STUDER, FLOYD V.
(1892-1966)

Floyd V. Studer, businessman, civic leader, and amateur archeologist, one of six children of Julius Caesar and Ella (Gallaher) Studer, was born on July 3, 1892, in Canadian, Texas, where he attended public school. He became interested in archeology when he unearthed a mastodon's tooth in the breaks near his father's ranch.

In 1907, at the age of fifteen, he accompanied T. L. Eyerly, his history professor at Canadian Academy, and several classmates on a field trip to search for prehistoric sites and artifacts. They discovered and conducted the first excavations of the pre-Columbian Indian site known as the Buried City, on Wolf Creek in Ochiltree County.

From that time on, Studer made numerous field trips in which he gained intimate knowledge of the archeology of the Canadian River valley. Though an amateur, he soon became a friend of nationally known archeologists.

Studer became an owner in his father's cattle-ranching firm, J. C. Studer and Sons, in 1913; he was also an officer of the First National Bank of Canadian. He married Annie Ball Cooper on June 15, 1915, and they had two daughters. In 1925 the Studers moved to Amarillo, where he became a director of the American National Bank.

In addition, he was the first president of the Northwest Texas Association of Life Underwriters, for which he afterward served as a director and a vice president. Later he was district superintendent of the American United Life Insurance Company. At one time or another Studer was president of at least twelve Amarillo civic organizations and was a deacon in the First Baptist Church. He sold out his interest in the family's ranch in 1950.

Annie Studer died in 1957, and on June 10, 1959, Studer married Susan Cooper Bushfield. In his youth, Studer had become aware of the Alibates Flint Quarries, the site of which he kept secret for thirty-five years, and the pueblo ruins of the Texas Panhandle Culture.

During his lifetime he explored the Canadian River and all its tributaries, eventually locating and mapping more than 200 Panhandle pueblo sites and bringing them to the attention of leading archeologists and geologists, including Charles N. Gould. Studer served as president of the Texas Archeological and Texas Mineral societies, and was a leader in the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society.

He was influential in the establishment of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, to which he donated most of his collection of artifacts, and served for a time as its curator of archeology.

During his later years he was a leader in securing the preservation of the Alibates Flint Quarries and the establishment of the Texas Panhandle Pueblo Culture National Monument.

Studer died of a heart attack in Amarillo on March 31, 1966, and was buried in Llano Cemetery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Amarillo Daily News, April 1, 1966. Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen and Ladies: A History of Hemphill County (Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1977). Joseph A. Hill, The Panhandle-Plains Historical Society and Its Museum (Canyon, Texas: West Texas State College Press, 1955). Alex D. Krieger, Culture Complexes and Chronology in Northern Texas, with Extension of Puebloan Datings to the Mississippi Valley (University of Texas Publication 4640 [Austin, 1946]). Floyd V. Studer, "Archeology of the Texas Panhandle," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 28 (1955).

Frederick W. Rathjen

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STUDER, JULIUS CAESAR
(1863-1953)

Julius Caesar Studer, rancher, the son of Ben and Elsie Studer, was born on May 24, 1863, in Kastenholtz, Switzerland. In 1867 the Studers immigrated to America and settled in a Swiss colony near Tracy City, Tennessee. There Studer hired out as a farmhand at the age of ten, and at thirteen he apprenticed himself to a carriage maker in Grundy County.

In 1885, shortly before his nineteenth birthday, he moved to Kiowa, Kansas, where he worked as a railroad machinist and blacksmith. The following year, after learning that the Southern Kansas (Panhandle and Santa Fe) Railway was to be built through that area, he filed on a 640-acre claim in Lipscomb County, Texas.

Studer sold this claim in 1887 and moved to the new rail town of Canadian, where he opened a blacksmith shop. There he manufactured gun parts, bridle bits, and spurs and also purchased a livery stable and feed store. In addition, he bought eight sections of ranchland northeast of town from Sam Pollard and became the first rancher to place registered bulls, which he imported from Burlingame, Kansas, with his entire herd of range cattle.

For a brand, Studer used the Anvil, after the symbol of his trade. On July 4, 1888, his Anvil Park Ranch became the first site of the annual Texas Cowboy Reunion, one of America's oldest professional rodeos.

