E.T. Guymon

Edward T. Guymon was born in Illinois in 1859. At 21 he moved to McPherson, Kansas from Coatsburg, Illinois, reportedly selling a cow for $22 to pay his fare west. He loaded coal for the Santa Fe Railroad as a clerk and partner for the Star Mercantile, and in 1888 he established the Star Mercantile at Liberal, Kansas. He took a large shipment of groceries and first sold them from a flatcar, then from a tent while he built a building. Knowing the Rock Island would build west, he purchased 160 acres, and in 1900 Guymon, Dick Quinn, and T.O. James established the original townsite of Guymon, Oklahoma Territory, with Guymon serving as president of the corporation. He then established the Beaver County Bank, now City National Bank & Trust Company, the Star Mercantile, and the Star Lumber Company for the new town that sat in the path of the 1901 railroad extension.

Guymon, Oklahoma · United States