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With wide and thorough experience in the banking business to fit him for his present duties. Oscar J. Lucas is now conducting the private bank owned by the firm of A. H. Lucas & Son, his father being the senior partner. This institution has rapidly found favor with the business public and now receives a liberal patronage. It is under the immediate supervision of the gentleman whose name introduces this review and who is widely known as an enterprising, progressive and reliable financier.

Mr. Lucas was born upon his father's farm in Mt. Pulaski township, August 22, 1862, and represents a prominent old family of Logan county, his parents being A. H. and Mary J. (Brock) Lucas, and he their only son. The father was born in this county in 1833, but the mother is a native of Ohio, whence she came to Illinois in her early girlhood days. Through the years of an active business career A. H. Lucas has carried on agricultural pursuits and is now a prosperous farmer of Logan county, owning a tract of land of eight hundred acres. He is also one of the stockholders and directors of the First National Bank of Mt. Pulaski, and in 1891 he organized the Latham Bank, which is the only bank in the town, and of which his son now has charge.

Oscar J. Lucas was reared and educated in Mt. Pulaski township, attending the district schools there and later continuing his literary course in the Mt. Pualski high school. Subsequently he prepared for business life as a student in the Gen City Commercial College, of Quincy, Illinois, and upon completing the course there he returned to his home, and for two years devoted his time and attention to farming. On the expiration of that period he accepted a position in the Sangamon County Bank, at Illiopolis, where he remained for fifteen months, when he entered the First National Bank of Mt. Pulaski, where he was employed for six months. He next became agent for the Mt. Pulaski Grain Company, but resigned that position after thireen months and returned to the First National Bank, where he remained until the organization of the Latham Bank, when, entering into partnership with his father, he took charge of the institution and has since been its manager, making it an enterprise worthy of trust and patronage. He has a thorough knowledge of the banking business in all its departments and is an enterprising, wide-awake young business man.

On December 7, 1892, Mr. Lucas was united in marriage to Miss Nettie B. Constant, of Illiopolis, who died December 12, 1896. On the 25th of April, 1901, he was again married, his second union being with Esther K. Kiick, of Latham, the youngest daughter of John and Catherine Kiick, her father a prominent and well-to-do citizen of Latham. Mr. Lucas is a prominent Mason, belonging to Latham Lodge, No. 853, A. F. & A. M.; Kedron Chapter, No. 139, R. A. M., of Illiopolis, Illinois; and Mt. Pulaski Commandery, No. 39, K. T.; has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite in Peoria Consistory, and also belongs to Mahommet Temple of the Mystic Shrine, Peoria. His entire life has been passed in Logan county, with the exception of the very brief period spent at Illiopolis, and therefore he is widely known. Many of his warmest friends are those who have known him from boyhood -- a fact which indicates that his career is one commanding respect. He is a prominent representative of an honored pioneer family and well deserves mention among the leading citizens of his native county.

Source: The Biographical Record of Logan County, Illinois; Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1901, pp. 448-449

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