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IOWA
ITS HISTORY AND TRADITION
VOLUME III
1804-1926
O. E. SMITH
The newspaper profession in northwestern Iowa has an able and worthy
representative in Oren E. Smith, editor and publisher of the Spirit Lake Beacon, one of the most progressive and influential papers of this section of the state. His success since locating here, as well as his persistent and effectual stand for all that is best in community life, has won for him a high place among his contemporaries and the respect and admiration of his fellowmen, and today he is numbered among the leading residents of Spirit Lake. Mr. Smith was born in Benton county, Iowa, on the 31st of August, 1879, and is a son of Harry A. and Catherine (Hoke) Smith, the former a native of Benton county and the latter of the state of Pennsylvania. His grandfather on the paternal side was one of the earliest settlers of Benton county, where he took up a homestead, and his son, Harry A. Smith, became a prominent and influential citizen of that locality. He was for many years engaged in the hardware business at Belle Plaine, Benton county, and his death occurred in Marshaltown, Iowa, in 1913, his last years being spent there in the home of a married daughter.
Oren E. Smith acquired a good, practical public school education, graduating from the Belle Plaine high school in 1890. During the later years of his high school course he began his education in the newspaper business, serving an
apprenticeship in the office of the Belle Plaine Union, with which paper he was associated for five years. During the following two years he was employed in a job office in Clinton, Iowa followed by two years in a Chicago printing plant. On his return to Iowa he took charge of the mechanical department of the Iowa Falls Citizen, and later, in association with I. A. Nichols, of Iowa Falls, he bought the Union Star, which he edited and managed for five years. He then sold his interest in that paper and bought the Grundy Center Republican, which he published for three years, at the end of which time he returned to Iowa Falls and bought back a half interest in the Iowa Citizen. A year later he sold his interest there and in 1910 came to Spirit Lake and bought the Spirit Lake Beacon, which he has since published. He has devoted his time closely to the interests of this journal and has long been recognized as a potent factory in the welfare and progress of the community, giving his stanch support at all times to those measures which have advanced the public good, and he has been just as strongly opposed to everything detrimental to the people's best interests. His public-spirited attitude has been recognized and appreciated by his fellowmen and the Beacon has enjoyed a constant and steady increase in circulation and popular favor.
In 1907 Mr. Smith was united in marriage to Miss Minnie L. Hollister, of Freeport, Illinois, and to them have been born three children, namely: Hollister S., who graduated from the Shattuck Military Academy, at Faribault, Minnesota, and is now attending Grinnell College; Pamela May, who is in the grade schools; and Barbara Anita. Mr. Smith has taken an active part in local public affairs and has rendered effective service as a member of the town council, during which time the sanitary sewer system was constructed. He is a member of Grundy Center Lodge, A. F. and A. M.; Spirit Lake Chapter, No. 132, R. A. M.; Esdraelon Commandery, K. T.; Sioux City Consistory, No. 5, A. A. S. R.; Abu-Bekr Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S.; Twilight Chapter, No. 59, O. E. S., of which Mrs. Smith is a past worthy matron; and Calvary Shrine, No. 18, Order of the
White Shrine of Jerusalem, of which Mrs. Smith was the founder and is a past worthy priestess. Mr. Smith belongs to the Spirit Lake Commercial Club, which he served one year as president. Personally, he is a man of broad views
and well-defined opinions, is a fluent and graceful writer, his paper comparing favorably in a literary way with any of its contemporaries, and he possesses to a marked degree the qualities which commend a man to the good favor of his fellowmen.
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