Studer married Ella Gallaher, sister of Fort Worth rancher Will Gallaher, on June 28, 1890. They had five sons and a daughter; their second son, Floyd V. Studer, became famous as an amateur archeologist. At various times J. C. Studer was engaged in the operation of a packing plant, meat market, feedstore, and lumberyard. He furnished the lumber for building the towns of Briscoe and Allison, supplied meat for Miami and Pampa, and operated the ice plant in Canadian for fifteen years.

In 1912 he established a new market and bakery and reorganized his ranching enterprise as J. C. Studer and Sons. When asked why he had so many different kinds of businesses, he replied, "I have so many different kinds of sons." For over twenty years the Studers themselves provided the stock and managed the annual rodeo at Anvil Park Ranch.

In 1915 Studer retired from management of his various businesses to devote full time to his ranch, but he again took over briefly in 1917-18, when his sons entered the service in World War I. Afterward, he continued breeding Herefords and managing his ranch for the remainder of his life. He was a founder and charter member of the Panhandle and Southwest Livestock Association, which later merged with the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas.

Studer was also active in community and church work, and bought and sold several town lots in Canadian. In 1950 he sold 5,000 acres of the Anvil Park Ranch to the Texas Game and Fish Commission for the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area. Studer died in 1953 at the age of ninety and was buried in Canadian.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gus L. Ford, ed., Texas Cattle Brands (Dallas: Cockrell, 1936). Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen and Ladies: A History of Hemphill County (Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1977). F. Stanley, Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953).

H. Allen Anderson

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WILLIS, FRANK
(ca. 1840-1894)

Frank Willis, attorney and judge, son of Benjamin Franklin Willis, was born at Alamo, Montgomery County, Indiana, about 1840. His family had been pioneers in that region. Frank's mother died early in his childhood, and he spent much of his youth working on the family farm near Crawfordsville with his numerous brothers and sisters.

Lew Wallace and Senator Daniel W. Voorhees became Willis's two chief role models, and he spent much of his spare time at the county courthouse, where he heard legal proceedings. His first business venture was in photography, which he mastered with his brother S. H. Willis at Danville, Illinois. He also taught school near Alamo for a time.

By much reading at home and in law offices, Willis succeeded in obtaining an attorney's license and began practicing law at Liberty, Kansas, in 1869. Later he moved to Independence, Kansas, where he served a term as district attorney and ran a drugstore. There he married Mary Eva Boles, daughter of Professor Newton Boles, on June 6, 1872.

In 1875 Willis moved to Montague, Texas, where he formed a partnership with W. H. Grigsby, brother of J. M. Grigsby, later county judge of Ochiltree County. There Willis made several important contacts, including future congressman John H. Stephens. Willis's son Newton was born at Montague in 1879.

In the spring of 1881 Governor Oran M. Roberts appointed Willis district judge of the newly formed Thirty-first Judicial District, which encompassed the unorganized counties of the Panhandle. Accordingly, Willis moved his family to Mobeetie and resided for a time in Henry Fleming's old rock house on Sweetwater Creek. There a second son, Frank, Jr., was born in 1882.

Temple L. Houston, W. H. Woodman, James N. Browning, Benjamin M. Baker, and William B. Plemons were among Willis's colleagues in the Thirty-first District. During his ten-year administration, Willis saw the organization of Hall and Childress counties and the awarding of the disputed Greer County to Oklahoma.

He became involved in the bitter controversy between Panhandle cattlemen and state authorities over the former's use of state lands without compensation. Because Willis sided with the cattlemen on this issue, the attorney general of Texas sought to impeach him. At the trial, held in Austin in 1887, Willis was said to have won acquittal by delivering a speech in his own defense; unfortunately, that address was not recorded verbatim.

Willis subsequently was hailed as a hero by Wheeler County citizens. After retiring from the bench Willis opened a law office in Canadian and became the general attorney for the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway.

He died on August 5, 1894, after being stricken with paralysis, and was buried in Canadian. Subsequently, his sons also had distinguished legal careers, both serving as judges of the Eighty-Fourth Judicial District.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Stanley, Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953). Judge Newton P. Willis, "Biographical Sketch of Judge Frank Willis, Sr.," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 3 (1930).

H. Allen Anderson

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YOUNG, ROBERT RALPH
(1897-1958)

Robert Ralph Young, businessman, youngest of four children born to David John and Mary Arabella (Moody) Young, was born on February 14, 1897, at Canadian, Texas. The house in which he was born and where he spent his boyhood was built and once owned by Temple Lea Houston.

