FELIX R. PHILLIPS .
This popular and highly esteemed young business man was born at Corinth, Mississippi, in 1860, and educated at Mound City Commercial College, St. Louis. In 1877 he came to McAlester, Choctaw Nation, where he was employed by his uncle, J. J. Phillips, as clerk in his mercantile establishment. Remaining about twelve months at that point, he moved to Atoka and went to work in his uncle's branch house in the same capacity. After three years' steady attention to business, he became a partner in the profits of the establishment, and continued for five years in that position, until 1882, when he went to Lehigh, and in conjunction with A. N. Garland and his uncle became a member of the Atoka Coal Mining Company's mercantile house, which has the sole privilege, in consideration of a contract, of providing the miners with merchandise, etc., etc. The "Company Store," as it is generally called, carries as large, if not the largest, stock of goods in Lehigh, amounting to from forty-eight to fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Phillips is a young man of unsurpassed business qualifications, and is also extremely popular, without which no man need hope to succeed in business among the mining fraternity, especially where the competition is so warm. The subject of this sketch is a nephew of J. J. Phillips, recently of Atoka, and T. J. Phillips, of McAlester, who is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation by marriage, and has a large stock ranch and many farms close to the Canadian River. Mr. Phillips has become very popular and has numerous friends and acquaintances.
Source: Leaders and Leading Men of the Indian Territory, Vol. I, Choctaws and Chickasaws, by H.F. O’Beirne, published by American Publishers’ Association, Chicago, 1891; Pg. 289
