Born in Stark County, Ohio, April 3rd, 1834. The story of his life is the story of a young man going west and growing up with the country and that country Decatur and Wayne counties, Iowa. At twenty years of age he left his native state, and came to Iowa, settling at Garden Grove in Decatur county. The next year, 1855, he married the daughter of the proprietor of the first hotel conducted in that place, Miss Ann Maria Dawes. At that time Wayne and Decatur counties had no towns, not even platted villages. Soon after his marriage he moved to a farm near Sandy Point, Decatur county, about eight miles northwest of Lineville in Wayne county, and for about ten or twelve years ran a grist mill and saw mill and manufactured coffins out of walnut lumber. Soon after the close of the Civil War, Mr. Reck moved to a farm in Wayne county about eight miles west of where Allerton now is. In 1870 came the first railroad to Wayne county, and Judge Aller of Leavenworth, Kansas, one of the owners of said railroad located the town of Allerton on 160 acres of land owned by him in said county. About 1871, Mr. P. M. Phillips who had been running a dry goods store in Corydon moved it to Allerton and took Mr. A. C. Reck in as a partner. The business was conducted under the firm name of Phillips & Reck. This firm was dissolved after about ten years and Mr. Reck formed a partnership with his son-in-law, J. B. Rankin and engaged in the drug business in Allerton. He served as Mayor of Allerton and for a number of years as Justice of the Peace, and for a while was owner and editor of the Allerton News. Mr. Reck had practically no public school education but he was a great reader and became self-educated. He taught a country school while living in Decatur county. His home life was the most pleasant, and for more than sixty-five years he journeyed through life with the wife of his youth and was ever a faithful husband. He was elected on the Republic ticket, Representative to the Eighteenth General Assembly and served in that body with marked efficiency. He was chairman of the committee on enrolled bills and a member of other committees. Coming to Iowa in her infancy he ever after remained one of her loyal citizens.