LESLIE C. DENNY is one of the numerous prosperous and enterprising farmers and stockmen about the town of Iowa Park, Wichita county. A little more than fifteen years ago this fertile region was giving up its wealth in meager measure as stock ranges, and its wealth and fertility as an agricultural center had not been tapped. Then came enterprise in the shape of resourceful, energetic, shrewd and persevering men, and in a few short years transformed the prairie stretches into a beautiful succession of diversified grain fields and pasture. Whereby, the banks of this region are now overflowing with the deposits of the farmers and stockmen, and the territory of which Iowa Park is a center is among the wealthy and wealth-producing sections of the great Lone Star state.
Mr. Denny, himself so prominent in this agricultural development and progress, is a Kentuckian by birth and parentage. He was born in Mercer county, that state, in 1854, a son of Walter and Eliza J. (Banta) Denny, both natives of Kentucky and now deceased, his father having passed away on the old Denny homestead in Mercer county in 1885.
Mr. Denny obtained his early advantages in the way of education and practical training in his native state and on the home farm. When he was twenty-one years old he went to Trenton, Grundy county, Missouri, where he lived for two years, and then for a short time in Saline county of the same state. In 1879 he moved to Grayson county, Texas, and farmed there for the following ten years. In 1889 he located at his present place, seven miles southwest of Iowa Park, in Wichita county. His brother S. L. Denny came to this locality about the same time, and the brothers own large adjoining farms, the neighborhood being known as “Denny.” Mr. L. C. Denny’s large and well improved place contains five hundred acres, and it lies in the famous Wichita valley and in a region noted for its special wealth of crops, particularly wheat, which grain is of as fine quality and as abundant in yield as in many of its more indigenous northern states. The brothers own substantial and commodious residences, and have telephone connection with Iowa Park. Mr. Denny is in all respects a modern, up-to-date agriculturist, carrying on his enterprises with profit both to himself and the community, and is a representative citizen of this locality. Around Iowa Park the farmers are the moneyed men, and in large measure those who take the initiative in building up and promoting public undertakings.
While living in Grayson county Mr. Denny was married to Miss Kate George, and they now have a bright and happy family of nine children, Maggie J., Gertrude, Walter, Ida, Hugh, Lottie, Lloyd, Marie and Earl. Those of school age are being given the best obtainable education, and both Mr. and Mrs. Denny are thoroughly in harmony and co-operation with the intellectual and social progress in their community.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, p. 155.