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W. T. Berentz
Vol. 5, p. 1859

W. T. Berentz. Bartlesville has one of its most forceful business men
in the person of W. T. Berentz, who is president of the Berentz
Hardware Company and is also proprietor of a furniture and undertaking
establishment. For a number of years, Mr. Berentz saw a crop of wheat
cut on the site of the city where he now makes him home for nearly
fifteen years. He has helped in an important way making Bartlesville
the center of trade and industry for a large surrounding territory,
and has identified himself in a public-spirited fashion with all local
movement for upbuilding and improvements.

As a resident of this section of Oklahoma for twenty-five years, W. T.
Berentz was born in Danville, Illinois, February __, 1867, a son of
Jeremiah and Emma (Olmstead) Berentz. His father was born in Ohio.
From Illinois the family emigrated to Kansas and took up a homestead
in ____ County in 1869. W. T. Berentz at that time was about two years
of age, and his youthful recollection concern themselves largely with
the pioneer conditions found in Southeastern Kansas during the late
‘60s and ‘70s. His father died in October 1913, at the age of ____-
one, and the mother passed away May 5, 1905, at the age of sixty-
three. Jeremiah Berentz served for ___ than forty-eight months with
the Twelfth Illinois Infantry during the Civil War. After his three
year term had expired he veteranized and continued until the close of
the mighty struggle between the North and the South. He was a member
of the Presbyterian Church and a republican in politics. W. T. Berentz
was the oldest of four children, and the second, Myra, died at the age
of twelve years, and two daughters, ___ and Mabel, twins, who were
born in 1875, are now living in Los Angeles, California.

W. T. Berentz grew up in Kansas, received his education from country
schools, and for the greater part of time up to 1897 lived with his
parents. In the spring of 1890 the entire family had moved from Kansas
to Indian Territory, and the son operated a ranch here up to ____. In
1897 his parents went back to Kansa, but Berentz has lived
continuously in Northeastern Oklahoma for the past twenty-five years.
In 1901 he became a merchant in the new Town of Bartlesville, and at
that time started the hardware, furniture and undertaking ___
associated with R. H. Muzzy under the name of ___ & Muzzy. In 1907 he
bought out his partner’s interest and in 1914 organized a stock
company known as the Berentz Hardware Company, Incorporated, of which
he is president. In the meantime the furniture and undertaking had
been separated and has been conducted under the individual name of Mr.
Berentz. He ___ the building where he first started in business on ___
Street, but his present large store is located on ___ Avenue. He is
also interested with J. P. ___ in the buggy and implement business.
For a number of years he was also identified with the manufacturing of
brick at Bartlesville.

As a citizen Mr. Berentz has served as a member of the school board
for the past six years, and was reelected in the spring of 1915 to the
same office. He is well known in Masonry, being a member of the Lodge,
_____ Commandery, the Scottish Rite Consistory and _____ Shrine, and
is also affiliated with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. In
January 1903, Berentz married Miss Florence Forrester, to this
marriage have been born two sons: Russell and ____.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Marti Graha, May 2003.

[NOTE: the xerox copy of the document was hard to read]

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916).