THOMAS A. TRUSTY, who is now most successfully engaged in the real estate business at Fort Smith, Arkansas, has labored in the territory how embraced in Sebastian county for more than a score of years and he has won the unalloyed respect and esteem of all who know him, while his worldly possessions have increased in a commensurate degree to the wisdom and skill he has manifested in his investments and business affairs. He has ever been a potent influence for good in connection with public affairs in this section of the state and among the many fine things which he has done for Sebastian county is the founding of the Trusty school. He has also been an active factor in connection with the promotion of the Sebastian county good-roads system and in all his varied activities he has met with unqualified success.

Born at Owensboro, Daviess county, Kentucky, on the 19th of July, 1867, Mr. Trusty is a son of William and Martha (Davis) Trusty, the latter being deceased. Thomas A. Trusty was reared to maturity in the place of his birth, and after completing the curriculum of the public schools of Owensboro he was matriculated in the Southwestern Male & Female College, at South Carrollton, Kentucky, in which excellent institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1888. Before leaving school he had given attention to teaching and also afterward. This was in Kentucky, and he removed to Arkansas, locating in Sebastian county, in 1889. For several years thereafter he was principal of the Washburn High School and in 1896 he established his home in the city of Fort Smith. For a time he was principal of the Trusty public school, the founding of which institution forms an interesting chapter in the educational annals of Sebastian county and a fine tribute to the public spirit and self sacrifice of Mr. Trusty and those who so loyally supported him in the movement to establish this school.

The Trusty school was originally known as the Nolan Springs school, which was located about a mile and a half north of Fort Smith, near the Arkansas river. About the latter part of the year 1900 a petition was presented to the Fort Smith school board to annex about one-half of the Nolan Springs school district to the Fort Smith public schools. This plan, had it been carried out, would have impoverished the remainder of the Nolan Springs district so that an adequate school could not have been maintained in that section. At this juncture Mr. Trusty inaugurated a determined movement to preserve the district for school purposes, calling the entire district to a mass meeting and illustrating to the citizens that if they allowed the district to be cut in two, the portion left out would be so impoverished that it could never hope to have adequate school facilities. He succeeded in stimulating the people to such an extent that a private subscription of thirty-five hundred dollars was raised among the residents of the district, many of them cheerfully subscribing to the limit of their financial ability. With this fund, a fourroom school building, known as the Trusty School, was built on that part of the district that was to have been annexed to the Fort Smith city schools under the plan previously mentioned. Subsequently when the case came up in the county court the county judge annulled the annexation petition and allowed the building of the Trusty School, as described. Some two years later a large section of country lying between Fort Smith and the river was annexed to the city proper with the result that the entire district was then enabled to take advantage of the city public school system, the Trusty School becoming a part of the city schools. At the time of its erection, four rooms were considered too much for the then school population of the district but since that time the school has been enlarged to ten rooms and it has continued in a growing and flourishing condition. Resigning the principalship of Trusty School, in 1905, Mr. Trusty became superintendent of agents for the Equitable Life Insurance Company in the states of Arkansas and Oklahoma. He remained incumbent of that important position for a period of five years, at the expiration of which he formed a partnership alliance with Harry M. Ramey, of Little Rock, taking the general agency of the National Life Insurance Company for Arkansas and Oklahoma. This business required a portion of his time in Little Rock although he continued to maintain his home at Fort Smith. Later resigning from that work, Mr. Trusty formed a partnership with Fred A. Reutzel, under the firm name of Reutzel & Trusty, the same engaging in the general real estate business, at Fort Smith. A large and enterprising business has been built up and Mr. Reutzel and Mr. Trusty have been eminently successful in their undertaking. Another worthy achievement of Mr. Trusty was the good he accomplished in promoting and carrying forward the building of the Van Buren road, the first piece of good-road construction work in Sebastian county. In this connection he was associated with Mr. Herbert M. Beck, a sketch of whose career appears on other pages of this work. Since the completion of the Van Buren road, a large number of miles of other good roads have been built in Sebastian county, making it the best equipped county in the state in that respect. Due to the inspiration offered by the pioneer good-road movement in Sebastian county, similar movements have been initiated and carried forward throughout the state of Arkansas. The Van Buren road has been the direct means of increasing land in value from one hundred dollars per acre to subdivision property worth two thousand dollars per acre. October 12, 1895, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Trusty to Miss Nannie Bell, of Washburn, this county. She was born and reared in Sebastian county and is a daughter of William Bell, of Washburn. To Mr. and Mrs. Trusty have been born three children, whose names are here entered in respective order of birth–Eugene, Lola and Nellie. In his political adherency Mr. Trusty endorses the cause of the Democratic party and he gives freely of his aid and influence in support of all measures projected for the good of the community. In a fraternal way he is affiliated with the time-honored Masonic organization, in which he has passed through the circle of the York Rite branch, being a Knight Templar, and he is also connected with the adjunct Masonic order, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is likewise a valued and appreciative member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and his religious faith is in harmony with the tenets of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. It would be hard to find a more loyal and public-spirited citizen in Fort Smith than Mr. Trusty and it is most gratifying to the publishers of this review to here accord him recognition among the representative Arkansans, whose devotion to the public welfare has been prolific of so much good in connection with the progress and development of the state.