DANINA BANANI PROVOST. The mayor of Ashland, who has been identified with the history of Oregon since 1870, is a descendant of an ancient French family and was born near Montreal. Canada, February 26, 1852. He was one of four sons, the others being Moses, a farmer in the Northwestern Territory; Julian, a general merchant at St. Paul, Marion county, Ore.; and Peter, a retired merchant residing Ashland. The father, Benjamin, a native of Montreal and the son of a Canadian farmer, followed agricultural pursuits until his death, which occurred in his native land at sixty-six years of age. In early manhood he married Favi Leonard Favrost, a member of an old Montreal family of French extraction; she survived him many years, dying in 1902, at ninety-three years of age.

During boyhood years D. B. Provost was a pupil in the national schools of Canada. In 1867 he went to Troy, N. Y., and a few months later worked his way to Savannah, Ga. In the spring of 1870 he came west to California, and in the fall of the same year settled in Oregon, where for three years he rented a farm near Gervais, Marion County, on French Prairie. Removing from there to Yamhill County, in 1874, he embarked in the meat business at Bellevue and continued in the same enterprise until 1890. Meanwhile he bought and improved farm lands, and owned eight hundred acres of fine valley land, all under excellent improvement, and situated a few miles north of Sheridan. In 1893 he disposed of all of his possessions in Yamhill County and came to Ashland, where he built and now occupies a comfortable residence on the hill. Soon after his arrival he became a member of the firm of Kenney & Provost, owners of the finest hardware store in the town. Later he purchased his partner's interest and conducted the business alone until 1902, when he sold out to his nephews. While conducting the store he learned the tinsmith's trade and did a large business in that line, also established an important trade in plumbing. During the early days of his residence in Oregon he learned the carpenter's trade and did some work in house building, but since then he has given little attention to that trade, except in superintending the erection of buildings for himself. Possessing mechanical ability of a high order, he is an expert worker with tools and understands the putting together of machinery of all kinds.

The industry with which Mr. Provost is now especially identified, the Ashland iron works, is an incorporated company, of which he is president and treasurer, and which owns a plant thoroughly up to date in every respect. In addition to his duties as an officer of the company, he is now filling the office of mayor of Ashland, to which he was elected on the Democratic ticket, in December, 1902, taking the oath of office in January, 1903, for a term of one year. A prominent member of the Democratic local ranks, he has rendered efficient service not only as a member of the county central committee, but also as a member of the state central committee. Fraternally he is connected with the Woodmen of the World. Physically and mentally, he is sturdy, vigorous and robust. That he possesses a fine constitution was proved by an experience he met with in the summer of 1903. While helping to pull out the rods from an old oil well, by some means he was struck by the cable, which hurled him through the air and landed him fifteen feet away, with his head against a pile of lumber. Those who hastened to his side feared life would be extinct and were relieved to find that, though unconscious, he still breathed. He was carried to his home, where he lay for four weeks and two days before regaining consciousness, but his strength then came back to him rapidly and he is now apparently none the worse for his dangerous experience. Among the people of Ashland he is held in the highest esteem, as a man of the utmost integrity, an able administrator of civic affairs and a successful business man. ref: Portrait and Biographical Record of Western Oregon 1904