NORTHWESTERN IOWA

ITS HISTORY AND TRADITIONS

VOLUME II

1804-1926

O

WILBUR OWEN

One of the oldest attorneys in point of continuous service in Sioux City is Wilbur Owen, who is also numbered among the ablest and most successful, standing high in the confidence of the people and in the respect of his professional colleagues.  He was born at Bethel, Vermont, on the 24the of October, 1863, and is a son of George B. and Carrie (Clark) Owen, the former a native of Bethel, Vermont, and the latter of Claremont, New Hampshire.  The Owen family has lived at Bethel for many generations, one of the ancestors, Sylvanus Owen, having been a soldier of the War of the Revolution.  His son, Andrew Owen, was the great-grand-father of the subject of this sketch.  George B. Owen was engaged in farming in Vermont, where he remained until 1875, when he brought his family to Iowa, settling in Linn county, where he bought a farm just outside of Marion, the county seat.  Later he moved to Des Moines, where he spent his remaining years, his death occurring in 1917.

Wilbur Owen received his elementary education in the public schools, graduating from the Marion high school in 1881.  He then attended Coe College at Cedar Rapids, where he was graduated in 1886, with the degree of Bachelor of Science,  after which he entered the law school of the University of Michigan, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1888.  In that year he came to Sioux City and entered upon the practice of law, in which he has been engaged to the present time - a period of thirty-eight years.  During the first ten years of his practice here he was associated with A. C. Strong, under the firm name of Strong & Owen, but since 1898 he has been alone in the practice.  During these eventful years in the history of Sioux City, Mr. Owen has held a place in the front rank of the attorneys of this city, having been identified as counsel with much of the important litigation in the Woodbury county courts, and he has long been regarded as an able, astute and successful lawyer, commanding his full share of the legal business of the community.

In 1890 Mr. Owen was united in marriage to Miss Anna G. Jandt, the youngest daughter of H. A. Jandt, who for many years was engaged in the wholesale dry goods business in this city and was regarded as one of Sioux City's foremost citizens.  To Mr. and Mrs. Owen was born a daughter, Dorothy, now the wife of K. H. Myers, who  is engaged in the automobile business at New Castle, Nebraska, and they have a son, Kenneth.  Mrs. Owen is a member of the Presbyterian church and has long been a popular member of the circles in which she moves.  Mr. Owen is a charter member of the Sioux City Boat Club.  He is a man of great force of character, of marked ability as a lawyer, strong in his advocacy of all measures calculated to benefit the city in any way, and possesses a friendliness of manner that has gained for him not only a wide acquaintance, but also the respect and admiration of all who know him.