Gustavus R. Krause (b. 1859, Dodge County, Wisconsin) was a prominent attorney based in Dell Rapids, Minnehaha County, South Dakota. The son of German immigrants Godfrey H. and Amelia Krause, he pursued education at a German private school, Baptist college in Monee, Illinois, and a business college in Burlington, Iowa. Krause initially engaged in the mercantile business in Nebraska before relocating to Dell Rapids in 1889. Admitted to the South Dakota bar in 1897, he built a successful legal career while actively participating in Republican politics and community life. He married Delia P. Christison in 1881, with whom he had two sons.
Gustavus R. Krause, who is engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Dell Rapids, Minnehaha County, is known as one of the successful and representative members of the South Dakota bar. He is a native of the Badger state, having been born in Dodge County, Wisconsin, on the 9th of February, 1859, and being a son of Godfrey H. and Amelia (Schmidt) Krause, who were born in Germany and who early located in Wisconsin, where the father devoted his life to farming. The subject received his preliminary discipline in a German private school in his native county, and thereafter was for two years a student in the Baptist college at Monee, Illinois, being there graduated as a member of the class of 1873. In that same year, his parents removed to Columbus, Nebraska, where he continued his studies for a time in the public high school, later entering a business college in the city of Burlington, Iowa, where he was graduated in 1878. After which he returned to his home in Columbus, Nebraska, where he eventually engaged in the mercantile business, in which he continued for a period of several years. In 1889, he disposed of his interests there and came to South Dakota, locating in Dell Rapids, where he engaged in the real-estate and loan business. Later, he took up the study of law under excellent preceptorship, and he was admitted to the bar of the state upon examination before the supreme court during the October session of 1897. After his admission to the bar, Mr. Krause at once established himself in practice in Dell Rapids, and here, through his ability, devotion to his profession, and unflagging energy and application, he has succeeded in attaining high prestige at the bar of the county and controls a large and important business. Though he has never been ambitious for personal preferment in an official way, Mr. Krause has long been an active and loyal worker in the ranks of the Republican party, of whose principles and policies he is an able advocate, while fraternally he is identified with the Ivanhoe Lodge, Knights of Pythias, and is an active member of the Presbyterian Church in his hometown, where he is held in high regard as a lawyer and citizen. Since coming to the state, Mr. Krause has accumulated several pieces of valuable land, besides a fine home and valuable business property. He has won success through his own efforts, having been dependent upon his own resources since he attained the age of fifteen years.
On the 8th of October, 1881, Mr. Krause was united in marriage to Miss Delia P. Christison, of Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, daughter of Rev. Dr. Christison. They are the parents of two sons, Homer G. and Claude G., both bright young men now away from home receiving a college education.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.