One of the farms that gives a character of progressiveness to Saline County is owned and occupied by Joseph A. Muir, one of the younger representatives of the agricultural industry in this state. This farm is near Mentor in Walnut Township. It is a farm that Mr. Muir had known all his life and he was born there.
He had 200 acres of land, and well adapted for the raising of alfalfa, which is one of his principal crops. In every point it is modern in equipment and facilities. He had substantial buildings, including barns and silos for the care of his crops, and is working the land in such a way as to secure the highest possible yield consistent with its continued fertility and productiveness.
On that farm Mr. Muir was born July 5, 1889, a son of William and Mary (Crowther) Muir. Both parents were born in Scotland. His father was a pioneer Kansan, and took up the homestead in Walnut Township where his son Joseph new resided. William Muir died by accidental drowning in the Smoky Hill River in 1899. Joseph was one of five children, two sons and three daughters, named: Nettie, now wife of Henry Muir; John, a farmer in Saline County; Mary, wife of Victor Green, a farmer now living at Salina; Joseph A.; and Nellie, who is unmarried and resided with her mother in that county.
The early life of Joseph A. Muir was spent on his father’s farm in Walnut Township. He attended the public schools and also the Kansas Wesleyan Business College at Salina. For the past ten or fifteen years he had had active management of his father’s old home and is known as a prosperous and progressive citizen of Saline County. He is a member of the Congregational Church and of the Modern Woodmen of America.
On September 8, 1915, at Solomon, Kansas, he married Miss Gladys Stepheason, a daughter of Sherman H. and Anna (Minor) Stephenson, who were natives of Indiana. Mrs. Muir was born June 19, 1898, at Abilene, Kansas, and was graduated from the Solomon High School in 1915, only a few months before her marriage.