Robert Wesley Erwin

Robert Wesley Erwin, manager at Waukon of the Missouri Iron Company, whose head quarters are at St. Louis, Missouri, was born in Tapan, Ohio, August 2, 1872, and is a representative of an old American family, his ancestors on both sides having fought in the Revolutionary war. He acquired his early training in the public schools of Fulton, Missouri, and completed a high -school course at Bay City, Michigan, afterward studying at Westminister College, Fulton, and the Utah State College, from which he received the degree of B. S. After his graduation he remained connected with the institution as teacher for four years. He has held the positions of assistant chemist at the Utah experiment station and major of the Utah national guard, which he helped organize. In 1895 he returned from the west and entered the employ of the Granite City Steel Company at Granite City, Illinois, the main office of this concern being in St. Louis, Missouri. He was chief chemist of this company for one year and was then promoted to the position of assistant superintendent. He left the employ of The Granite City Steel Company in 1897 to take the position of chief chemist of the American Steel Foundry Company, an office which he held for two years, going from it to the position of superintendent, which he held until the consolidation of the American Steel Foundry Company with the American Steel foundries Company in 1905. During this time he also acted as consulting chemist and chemical engineer for the Sligo Furnace Company, of St. Louis, with works at Sligo, Missouri, and for the National Iron & Steel Company, of Mexico City. He is now manager of the Missouri Iron Company, whose headquarters are at St. Louis, Missouri.

Mr. Erwin married, on October 19,1899, Miss Catherine Listeman, of Collinsville, Illinois, and they have a daughter, Catherine Elizabeth. In civil life Mr. Erwin has held the following positions: secretary of the board of education of Granite City, Illinois; trustee of the Methodist Episcopal church, of that city; and secretary and director of the Granite City Building Loans Association. He belongs to the Masonic order and is connected with the Sons of the American Revolution, the Iowa Engineers Club. At the time of the Spanish-American war he organized two companies of recruits and in Waukon he aided in the foundation of the Peoples National Bank. He has always taken an active part in educational and religious work.

-source: Past & Present of Allamakee County; by Ellery M. Hancock; S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.; 1913
-transcribed by Diana Diedrich

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