Mr. J. R. Embree, received his early education in the public schools of Morgan County and then went to Meadville, Penn., where he graduated from the Bryant & Stratton Business College of that city in 1877.

Mr. Embree became interested in Iowa at this time and removed to Grinnell, where he engaged in building and contracting for a time and taught school the following winter. His active interest in lumber dealing began the following spring, 1878, when he entered the employ of the Grinnell firm of Langley & Goss as bookkeeper. After less than two years he ventured to Chicago and became a bill and shipping clerk for the T. R. Lyon firm of lumber merchants at the Throop Street bridge.

By the early part of 1881 Mr. Embree determined to engage in operations in the lumber trade independently, and in February joined with a friend in forming the firm of C. B. Flinn & Co., as junior partner. This new firm opened yards at Griswold, Iowa, of which Mr. Embree had charge for a year. Mr. Embree returned to Chicago, where other yards were opened at Thirty-ninth and Halsted Streets. The year 1881 not only witnessed his business partnership, but his union to an accomplished Iowa lady, Miss Mary Clayton, of Atlantic.

Another year passed and, after selling the Griswold property, the entire firm possessions passed into the hands of Mr. Embree alone. A year later he took a partner in the person of Mr. Moses. F. Rittenhouse and opened a new yard at Thirty-fifth and Ullman Streets, another yard at Sixty-third and Wallace Streets in the year 1886, and the Sixty-third and Wallace Streets business was incorporated under the title of the South Side Lumber Company, of which he was president. He was also vice-president of the Rittenhouse & Embree Lumber Company and president of the First National Bank of Englewood, a position to which he was elected in 1890 and served for twelve years. Mr. Embree passed away in 1903 after a bout of pneumonia at the young age of 47.