Elbert Sheldon Catlin, now proprietor of the business of Catlin & Knox, wholesale shoe merchants, was born at Harwinton, Connecticut, November 22, 1849. He was educated in his native state, in the public schools at Harwinton, and the high school and academy at Westfield, Massachusetts. He came with other members of the family to Leavenworth in June, 1867, and since then, for a period of almost half a century, he has been actively identified with mercantile interests in that city. On October 18, 1883, he married Clara Belle Whitaker, daughter of Joseph Whitaker of Leavenworth. They are the parents of two daughters, Florence Adele and Eloise.