University of Virginia Library

W. L. BECKER

W. L. Becker, the subject of this sketch, is one of
Roanoke's leading wholesale grocers and brokerage
men, being one of the first of the present quota of
wholesale dealers now
in business in Roanoke
to engage in this line.
He was born in Franklin
County, Virginia, May
11th, 1854. When but
six years of age, the
Civil War broke out and
he had but little opportunity
to acquire an
education in his youth,
attending such schools
as the county afforded
during these terrible
years of civil strife.

His youth and early
manhood were spent on
a Franklin County farm,
the birth place of
so many pioneers of
Roanoke who have contributed so much to the up-building
of this city.

In 1886 he located in Roanoke and accepted a
position in the wholesale grocery house of J. M. Gambill
& Company. It was here that he obtained his
first business training in the wholesale grocery business,
remaining with this concern for a period of nearly
ten years, later establishing the wholesale brokerage
and distributing business of W. L. Becker & Company,
which has prospered and grown to be the largest
of its kind between Norfolk and Knoxville. The firm
is composed of the subject of this sketch and his son,
W. L. Becker, Jr., and commands a large and growing
trade in the States of Virginia, West Virginia, North
and South Carolina and Tennessee, and is a leader in
their line of business throughout a large section of the
country.