Families

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ROPER, William

William Roper, president of the Roper Clothing Company of Burley, is a native Missourian, having been born in Dallas county in 1883. He attended the rural schools in Missouri and later the South West Baptist College. He spent two years in the Springfield Normal and Business College and then resolved to learn the mercantile business. He was employed for seven years by the Schwab Brothers Clothing Company of Springfield but young Roper was very ambitious and realizing the limited opportunities in the middle west and having fond visions of owning a store of his own decided to try the west. Coming to Boise in 1911, he secured employment with the Alexander Clothing Company, where he stayed for six months. In 1912, he came to Burley and with I. E. Masters opened a small clothing store known as the Roper & Masters' Store. A year and a half later the name was changed to the Roper, Tomlinson Company, and in 1914 they purchased a store in Rupert, Idaho. On July 1, 1917, the Roper, Tomlinson Company was dissolved, Mr. Roper taking the men's clothing store in Burley and the store at Rupert, while Mr. Tomlinson took the ladies' ready to wear and dry goods department of Burley. However, on January 1, 1920, Mr. Roper purchased from Mr. Tomlinson this store, making it a part of the Roper Clothing Company's stores. Thus, the Roper Clothing Company has grown from a very small store in 1912 to the largest and most attractive of its kind in southern Idaho, now employing from thirty-six to forty people.

Extracted from History of Idaho: The Gem of the Mountains, by James H. Hawley, 1920, Volume 2, pages 46 & 48.

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