Klondike

MCILROY, SHERMAN D. (18711945). Sherman D. (Tex) McIlroy, pioneer oilman, was born in Randolph County, Arkansas, in 1871, the third of the eleven children of William and Mary C. McIlroy. In 1886, when he was fifteen, the family moved to Hood County, Texas, and settled on a farm near Tolar, ten miles west of Granbury. There he remained until 1889, when he left for Fresno, California. By 1897 McIlroy had followed the lure of the gold rush to the Klondike and gone to Dawson City, Yukon Territory, where he spent several exciting years. In 1900 he married Katharyn Byrd, a native of San Antonio, at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and took her back to Dawson City. They had two daughters, the elder said to be the first white child born in the Yukon. Later the McIlroys moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, where they remained in the gold fields until 1914. McIlroy, who acquired his nickname in Alaska, then brought his family back to Texas. They settled in Amarillo, where McIlroy joined his brother, White W. McIlroy, in the meat and grocery business.