STANTON, John (ca. 1916)

STANTON, MCDOUGALL, RUSSELL, KINNEY

Posted By: Jennifer Gunderson (email)
Date: 3/22/2021 at 22:50:48

JOHN STANTON.

John Stanton, proprietor of Hotel Stanton and ex-mayor of Mason City, was called to the office of chief executive after ten years' service as a member of the city council. Long experience and study thoroughly acquainted him with every phase of the city's needs and possibilities and he gave it a businesslike and public-spirited administration. He was born on a farm in Rock county, Wisconsin. May 19, 1863, a son of Patrick and Elizabeth (McDougall) Stanton, both of whom were natives of Ireland. Coming to the new world, the father followed farming and railroading and both he and his wife are now deceased.

John Stanton attended the public schools of Stoughton, Wisconsin, until twelve years of age, after which he began to earn his own living and is therefore largely a self-educated as well as self-made man. However, he has learned many valuable lessons in the school of experience and from the events of life he has drawn logical deductions. For five years after starting out in the world on his own account he was employed at farm labor and afterward entered the employ of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company as a brakeman. His ability and trustworthiness in that connection soon won him promotion to the position of conductor and he remained upon the road until 1887, when he abandoned that work to enter the hotel business. He has made the Hotel Stanton one of the popular hostelries of his part of the state, ever studying the comfort and wishes of his patrons who find him a most genial host and one who in business dealings is thoroughly reliable.

On the 28th of October, 1884. Mr. Stanton was united in marriage to Miss Lizzie Russell, of Boone, Iowa, who died in 1899. He was again married, in 1900, his second union being with Elizabeth Kinney. Mr. Stanton holds membership in the Catholic church and is identified with the Knights of Columbus and with the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen. His political allegiance has always been given to the democratic party and on that ticket he was elected to the office of councilman. He was reelected again and again from the third ward until he had filled the position for ten years. He was elected mayor in March, 1913, on the record which he made as alderman, and the following June he was elected mayor under the commission form of government, being the first mayor elected under that form. He supported the reduction of electric and gas rates and water rates, furthered the building of seven miles of sanitary sewers and a change of fire equipment from horse drawn to motor cars, and in a word, his influence has always been on the side of progress and improvement. He neither believes in needless expenditure or useless retrenchment but followed the safe course which has looked to the welfare and upbuilding of the city from every possible standpoint. His course as mayor was in harmony with his record as alderman and he gave to Mason City a most beneficial administration.

Source: Brigham, Johnson. Iowa : its history and its foremost citizens. Chicago : S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1916. Transcribed by Jennifer Gunderson (Mar 2021).

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