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WILLIAM A. REDMAN
Vol. 3 p. 1142-1143

William A. Redman is the present county treasurer of Pushmataha
County, with residence at Antlers. He is an excellent and painstaking
official, and keeps an excellent set of books. He is one of the men
who are strongly committed to economy in public affairs, and he is
practicing what he preaches by doing the work of the office alone
during half of the time.

A historian frequently passes lightly over the physical development of
the community in his eagerness to do justice to the romance and spirit
of the other side of life. He seldom recalls that the builder of a
historic old mansion, around which is a delightful spiritual
atmosphere, was truly a factor in the development of that atmosphere.

Out of the old Village of Charleston, Arkansas, came the man whose
ideas of architecture, manifested in the physical construction of
buildings, made the one wayside Indian community of Antlers the modern
town of brick and stone it is today. For twenty years William A.
Redman followed the profession of contractor and mechanic in Antlers
and he has built more business blocks in the town than probably all
other men of this profession combined. Constituting an important part
of the business district, and bearing testimony to his reliability and
skill, are the Silverman, Cochran, Antlers Hardware Company, Horn,
Jones, Butler, Moon, Word Brothers and Westbrook Brothers buildings.

When Mr. Redman located at Antlers in 1893 there was no schools of
consequence outside the village, and white settlers were few. The day
of progress had begun, however, for such intermarried citizens as Mr.
FARR, Victor M. LOCKE Sr., and Dr. J. H. MILLER and a few other white
men and educated Indians were developing the soil, the cattle industry
and commerce in view of the era of greater development foreshadowed by
the coming of statehood. It was the year after Indian fights had ended
and peace had been established between the two Indian factions that
once threatened to involve the entire Choctaw Nation in war. A troop
or two of Indian militia guarded the outskirts of Antlers when Mr.
Redman arrived. For five years he engaged in farming on land belonging
to Doctor EVEREDGE, an early settler of this region who served under
the tribal government as royalty collector. On moving to Antlers he
took up the duties of his profession as contractor, and among the
buildings constructed in an early day was the Methodist Church, which
replaced an edifice erected by the church during the early missionary
period.

Mr. Redman's activities led him into public life and he became a
member of the board of trustees of the town. While a member of that
board the present permanent water and electric light systems were
installed. He served also as a member of the board of school trustees
and took a hand in the development of a modern system of education.
His next public office was that of county treasurer, to which the
democrats elected him in 1914. His official duties began July 5, 1915.
He is an active member of the Baptist Church and affiliated with the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World.

Though he came to Indian Territory from Arkansas Mr. Redman was born
in Dallas County, Texas, in 1860. He is a son of Captain John R. and
Orlena (SMITH) Redman. His father, who was an officer in the
confederate Army , was a native of Tennessee but a citizen of Texas as
early as 1858. Captain Redman died in 1892 at Alvord in Wise County,
Texas, where many years previously he had established a mill and
cotton gin. The mother of Mr. Redman died when the latter was seven
years of age.

When Mr. Redman was quite a boy his father moved to Charleston,
Arkansas, and there the son attended school and also gained his first
experience in a business way working as clerk in a Charleston store.
He went out of the store to learn the trade of mechanic and developed
from a journeyman carpenter into the profession of contractor.

In 1881 in Franklin County, Arkansas, Mr. Redman married Miss Susie
GARNER. They are the parents of eight children: Clarence Redman, who
is engaged in general merchandise business at Hanna, Oklahoma; Eugene
Redman, in the cattle business in Hanna; Clyde Redman, a Western Union
telegraph operator in Kansas City; Clara Redman, a teacher in the
public schools at Antlers; Mrs. G. C. MCINTYRE, wife of a farmer in
Western Oklahoma; William and Brancie, both at home in Antler.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Earline Sparks Barger, December 21, 1999.