AMIL H. JAPP
Vol. 3, p. 1066

The legal profession of Cotton county number among its able and thoroughly learned members, Amil H. Japp, city attorney of Walters, an office which he has held since his arrival in this city in 1912. Unlike many, Mr. Japp did not enter his practice in untried youth, for his early years were passed in agricultural pursuits, but when once entered upon his career he made steady advancement, so that today he occupies a substantial and firmly-established place among the practitioners of Cotton county.

Mr. Japp was born in Scott County, Iowa, June 18, 1877, and is a son of John A. and Doris (SCHWIN) JAPP, the families on both sides being old and honored ones in Germany. His father, born in 1836, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, came to the United States in 1876 and settled at Davenport, Scott County, Iowa, where he began to accumulate the means for the foundation of a home. About the year 1879 he went to Hamilton County, Iowa, where he continued his farming and stock raising operations, remaining there until 1891, when he came to Oklahoma and settled at El Reno, that being his home until 1902, since when he has lived at Lawton, retired. During his active career he was an industrious and efficient workman and through thrift, good management and well directed effort accumulated a competence that allows him to pass his declining years in comfort. He is a democrat in his political views, but is a modest, unassuming man and has never sought public office, being content to remain in private life. He and Mrs. Japp were members of the Lutheran Church. She was born in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, in 1831, where they were married, and died at Lawton in 1908. They were the parents of two children: Gus F., who resides at Lawton and is engaged in the real estate and farm loan business; and Amil H., of this review.

Amil H. Japp was reared on his father's farm and attended the district schools of Hamilton County, Iowa. At the age of eighteen years he began operations on his own account, continuing in Iowa for two years; and in 1889 came to El Reno, Oklahoma, taking up land southwest of the city and cultivating it until 1898. In that year he entered Fort Worth (Texas) University, where he was graduated from the law department in 1901, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and immediately entered upon the practice of his profession at Lawton, as a pioneer citizen and legist of that community. On September 10, 1912, Mr. Japp removed to Walters, where he has since continued in the practice of his profession, at this time carrying on a large general civil and criminal practice. He maintains well appointed offices in the Dyer-Blair Building, on Broadway, and is a valued member of the Cotton county Bar Association, among the members of which he bears a high reputation. A democrat in his political views, he represented Comanche and Stephens counties in the First and Second Oklahoma State Legislatures, and since coming to Walters has been city attorney, his last appointment having been received May 1, 1915, for a term of two years. He has been connected with a number of important cases, in all of which he has conducted himself with ability and dignity, and is justly accounted one of the men who have made their mark in the law through the exercise of their own talents. Mr. Japp belongs to Walters Lodge No. 228, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Guthrie Consistory No. 1, of the thirty-second degree in Masonry; and to Walters Lodge No. 7732, Modern Woodmen of America, and has many friends in fraternal circles.

In 1909 Mr. Japp was married to Miss Carrie M. HACKENBERG, daughter of Frank Hackenberg, who has been engaged in farming in Oklahoma for a number of years and is now residing at Lawton. Mr. And Mrs. Japp have no children. They are members of the Presbyterian Church, in the work of which they have taken an active and helpful part. Both are popular in social circles of Walters.

Transcribed by Sherry Van Scoy Hall, San Mateo CA, November 1, 1998.