1950 William Robert Mellor

William Robert Mellor -- Builder of the Nebraska State Fair

William Robert Mellor was born in a log house five miles west of Michigan City, Porter County, Indiana, June 16, 1860. He died in Lincoln, Nebraska, August 18, 1949.

As we look back and think of the important events that have occurred and the changes that have taken place since 1860, eighty-nine years seems like a long span of life. Between 1860 and 1949, the population of the United States increased nearly five fold, the Great Plains were settled, the efficiency of labor on farms and in factories was increasing by science and invention, breeds of livestock were improved, new varieties of grains and fruits were originated, tens of thousands of miles of highways were hard surfaced, the farm wagon and buggy were largely replaced by the truck and automobile, farm horses gave way to tractors, and the telephone, radio and aeroplane came into common use. In no other eight-nine year period since Moses led his loyal followers out of Egypt have changes been so rapid and important as during the lifespan of William Robert Mellor. And Mr. Mellor welcomed the changes as they came, and in much of the development he took an active part. Because he had many interests and led an active life, time passed swiftly until the closing years. He welcomed each day as it came, enjoyed his work and play, his home and friends, and thought little of the passing of his birthdays through the years.

The father of William Mellor enlisted in the 9th Indiana regiment in the summer of 1861. Lincoln had called for volunteers to aid in putting down the rebellion, and duty to country came first. The young father left his wife and two children, and remained in the army until the summer of 1865. During a considerable portion of the time, his regiment was a part of the forces commanded by General George H. Thomas, “The Rook of Chickamauga.”

Conditions in the North, as well as in the South, were hard during the war years. Privates received only eight dollars a month in depreciated currency, and there were no government allowances for their families. The women and children remained at home and got along as best they could. Mr. Mellor always claimed that the meal which his mother prepared for his fifth birthday was the best meal that he ever ate. It consisted quite largely of new potatoes and green peas, which were the first important departure from the corn meal and milk on which he, his mother and sister had subsisted during the winter.

After Mr. Mellor’s father returned from the War in the summer of 1865, he sold the farm and the family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where they remained for a year, and then came back to Michigan City, Indiana.

The day that Willie was eight years of age, his father took him to the woodshed and told him that he was to saw four sticks of cordwood every day except Sunday. When he was ten, he was assigned the task of sawing all the wood burned in two stoves. This sawing and splitting of wood developed his back and arms, and combined with the activities of school life gave him wonderful strength.

Willie attended school until he was fourteen years of age, and then began clerking in a drygoods store, where he worked until he was twenty-one. The proprietor of the store, as his contribution to the organization of a baseball team that would represent the town, gave Willie’s services as a pitcher for the team, on the condition that it would not take his time for more than two afternoons each week. This arrangement was continued the remainder of the time that he worked in the store.

In 1876 the baseball rules required that the pitcher should deliver the ball by an underhand toss; in 1877 the rule was changed to permit the underhand throw, providing the delivery was below the hip; in 1878 the rule was changed to permit the throw as now used. In the summer of 1878, a young man came to Michigan City, and applied for the position of pitcher on the ball team. He claimed that he could throw a curved ball. Young Will Mellor secured his catcher, stood behind the young and and watched closely his holding and delivery of the ball. Within one week he was able to throw a curved ball himself. The young man went to Chicago, and was hired by A.G. Spaulding to teach the pitchers for the Chicago Cubs to throw curved balls. This young teacher was a small man who lacked speed and, therefore, could not be used in fast games.

When Will Mellow was twenty-one years of age, he quit his job in the drygoods store, and worked as a traveling salesman for the next three years. In April, 1885, he migrated to central Nebraska and homesteaded the N.W. ¼ of Section 8, Township 15 North and Range 14 West of the sixth principal meridian. This quarter is located one-half mile north of the northeast corner of Loup City and a little more than a mile from the Sherman County Court House. Mr. Mellow followed one of the precedents established by the early settlers in that area and built a sod house in which he lived for five years.

In 1881 while living in Michigan City and playing baseball, William Mellor joined the Methodist choir and thus began a second interesting and important extra-curricular activity. Within a year, he was appointed choir leader. A choir romance had already begun, and on October 16, 1883, he married Marianne Pike, the alto singer in the church quartette, whom he first met in the choir. Me. Mellor was always proud of this choir. The tenor was James A. Parks, who for many years was a composer of music and lived in York, Nebraska.

