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William B. Baker. A progressive young Idaho merchant, who has been in the state since 1910, and is now half owner of a large and prosperous establishment at New Plymouth, William B. Baker is a college man, who began his career in merchandising, and his success is due to the fact that he has concentrated upon one line of business activities, and though beginning without capital or other resources than his individual ability, he has already reached the position of an independent merchant and much may be expected of him in the future.
William B. Baker was born at Fulton, Missouri, August 25, 1881, a son of N. F. and Martha (Culbertson) Baker. The father, who was a. native,or Austin, Texas, was very prominent as a physician and surgeon during the Civil war, entered a Texas regiment and fought for the Confederate cause. The mother was a native of Virginia. Both parents passed away in Fulton, Missouri, the mother when her son William B. was four years of age. The father died after an operation for appendicitis, when he was sixty-three years of age. He was prominent in the Presbyterian church, and served as an elder in that denomination for twenty-five years. Of the six children in the family William B. was the fifth.
Reared in Fulton, he graduated from the high school of that Missouri city, and then entered the Westminster College, a noted old Presbyterian institution of Fulton, and completed his education there. He was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity while in college. On graduation he entered the wholesale dry goods firm of John S. Britton at St. Joseph, Missouri, and for two years was on the road selling goods for that firm. He next went out to Cripple Creek, Colorado, where he was engaged in the dry goods and general merchandise for three years, and while in that city on February 24, 1904. he married Grace H. Wolfe, a daughter of Henry L. and Elvira (Burns) Wolfe. The parents were natives of Galveston. Texas, and at the time of the great storm there in September, 1900, refugeed to Colorado, locating at Cripple Creek, where the parents still reside. Mr. Baker was the third in the family of five children, and was educated chiefly at the State University of Colorado at Boulder.
During all the time of his residence in Colorado, Mr. Baker continued in the mercantile lines at Cripple Creek, and in 1910 arrived in this state, first locating at Nampa, where he took charge of the Crones New York Store, of which he continued in charge for nine months. He then became connected with the C. C. Anderson Company in the Golden Rule establishment, being given the management of its clothing department in their Emmett store, where he remained for two years. In November, 1912, he acquired financial interests with the C. C. Anderson Company, and has since been half owner and active manager of the Golden Rule Store at New Plymouth. Mr. Baker also holds stock in the Payette Valley Produce Company. He is a Democrat in politics, and he and his wife are members of the Presbyterian church. As one of the influential young business men he is secretary of the New Plymouth Commercial Club. Mr. and Mrs. Baker have one child, a daughter born April 3, 1912.