Excepted from ``A HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA,''
WILLIAM GEORGE ENLOE
WILLIAM GEORGE ENLOE, of Comanche, Stephens county, has been connected with the agricultural and
stock-raising interests of the county tributary to that place for a period of thirteen years, and is now recognized as an
important figure in these industries, as well as influential in financial and property matters. He is a representative of a
substantial North Carolina family, and was himself born in Franklin county, that state, on the 11th of October, 1813. A
fair country-school education in that section was all the intellectual training which was enjoyed by William G. Enloe,
but all his inclinations were toward an active, outdoor life, and at the age of eighteen he began his independent career
by cultivating a tract of his father's plantation. Afterward, a year of travel East and West, broadened his outlook, and
gave him his first experience of the grand forests of the far Northwest, stopping as he did for some time in a logging
camp near Spokane, Washington. Upon his return to his North Carolina home he resumed farming, and also engaged
in the saw-mill business. One of his friends had in the meantime visited the country around Comanche, and in 1895
induced Mr. Enloe to join him there. The latter also decided to locate, first working as a farm hand and later on a ranch,
Jule Kimbling being his employer in the latter line of work. He next began farming on rented land near Comanche, from
time to time placing cattle on the range. His landlord at this time was John D. Wilson, but the inconvenient and
lonesome life of a bachelor farmer was not suited to his temperament, so, in 1899, he married. When allotments were
made, he selected as his homestead 1,500 acres of land, much of which is in a body near Comanche, and upon this
goodly tract he has erected one of the handsomest farm houses in the county. He also leases five thousand acres
adjoining it, for the grazing of his fine herd of cattle. He has also blooded hogs; has brought into the county a fine
Percheron for the improvement of the home breed of horses; possesses the fairness and wisdom to provide his
tenants with comfortable homes, and is altogether a
broad-minded, prosperous citizen. He is a stockholder in both the First National Bank of Comanche and in the
Waurika National Bank, and is a good general financier, besides being a successful manager of his own affairs.
Returning to the general history of the Enloe family, it may be stated that for several generations it has been
honorably represented in Franklin county, North Carolina. Wesley Enloe, the paternal grandfather, was a Kentuckian
and the founder of the family in that state. He was a farmer, and married a Miss Roane, dying in his vigorous manhood
as the father of five children. Among his sons was Lucius, the father of William G., who was born in the county named
in 1832. He was trained to agricultural work, in manhood, owned slaves and conducted a large plantation, was a
character of strong personality and a leading citizen of his community. During the Civil war he served as a captain in
General Johnston's army, but accepted the outcome of hostilities with philosophy and resumed his civic duties with
complacency and earnestness. He was long a leading Democrat of the county, serving at one time as its sheriff. In the
work of the Methodist church he was also prominent. Unlike many of his associates, survivors of the Civil war, the
affairs of his plantation so prospered as to enable him to retire to a life of comfort in Atlanta, Georgia, where he still
resides. Lucius Enloe married Mary Roan, a daughter of Thomas Roan, who came from Tennessee to North
Carolina, where Mrs. Enloe was born in 1834. The issue of the marriage were the following children: Bascom, a farmer
and stockman in Franklin county, North Carolina; James R., of Spokane, Washington; Ella, wife of George Bidwell, of
Boston, Massachusetts; Lillie, of Atlanta, Georgia; Minnie, now Mrs. Charles Reed, of Springfield, Massachusetts;
Jefferson H., who is on the old North Carolina homestead; William G., of this review; Nannie and Ida, of Atlanta,
Georgia, and Charles, of Boston, Massachusetts.
On the 3d of October, 1899, William G. Enloe was united to Wade, daughter of George Mordis, who, fourteen years
ago, came into the Chickasaw Nation from Texas. The Mordis family are of the Choctaw tribe of Indians, and it is as an
intermarried citizen that Mr. Enloe's name is placed on rolls. The children of this union are May and Lucius H. Enloe.
by Luther Hill (published 1908)