JOHN BRAYTON STEWART

STEWART

Posted By: Debbie Clough Gerischer, I.H.P. (email)
Date: 12/24/2009 at 20:20:08

A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY,
BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the
Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931

JOHN BRAYTON STEWART, president of the Outdoor Advertising Association of
Iowa, is a native of Clinton, and in that city has had a business career as
a newspaper editor, publisher and advertising expert, being a member of the
partnership of Dixon & Stewart, one of the largest theatrical and bill
board advertising concerns in the Upper Mississippi Valley.

Mr. Stewart was born at Lyons, Iowa, January 31, 1876, son of Capt. John
W. and Alice M. (Brayton) Stewart. His father, a native of Indiana, settled
at Lyons in 1863. He was prominently identified with the shipping
activities of the Mississippi River, being commodore of the Northern Line Packet
Company and an individual operator of boats plying on all the western rivers.
He enjoyed a very high place in the citizenship of Clinton and was seventy
years of age when he passed away in 1900. His wife, who was born in New
York, died in 1891, at the age of forty-nine.

John Brayton Stewart was graduated from the Clinton High School in 1891.
While a student in the Northern Illinois College at Dixon he did newspaper
work to earn the money to keep him in school. In 1893 he became an
employee of the Clinton Advertiser, and has been in some form of newspaper or
publicity work ever since. He put on several special editions in different
parts of Iowa for that paper. For a time he was city editor of the Clinton
Daily Age, and in 1898 organized a company and established the Clinton Evening
Journal, of which he was editor for several years. His associate in the
Journal was Charles E. Dixon, and they have now been together in business
for twenty-nine years. Their firm constitutes the oldest partnership in the
City of Clinton.

>From local publishers they have developed their business until now they
are almost exclusively with publicity and advertising. Their first outdoor
advertising was done in 1901, when they operated a painted bulletin plant.
After a few years they took over the management of the Clinton Theatre, and
with it the billboard plant. For a number of years Mr. Dixon has handled
the theatrical end of the business, while Mr. Stewart manages the poster
advertising plant, located in a number of towns around Clinton. Mr. Stewart
occupies a deservedly high place in the advertising industry. In 1923 he
was elected president of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Iowa and is
now serving his seventh consecutive term in that office. It was largely due
to this association that the Iowa State College at Ames has given an
outdoor advertising short course as part of its curriculum. Mr. Stewart as
president of the association has built up a membership in over eight hundred, so
that the Iowa Association ranks as one of the five largest district or
state associations. It was in recognition of his services to the outdoor
advertising industry that he was appointed to membership on the Barney Link
Fellowship Committee at the University of Wisconsin.

Mr. Stewart was for two years president of the Clinton Chamber of
Commerce. He is a Rotarian, a member of the Masonic fraternity, Knights of Pythias
and Loyal Order of Moose.

Mr. Stewart resides at 212 Twenty-eight Avenue, North. This property was
originally bought by his father in 1870, and Mr. Stewart was born in the
old house, which with remodeling and improvements constitutes his home today.
Mr. Stewart married, February 23, 1896, Miss Nettie M. Cole, of Clinton.
They have four children: Alice M., wife of James E. Shean, of North
Platte, Nebraska; Charles Dixon, with the United Press Association at Kansas
City, Missouri; Elizabeth F., Mrs. Elmer Pl Laurent, of Clinton; and John
Brayton, Jr., who for the past two years has been taking steadily increasing
responsibilities in his father's business.