William F. Gates, general superintendent of The Prairie Oil & Gas Company, of Independence, Kan., was born in Hillsdale county, Michigan, Aug. 15, 1867. He is the only son of William Wells Gates and Viola E. (Farnsworth) Gates. His father was a native of Phelps, Ontario county, New York, and for many years was an oil operator, and died at Lima, Ohio, Aug. 14, 1897, at the age of seventy-two years. Mr. Gates' mother was born at Shelburn Falls, Mass., and now resides at Lima, Ohio, where her only daughter, Nellie Amanda, wife of Walter M. Scott, also resides.

William F. Gates obtained a common school education, and was reared in West Virginia, in the oil field of which state his father operated, and from an early period in his life Mr. Gates has been identified with the oil industry, being employed in the oil fields of West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana until 1903, in which year he became general superintendent of the Prairie Oil & Gas Company. Mr. Gates is a Thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a Knight Templar, and a member of the Ancient Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Murat Temple, Indianapolis, Ind. He is also a member of the independence Lodge, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In politics he is a Republican. In 1901 he was united in marriage to Miss Cora Minnie Ora Coursey, of Fort Wayne, Ind.