Person:Tobias Hipple (1)

Interview, Jeanette Findley and Martha Ogle, undated: Tobias Hipple did cement work, laid drainage tile and built bridges. A bridge he built in Vinita, OK, was there years later -- Paul R. Hipple was passing through on vacation and looked it up. Tobias did work in Dennison, TX, Vinita, OK, and Independence, KS, also. He met Martha Jane when he laid drainage tile on her father's farm. Tobias, Martha Jane, Percy, Ray. Paul, and Anna's husband James Reed, went out-of-state to work. Charles Reed was old enough to also be on the work crew. While they were gone Kate and Hugh McCullough lived in the Hipple house and that's where their three children were born. When Martha was three years old, they bought a house at 1304 South Main Street. Hugh had worked with the contractor and helped build the house. Tobias died of complications of epilepsy caused years earlier when he fell, head-first from a tree, onto a brick walk at his home on Cherry Street. He became violent and would turn on Anna Hipple Reed's son, his grandson Charles, whom he loved dearly. Newspaper clipping [from Paris, IL, paper..."about 1900" in pencil] HIPPLE LANDS BIG CONTRACT Former Paris Man Is Interested In Mammoth Piece Of Road Building SIXTY-SIX MILES OF HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION Work Includes Two Hundred Bridges and Culverts, Calling for About Fifty Thousand Cubic Yards of Concrete Tobias H. Hipple, a former citizen of Paris, who is now located at Denison, Tex., has written an interesting letter to Mr. Wm. B. Sheriff, of this city, relative to a big contract, in which he is interested at that place. He is identified with the firm of Hipple and McSpadden, general contractors, and the job in question is one of rock road construction, which it will require about three years to complete. Some excerpts from Mr. Hipple's letter, will doubtless be of interest to his many Paris friends, being as follows: "We have a contract here for sixty-six miles of rock road, fourteen feet wide and six miles of city streets, of the same width, though the property owners are now talking of having the work extended to the full width of the street. All bridges and culverts are to be of concrete and this part of the work is under my supervision. There are about two hundred of these bridges and culverts, calling for about fifty thousand cubic yards of concrete. Of the bridges, forty are large and sixty small, a number of them having a span of sixty feet. Three of the roads are now almost done. We are going to haul our crushed rock with traction engines and patent reversible wagons, that hold eight yards each and one engine will pull three wagons, at a guaranteed speed of five miles per hour. These wagons cost $650 each and the engines $2800 apiece. "We have one of the largest crushers on the market and the contract price for the job is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, with three years in which to complete it. We have had but one rain since we have been here, that being the first in about three years, all of the creeks and nearly all of the wells being dry. Most of the people have had to haul water for miles. We dug a well in the bottom of a creek for our water and you should have seen the people who watered their stock and secured water for other purposes there." Mr. Hipple states that the Winter in Denison has been exceedingly mild, there being but one severe cold snap, which was of recent occurrence and played havoc with the early blooming fruit trees. Paris Beacon News, 11 May 1974 " Sixty years ago" Tobias Hipple left for Lake Charles, La., where he will build 14 miles of brick road.

1.   Martha Ogle.
2.   Paul Revere Hipple.