A Life of Steady Service in Prineville
By Steve Lent, Museum Historian
In the early years of the 20th century, a young man named William Britton Morse left the plains of Kansas in search of something new. Born in 1886 in Burlington, Kansas, William was educated and industrious—qualities that would quietly shape his future in Oregon. After graduating from Kansas State Normal School and teaching for a year, he moved west to Portland in 1906, where he attended business college and began to set down roots.
By 1909, Prineville was calling. William arrived to work as a bookkeeper for the Collins-Elkins Mercantile store, and not long after, he took up farming along McKay Creek. Over time, he put his business skills to work, purchasing the Prineville Warehouse Company in 1926 and expanding into ventures like Morse Lumber and the Redmond Potato Company. He wasn’t flashy, but he was persistent—and clearly saw opportunity where others saw risk.
In Prineville, he also met a woman whose presence seems to have grounded him. Lotta Smith, daughter of Colonel Fremont Smith and Angie Sites Smith, came from deep pioneer roots in Central Oregon. The couple married in 1912 and made Prineville their lifelong home. Lotta's family legacy and her long life suggest she was every bit the steady partner to William’s public life.
And public it was. William Morse was a man of participation. He held officer roles for more than 50 years in the local Masonic Lodge and took leadership roles in virtually every civic organization that helped shape Prineville through the Depression, World War II, and the postwar years. He was president of the Crook County Chamber of Commerce, chair of the Pioneer Memorial Hospital board, and served as both the Red Cross chairman and War Finance Committee head for Crook County during and after the war.
He even served as Prineville’s first municipal judge, then as mayor for nine years, and spent four years representing the region in the Oregon legislature. His contributions weren’t necessarily headline-grabbing, but they were continuous, tireless, and rooted in the long game of community-building.
In 1948, he built a block of four concrete office buildings at the corner of East Second and Main streets. Known as the Morse Building, the structure housed everything from the Ochoco National Forest headquarters to the U.S. Post Office. Eventually, it was purchased by the Soroptimists, who opened what is now Neat Repeat Thrift Store—offering yet another layer of community service in a building Morse once designed for business.
Though he officially retired in 1943, retirement seemed to mean little to a man like William Morse. He remained a consistent figure in Prineville life until his passing on December 24, 1972. Lotta outlived him by more than a decade, passing away in 1984. They are both buried in Juniper Haven Cemetery, their resting place quietly echoing the lives they lived—steadfast, invested, and deeply woven into the fabric of their town.
William B. Morse may not be remembered for any single triumph, but for the way he showed up again and again for Prineville. In a time of larger-than-life stories, his is a quieter kind of legacy: one of presence, purpose, and the belief that good communities are built by those who are willing to serve them.