WILLIAM E. LEE: EARLY LONG PRAIRIE, MINNESOTA, BANKER
Founder of the Bank of Long Prairie in 1881
The state of Minnesota has been highly honored by the characters and careers of her many prominent citizens. In every section may be found men who apparently have been born to leadership in the various vocations, men who have succeeded because of their superior intelligence natural endowment and force of character. It is always profitable to weigh the motives of such men and to study their lives as examples of what any young man may accomplish in a country where political liberty is universal and where economic liberty may be won by careful painstaking industry and normal intelligence. There are few citizens living today in the state of Minnesota who have achieved a more honorable rank in life than the Hon William E. Lee of Long Prairie, Todd County, Minnesota. He has long been a prominent and influential factor in the public affairs of Minnesota as well as in the business enterprises of Todd and adjoining counties. Having won his success through legitimate and worthy means he stands as an admirable type of the self-made man and citizen.
William E. Lee was born on January 8, 1852, at Alton Illinois and is the son of Samuel and Jane Green Lee who were natives of Bridgewater England. Samuel Lee was one of the earliest settlers in northern Minnesota. He came to America from Bridgewater England and settled first at Alton Illinois in 1851 where he was engaged in contract building. In 1856 he came to Minnesota and settled at Little Falls the family following him in 1857. He was also a contract builder at Little Falls and having taken up the millwright trade built several mills in northern Minnesota. Soon after settling at Little Falls, he took a homestead on a quarter section of land near Ladoux five miles west of Little Falls on the Swan River and Long Prairie road. He moved from there in 1860 and settled at Long Prairie. He remained at Long Prairie until the Indian outbreak in the spring of 1862 when he returned to Little Falls.
The late Samuel Lee enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War and was a member of Company E Hatch’s Battalion of Minnesota Volunteers. At the close of the war, he immigrated to the Indian country and built many mills at White Earth Leech Lake and other places. After a time, he retired from active business and settled at Long Prairie.
Samuel Lee was married before coming to America to Jane Green and together they endured the usual hardships of frontier life in Minnesota. Eight children were born to them six of whom are still living Anna R McCrea a widow of Victoria, British Columbia, William E the subject of this sketch, Richard Henry of Little Falls, George S. of Fairbanks, Alaska, Isabella J. Broder a widow of Eugene, Oregon, Emily C. Simmons the wife of FB Simmons of Portland, Oregon, Samuel Charles Lee who died on February 8 1894 was in the mercantile business at Long Prairie for many years, Frances M. Racine the wife of Carist Racine died at Tacoma, Washington. Both Samuel Lee and his wife died at Long Prairie Minnesota the former on October 22, 1906, and the latter on October 22, 1903.
William E. Lee came to Minnesota with his parents in the spring of 1857 and settled at Little Falls. Later he lived on a homestead near Ladoux Morrison County and in the spring of 1860 moved to Long Prairie where the family remained until the spring of 1862 when they returned to Little Falls. He lived for many years on a farm at Swan River two miles south of Little Falls where with his older brother boat and carried the United States mail from and later from Brainerd to Leech Lake.
As a boy William E Lee attended the public schools at Little Falls and a private school at Long Prairie taught by Mary Warren and later a school at Swan River taught by her sister Mrs. Julia A Spears. These teachers were part Chippewa educated by early missionaries and now live at White Earth Minnesota.
For several years William E Lee worked with his father at the mill wright trade and in 1873 after having worked a year in the erection of the steam mill at Sauk Center he secured a position as clerk in a store at Long Prairie owned by Kellogg Chase & Mayo who built the mill in 1875. He opened a store at Burnhamville now Pillsbury Todd County and in 1876 was elected register of deeds for Todd County and held the office two terms. He moved his store to Long Prairie and later sold it to his brother Samuel C Lee. At the expiration of his term as register of deeds he established at Long Prairie the first bank in Todd County known as the Bank of Long Prairie in which institution he is still interested and is cashier. He has extended his banking interest and is at the present time president of the First National Bank of Browerville, First National Bank of Eagle Bend, First State Bank of Burtrum, and First State Bank of Swanville. He is also president of the Eagle Bend Implement Company and is interested in the Hansmann Manufacturing Company and several other business enterprises.
Mr. Lee was elected to the Legislature of 1885 and also the Legislatures of 1887 and 1893 he was speaker of the house of representatives in the last named session. He has served on the state normal school board and as superintendent of the state reformatory at St Cloud and was one of the first members of and helped to organize the state board of control. He was a candidate for governor in the primaries in 1912 but was defeated. He was again a candidate in 1914 and received the Republican nomination but was defeated at the polls by the present governor He was the first candidate for a state office on either the Republican or Democratic ticket who made an open and aggressive campaign against the saloon interests and the brewery organization and while he was defeated because of the stand he took on the temperance question the cause for which he fought was greatly advanced by the campaigns he made.
Mr. Lee has held the position of president of the Minnesota Bankers Association was president of the first village council of Long Prairie and served on the board of education and held other similar positions. During the past ten or twelve years he has traveled considerably having visited nearly every state in the Union and some of our insular possessions and made quite an extensive tour of European countries and also of Egypt and the Holy Land.
William E. Lee was married to Eva A. Gibson the daughter of Ambrose H. and Margaret Daily Gibson who were early settlers in Todd County. They have three sons Rudolph who is editor of the Long Prairie Leader, Harry cashier of the First National Bank of Browerville, and Raymond A. vice president of the Bank of Long Prairie and secretary of the Hansmann Manufacturing Company.
Source: Fuller, Clara K. History of Morrison and Todd County Minnesota: Their Peoples, Industries, and Institutions. Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen and Company, 1915.
The Bank of Long Prairie was located at 262 Osakis Avenue (today, Central Avenue), in Long Prairie, Minnesota.
