What Sewell Newhouse was to North America trapping equipment in the 1800s, Arthur Robert Harding was to trapper recruitment in the 1900s. A.R. Harding was born in July, 1871 in Gallia county near the Ohio River. Learning to trap at a young age, A.R. began his first entrepreneurial enterprise with buying furs from neighboring school pals. By age twenty, he was a traveling fur buyer for the L. Frank & Sons Hide and Fur Company Zanesville, Ohio. A.R. loved everything about the outdoors especially furs and trapping.

Making acquaintance with a local printer in Gallipolis, Robert Harding started the Gallia Times newspaper around 1898. The publishing business soon opened Harding's eyes to the possibilities of combining his passion for the outdoors and the written word. A.R. founded Hunter-Trader-Trapper magazine two years later. The rare October 1900 issue of H-T-T had only 24 pages and is a valuable magazine today. An issue of H-T-T cost a nickel in those days and magazine was chock full of articles and advertisements on fur trapping, fur farming, hunting, the fur market report and especially letters from readers. A.R. knew that readers seeing their letters with-in the pages would endear them to the publication and he was right.

Hunter-Trader-Trapper was an instant sensation. Harding sold his interest in the Gallia Times newspaper and moved his new magazine offices to Columbus, Ohio. Columbus allowed better access to printing and distribution. By 1906, the magazine had grown well over a hundred pages in some issues. As H-T-T expanded circulation and magazine size, A.R. realized that he could offer his own merchandise to sell with-in the pages. The perfect items to sell were books about trapping and the outdoor lifestyle, as Harding had authors on the payroll and many photos of trapping and hunting sent to him by readers. Thus, A.R. began writing and publishing small books he called Harding History and Pleasure books.

Hunter-Trader-Trapper was a very successful enterprise and so was Harding's book business. So good that in 1909 A.R. added a weekly publication which he called Camp and Trail a series about the outdoor lifestyle. Camp and Trail was distributed until 1913 when harding realized that the topic could just be a section in H-T-T and expand that magazines base rather than have the huge load of 2 magazines to compile. So A.R. stopped publishing the weekly and in turn added similar camping articles into a special section of Hunter-Trader-Trapper.