TIMON J. SPANGLER

A SELF-MADE ATTORNEY

The second class that graduated from the Mitchell high school, away back in the year 1887, consisted of four girls and two boys. The young ladies were the Misses Stella Adams, Emily Rogers, Beulah Windle and Eva Keith. They are today Mrs. Stella Moyer, Mrs. Emily Tipton, Mrs. Beulah Scallin—all of Mitchell, and Mrs. Eva Mohr of Alexandria, respectively. Each one having married, they curbed their ambitions for greatness in life, except in the realm of motherhood. The two young men were Marvin Dundas and Timon J. Spangler. Unfortunately, Dundas, a lad of great promise, died shortly after graduating, leaving Spangler, alone, to achieve distinction.

TIMON J. SPANGLER

Born at Amboy, Illinois, in 1869, young Spangler's parents brought him to Dakota in the spring of 1883, and the family settled on a farm in Davison county. Like most of the rugged pioneers of those days, they were poor. Timon yearned for an education. He therefore went to Mitchell where he supported himself and worked his way through high school, as a newsboy, selling the Mitchell Daily Republican. It was at that time a morning sheet. Young Spangler got up at four o'clock regularly, every morning, so as to get his papers and be the first boy on the streets, offering them for sale and making deliveries to his customers. Each night, after getting his studies for the ensuing day, he went to the composing rooms of the Daily and set tpye, so as to learn the printer's trade. This knowledge became very useful to him later on, as we shall subsequently see.

OUT IN THE WORLD

When Spangler graduated from the Mitchell high school, he was six feet tall, slender, lithe, a foot racer and an all-round athlete. (Today he weighs 250 pounds.) Fired with ambition, one month after graduation he struck out into a cold, cruel world, to begin a new career.

Going to Sioux City, he worked on the "Sioux City Journal" for a few months, and then switched over to the "Sioux City Tribune," with which he was identified for nearly two years. In 1889, he struck west and landed in the then village of Hot Springs. Buying a press and a small equipment he established at Hot Springs the "Minnekahata Herald." Final proofs on Fall River county homesteads were being made thick and fast. Spangler got all of these notices of final proof for publication. At the end of a year he had cleared $5,000. Then he sold the plant to the "Oelrichs Times" which was moved to Hot Springs and merged with the "Minnekahata Herald" thereby giving birth to the "Hot Springs Times-Herald," which is still published in that city by a gentleman named Harrison.

LAWYER

From his early days while standing as a newsboy in the corridors of the old court house at Mitchell and listening to the eloquent H. C. Preston pleading for justice for his clients, before the bar of man, Spangler had determined to fit himself for a lawyer. With the money earned at Hot Springs he made a bold dash for Ann Arbor, Michigan, and entered the famous law school at that place. His funds became exhausted, but he had a trade to fall back on. Entering a print shop and working as a "devil" therein at night he earned enough to put himself through school. After graduating at Ann Arbor with the class of 1893, he returned to Mitchell where for nineteen consecutive years, he has engaged in the practice of his chosen profession.

The "starvation period" in a lawyer's career came truthfully home to him. The first three years his annual income from his practice averaged him only $200. This scarcely paid his office rent. But Timon had bull dog tenacity—he stuck. Conditions changed. He got a foothold; his practice began to enlarge rapidly; and during the next few years he forged to the front so rapidly that he soon acquired the largest individual law practice in the state.

Spangler is, first of all, a successful trial lawyer. His massive physique and overpowering personality, his deep bass voice, his force, logic and shrewdness—all combine to fit him pre-eminently for practice in court. For nineteen years he has tried cases in the old court room against the mighty Preston whose stirring eloquence at the same bar fired the ambtion of Spangler as a boy and gave rise to his success in life. Today, his practice is so extensive that he has to hire another good lawyer at a good salary to remain in his office and do nothing but draw up his papers, and a second attorney to look after his lighter cases.

He was state's attorney in Davison county, 1905-1908, inclusive. During this service he made a record as a public prosecutor never before equalled or approached by any other attorney in the state. In all, he sent about thirty men to the penitentiary —seventeen of them in one year. Hobos coming to Mitchell, having heard of him, marked on the railroad ties and sign boards near that place, certain signs as a caution to their uninformed comrades to beware.

In 1902, without any solicitation on his part, General Conklin appointed him judge advocate-general of the South Dakota national guard, with the rank of Colonel; but, after two years, Attorney Spangler, finding that the interests of his clients were too great to be neglected, gave up his military responsibility.

PERSONAL

Today the former newsboy of Mitchell lives in one of the most magnificent homes in the state, fronting onto the court yard square in the city of Mitchell. Its stately porch colonnades, and massive Grecian appearance from without, are but surpassed by its Mosaic designs, spacious halls and classic finish within.

Two little daughters play on his lawn, sit upon his knee and enrich his home life with their attentive mother who is the second Mrs. Spangler—grief having cast a distressful shadow over his life shortly after his first marriage.

His genius, his scholarship, his adaptability and application of himself to his work, his judgment and poise in his profession, lead us to surmise, that should his health not fail, he will yet win his way to the bench—the creditable ambition of every progressive attorney.

(Later.—At the time of going to press Mr. Spangler has just formed a partnership with Judge Haney, one of the retiring members of our state supreme court. The two will make one of the strongest law firms in the west. O. W. C.)