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H. R. WALKER. Endowed with a natural aptitude for business, keen and alert to take advantage of offered opportunities, H. R. Walker, secretary and treasurer of the Gaskins-Walker Lumber Company at Harrisburg, is numbered among the more energetic and prosperous of the younger generation of the city's leading men, and has already won for himself a fine reputation. in both the industrial and social affairs of his adopted home. He was born November 30, 1887, at West End, Saline county, Illinois, a son of Pinckncy J. and Savilla (Johnson) Walker.

Acquiring a substantial education when young, Mr. Walker spent many of the earlier years of his life in Galatia, where he gained both knowledge and experience as regards the details of business, becoming familiar with the general mercantile and lumber trade. In 1911, forming a copartnership with Messrs. Gregg and Gaskins, he helped establish the Gaskins-Walker Lumber Company, which was incorporated in that year with a paid-up capital of ten thousand dollars, T. Y. Gregg being made president of the concern, while Mr. Walker was made secretary and treasurer, and Edward Gaskins was elected general manager of the concern. This enterprising firm retails lumber and coal, having an extensive patronage in that line, and makes a specialty of supplying building material by contract. Mr. Walker married Bessie White, a daughter of G. W. White, of Eldorado, Illinois, a woman of culture and many social attractions.

Edward Gaskins, general manager of the Gaskins-Walker Lumber Company, was born in Saline county, Illinois, three miles south of Harrisburg, May 16, 1879, a son of the late Wiley A. and Nettie Gaskins, neither of whom are now living, his father having died in 1902 and his mother two years earlier, in 1900. Mr. Gaskins has been identified with the lumber interests of Saline county for many years, for five years previous to accepting his present positon, in 1911, having been secretary and manager of the Dorris Lumber Company, at Dorrisville, Saline county. In that capacity Mr. Gaskins became thoroughly conversant with the lumber business, and so familiar with its requirements, both as regards its conduct and advancement, that he is eminently qualified for the important position he now holds in the concern in which he is so largely interested. Mr. Gaskins married Mattie Hallock, a daughter of A. C. and Ellen Hallock, of Harrisburg, and they have one child, Thomas Elwood Gaskins.