After coming to Nebraska, Mr. Mellow led the Methodist and Baptist choirs in Loup City the major part of the time from 1885 to 1906. After his removal to Lincoln, he was in charge of Scottish Rite music from 1906 to 1917, and was a member of both a mixed quartette and a male quartette during the entire period. He was president of the Probasco Chorus of Saint Paul’s Church for several years, and sang in the University of Nebraska “Messiah” chorus for twenty-five years.
In 1899, Mr. Mellor formed a partnership with J.R. Scott, an attorney at Loup City, under the firm name of Scott and Mellor. He took charge of real-estate sales and rentals, collections and insurance, and also studied law. He was appointed land agent for the Burlington Railway Company soon after joining with Mr. Scott, and had charge of their lands in Sherman County and other nearby counties until all were sold. In 1893 he was examined before Judge Silas Holcomb for admission as an attorney, and practiced law from then until about 1900, when other business and public activities required practically all of his time. His real estate business had grown, and he continued to operate his farm which had increased in size by the purchase of 480 acres of land. He raised and fed about two hundred head of horses and cattle and about the same number of hogs for many years. He continued to operate the farm until 1917.

William Mellor continued his baseball pitching for fifteen years after settling near Loup City, and during the entire period was considered the outstanding pitcher of Sherman County and adjoining counties. In addition to pitching all of the games for the first team in Loup City, he was often employed by other towns. He pitched for Loup City on the day the first train ran to that town, for Rockwell on the day the first train ran to Ravenna, and for North Loup the day the first train ran to Greeley Center.

He served as secretary for the Sherman County Irrigation and Water Power Company, and had charge of the building of the irrigation ditch from Arcadia to Loup City. At times in 1893 and 1894, when the drouth was at its worst in that vicinity, he was employing as high as 240 teams in the work on the project. The ditch, which was sixteen miles long, was completed at a total monetary cost of $40,000, and additional work donated by some of the loyal citizens of Loup City.

Mr. Mellor was one of a small group of men who organized the Sherman County Fair Association. He served as secretary of the association for many years, and was then elected president. Under his leadership, the Fair grew and became known as one of the better county fairs in that part of the state.

At the annual meeting of the State Board of Agriculture in 1898, William R. Mellor was elected to membership on the Board, and reelected in 1900 and later years. Because the State Board of Agriculture wished to cooperate with the citizens of Omaha who were sponsoring the Trans-Mississippi Exposition which was help in Omaha in 1898 and 1899, no State Fair was held in either of those years. In consideration for the assistance given to the Exposition by the State Board of Agriculture, Omaha assisted in locating the State Fair permanently at Lincoln.

At the 1900 meeting of the State Board of Agriculture, Samuel C. Bassett of Gibbon was elected president and Austin Humphrey of Lincoln was selected as one of the members of the Board of Managers. Mr. Humphreys died a few weeks after his appointment. President Bassett wrote to Mr. Mellor asking him if he would accept the position that had been left vacant.

Mr. Mellor asked Mr. Basset how much time would be required to attend to the duties required of a member of the Board of Managers. Mr. Bassett replied, “A monthly trip to Lincoln and about ten days at Fair time.”

Mr. Mellow then wrote Mr. Bassett and thanked him for the offer, but stated that he did not think it would be possible for him to accept, as the position would take too much time from his private business.

Mr. Bassett answered in a typical Bassett letter, in which he insisted that Mr. Mellor owed something to the people of Nebraska and that he would like a letter of acceptance by return mail.

Mr. Mellor accepted. He was probably the only member of the State Board of Agriculture to be appointed to the Board of Managers who had never been on the State Fair Grounds in some official capacity.

At the first meeting of the Board following Mr. Mellor’s appointment, the members decided that it would be necessary to borrow $5,000 to pay the preliminary expenses of putting on the State Fair in September, 1900. When the note was presented for signature, Peter Youngers and W.R. Mellor, the two new members of the Board were asked to guarantee payment. They complied with the request. The gross receipts that year were $33,599 which was sufficient to pay all expenses and leave a small margin for improvements.

Mr. Mellor continued as a member of the Board of Managers from 1900 through 1903. In 1904 he was elected president of the State Board of Agriculture and reelected in 1905. In June 1905, Secretary Furnas died, and Mr. Mellow appointed S.C. Bassett to fill out the unexpired term as Secretary.

In 1906 Mr. Mellor was elected Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture and held the position for eleven years. From the very first he insisted that sound financial policies should be followed. He secured the adoption of a motion requiring that the annual report should contain a record of all warrants issued, to whom issued, and for what issued. This plan to continued through the eleven years that he was Secretary.

In the early years of the State Fair, the chief attraction was a fast horse, such as Crecious or Dan Patch, but in 1910 an aeroplane was secured to make two flights each day of the Fair for the sum of ten thousand dollars. Two flights were made on Monday, but on the first flight Tuesday, the plane failed to rise within the race track, and crashed into the roof of one of the barns, putting the aeroplane out of commission and spraining the ankle of the pilot. In the years that followed, aeroplanes were one of the chief attractions.

