Oklahoma City a few years since in a competition
superintended by officers of the United States army. Mr. McElhoes has
found further opportunity for the employment of his knowledge of
military tactics by serving as scout master for Lawton organizations
of the Boy Scouts, in the work of which he continued to take lively
interest, as does he in all things that tend to develop sturdy and
manly youth. He has been for a number of years a prominent and
popular leader among the young folk in church, social and literary
activities. He is one of the valued members of Henry W. Lawton Camp,
Spanish-American War Veterans Association. Of which he has served as
commander; he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows
and the Modern Woodmen of America, in which latter he is chief
forester, in 1915, of the camp of Lawton, and both he and his wife
hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, he having been
formerly secretary of the board of stewards of the Lawton Church of
this denomination.

On the 31st of May, 1911, was solemnized the marriage of Mr.
McElhoes to Miss Frances GARNER, of Lawton, and she is a popular
figure in the representative social activities of the city.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Charmaine Keith, November 10, 1998.