(Theophilus) Wylie Mellette

(Theophilus) Wylie Mellette

16 May 1867

25 October 1894

Professor (Mechanical Engineering)

Theophilus Wylie Mellette, who went by “Wylie,” was born to Margaret Wylie and Arthur Mellette on 16 May 1867 in Muncie, Indiana, and moved with his family to the Dakota Territory when he was eleven years old. In 1891, Wylie and his brother Charlie were living together in Portland, Oregon, and both worked for the Union Pacific Railway. By 1893, Wylie had moved back to South Dakota and was teaching mechanical engineering at Dakota Agriculture College in Brookings. Tragically, while sick with typhoid fever, Wylie was thought to have entered a state of temporary insanity and died by suicide on 25 October 1894.

Muncie, IN