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WILLIAM G. CAPPS
Vol. 5, p. 1821

Though not yet thirty-five years of age, for more than ten years
William G. Capps has been a resident of Oklahoma, and all that time
an effect-ive working force in the successive lines to which he has
applied himself, whether in business, in politics and public affairs,
or as a banker. He is the leading financier of Mountain Park, where
he is now president of the Planters State Bank, and his name as a
banker and his financial judgment are respected not alone in his home
state but among bankers of national reputation.

The Capps family to which he belongs originated in France, but
William G. Capps was born in Yell County, Arkansas, December 25,
1881. His father is Dr. B. F. Capps, still a prominent physician at
Bluffton, Arkansas. Doctor Capps was born in Tennessee in 1850, moved
from that state to New Orleans and there acquired his education for
medicine, began practice at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1879 moved to
Yell County, in 1887 to Morrillton in the same state, and finally
located at Bluffton. He is an active member of the County and State
Medical societies and the American Medical Association, is a democrat
in politics, belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, is a Royal
Arch Mason and also a Knight of Pythias. Doctor Capps married Miss H.
L. WARD, who was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1861. Her father
was John C. Ward, who enlisted from Arkansas at the beginning of the
war between the states and became major of the First Arkansas Mounted
Infantry. He re-enlisted with his regiment in Colonel John F. Hill's
regiment of cavalry, and on August 10, 1861, was wounded on the south
side of Bloody Hill at Wilson Creek and died as a result of his
wound. He was a native of Virginia and a contractor by profession.
Dr. Capps and wife were the parents of five children: William G.;
Edwin, who died at Bluffton, Arkansas, at the age of twenty-one;
Erick, who is bookkeeper in the Planters State Bank at Mountain Park,
Oklahoma; B. F., who died at the age of two years; and Clarence, who
is attending the Bluffton High School and lives with his parents.

William G. Capps had a substantial education but has been in
practical business ever since he was nineteen years of age. He
attended the public schools of Morrillton, Arkansas, finished the
high school course there, and in 1898 took a, course in a business
college at Birmingham, Alabama. His first regular position was as a
stenographer for the Doster & Northington Drug Company at Birmingham,
with which firm he remained one year. Then after six months at
Demopolis, Alabama, he returned to Bluffton, Arkansas, and spent one
year in the mercantile business on his own account. Selling out, he
was for six months acting secretary of the Fort Smith Commercial
Club, and in 1904, at the age of twenty-three, identified himself
actively with the Indian Territory portion of the present State of
Oklahoma.

For one year he was bookkeeper with the HAYES Mercantile company at
Redland, and in 1905 removed to Muskogee and became advertising agent
and afterwards business manager for Governor Haskell's New State
Tribune. He held those positions during Haskell's successful campaign
for governor of the new state. Governor Haskell then appointed him
the chief food and drug inspector of Oklahoma, and he looked after
the responsibilities of that newly created state office for two
years. In the meantime he had acquired some financial interests in
banking in Indian Territory and in 1909 went into the western part of
the state and organized the Oklahoma State Bank at Frederick, serving
as its cashier two years. In 1911 Mr. Capps organized the Planters
State Bank at Mountain Park, and has been its active president since
that date. This is one of the substantial institutions for general
banking in one of the small but flourishing towns of Southwestern
Oklahoma, and has a capital stock of $10,000 and a surplus of $2,000.
The vice president is A. N. TRADER, the assistant cashier is Edwin
HERSTEIN. The bank owns and occupies the building of the old Citizens
State Bank on Main Street.

For several years Mr. Capps has furnished considerable
correspondence to the newspapers of Kiowa County on various subjects
related to banking. His articles have attracted more than local
attention, having been quoted by some of the leading newspapers in
the United States, and the wide currency of some of his ideas on
country banking is well illustrated by the following quotation of a
brief article which was published by the Wall Street financial
journal in 1914, and subsequently quoted extensively in the financial
columns of papers all over the United States. The article,
furthermore, well expresses Mr. Capps belief respecting banking
activities and such prominent questions as rural credits. He said: "A
country banker promotes the development of his community in
proportion that he employs his money through loaning it to farmers
for constructive work and improved methods -- not for food or for
stock feed. Present rural banking methods have resulted in entirely
too much money being employed in a way that is not constructive and
brings no development whatever, and thereby reduces the bank's
ability to loan money for constructive farming. In proportion that a
country banker fails to provide money for farm development and
constructive farming, in that proportion be injures his best farmers,
his community, and first of all injures himself."

Mr. Capps has organized several banks in Oklahoma and also two
wholesale houses, but has sold most of his interests in these
establishments. He was for a time vice president and a stockholder in
the Farmers State Bank at Quanah, Oklahoma. He has served as a member
of the advisory committee of the State Bankers' Association of
Oklahoma and was chairman of the Bureau of Agriculture of the
Oklahoma Bankers' Development Committee. His thorough training in
country banking has made him familiar with all branches of bank work,
he has already gained a broad acquaintance with prominent men in the
banking world, and those who know him best predict that he is far
from having reached the climax in his career.

In politics Mr. Capps is a democrat. He represented the State of
Oklahoma at Denver at the Conference of National and State Food and
Drug Officials in 1909. He also served as county chairman of the
Democratic Central County Committee in Tillman County and as city
treasurer of Frederick for two years. He is now president of the
board of education at Mountain Park and is always keenly alive to the
needs of his home community. He assisted in organizing the Lodge of
Elks at Frederick, held the position of esteemed leading knight in
the lodge there, and is now a member of Hobart Lodge No. 881,
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is also affiliated with
Mountain Park Lodge No. 381, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and
with Snyder Chapter No. 76, Royal Arch Masons.

At Mountain Park in 1912 Mr. Capps married Miss Lillian TRADER,
daughter of A. N. Trader, who is a farmer and is also vice president
of the Planters State Bank at Mountain Pass. They have one daughter,
Marjorie, born August 7, 1913.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Jack Wood July 21, 1999.

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)