Henry Stanley Shelor is conducting a general insurance agency at Muskogee and has here developed a business of large extent that is indicative of his close application, his persistency of purpose and his sound judgment in all that he undertakes. He was born in Montgomery County, Virginia, September 14, 1879, and is a son of Crockett Pierce and Clara (Abell) Shelor, the former a planter, well known in the Old Dominion.
Henry S. Shelor obtained his education in the public schools of Danville until he had completed his high school course and then entered the Danville Military Institute. His initial step in the business world was made as secretary to the Superintendent of the Southern Railway, a position which he occupied for two years. He was afterward with the American Tobacco Company of New York, for a similar period, connected with the manufacturing department. In September, 1905, he came to Muskogee with the Dawes commission and through the intervening period has here made his home, a contributing factor to the growth and progress of the city and state. He served for a time as United States court reporter and for a year and a half occupied the position of under sheriff of Muskogee County. In 1910 he established a general insurance agency, since which time he has handled fire and life insurance and is state agent for the National Surety Company of New York. He represents the Home Life Insurance Company of New York and many other of the old life companies and of the fire insurance companies as well. Something of the extent and importance of his agency and of the volume of business transacted is indicated in the fact that nine hundred agents report to his office. There is no phase of the insurance business with which he is not thoroughly familiar, so that he is most capable to advise those who represent him in this field. He possesses marked administrative power and executive ability and thus has been able to build up the agency which he now controls and make the business one of substantial proportions.
Mr. Shelor was united in marriage to Miss Louise Maxey of Muskogee, and they have become parents of three sons: Henry Stanley, Jr., Maxey and Robert. Mr. Shelor finds pleasure in a game of golf and in baseball: He belongs to the Wauhillau Club and also to the Town and Country Club and he has membership with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and with the Ma-sonic fraternity. He has taken the Knights Templar degree in the York Rite, the Consistory degrees in Scottish Rite and is a member of the Mystic Shrine. He belongs to the Rotary Club, of which he has been the President, has also been the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Muskogee, President of the Insurance Agents of Oklahoma and of the Muskogee Public Health Association. He belongs to the Christian Church, in which he is serving as deacon and to the Young Men’s Christian Association, of which he is a director. His life has at all times been actuated by high and honorable principles. In business a determined purpose has enabled him to carry forward to successful completion what he has undertaken and at all times his methods have measured up to the highest commercial standards. He has won a creditable measure of success and at the same time he has found opportunity for cooperation in many projects looking to the welfare and benefit of the community in which he lives. It is by reason of this that he has done active work in the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce. Moreover, he recognizes the fact that a well rounded character is found in a man who maintains an even balance in physical, intellectual and moral development and he has ever been keenly interested in those forces which make for the uplift of the individual.
