submitted by Joy Fisher (sdgenweb@yahoo.com)
***********************************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

http://www.usgwarchives.net/ut/utfiles.htm
***********************************************************************

JAMES HENRY BAKER.

    James Henry Baker, president and manager of the Citizens Lumber
 Company of Richfield,
is a most thoroughgoing business man, who during the greater part of
 his life has been
connected with the lumber trade and has developed high efficiency
 along. that line. Iowa
claims him as a native son, his birth having occurred in Decorah in
 1882. His father,
James H. Baker, was mayor of the city, where he also conducted business
 as proprietor of
a grain elevator. He married Lizzie C. Flanders, a member of a
 prominent family.

    Their son, James Henry Baker, was educated in the graded schools of
 his home town and
upon attaining his majority embarked in the lumber business in
 connection with his
brother in Decorah. After four years' experience there he removed to
 Waterloo, Iowa,
where he resided for the succeeding four years and was again engaged in
 the lumber trade.
He then accepted a position with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul
 Railroad Company,
which was building its Puget Sound division, the corporation engaging
 Mr. Baker to
establish a line of lumberyards along the right of way. While thus
 engaged he made his
headquarters for six years in Seattle, Washington, after which he
 resigned his position
with the railroad company to remove to Salt Lake and established a line
 of yards on his
own account. He conducted the business until 1916, when he sold out to
 the George E.
Merrill Associates and. accepted a position as manager with the
 company. In 1917,
however, he resigned and removed to Richfield, where he purchased the
 plant of the Sevier
Valley Planing Mill Company. He then reorganized the business, changing
 the name to the
Citizens Lumber Company, and has since been its president and manager.
 Throughout
practically his entire business career he has been closely associated
 with the lumber
trade and there is no feature of the business with which he is not
 thoroughly familiar.
Close application and enterprise have been dominant factors in the
 upbuilding of his
trade and he is now at the head of a growing and profitable business in
 Richfield. The
spacious yards of the Citizens Lumber Company are located on Center
 street, just west of
the, track of the Denver & Rio Grande, and there they carry a full line
 of kiln dried
lumber in all sizes, together with paints, oil, varnish, cement,
 plaster and general
building material. The contract for the material for six and a half
 miles of street
improvements in Richfield was secured by this concern.

    In 1900 Mr. Baker was united in marriage to Miss Jessie May Pierce
 and to them has
been born a son, Frank, who is now a student in the Richfield high
 school.  Mr. Baker is
essentially a popular man because of his social nature and disposition.
 In Masonic
circles he has attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite
 and he is also a
member of the Hoo Hoos, an organization of lumbermen. He likewise
 belongs to the
Richfield Commercial Club and is foremost in everything that tends to
 develop the city
and promote Its municipal interests. All of the war activities, the
 Thrift Stamps, and
Liberty loans and the Red Cross, found in him a stalwart champion and
 generous supporter.
His entire life has been actuated by a most progressive spirit and step
 by step he has
advanced, each forward step bringing him a broader outlook and wider
 opportunities.