In 1909 the Legislature appropriated $50,000 for the erection of a Live Stock Judging Pavilion. The State Board of Agriculture added several thousand dollars of Fair receipts to this appropriation and erected one-half of a pavilion that was first used in the autumn of 1910. It was the first really permanent structure built on the Fair Grounds.

A bill providing for an appropriation of $100,000 for the erection of a new grandstand was introduced in the Nebraska legislature January 27, 1911, by the Chairman of the Agricultural Committee. The legislature cut the appropriation to $15,000 which was too small an amount to permit the building, or even the starting of a permanent structure. As the demand for additional grandstand accommodations was pressing, the Board decided that the seating capacity must be increased at once. Mr. Mellor, therefore, drew a plan of one section of a grandstand, and asked William Foster, the Superintendent of Buildings on the Fair grounds, if he could build a new grandstand utilizing the new funds and the timbers that could be saved from the old structure. The stand, consisting of eleven sections patterned after the original drawing, and capable of seating 7,000 persons, was built, complete with toilets, from the legislative appropriation and about $3,000 added from the earnings of the State Fair. The steel roof cost about $8,000.

The new stand was a paying investment. Receipts increased from a little over $8,000 to $14,223 the first year that it was used.

Mr. Mellor believed that the American Shorthorn Breeders Association did not allow special premium funds to the Nebraska State Fair and the Fairs of some other states in the area, in proportion to amounts allotted to states farther east. Acting on this belief, in the autumn of 1909 he proceeded to gather about three hundred proxies, and at the annual meeting joined with Mr. Flynn of Des Moines in the selection of the five directors who were to be elected at the meeting. The combination succeeded in electing Harding of Wisconsin, Wornell of Missouri, Shellenberger of Nebraska, Flynn of Iowa, and Thompson of Kansas. Prior to this election, there had been ten or more directors from states east of Illinois, and only one or two from states west. The special premium fund for Nebraska was immediately raised from $500.00 to $1,500.00.

During the years that Mr. Mellor was Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, the Board collected and published the Agricultural Statistics of the State of Nebraska, had charge of the Stallion Registration law, and furnished a weekly article to all newspapers in the state. The Secretary was a busy man, since he must care for these various activities in addition to directing and promoting the State Fair which was always his primary interest.

At the meeting of the American Association of Fairs and Expositions held in Chicago in 1911, W.R. Mellor was appointed to prepare a Bill to be introduced in the House of Representatives, providing for an appropriation of $100,000 to each accredited State Fair in the United States, for the purpose of promoting and encouraging the agricultural, horticultural and industrial interests therein, by means of the construction of a suitable building to be used solely for the display of agricultural, horticultural, industrial and machinery exhibits. This bill, known as House Roll No.18,005 was introduced January 15, 1912 by Representative John Maguire of Nebraska. A committee, consisting of W.R. Mellor of Nebraska, J.W. Russworm of Tennessee, and Joseph E. Pogue of North Carolina was appointed subsequently and appeared before the Agricultural Committee of the House on the 10th of April 1912. Mr. Mellor presented the claims for favorable consideration of the measure. Sixteen members of the Agricultural Committee were present and listened attentively to the presentation.

Congress did not appropriate the funds requested, but the publicity given the bill and the hearings aroused considerable discussion, and undoubtedly aided in securing appropriations from state legislatures.

The Nebraska Legislature at the 1913 session created a Nebraska Conservation and Public Welfare Commission. As a member of the Commission, Mr. Mellor attended meetings and exhibited Nebraska motion pictures in Chicago, Minneapolis, and many Nebraska towns.

In 1914, Mr. Mellor was elected President of the American Association of Fairs and Expositions.

Mr. Mellor was President of the State Board of Agriculture in 1904 and 1905, and Secretary from 1906 to 1917. He was a member of the Board for six years and of the Board of Managers for four years prior to being elected President. During his terms as president and secretary, the State Fair developed rapidly. The attendance increased, the exhibits improved, the grounds were enlarged, and new buildings were erected. The records show that in the thirteen years, 1901--1913 inclusive, the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture paid for permanent improvements out of earnings, the sum of $170,523.52. During the same years, the appropriations of the State Legislature for improvements were as follows:
1901 Purchase of Grounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 35,000
1903 Women’s Comfort Building . . . . . . . . . . 3,000
1905 Live Stock Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,000
1907 Cattle Barn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20,000
1909 Coliseum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50,000
1911 Grand Stand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000
1913 Agricultural-Horticultural Building . . . . . 100,000
1913 Additional land -- 60 acres . . . . . . . . . . 8,000
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$241,000

At the close of Mr. Mellor’s term as secretary, all bills were paid and there was $34,000 in the treasury of the State Board of Agriculture.

The Nebraska State Fair has become a great institution. It assembles exhibits that have educational value, stimulates the interest of farm boys and girls in agricultural production and the arts of homemaking, creates pride in the state, and provides wholesome entertainment for all who attend. Probably no other man has done so much to build the Fair as was done by William Robert Mellor.

