Tom Morgan, circa 1925 Negative #N008223

TOM MORGAN

Born in Connecticut in 1864, Tom Morgan was raised in Garnett, Kansas, where he worked in the local newspaper office. By the 1880s Morgan had developed a reputation as an author of humorous local color pieces. After moving with his parents and brother to Rogers in 1890, he began to specialize in stories written in authentic Ozark dialect, featuring such characters as Gap Johnson of Rumpus Ridge and J. Fuller Gloom.

A regular columnist in the Kansas City Star, Morgan was frequently published in Life and the Saturday Evening Post. He once quipped, "It took me fifteen years of solid contributing to kill Puck, but the healthy condition of the Country Gentleman, the Ladies Home Journal, and the Kansas City Star indicates that they may outlast me."

A somewhat eccentric character, Morgan was generous to friends and as humorous in everyday life as he was in his fiction. He never married, explaining that he already had "a phonograph and a mean disposition, so what would I want with a wife?" He lived at the corner of Third and Walnut, ran a bookstore in the Post Office lobby,
and counted Will Rogers amongst his many friends. Tom Morgan died in 1928.