Adam H. Felker
 

Perhaps no one agency in all the world has done so much for public progress as the press, and an enterprising, well-edited journal is a most important factor in promoting the welfare and prosperity of any community. It adds to the intelligence of the people through its transmission of foreign and domestic news and through its discussion of the leading questions and issues of the day, and more than that, it makes the town or city which it represents known outside of the immediate locality, as it is sent each day or week into other districts, carrying with it an account of the events transpiring in its home locality, the advancement and progress there being made and the advantages which it offers to its residents along moral, educational, social and commercial lines. Boone county is indebted to its wide-awake journals in no small degree. Among the men who are doing a commendable work in the local newspaper field is Adam H. Felker, publisher of the Lebanon Daily Reporter. He has long been connected with journalistic work and his ability as a publisher as well as a business man, is widely acknowledged among contemporary newspaper men and the public in general. He is one of the influential citizens of Lebanon. Mr. Felker was born in Logansport, Cass county, Indiana, March 24, 1867. He is a son of Charles F. and Eliza (Schmidt) Felker, the father a native of Baden, Germany, and the mother of Detroit, Michigan.

Mr. Felker grew to manhood in Logansport and there received a good education in the common schools, also attended night school for two years, and spent one year in a business college. He has devoted his active life to newspaper work, beginning as a newsboy on the Pharos, a newspaper published at Logansport, and he worked at this while attending graded school. At the age of seventeen he was "devil" in the press room of that paper. Four years later he went into the counting room and continued as circulation and advertising manager of the Pharos for a period of eight years, meanwhile learning the various phases of conducting a newspaper establishment. He then came to Lebanon and became owner and manager of The Daily Reporter on February 22, 1897, and made a pronounced success in his new field. The Reporter now ranks with the best papers of its type in the state. It is all that could be desired from a mechanical standpoint and as a news and advertising medium has no superiors among the county-seat dailies of Indiana. He founded the Boone County Progressive, a weekly publication, at Lebanon, September 26, 1912.

Mr. Felker was married March 3, 1897, to Eva C. Young, the eldest daughter of John A. and Malinda (French) Young, a highly respected family of Logansport, where Mrs. Felker was reared and educated.

Two children have been born to our subject and wife, namely: Pharos Eliza, born December 3, 1897; and Dorothy Malinda, born March 15, 1901.

Politically, Mr. Felker is a Democrat and religiously, he holds membership with the First Baptist church, Lebanon.

Mr. Felker is a member of the Masonic, Knights of Pythias, Ben-Hur, Maccabees, Woodmen and Yeoman fraternities. He was elected and served two terms as chancellor commander of Apollo Lodge Knights of Pythias at Logansport, Indiana. He served two years as master of Boone Lodge No. 9, Free and Accepted Masons of Lebanon, and on two occasions has been a representative to the Masonic Grand Lodge.
 

Submitted by: Amy K. Davis
Source: "History of Boone County, Indiana," by Hon. L. M. Crist, 1914.