Walter G. Hubbard

Submitted by Elizabeth Burns, Aug 2002

Arizona-The Youngest State, pg 590

One of the worthy representatives of the commercial interests of Bisbee is Walter G. Hubbard, who, with J.J. Bowen is engaged in the livery and undertaking business and they are also owners of the Bisbee Automobile Company. He was born in Allen County, Kansas, in 1873 and is a son of John C. and Olive Hubbard, natives of Indiana. The parents made their home in the latter state until shortly after their marriage, when they removed to Allen County, Kansas, where the father bought land and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He subsequently located in Cherokee County, Kansas where is served as recorder of deeds and he takes an active interest in the success of the democratic party. He is now living retired in Galena, where the mother passed away in 1888. Our subject is the third in order of birth in a family of seven children, six of whom are still living.

Reared in the paternal home, the education of Walter G. Hubbard was acquired in the public schools of his native state, where he subsequently learned the undertaking business. He resided in Kansas until he was twenty six years of age, when he came to Bisbee. During the first eight months of his residence here he worked in the Copper Queen Mines but at the expiration of that time took over the management of the B.F. Graham Undertaking Company. He remained in their employ for a year and then bought an interest in the business, which he disposed of at the end of another year. Next he bought a half interest in the livery business of J.J. Bowen and at the same time they also established an undertaking parlor. Success attended their efforts in the development of both enterprises and in 1909 they further extended the scope of their activities by founding the Bisbee Automobile Company. They have the agency for Cochise County for the Studebaker and Velie trucks and pleasure cars, in connection with which they maintain a repair department, carrying a full stock of automobile accessories. Their business in this line, like in the undertaking department, is among the leading ones of the state. The latter includes a well appointed chapel and auto hearse and also an auto ambulance and a complete modern and up to date equipment in accordance with the latest scientific conduct of the undertaking business.

The firm own practically all the substantial and strongly organized commercial concern of the city. Mr. Hubbard owns his residence in Bisbee, also a tract of land in Dade County, Florida and is the proprietor of the Pawnee Mill and Elevator Company, located at Pawnee, Oklahoma, where he likewise owns a farm of two hundred and sixty acres in the vicinity of the Cleveland oil district, Pawnee County and he is a stockholder in the Hubbard Mining and Milling Company, twelve miles from Joplin, Missouri. Included in Mr. Hubbard's business interests, aside from those already mentioned, is his connection with many Arizona projects. In 1915 he was one of the incorporators of the Bisbee Copper Development and Mining Company, of which he is now treasurer and he was also one of the incorporators of the Gila Land and Water Company of which he is both secretary and treasurer.

In June 1903 Mr. Hubbard was married to Miss Katheryne M. Hanley, whose birth occurred in Tombstone in 1884. She was a daughter of Daniel and Annie Hanley, the father a native of Massachusetts and the mother of Wales. They were married at Fall River, Mass. where they made their home until 1877 when they removed to California. In 1881 they came to Arizona and have since been residents of this state, the father now living retired in Bisbee. Mrs. Hubbard, who passed away on the 28th of January, 1907, was the second in order of birth in a family of seven children, five of whom are still living. She was the mother of one son, John Clabourne, who was born on the 9th of January 1907. On the 17th of October 1908, Mr. Hubbard married Miss Elora Harper, a native of Logan Kansas, in which state she was reared and educated, being graduated from the Galena high school. She is the eldest of three children born to Mr. and Mrs. David L. Harper, who now reside at Pawnee Oklahoma, where the father has the management of Mr. Hubbard's mill. He was born in Iowa but his wife is a native of Sweden. To Mr. Hubbard and his second wife has been born one son, George whose natal day was the 29th of November 1909.

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