Charles Wesley Atkins, born on July 1, 1844, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, moved to Illinois as a youth and attended Wesleyan University at Bloomington. He studied law under Hon. Walter Reeves in Streator, Illinois, and built a successful law practice before relocating to Columbia, South Dakota, in 1882. In South Dakota, Atkins practiced law, became a prominent figure in Brown County, and later pursued farming and stock raising. He owned a 480-acre farm near Columbia and was noted for his contributions to agriculture and livestock. Married to Emma L. Burgess in 1879, Atkins had four children and was active in the Methodist Episcopal church.
Charles Wesley Atkins. —The subject of this review has been a citizen of South Dakota for nearly a quarter of a century, during which time he has resided in Brown County and taken an active interest in the growth and development of the thriving town of Columbia. Charles W. Atkins, lawyer, farmer, and stock raiser was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on the first day of July 1844. When a youth he went to Illinois and received his early education in Wesleyan University at Bloomington, that state, after which he began the study of law at Streator under the direction of Hon. Walter Reeves, a leading attorney of the latter city and for a number of years a representative in the United States Congress.
After his admission to the bar Mr. Atkins practiced in Streator, built up a lucrative professional business, and soon took high rank among the successful young lawyers of the local bar. He remained in Streator until 1882, when he disposed of his interests there and came to Columbia, South Dakota, where he opened an office and engaged in the general practice of his profession. His success from the beginning was encouraging and he soon rose to a prominent place in the legal circles of Brown County, acquiring a lucrative practice in the courts, besides an extensive office business. He devoted his attention exclusively to the law until about the year 1898, when he became interested in farming and stock raising, and since that time he has carried on the latter in connection with his legal work.
Mr. Atkins owns a fine farm of four hundred and eighty acres, about two miles east of Columbia, and to the management of the same he devotes the greater part of his time, being largely interested in agriculture and the livestock business, both of which he prosecutes with marked financial results. The farm is admirably situated and especially adapted to grain and pasturage. Mr. Atkins employs modern methods in cultivating the soil, raises large crops of corn and cereals and is accounted one of the most enterprising and successful farmers in the County of Brown. He has also achieved worthy prestige in the livestock business, being one of the largest cattle raisers in the community, and as a citizen he also occupies a prominent place in public esteem, being enterprising in all the term implies and ever ready to give his encouragement and support to progressive measures for the material improvement of the country and the advancement of the people’s interests.
Mr. Atkins was reared a Republican and gave his support to the party of that name until a few years ago, when, becoming dissatisfied with its policies, he became an earnest advocate of the People’s party. Soon after adopting the principles of the latter, he was nominated for the office of County judge, but by reason of the overwhelming strength of the opposition he failed of election. He ran a second time for the same position, with similar results, although he made an able canvass and ran far ahead of other candidates on the Populist ticket.
While not actively engaged in the law as formerly, Mr. Atkins keeps in close touch with court affairs, does a large office practice and if he felt so disposed could easily stand among the foremost attorneys of the Brown County bar.
Farming and stock raising being more to his taste and far more satisfactory than the labor and care entailed by the practice of his profession, he has gradually withdrawn from the latter in order to devote his attention more thoroughly to the kind of work for which he manifests such decided inclinations. Mr. Atkins enjoys a wide acquaintance throughout the County, and his popularity among all classes of people is the direct result of his sterling character and genial personality. In everything tending to the building up of the community, materially or otherwise, he lends a helping hand, and his influence has always been on the right side of every moral issue. As a lawyer he possesses the qualities essential to success, being well grounded in the underlying principles of his profession, apt in applying his knowledge to practice and his strong reasoning powers and fluency of speech make him especially strong as a logical and eloquent advocate whose power before jurists usually results in the obtaining of a verdict for his clients.
On August 28, 1879, Mr. Atkins was united in marriage with Miss Emma L. Burgess, of Streator, Illinois, in which city the ceremony was duly solemnized. Mr. and Mrs. Atkins have a family of four children, namely: Fred W., Arthur Burgess, Walter Carlos, and Jay Willard. Religiously, the subject and wife are respected members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and as such are deeply interested in the good work of the congregation to which they belong.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.