Roy Z. Taylor. A resident of Oklahoma City since 1901 Mr. Taylor has gained prestige as one of the progressive business men and loyal and influential citizens of the fine city whose vigorous youth is on a parity with his own. He has taken specially earnest interest in public affairs, has served as a member of the city council and in the autumn of 1914 he was elected a member of the board of county commissioners of Oklahoma County, in which important office he is serving with characteristic loyalty, zeal and efficiency, his various official preferments fully indicating his status in popular confidence and esteem. Mr. Taylor has conducted a retail cigar business in Oklahoma City since 1911, at 229 West Grand Avenue, and effective service and fair and honorable dealings have gained to him a large and appreciative patronage, so that his business enterprise is now one of the most important of its kind in the capital city.

Like many others of the representative citizens of Oklahoma, Roy Zachary Taylor claims the State of Missouri as the place of his nativity. He was born at Windsor, Henry County, that state, on the 8th of May, 1880, and is a son of Frank T. and Virginia (Berry) Taylor, the former of whom was born in Kentucky and the latter in Missouri. Frank T. Taylor was a valiant soldier of the Confederacy during the Civil war, his enlistment having taken place in Missouri and his service having been principally in the command of the valiant and intrepid General Price, whose famous raids constitute a thrilling chapter in the history of the great conflict between the North and the South.

Roy Z. Taylor was reared and educated in his native state, where he duly availed himself of the advantages of the public schools. He was eighteen years of age at the inception of the Spanish-American war, and, like his father, he did his part in upholding the military honors of Missouri. He enlisted in the Second Missouri Volunteer Infantry, with which he continued in service eleven months, at the expiration of which he received his honorable discharge, his regiment not having been called to the stage of active polemic operations.

In 1901 Mr. Taylor came to Oklahoma City, and with this place as headquarters he was for the following ten years an ambitious and successful traveling salesman for a wholesale grocery establishment. He then engaged in the retail grocery business on his own account, and his store is essentially metropolitan in equipment and service, while his success has given him vantage-place as one of the representative merchants of the city.

The home of Mr. Taylor is in the attractive residence district known as Capitol Hill, and he was a member of the municipal council of the city thus designated at the time when it became an integral part of Oklahoma City, and thereafter he served as a member of the city council of the metropolis until the commission form of government was adopted by Oklahoma City, in 1911.

There came fitting recognition of the earnest and loyal services of Mr. Taylor when he was called to even more important office, that of member of the board of county commissioners, to which he was elected in November, 1914, as representative of the district embracing the greater part of Oklahoma City. He assumed the functions of this office in January. 1915, and at the time the following statements were made concerning him: “Those who have watched the conduct of Mr. Taylor and have studied his high character, are assured that in him they will have at all times an efficient, careful and conscientious representative on this important board, under the jurisdiction of which millions of dollars are expended in connection with public affairs in the county. He is distinctively one of the solid business men of the great city in which he has cast his lot, a desirable citizen and a safe counselor in matters of moment,–one always ready to do his full share in that work which must result in the further advancement of the city, the county and the State.”

In politics Mr. Taylor is a democrat, he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and Mrs. Taylor is a member of the Christian Church, which he attends and liberally supports.

At Chandler, Oklahoma, on the 21st of November, 1904, Mr. Taylor wedded Miss Minnie Lee Belcher, daughter of Thomas Belcher, who was born in the same town in Missouri as was Mr. Taylor, Mrs. Belcher likewise being a native of the same place. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have two children–Roy Z., Jr., born in 1905, and William Lee, born in 1911.