Ernest Jasper Lacy, born on November 2, 1873, in Austin, Minnesota, is the official surveyor of Stanley County, South Dakota. He moved to South Dakota in 1881, where his father built the first hotel in Roscoe. Following his father’s financial struggles, Lacy began working to support his family at age 12. Initially joining a surveying party, he shifted his focus from law to civil engineering, eventually overseeing significant government land surveys. Lacy owns a successful sheep ranch and is vice-president of the South Dakota Horticultural Society. A dedicated Methodist, he is active in local church and charitable activities. He married Estelle Mae Lyman in 1900.
Ernest Jasper Lacy, present official surveyor of Stanley County, South Dakota, was born November 2, 1873, at Austin, Minnesota, the son of John S. and Katherine (Gibbs) Lacy, natives of Ohio and New York respectively. The father, a farmer by occupation, removed to South Dakota in 1881 and built the first hotel at Roscoe, later known as Egan, which he conducted for a time. Subsequently, due to financial embarrassment, he changed his residence to the subject’s ranch, six miles west of Flandreau, Moody County.
Ernest J. was but four years of age when his parents moved to South Dakota, and from that time to the present his life has been mainly spent within the boundaries of his adopted state. His early experiences on the farm were similar to those of the majority of country lads, and he grew up with a practical acquaintance with agricultural labor in its various phases, attending the public schools of his neighborhood during the winter seasons. As stated in a preceding paragraph, his father met with severe business reverses, resulting in the loss of nearly all of his property, which, with failing health that followed, reduced the family to somewhat straitened circumstances. These misfortunes occurring when Ernest J. was a youth of twelve, he nobly gave up some of his ambitions and started out to make his own way in the world, and at the same time to assist his parents. Leaving school, he joined a surveying party under F. W. Pettigrew, hoping to save from his salary money sufficient to prosecute his legal studies, after contributing a certain amount to the object above noted. He started with this party in the summer of 1895 as flagman, discharging his duties faithfully and well, and while thus engaged concluded to give up the idea of studying law and turn his attention to civil engineering. He made such rapid progress in the latter profession that during the summers of 1896 and 1897 he was given charge of a party running a transit, under the direction of Mr. Pettigrew, and the winter of the latter year he spent drawing plats and writing notes of the self-same survey. From 1898 to 1900 inclusive Mr. Lacy was joint contractor with Mr. Pettigrew in surveying government lands in South Dakota west of the Missouri River, and during those years he had personal charge of a party that helped survey over four thousand miles of the general domain, an experience beneficial to him in many ways, especially in that it enabled him to master the principles of his profession and become a skillful and thoroughly reliable surveyor. In addition to engineering, Mr. Lacy is also largely interested in the livestock business, owning since 1900 a fine sheep ranch in Stanley County, on which he makes his home and which, plentifully stocked with the best grade of sheep obtainable, yields him a large share of the liberal income he every year receives. He has made many valuable improvements on his property, which have added greatly to its beauty and attractiveness, and in addition to his livestock interests he is at the present time vice-president of the South Dakota Horticultural Society. He is also engaged in real estate business in connection with his other lines of endeavor, and since 1900 has been official surveyor of Stanley County. Mr. Lacy was reared a Republican, but in recent years he has been practically independent in politics, though inclining somewhat towards the Prohibition Party. He supports the candidates best qualified, mentally and morally, for the positions to which they aspire, but keeps himself well informed relative to the leading questions and issues of the day, on all of which he has strong convictions and decided opinions. Religiously, Mr. Lacy is a Methodist, and he exemplifies his faith by his daily life and conversation, being a liberal contributor to the local church with which he and his wife are identified, and a supporter of all charitable and benevolent institutions and enterprises.
Reference is made in a preceding paragraph to Mr. Lacy’s limited school privileges during his youth, and how his education was interfered with by circumstances over which he had no control. With a laudable ambition to make up in part at least for this deficiency, he afterward entered high school at Sioux Falls, where he pursued his studies with great assiduity until completing the full course, graduating with a high standard of scholarship in the year 1894. While attending the above institution he was a member of Company B, South Dakota National Guards, and in due time rose by successive promotions from private to the rank of second lieutenant. In a general examination on tactics and drill he had the honor of standing second to but one member of the organization in the state, making ninety-nine points out of a possible hundred, an achievement of which he and his friends feel deservedly proud.
On September 11, 1900, Mr. Lacy was happily married to Miss Estelle Mae Lyman, whose father, Lewis Lyman, was one of the early pioneer settlers of Minnehaha County. Standing forward as one of the representative young men of his County, and as one of its most intelligent, enterprising, and valued citizens, Mr. Lacy owes his pronounced success in life solely to his own efforts and is clearly entitled to the proud appellation of a “self-made man.” He possesses great force of character and a pleasing personality, which, combined with fine social qualities and superior professional ability, make him not only a useful man in his day and generation but also popular with all classes and conditions of his fellow citizens. Warm-hearted, affable, and pleasing in address and manner, he numbers his friends by the score and the respectable position he has already reached in professional, business, and social circles is indicative of the still greater and more influential career that awaits him in the future.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.