Walter S. Dickey was a newspaper publisher, politician, and industrialist in Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

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Dickey was born in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 and moved to Kansas City in 1885.

In 1889, he established the W.S. Dickey Clay Manufacturing Company which started out creating ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

 pipe

Pipe (material)

A pipe is a tubular section or hollow cylinder, usually but not necessarily of circular cross-section, used mainly to convey substances which can flow — liquids and gases , slurries, powders, masses of small solids...

s made of "burnt clay" that were used to drain farmland via tile drainage

Tile drainage

Tile drainage is an agriculture practice that removes excess water from soil subsurface. Whereas irrigation is the practice of adding additional water when the soil is naturally too dry, drainage brings soil moisture levels down for optimal crop growth...

. The company had large plants in Pittsburg, Kansas

Pittsburg, Kansas

Pittsburg is a city in Crawford County, in southeastern Kansas, United States. It is the most populous city in Crawford County and in southeastern Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 20,233.-History:...

 and Deepwater, Missouri

Deepwater, Missouri

Deepwater is a city in Henry County, Missouri, United States. The population was 507 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Deepwater is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land....

 and made a fortune providing pipes for buried conduit lines

Electrical conduit

An electrical conduit is an electrical piping system used for protection and routing of electrical wiring. Electrical conduit may be made of metal, plastic, fiber, or fired clay. Flexible conduit is available for special purposes....

 of Bell Telephone

Bell Telephone

Bell Telephone may refer to:* Bell Telephone Company, several telephone companies with similar names* Bell Telephone Building , various* The Bell Telephone Hour, a long-running radio and television concert program...

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He was chairman of the Missouri Republican Party

Missouri Republican Party

The Missouri Republican Party is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party in Missouri. The party Chairman is David Cole, an attorney from Cassville, Missouri who was elected in January 2009.-Current Republican officeholders:...

 and was to help engineer the victory of Herbert S. Hadley

Herbert S. Hadley

Herbert Spencer Hadley was an American lawyer and a Republican Party politician from St. Louis, Missouri. Born in Olathe, Kansas, he was Missouri Attorney General from 1905 to 1909 and was the 32nd Governor of Missouri from 1909 to 1913. As Attorney General, he successfully prosecuted Standard Oil...

, the first Republican governor of Missouri since Reconstruction.

He owned the Kansas City Missouri River Navigation Company for river barges between Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 until selling the entire fleet to the United States Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

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In the 1920s he purchased the Kansas City Post and Kansas City Journal combining them into the Kansas City Journal-Post

Kansas City Journal-Post

The Kansas City Journal-Post was a newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri from 1854 to 1942 which was the oldest newspaper in the city when it folded....

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He died at his home in the Rockhill neighborhood in 1931. His home was purchased by William Volker

William Volker

William Volker was an entrepreneur who turned a picture frame business into a multimillion-dollar empire and who then gave away his fortune to shape much of Kansas City, Missouri, both through the William Volker Fund and anonymously earning him the nickname of "Mr...

 and donated to be the first building at the University of Kansas City which would become the University of Missouri - Kansas City. It is now called Scofield Hall.