John Willie and Sarah Elizabeth (Wolff) Cloyd

JOHN WILLIE CLOYD, son of John Wesley, 213, and Eliza J. (Basye) Cloyd, was b. 9-5-1857, and m. S. Elizabeth Wolff of Monroe County, Mo., 5-11-1884. Her father, Henry Wolff was born in Wurms, Germany, and her mother, Jane Duncan Smith, was a native of Kentucky. He has been engaged in several lines of business and is now (1910) in the banking business in Wray, Colo. He has held the office of treasurer of Yuma County, several times and is a member of the Democratic State Committee. Children : 604. Lucy May, b. 5-22-1886 ; d. 12-7-1888. 605. Ida May, b. 6-17-1889.

 

December 1899 Cloyd & Lepper's advertised that they had "received a car of salt and will make you a close price."  They also advertised Overalls, Hosiery and Notions.

 In the fall of 1900 J.W. Cloyd and Henry Lepper established the first telephone system in Wray, which was then a much smaller town than it is a present. It was a purely local system, embracing thirty 'phones in the city, but its great utility was soon recognized and on April 1, 1902, the Wray Telephone Co. was organized with W.W. Cunningham, president; T.B. Groves, treasurer, and J.W. Cloyd, secretary and general manager. The capital stock was fixed at $3,000 and the company extended its lines from this city to Vernon, 12 miles southwest, and Haigler, Neb., twenty miles east.

     It requires time to interest a community in the usefulness, as well as the advantages, of a telephone system, after which effort, push and tenacity are generally crowned with success. On September 1, 1903, Mr. Cloyd sold a controlling interest in the Wray Telephone Co. to M.H. Spere and L.C. Blust and resigned his position as general manager.

 

1901 "Cloyd will put on a delivery wagon next week."

Stock certificate for sale . 1) Wray Telephone Co., issued in 1902 to J.W. Cloyd for one share at $10 each. Issued at Wray and signed by E.J. Donlin as president and J.W. Cloyd as secretary. Colorado state seal, green underprint. EF.

  Courtesy greatnephew Russell Wilkins

Mr. Wilkins adds "JW Cloyd was in business (mainly the Cloyd & Lepper general store) with his brother-in-law, my great grandfather Henry Lepper, who was married to Lucy Ann Wolff, Sarah's sister."

In 1902 W.E. Wolf came to Wray, where he purchased the general merchandise stock of J.W. Cloyd, and commenced business at his present location.
 

Wray Gazette, Thu 12 May 1904, Special Edition. The Wray Gazette. The Paper That's Different. A Newspaper Among the Best in the Central West. Covers the County in Particular, and the State in General With A Splendid New Service. (3 Photos - J.W. Cloyd, Editor and Publisher; C.E. Cunningham, Asso.Editor; Oscar Pierson, Compositor) Perhaps no county paper has ever been established that has met with such a hearty, spontaneous reception and warm continued support as did The Wray Gazette, which was established on March 6, 1903. From its inception to the present time The Gazette has enjoyed a steady growth in circulation and influence, as well as continued increase in advertising patronage, until now it ranks, in popularity and prosperity, with papers in cities four and five times the population of Wray. In traveling over Yuma county, it is seldom a home is found in which The Gazette is not a weekly and welcomed visitor, and nearly every business man of the town is a patron of its columns, recognizing its superior worth as an advertising medium. Aside from a most generous reading clientele at home, which of itself is the envy of more pretentious papers, its outside circulation is phenomenal, there being but few states in the union in which from one to twenty copies are not sent each week. The Gazette maintains a staff of ten able correspondents at inland districts of the county, outside of its own capable force that covers the town of Wray. This insures to readers all the local happenings in the most remote portions of the county, fresh each week, and its telegraph and telephone service covers the entire state up to the day before going to press. This makes it an ideal county paper for the general reader. The paper is also equipped with all the latest appliances for doing modern, down-to-the-second job work. That this department of the paper is appreciated is evinced by the fact that its patronage is considerably larger than that of the average country office, and a source of gratification to the proprietor, J.W. Cloyd. When Mr. Cloyd, who is a retired merchant of Wray, and a pioneer citizen of the county, conceived the idea of establishing a paper, he decided to equip the office with strictly first-class material and machinery, and to issue a paper that would, as far as possible, cover the entire field of news, giving the same in an unbiased and unprejudiced manner, and that he succeeded admirably is shown by the fact that he brought the paper up to his ideal. As regards the machinery of The Gazette, it is all operated by gasoline power, giving satisfactory results. This illustrated edition is the product of its presses. While it is a superior paper of itself, yet, the price of subscription is very low - within the reach of all - only $1.00 per year. We also have clubbing arrangements with all the leading publications and can, in nearly every instance, save you money when the same is taken in connection with our paper. Write us about it.