The Fort Dodge Messenger: Feb. 19, 1906

Thought Judge Kenyon a Boy

Youthful Appearance of Fort Dodge Attorney Deceived.

Sioux City People Find Out When he Wins Cases that He is of age.

The youthful face and general boyish appearance of Judge W.S. Kenyon of Fort Dodge, attorney in Iowa for the Illinois Central railroad, makes him the victim of some amusing incident almost every time he visits the Woodbury county court house, says the Sioux City Journal. The other day he went into the office of the courts and asked for some papers in a case that had been filed there.

“Are you an attorney,” asked a deputy who happened to be new in the office,

“Yes, my name is Kenyon, of Fort Dodge,” answered the railroad attorney, modestly.

The deputy sized up the judge but would not give out the papers to him until another deputy who had had a similar experience with the judge assured him laughingly that it was all right.

When Judge Kenyon appeared in the court room as attorney for the Central in the Tarashonsky case last week one of the jurymen, who sat waiting to be called in the case, was heard to remark:

“Gosh, that boy ain’t going to represent the railroad in this case is he? I am sorryf or him with all them big lawyers against him.”

Incidentally it may be mentioned Judge Kenyon won the case.

(Editor’s note: The Tarashonsky case is referenced here. A 5-year-old child was struck by a train in the railroad yards in Sioux City. There was a path commonly used to cross the tracks, and the railroad workers knew that people used the path. It was argued that the railroad employees saw the child in time to stop.)

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