George Innes

INNES, MUNRO, BRAINERD

Posted By: Debbie Gerischer (email)
Date: 7/7/2007 at 11:07:34

A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY,
BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the
Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931

GEORGE INNES, Davenport manufacturer, inventor and business man, is a native
of Iowa, and a man of international prominence, having for a number of years
devoted his abilities as a business man and a part of his private fortune to
the development of foreign missionary and educational enterprises, a work
that has brought him in contact with many eminent personages of the old world.

Mr. Innes was born in Grant Township, Tama County, Iowa, February 8, 1873,
son of James and Elizabeth (Munro) Innes. Both of his parents were born in
Scotland, having been brought to America when children, and were married at
Ontario, Canada, George innes graduated in 1894 from Tilford Collegiate
Institute at Vinton, Iowa, and in the same year entered on a business career as
treasurer of the Eagle Grove Electric Company. In 1902 he established a lumber
business at Rushmore and Magnolia, Minnesota, was made cashier of the First
National Bank of Rushmore in 1905, and in 1907 became president. Since 1905 Mr.
Innes has been prominently identified with the colonization and development
of lands in Western Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan. He still has large
holdings, and in the center of one of his colonization projects was founded a
town named in his honor, Innes.

Mr. Innes some years ago invented what is known as the Innes Grain Shocker,
and in the industrial community of Bettendorf, at Davenport, he is president
of the Innes Manufacturing Company, operating a modern plant for the
manufacture of the Innes Shocker and Innes Pick-up and Innes Two Sickle Windrowers,
which have had a wide use and are valuable time and labor savers in the great
grain fields of the West. His time and study have been given to the
improvement and perfection of these harvesting appliances.

In 1908 Mr. Innes and his wife and two sons made a trip around the world,
visiting England, France, Germany, Palestine, China, Korea, Japan, Egypt and
other countries. This trip aroused in him an enthusiasm for missionary work
that has taken a great deal of his time during the past twenty years. He has
assisted in promoting and maintaining many foreign missions. The chief object
of his work in this field has been in providing the opportunities for higher
educational training in Egypt. On his first world tour he discovered that
Egypt had no institutions of learning providing facilities above the equivalent
of an American high school, this being true of all the missions schools and
government schools in the country. For ten years Mr. Innes labored in
cooperation with missionary organizations, education societies and prominent
individuals in bringing about the establishment of the American University at Cairo,
an institution that now has a financial status of approximately two million
dollars and is already functioning as a school equipped to provide learning
and training for leadership among the promising native sons of the country.
Mr. Innes is a member of the board of trustees of the university. In the work
of promoting the school he was associated with the late Lord Kitchener and
had the cooperation of other British officials. For over ten years he gave all
his time to these lines of philanthropic work and from 1910 to 1921 made his
home at Philadelphia. Since his world tour he has made several trips to
Europe. While living in Philadelphia he was a director of the Sunday School
Times.

Mr. Innes now resides on Hillcrest Avenue in Davenport. He is a member of
the First Presbyterian Church of Davenport, and is a member of the United
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, which conducts all American missionary
work of the church in Egypt. He is a former committeeman of the laymen's
missionary movement of New York and a member of the Davenport Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Innes married, October 26, 1898, Edith Elizabeth Brainerd, of Eagle
Grove, Iowa. They are the parents of four sons, Brainerd Munro, John Sweet,
Robert George and Donald Watson. The oldest son is a graduate of Princeton
University.