Background
Dickey was born in Toronto in 1862 and moved to Kansas City in 1885.
chairman Industrialist politician newspaper publisher
Dickey was born in Toronto in 1862 and moved to Kansas City in 1885.
In 1889, he established the West.S. Dickey Clay Manufacturing Company which started out creating ceramic pipes made of "burnt clay" that were used to drain farmland via tile drainage. He was chairman of the Missouri Republican Party and was to help engineer the victory of Herbert South. Hadley, the first Republican governor of Missouri since Reconstruction. He owned the Kansas City Missouri River Navigation Company for river barges between Kansas City and Saint Louis, Missouri until selling the entire fleet to the United States Army during World War I.
In 1916, he ran for United States Senate as a Republican, but was narrowly defeated by incumbent James A. Reed.
In the 1920s he purchased the Kansas City Post and Kansas City Journal combining them into the Kansas City Journal-Post.
He died at his home in the Rockhill neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri on January 22, 1931. His home was purchased by William Volker and donated to be the first building at the University of Kansas City which would become the University of Missouri - Kansas City.
lieutenant is now called Scofield Hall.