CONNECTION TO BUTLER COUNTY

Growing up in El Dorado, this environment gave Jessie Marion Koogler an earthiness, a sense of humor and loyalty, a love for nature, and in some unaccountable way, her devotion to art and beauty.  She attended local schools through high school.

Her father, Dr. Marion A. Koogler, was the first of his family to forsake farming for a profession.  Seeing the shortage of doctors while serving in the Civil War, he entered medical college.  He practiced medicine for almost 40 years, though he never lost the respect for good farm land.  His medical profession served him as a means of acquiring land.  Less than a year after arriving in El Dorado, he made his first Butler County land purchase and continued buying land, often consulting with close friend and patient James W. Teter.  He had an appreciation for the native bluestem grass so valuable for cattle.  By 1908 he owned 3,248 acres, all in Butler County southwest of El Dorado.

El Dorado’s first successful oil well was brought in during September, 1915, and the town was soon a boom town.  Much of the acreage still owned by Dr. Koogler was under oil and gas leases, eventually making the family wealthy.  By 1935 the Koogler wells had produced over four million barrels from its 104 wells.  They continued producing strong throughout Marion’s life.


COMING TO / LEAVING THE AREA

The Koogler family arrived in El Dorado, Kansas in 1884 when Dr. Koogler accepted a position as doctor and surgeon for the Santa Fe Railroad.  The Koogler’s found the move to be a good one, though Mrs. Koogler never stopped pining for Ohio.

Their first home in town was a modest frame house at 608 Star Street (today it is numbered 620).  About eight years later, the family moved into the more pretentious Victorian house at 729 West Central Avenue.

Jessie frequently accompanied Dr. Koogler on his social and business calls.  She became acquainted with Mrs. Marie Antoinette Murdock, wife of then political boss of Butler County, Thomas Benton Murdock.  The Murdocks lived in an imposing dark red house on Central Ave.  Little Jessie Marion admired, and in later life imitated, Mrs. Murdock’s every-day dramatics and great zest for life.

El Dorado of 1884 was a thriving township.  Here Jessie grew up adored, spoiled, and indulged under the overprotective eyes of her doting parents.  Completely dependent on her father, she had a tendency to take to her bed when events and people went against her will.

Under her parents’ constant watchful eyes, Jessie was not permitted to join other children in sidewalk games or swimming or horseback riding.  She remained indoors reading, drawing, or daydreaming in a secret world.  She also had piano lessons and a weekly class in elocution, part of every genteel young lady’s education.

The family at first attended the First Baptist Church but later joined the Presbyterian Church.  They continued living in El Dorado up through their daughter’s college years.  Upon retirement in 1912, Dr. Koogler moved his family back to Ohio, largely to please his wife.