With the love of nature that distinguished the true husbandman, Ira S. Bawker, of Inyankara, Wyoming has turned his back upon the allurements of mercantile life, for which he was specially prepared; devoting himself to the peaceful and productive pursuits of agriculture in which the man of industry and thrift sees the fruits of his labor blooming and ripening around him, refreshing the landscape with their beauty and gladdening the heart with the promise of substantial comfort. Mr. Bawker is a native of Jo Daviess County, Illinois, where he was born on July 12, 1868, the son of James T. and Catherine (Brickler) Bawker, an account of whose career is to be found elsewhere in this volume. Ira began his scholastic training in the schools of Illinois, continued it in those of Kansas, where the family lived for a time and completed it at Sundance, Wyoming, after the home was established in that neighborhood. After completing the course, he returned to his native state and attended an excellent commercial college in Dixon, for the purpose of fitting himself for business. Instead of mercantile life, however, he joined the great army of agriculturists in Wyoming working for his father on his ranch and also on land of his won, which he took up adjacent to that of his father. In 1895 with his father he bought the ranch on Skull Creek, twenty-five miles northwest of Newcastle, on which he has lived since his marriage in 1898. This he has greatly improved, having there built up a thriving industry in cattleraising and general farming. In the ranch there are 480 acres and he has also control of a large body of leased land. His residence is and attractive cottage which he has built and furnished with due consideration for the comfort and pleasure of its inmates, and his cattle are housed in good sheds and fed from the capacious stacks with which the place is supplied. On January 4, 1897 at the home of the bride’s parents on Skull Creek, Mr. Bawker was married to Miss Laura J. Holwell, a native of Nova Scotia, and a daughter of William and Margaret E. (Beaglehole) Holwell. Her father was born in England and her mother in New Jersey. Mr. Holwell came west in 1878, locating a little later in Wyoming and taking up his residence in 1881, on Skull Creek, where his family joined him in 1883. And is one of the successful and prominent cattlemen of the section. Mr. and Mrs. Bawker have one child, Edgar I. The head of the house is a Democrat in politics steadfastly adhering to his party in al issues involving government principles.
