Lloyd E. Whitman, proprietor of the Capron Hardware Company, member of the city council and assistant postmaster, as well as ex-mayor of Capron, has been prominently identified with the business and civic interests of this thriving community since 1911. He has been the architect of his own fortunes, for unfaltering perseverance, strong determination, great energy and keen discrimination have brought to him excellent success, and he stands today as one of the substantial citizens of Capron, although now only in his thirty-fifth year.

Mr. Whitman was born October 4, 1880, on a farm in Sumner County, Kansas, and is a son of John and Eve (Church) Whitman. His father was born February 8, 1840, in Indiana, of which state his parents were natives, and prior to the Civil war moved to Illinois, where he enlisted in 1862 in Company A, One Hundred and Eleventh Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry. With this organization he served until the close of the war, participating in many engagements and accompanying General Sherman’s troops on their famous “march to the sea.” He was never wounded or captured, and at the close of hostilities was honorably discharged with an excellent war record. In 1876 he removed to Kansas, locating on a farm five miles north of the present Town of Oxford, in Sumner County, where he resided for eleven years. In 1887 he made removal with his family to Kearney County, Kansas, taking up government land, on which he resided for three years, and then wont to Kingman County, in the same state, that locality continuing to be his home until he made the race for land, in 1893, at the opening of the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma. Locating on land five miles east of the present Town of Capron, he continued farming there until his retirement, and at this time is living quietly at his comfortable home at Capron. In 1861 Mr. Whitman was married to Eve Church, who was born in Illinois, January 12, 1840, and who died February 21, 1902, in the faith of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which she had been an active worker all her life. They were the parents of four sons and four daughters, as follows: Ella, born in 1862, who died in 1865; Ollie, born in 1866, who is engaged in farming in Montgomery County, Missouri; Effie, born in 1868, who married C. A. Lowe in 1889 and is now residing at Willows, California; James, born in 1870, who died in 1873; one who was born in 1872 and died in 1873; Hattie, born in 1874, married, in 1894, W. B. Combs and is now a resident of Mesa, Arizona; Leona, born in 1877, who married, in 1894, P. M. Combs and is now a resident of Nashville, Oklahoma; and Lloyd E., of this review.

Lloyd E. Whitman received good educational advantages, attending the public schools of Sumner County, Kansas, and Woods County, Oklahoma, and Northwestern Normal School, at Alva, this state. In 1902 he began farming operations on his own account, when he settled on a claim in Harper County, Oklahoma, where he lived and farmed for six years. He still owns this claim, which comprises 320 acres of fertile land, all under a high state of cultivation and yielding him handsome returns. Desiring to enter the commercial field, in 1908, in order to learn the business, Mr. Whitman took a position as clerk in a hardware store at Alva. After about three years there he felt qualified to embark in business on his own account, and 1911 founded the Capron Hardware Company, an incorporated concern, and opened an establishment at Capron. Under his able, progressive and energetic management this business has grown and prospered and is now justly accounted one of the leading enterprises of the community. Mr. Whitman bears an excellent reputation in business circles, having been faithful to all engagements and always maintaining a high standard of business ethics. In 1912 and 1913 he served Capron in the capacity of mayor, has since that time been a member of the city council, and since 1911 has been assistant postmaster. In civic as in business life he has been faithful in the discharge of his duties and obligations, and his public services have done much to advance the interests of his adopted place. He is a republican in his political views, while his religious connection is with the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which his family are also members.

On October 16, 1901, Mr. Whitman was married to Miss Zena Fesk, who was born July 27, 1883, in Wilson County, Kansas, daughter of F. M. and Candis (Matkin) Fesk, natives of Indiana, who now live at Alva, Oklahoma. Mr. and Mrs. Whitman have two children: Elmer Lloyd, born May 6, 1906; and Ernest Clayton, born June 21, 1908.