His mother, the daughter of Robert Moody, died when he was ten, and his father, a strict man, did not quite know how to control their precocious son, whom neighborhood boys nicknamed "Pumpkin" because of his auburn hair. In his teens Robert was sent to Culver Military Academy in Indiana, from which he graduated at the head of his class in 1914.

He then entered the University of Virginia but became more interested in social life than studies and dropped out before the end of his second year. Rather than work at his father's bank, Young took a job as a powder-cutter at the E. I. DuPont powder plant at Carney's Point, New Jersey. Soon after, on April 27, 1916, he married Anita Ten Eyck O'Keeffe, sister of the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, in Baltimore. They had one daughter.

Within a short time, Young worked his way up to the DuPont Corporation's treasurer's office, where he learned much about finance and advertising. By 1920 he had left DuPont and, using a $5,000 inheritance from his grandfather, speculated in securities. Although he lost everything in that venture, Young's interest in Wall Street and the stock market was aroused.

He joined General Motors in 1922 and was made assistant treasurer in 1928. He soon became associated with John J. Raskob, the head of the corporation, and left it shortly afterward to handle Raskob's finances, when Raskob, who was also chairman of the Democratic National Committee, took a temporary sabbatical to manage Al Smith's presidential campaign.

Early in 1929 Raskob vehemently disagreed with Young's predictions of a stock market crash, and the two men parted company. Subsequently, Young netted a fortune selling stocks short of their original value.

In 1931 Young formed a brokerage partnership with Frank Kolbe and bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in order to speculate in stocks. After his father died in 1927, Young inherited a controlling interest in Canadian's First National Bank, which he sold in 1939.

Nevertheless, he maintained close ties with family and friends in Canadian, kept his membership in its Presbyterian church, and helped restore a local cemetery, which he named after Edith Ford, the aunt who helped rear him after his mother's death. By 1941, in alliance with Allan P. Kirby, a retail merchant, Young owned a controlling interest in the Allegheny Corporation, a railroad holding company previously owned by the Van Sweringen family.

As chairman of the board of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, he launched a well-publicized campaign for the modernization of railroad passenger service and was one of the first railroad executives to introduce lightweight, high-speed diesel passenger trains.

The "Populist of Wall Street," Young regarded himself as a crusader against the mismanagement of railroads by banking interests; his most famous advertisement slogan was "a hog can cross the country without changing trains-but you can't." When his attempt to obtain a central position at the Pullman Company after World War II failed, he turned to the New York Central Railroad.

In 1954, after a long proxy struggle, and with the aid of Clinton Williams Murchison, Sr., and Sid Williams Richardson, Young gained control of the New York Central and became the chairman of its board. Because of his initials, he was often labeled "Railroad" Young. Though he maintained offices and an apartment in downtown New York,

Young preferred to do most of his office work in the privacy of the den of his mansion at Newport, Rhode Island. Among his circle of friends were the duke and duchess of Windsor.

Young was also an amateur poet and bibliophile. In 1953 he donated a number of documents dealing with Texas history, including a valuable microfilm collection of documents in the Archivo General de las Indias in Seville, to the University of Texas at Austin. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal of the Texas Heritage Foundation for his efforts to compile a library of Texas historical documents.

The dreams of Young and Alfred Perlman, whom he selected as president of the Central in 1954, to form a true transcontinental line were frustrated by antitrust suits and by lack of interest on the part of the western lines to merge with the nearly bankrupt corporation. What was more, Young's daughter, who had risen prominently in high society, had died in a plane crash near Newport in 1940; he never fully recovered from that shock.

Consequently, he often experienced moods of depression. On January 25, 1958, Young apparently committed suicide with a shotgun at his winter mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. He was buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in Newport. The New York Central's electronic freightyard in Elkhart, Indiana, was named in his honor.

Young's attempts toward merging the Pennsylvania and New York Central lines came to fruition in 1968, when the Penn Central Transportation Company was formed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Joseph Borkin, Robert R. Young, the Populist of Wall Street (New York: Harper and Row, 1969). Dictionary of American Biography. Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen and Ladies: A History of Hemphill County (Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1977). Matthew Josephson, "The Railroad King from Texas," in The Money Lords (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1972). New York Times, January 26, 1958. F. Stanley, Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953).

H. Allen Anderson