Mr. Mellor’s agricultural activities were not limited to his work for the State Board of Agriculture and the operation of his Sherman County farm. He served as Secretary of the Loess Land and Orchard Company and Shubert Orchards Company from 1915 to 1940. During these years the companies planted and maintained more than four hundred acres of commercial apple orchards in Richardson, Nemaha and Otoe counties in south-eastern Nebraska.

In the autumn of 190 , Dr. A.T. Peters, Professor of Animal Pathology at the University of Nebraska, called at Mr. Mellor’s office. In the course of their conversation, Mr Mellor asked Dr. Peters if he could secure speakers for a week of Organized Agriculture during the annual meeting of the State Board of Agriculture, and suggested that if speakers could be secured, he would see that the speakers and the meetings were advertised in the newspapers. This arrangement was made and the week of Organized Agriculture was born. It lasted until 1948.

In 1909 when the pin oaks were planted on the avenue at the College of Agriculture, Mr. Mellor planted the tree just north of the walk leading out from Agricultural Hall.

In January 1916, Mr. Mellor was one of the men who assisted in organizing the Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement. He was elected a member of the first Board of Managers and was reelected whenever his term expired until 1928 when he was elected President. He served as president until 1947.

Although Mr. Mellor succeeded in nearly everything that he undertook, he experienced his full share of disappointments and losses. His first wife died in June 1913. About two years later, he married Miss Marietta Parrish of Lincoln, who passed away in January 1946.

Not long after he ended his eleven years of service as Secretary of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture, Mr. Mellor purchased stock in the Lincoln Trust Company and accepted the position of Trust Officer. His varied business experience had been excellent training for this position. He was widely and favorably known, and his ability and integrity were unquestioned. The company handled a large volume of business during the major part of the nineteen twenties and apparently prospered. Shortly after the beginning of the Long Depression, Mr. Mellor and other stockholders learned that many properties upon which loans had been made had been over-appraised and as a result, the company and many of their customers who had purchased bonds secured by real estate mortgages would lose heavily. Property values fell rapidly, and the Lincoln Trust Company went into the hands of a receiver. The stockholders lost everything that they had invested in the company. A few of the persons, who had purchased bonds based on real-estate mortgages, eventually sued Mr. Mellor and other members of the Board for the amount of their losses. Their suit was based on their belief that the board members had knowledge of the over-appraisals, and were, therefore, responsible for the losses of the bondholders.

In order to meet the obligations that resulted from the suit, Mr. Mellor was practically compelled to sell a part of his investments at sacrifice prices. As a result of the incompetence of another man, he lost a material, part of the competency that he had accumulated through hard work, thrift, and unusual business ability. He accepted his losses without complaint, because he recognized that complaining would not remedy his misfortune.

Mr. Mellor’s active business career practically ended with the failure of the Lincoln Trust Company. For a few years he maintained a connection with a Lincoln Insurance Agency, but apparently found some difficulty in transferring his interest from the activities of his later years to a field that he had enjoyed as a young man.

The nineteen thirties was not a particularly good time in which to start a new enterprise. Not only was the country in a depression, but many persons apparently feared that we might produce a larger amount of goods and services than could be used. Working hours per week were decreased, a floor was placed under wages which resulted in depriving the less competent workers of an opportunity to earn their living, and older workers were retired regardless of physical condition. Perhaps the widespread propaganda of the period induced Mr. Mellor to think that a man ought to retire sometime between sixty-five and seventy, so that he could rest and enjoy life.

The years passed by, and probably passed less quickly for Mr. Mellor than when he was actively engaged in the work that he enjoyed. I recall a chance remark that he made in one of our occasional visits two or three years prior to his death. His age had been mentioned, and he smiled and said, “I don’t know whether I quit work too soon, or lived too long, but I have certainly done one of the other.”

Apparently he had come to realize that a considerable part of the pleasure that an energetic, ambitious man gets out of life, he gets out of his work. As Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “I know what pleasure is, for I have done good work.”

William Robert Mellor was a man of unusual ability with many interests. He was a farmer, an executive, a writer, a musician, an attorney, a financier, a statesman and a leader. He was strong and alert, and enjoyed games that required strength and skill.

He knew the advantages of industry, thrift and good habits. He also knew psychology and the things that influence mankind for good or ill. He was practical and did the things that needed to be done. He was a truly representative man, who attempted much, and accomplished many things. He was keenly interested in agriculture, had confidence in the future of Nebraska, and was willing to give time and energy to the development of the resources of the state and increasing the prosperity of her citizens.

In the years that lie not far ahead, may we find in the service of the public, many men and women, who exhibit as much industry, are endowed with as much courage, develop as much vision, and possess as fine a character as were the attributes of William Robert Mellor.