Ora A. Amos


          Ora A. Amos. The Amos family of Shelby County have been participants in the history of that locality for over a century, beginning in earliest pioneer times, when the frontiers of civilization had scarcely reached this region of Southern Indiana.  Mr. Ora A. Amos has spent a long and active life as a farmer and lumberman.   He was born in Shelby County, son of  Thomas Amos, who also followed the occupations of farming and lumber manufacture.   Thomas Amos was a son of the founder of the family in Shelby County, who came from Kentucky about 1820.   Ora A. Amos was reared and educated in Shelby County, and since early manhood has found abundant opportunity for the exercise  of his business judgment and energies in farming and stock raising and in the timber and lumber industry.   In 1912 he and his son  Roy  and  Henry Wertz were associated in purchasing the plant and business of the  Henry Maley  Lumber Company at Edinburg, Indiana.  The now company became Wertz & Amos.  In 1915 Mr. Wertz’s interest was purchased by Ora A. and Roy Amos, and about a year later  R. C. Mayhall  and  Walter O’Neal were taken into the firm, which then took the new title of Amos, Mayhall & O’Neal Company.  In 1917 the Mayhall and O’Neal interest was purchased by Ora and Roy Amos, who carried on the business as the Amos Lumber Company.  In 1920 this company built a lumber manufacturing plant at Morgantown, Indiana, operated under the name of the Morgantown Lumber Company until it was discontinued and dismantled in 1925.  In 1927 they and their associates bought and took over, from  Grafton Johnson, of Greenwood, Indiana, the  W. T. Thompson Veneer Company at Edinburg, and then organized the Amos-Thompson Corporation, which has developed to be one of the largest of its kind in the country and today holds a very prominent place in the industry.  This company draws its logs and raw products from all parts of the world and in turn ships the finished product to all parts of the world.  During the World war the Amos Lumber Company did their part in furnishing the walnut gun stocks and walnut lumber for airplane propeller blades to the United States Government.  This company was one of the first to use motor trucks for the hauling of  logs.   Mr. Ora A. Amos, being an active worker, has always held a great respect for the laboring man.  Even though his success came mostly from the veneer and lumbering business, he still likes the farming and stock raising business and has just recently acquired quite large holdings in farm land.  For his  “hobby” he has for a number of years kept a very good string of harness horses and in his experience has developed some very fast animals.   Mr. Ora A. Amos married  Miss Gertrude Hogue, of Shelby County.  They had two children, one who died quite young and the other their son Roy, previously referred to and of whom a separate sketch is published following.

This book has no cover, and no index, and no author.  I bought it on Ebay; it just has the insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies. I am not researching this family, just thought I would share.  I do not know anymore about these families or these surnames.  NOTE:  I don‘t know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it has no index.
Typed by Lora Radiches: 2-25-2005

Biography Index       Main Page