Wilbur S. Glass (b. 1852, Genesee County, New York) was a distinguished attorney in Watertown, South Dakota. Raised in Illinois, he pursued higher education at Illinois State University and the University of Michigan, where he graduated from the law department in 1876. Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1878, Glass relocated to Watertown in 1880, where he established a successful law practice. A committed Republican, Glass served three terms in the South Dakota legislature (1894–1898) and briefly as U.S. Consul in Kiehl, Germany. In 1899, he married Kathryn Garner, with whom he had two children.
Wilbur S. Glass, one of the prominent members of the bar of South Dakota, engaged in the practice of his profession in Watertown, Codington County, is a native of the state of New York, having been born in Genesee County, on the 27th of April, 1852, and being a son of Chester F. and Mary (Brown) Glass, the former of whom was born in the state of New York and the latter in Vermont. In 1857 they removed from New York to Marengo, Illinois, where the father of the subject was engaged in business for many years, having been one of the influential citizens of his community. He died at Marengo in 1872, while the widow died at Winfield, Kansas, in September 1897. The subject of this review was but five years of age at the time of his parents’ removal to Illinois, where he was reared to maturity, receiving his rudimentary education in the public schools, and thereafter entering the Illinois State University, at Champaign, where he continued his studies for two years. In 1874 he was matriculated in the law department of the famous University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated in the spring of 1876. Shortly afterward he entered a law office in Marengo, Illinois, and in June 1878, he was admitted to the bar of the state, upon examination before its supreme court. He continued in the practice of his profession in Illinois until the spring of 1880, when he came to Watertown, South Dakota, and here established himself in a practice which has grown to large proportions and which is important in the nature of its clientele.
In politics, Mr. Glass has given an unwavering allegiance to the Republican party, in whose cause he has put forth most effective personal efforts. In 1894 he was elected to represent his district in the state legislature, and so acceptable was his work in the connection that his constituents honored him with re-election in 1896 and again in 1898, thus serving three consecutive terms, covering the fourth, fifth, and sixth sessions of the legislature. In 1897 he received from President McKinley the appointment as United States consul at Kiehl, Germany, where he remained until May 1898, when he resigned the office and returned to his home in Watertown. Fraternally, he is identified with the local organizations of the Knights of Pythias and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.
On the 3rd of October, 1899, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Glass to Miss Kathryn Garner, of Anoka, Minnesota, in which state she was born and reared, and they are the parents of two children, Louise and Wilbur S., Jr.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.