Flavious G. McPeak biography

FLAVIOUS G. McPEAK, superintendent at Fort Worth of the Southwestern Division of the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, for the past ten or twelve years has been well known in this poriton of Texas through his prominent connection with financial and business affairs. A native of Tennessee, near Memphis, he is related to some of the best families of that state, including among the members President Polk and Governor Neil S. Brown, the former a paternal relative and the latter on the mother’s side. Mr. McPeak’s father is Rev. G. B. McPeak, who is still living in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Reared and educated in Wilson county, near Lebanon, Tennessee, Mr. McPeak’s business experience began at Nashville, in the banking and brokerage business, for several years being connected with the Bank of Commerce of that city. With the experience and natural ability to fit him for large usefulness in the field of finance, he soon took his place among the astute brokers of his time. He removed to Chicago in 1893 and opened the stock and bond department for the well known house of Lamson Brothers and Company, but owing to climatic conditions was soon forced to return south. In May, 1894, he located in Fort Worth, and both as a public-spirited citizen and business man has been very closely identified with this thriving, hustling Texas city ever since. By fair dealing and the native courtesy which is manifest in all his relations with others, he built up a large brokerage business in the city, numbered among his patrons being many of the best known business men, capitalists and investors of Fort Worth and the southwest. He was an active member of the Fort Worth and Chicago boards of trade and of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. In August, 1904, Mr. McPeak discontinued the banking and brokerage business of F. G. McPeak and Company in order to devote all his business attention to the American DeForest Wireless Telegraph Company, in which he is a director and a stockholder and superintendent of the Southwestern division with headquarters at Fort Worth. He is engaged in extending this wonderful system of modern telegraphy throughout the southwest, the first stations having been erected at Fort Worth and Dallas. This is the only successful wireless system operated on land, its stations now extending from the Atlantic inland to Chicago, Kansas City and the Southwest, also including numerous naval and merchant marine vessels. Wireless telegraphy has passed the experimental state and has already entered upon its wide domain of commercial practicality and usefulness. The DeForest Company, since its organization under a charter from the state of Maine in the latter part of 1902, has installed its service with successful results in the largest American cities, and has many times over proved its efficiency in competition with the wire telegraph lines. Aside form the fact that messages are daily sent between distant points with all the accuracy secured by the old systems, the significant feature of this new service is its economy in rates, resulting from the absence of poles, wire and right of way required by the old system. In identifying himself with this great modern enterprise Mr. McPeak has devoted his executive and business talents to an excellent cause. In addition to his active connection with the telegraph company Mr. McPeak is director of the Western National Bank and vice president of the Fort Worth Iron and Steel Manufacturing Company, both of Fort Worth.

By his wife, whose maiden name was Miss Johnnie C. Lester, Mr. McPeak has seven children; namely, Lessie P., Flavious B., Lilliard H., Carrie D., Myrtle, Hubert B. and Flavia. The McPeak home is on his Oak Hill farm, situated two miles and a half north of the court house, where is a beautiful residence.

Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 167-168.

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