K. J. Montgomery, a progressive young business man, familiarly known as “Jack” to his many friends in Vinita, is numbered among the leading cattlemen of northeastern Oklahoma and worthily bears a name which for the past eighteen years has been synonymous with enterprise and integrity in business circles of Craig County. He is a native of Missouri, his birth having occurred in Cedar County on the 21st of January, 1887, and is a son of Thomas R. Montgomery, who was born in Tennessee. The father subsequently removed to the west, becoming the owner of one of the finest farms in Cedar County, Missouri, on which he engaged in feeding cattle on an extensive scale. Later he established his home in Morrisville, Polk County, that state, where he continued his stock raising operations, while he also engaged in the dry goods business, likewise conducting a bank and a flour mill. In 1903 he arrived in Craig County, Oklahoma, purchasing a large ranch in partnership with a Mr. Peariman and engaging in the feeding and shipping of cattle. He developed a large business in that connection, conducting his operations under the firm style of Montgomery & Peariman, and he also figured conspicuously in financial circles of Centralia, Oklahoma, as President of the First National Bank. He is a very enterprising and progressive business man who has made a success of everything that he has undertaken and is now a resident of Vinita, being a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
After completing his grammar school course K. J. Montgomery attended the high school at Morrisville, Missouri, and under the able instruction of his father he acquired a thorough knowledge of the cattle business, in which he was deeply interested. He completed a course in the Gem City Business College at Quincy, Illinois, after which he was associated with his father in the conduct of the First National Bank of Centralia, Craig County, Oklahoma, while he also became a partner in the firm of Montgomery & Peariman. Since 1919 he has engaged independently in the cattle business, feeding each year several hundred head of steers on his ranch of six thousand acres in this County, and he is numbered among the largest cattle feeders of northeastern Oklahoma. He has an expert knowledge of the work in which he is engaged, displaying the same administrative powers and enterprising spirit which characterized his father’s operations along this line. Since the family disposed of their holdings in the First National Bank of Centralia he has been a stockholder of the First State Bank of Vinita.
At Paris, Missouri, in August, 1910, Mr. Montgomery was united in marriage to Miss Leona Gribsby, a daughter of John F. Gribsby, a prominent resident of that place. He is a civil engineer by profession and is now serving as County surveyor of Monroe County, while in religious faith he is a Baptist. To Mr. and, Mrs. Montgomery has been born a daughter, Maeson. They are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and active in its work and Mrs. Montgomery is also prominent in social and club circles of Vinita, while her husband is identified with the Hillcrest Country Club. Alert, energetic and determined, Mr. Montgomery has eagerly availed himself of every legitimate opportunity for advancement and his close application and intelligently directed efforts have brought him to the front in his chosen line of work. He is a young man who has not yet reached the zenith of his powers but judging from what he has already accomplished the future holds for him unlimited possibilities and his genuine personal worth has won for him the unqualified respect and esteem of those with whom he has been associated.
