Oscar J. Soper, one of Carroll County’s pioneers, and the present efficient postmaster of Browning, was born in St. Lawrence County, New York, October 19, 1832, a son of Briggs and Sadie (Woodard) Soper, natives of New York and New Hampshire respectively. They were the parents of three sons and three daughters, our subject being the third child. He was reared to the avocation of a farmer, his early boyhood days being spent in assisting on the farm and attending the district schools. At the age of eighteen years he began working in a saw-mill at Livingston, Massachusetts, where he was employed about one year. He then spent three years in New Hampshire, working out by the month, when he returned to the old homestead. In 1855 he immigrated to Jones County, Iowa, and began working on the Minneapolis, St. Louis & St. Paul Railroad, where he found employment until the winter of 1859. He was married in Jones County, December 23, 1859, to Miss Cora Kanolt, born in Albany, New York, November 24, 1842, the eldest of six children of John and Catherine Kanolt, who were natives of Germany. To this union have been born two children — Jessie M., wife of Walter Rutlidge, of Sac County, Iowa, and Ira D. In the spring of 1860 Mr. Soper started for Pike’s Peak, traveling across the plains from Omaha. In 1863 he went from Denver to Salt Lake City, thence to Montana, where he remained till 1866. He then returned to Jones County, Iowa, and in 1868 came to Carroll County, when he settled on section 13, Sheridan Township, on raw prairie land. He subsequently sold his farm on section 13, and removed to section 1, Sheridan Township, where he has since resided, and which he has improved from a wild state and brought under good cultivation. His first trading was done at Glidden, and his milling was first done at Jefferson, now the county seat of Greene County. He has been very successful in his farming operations, and by his industry, combined with good management, has acquired his present fine property, which consists of 356 acres on section 1, and eighty acres on section 2, Sheridan Township. Politically Mr. Soper is a Republican. He has served his county as supervisor two terms, and in 1872 was appointed to his position of postmaster at Browning.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~