The business interests and activities of D. V. Blocker of Shreveport have for a number of years been identified with the oil industry. He is well known over the Southwest in that business by reason of his service as assistant to the vice president of the Gulf Refining Company of Louisiana.

The Blockers are a family of historic prominence in this part of the Southwest. Mr. Blocker's great-grandfather, W. J. Blocker, was born in the Edgefield district of South Carolina. He came to what was then the extreme northwest portion of Louisiana in 1832. His place of settlement comprised a tract of land which under a decision upon the boundary line between the United States and Republic of Texas in 1836 fell west of the Louisiana state line, so that W. J. Blocker's place became a part of Texas, in Harrison County. Ever since that time, nearly a century, the Blockers have been people of consequence in Harrison County and many of them have achieved prominence over the State of Texas as a whole. Continuously there have been descendants of the original W. J. Blocker living in Harrison County.

Mr. D. V. Blocker was born in Harrison County, within a few miles of the original headrights of his ancestor there. His grandfather also bore the name W. J, Blocker, and married Mary Douglas Butler, member of the historic South Carolina family of that name. The parents of D. V. Blocker were A. B., and Elizabeth (Webster) Blocker.

Mr. Blocker was educated in public schools, and since early youth has been connected with the land department of the Gulf Refining Company. He came to Shreveport in 1910, but subsequently his duties took him to other sections of Texas and Arkansas. Since 1918 Shreveport has been his permanent location, and he has held the position of assistant to the vice president of the Gulf Refining Company of Louisiana, which is a subsidiary of the Gulf Oil Corporation of Pennsylvania. This is one of the largest oil corporations, with world-wide connections and interests. Mr. Blocker's special duties are with the land leasing department, and his long experience has made him an authority on land leases in the oil sections of the Southwest.

Mr. Blocker married Miss Ethel Caroll VanHook. Her brother, Mr. A. H. VanHook, of Shreveport, was formerly vice president of the Commercial National Bank of that city, and now carries on an extensive practice of law there. Mr., and Mrs. Blocker have a son, D. V. Blocker, Jr., who represents the fifth generation of this family in Northeast Texas and Northwest Louisiana.