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Herbert Hiram Champlin was born on February 28, 1868 in Winnebago County near Rockford, Illinois to Charles and Alice (Pickard) Champlin. He was the second oldest of six sons and one daughter.
The family moved to first to Canton, Kansas in 1872 and then McPherson, Kansas in 1876 where Herb attended Spring Valley School and then McPherson High School.
In 1887 he graduated from Hill’s Business College in Wichita, Kansas.
From 1887 to 1889 he worked as a cashier at First National Bank of McPherson.
In 1889 he made the run into “Old Oklahoma” and settled in Kingfisher where he started a lumber business.
In 1893 he moved into the Cherokee Strip to what was to become Enid, Oklahoma. He started a lumber business and later a hardware store. Over the next several years he established a number of lumber yards and hardware stores
On November 14, 1895 in McPherson he married Ary Delight Noble, his childhood sweetheart. They had four children – Marie C. Cotton (1899–1934), Helen C. Oven (1901-1980), Joe Noble (1905-1970), and Herbert Hiram, Jr. (1913–1933).
He served on Enid’s first school board.
In 1903 he represented Garfield County in the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature (Council).
In 1906 he represented Garfield County at the Oklahoma Territory Constitutional Convention.
He helped organize Enid State Bank which later became First National Bank of Enid. In 1910 he purchased controlling interest in the bank.
In 1916 he and Ary invested in a lease on George Beggs’ farm near Garber, Oklahoma and on Christmas Day 1916 the prolific Beggs No. 1 began to flow. Within a year there were 12 producing wells on the lease.
In 1917 he purchased a small refining operation. Through growth and acquisition Champlin Refining Company became what was for many years reported to be the largest privately-owned, fully-integrated oil company in the world. Its operations included exploration, production, pipelines (Cimarron Pipe Line Company), bulk plants and retail service stations. In 1955, after his death, the company was sold for $55 million.
In 1923 the first Champlin service station opened in Enid. Over the years many more stations opened with 770 changing names when sold by Union Pacific Resources in 1984. Many Midwesterners still remember the company tagline, “A Great Name on the Great Plains”.
In March 1933, H.H. Champlin’s was the sole bank to remain open for the “Bank Holiday”. This prompted Governor “Alfalfa Bill” Murray to send the State Guard to Enid to close the bank, an event reported nation-wide.
In 1936 he began construction of a large and stately home in Enid, in part, to provide much needed jobs and, in part, to serve as a landmark for Enid. It was one of the first properties in Enid to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1940 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
On April 24, 1944 Herbert Hiram Champlin passed away in his home.
H.H. Champlin left an astounding business legacy and he also left a personal legacy of family and friends. They remember he loved America and especially the west. He forbade the inclusion of anything non-American in his home. He had a fondness for western art, especially the works of Fredrick Remington. He was fiercely independent and took his principles seriously – on several occasions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He did not drink and was an avowed enemy of tobacco. He believed in hard work, thrift and integrity.
He told many his greatest accomplishment was to save $500 on a salary of $50 per month for it gave him a foundation for later business endeavors. These characteristics caused writer and contractor Henry B. “Heinie” Bass to entitle a book about H.H. Champlin Building For A Rugged Individualist. As Heine put it, “H.H. Champlin was given the sage advice of banker E.F. Sweeny to go to Enid and ‘grow up with the country’ and anyone familiar with the career of H.H. Champlin can only agree that the advice was timely and well followed.”