Charles Evans Hunter

Charles Hunter, Well Known Rancher, Dies

Charles Evans Hunter, 93, a resident of Niobrara County since 1917, died at his home east of Lusk, early Saturday evening of a heart ailment. Funeral services were held from the Peet Mortuary this Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. The Rev. Fred Bolinger of the First Baptist Church of Lusk officiated. Burial was in the Lusk Cemetery.

Mrs. J. P. Watson furnished organ music. Casket Bearers were Harry Brown, Paul Morgan, Noal Larson, Dick Keenan, S. E. West and Jerry Hollon. Honorary bearers were Roy McLain, Floyd McLain, John Sturman, Menno Kaan, Herbert Sabin, Albert DeGering, C. E. Marvin and Don Taylor.

Mr. Hunter was born near Everly, Iowa, September 8, 1874, the first child of William and Helen Hunter. The family moved from Iowa to Dixon, Mo., in 1895 and there developed and operated a commercial fruit farm.

Charles taught school at Crocker, Mo., before homesteading in western South Dakota in the early nineteen hundreds. He worked on various ranches and taught school in the Little Missouri area of Montana and western South Dakota.

In 1917 he and Olive Hunter, a sister who had also homesteaded in South Dakota sold their land and bought registered Herefords. They moved to Niobrara County in the same year and rejoined the Hunter family who had arrived from Missouri and purchased the Alex Mashek place in 1915. About the same time, Myrtle Hunter, another sister sold her South Dakota homestead and purchased Hereford cattle, thus forming the Hunter foundation herd.

Survivors include his two sisters, Olive and Myrtle Hunter of Lusk, two nephews, Charles Bryant of Riverton and Edward Bryant of Potomac, Md., two great nephews and three great nieces.

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