A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume II, Part 29

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 652


USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume II > Part 29


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Mr. Dozier has so long been an integral part of the local educational work that he is especially well informed as to all details affecting the schools and their administration, and many of the present teachers have at former times been under his direction at the Normal. school. This places him in especially close touch with the teaching body and gives him unusual power for effective work.


Aside from his professional position in the city, Mr. Dozier is well known in business circles. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and is also associated with various city and civic clubs that are working for the betterment of municipal conditions. Other organizations of which Mr. Dozier is a member are the Southern California Academy of Science, Upsilon Chapter Chi Psi,


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the N. E. A., and for thirty-five years he was a deacon in the Baptist church.


The marriage of Mr. Dozier and Miss Eliza- beth Wilds Edwards occurred at Greenville, S. C., in 1874. Both Mr. and Mrs. Dozier are well known in Los Angeles, where they enjoy the ad- miration of many friends and acquaintances.


MRS. KATE McARTHUR. One of the pio- neer women of California and a resident of Los Angeles for more than forty years, Mrs. Kate McArthur has witnessed the gradual changes that have changed the little Spanish village into a thriving metropolis of rare beauty and charm, known the wide world over as a city of beautiful homes, wonderful flowers and unrivaled business opportunities. At one time her home was in the heart of a beautiful orange grove at the corner of what is now Washington and Figueroa streets, which she helped her husband plant and nurture, and which they happily anticipated would produce them an income for their declining years, never anticipating that within their lifetime this would be the site of beautiful, stately homes and towering business blocks. Other changes have been watched with equal interest by this clever woman, but none have quite so gripped her heart as did the changes of fortune which deprived her of her beloved grove.


Mrs. McArthur was Miss Kate Durfy when she first came to Los Angeles, in 1874, then a girl of nineteen. She was the daughter of Patrick Durfy and his wife Catherine, both na- tives of Ireland. They were reared on the Emerald Isle and married there, later coming to America and settling on a farm in New York state, where the present Mrs. McArthur was born. They became the parents of four chil- dren, all of whom are now residents of Los Angeles, as follows: Mrs. Mary McCann, who resides on West Pico street; Peter Durfy, of Hollywood, owner of the city water plant at Sherman; Mrs. McArthur; and Miss Ella Durfy.


The mother died when Mrs. McArthur was but five years of age and she was reared in the home of a family named Tiffany. She grew up in Otsego county, N. Y., near Mt. Vision and Oneonta. and received her education in the


public schools of the state. When she was but sixteen she came to California with Mrs. Kenyon, a niece of the family with whom she liad lived since her mother's death. For several years they remained in Eureka, Humboldt county, where the family first located, but when Mrs. McArthur was nineteen the family removed to Los Angeles. The following year Miss Durfy was married to John McArthur, then a prosperous young carriage maker of the Angel City, and has since made this city her home.


John McArthur was a Canadian by birth, hav- ing been born at Martintown about 1836 or 1837. The church where the registration of his birth was made burned when he was an in- fant, and his mother dying soon after, there is no definite record of the exact date of this auspicious event ; but at the time of his death in 1911 it was generally believed by himself and the members of his family that he was about seventy-four or seventy-five years of age. His father was John McArthur, also born in Canada, but of purest Scotch descent and a member of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, in both of which details the mother was like him. The father was married twice, and was the father of children by each of his wives. The first wife bore six children, Archibald, Jessie, Donald, Mary, John (late resident of Los An- geles), and Duncan, the only member of the family residing in Los Angeles at present. The children by the second union are Alexander, James and Christie.


The call of the West claimed John McArthur in 1856, and he determined to come to Califor- nia, making the trip via the Isthmus route and landing at San Francisco. At first he followed his trade of carriage-maker in Sacramento, but when he had accumulated sufficient funds he went to Placerville and engaged in placer min- ing. He did not meet with the great success he had anticipated, however, and soon returned to his trade. Later he removed to Los Angeles, where the demands for such skill as he pos- sessed were great, and worked for John Gol- lener and Louis Roeder in carriage shops, being thus employed when he met his future wife, to whom he was married July 11, 1875.


Shortly after his marriage Mr. McArthur made his first real-estate investment in Los Angeles, securing a ten-acre tract at what is


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now the corner of Washington and Figueroa streets. This he planted to seedling oranges, planting the seeds and raising the trees him- self with the assistance of his clever wife. They did not anticipate that the growth of the city would ever absorb their little grove, and builded their home there, expecting to make it a perma- nent residing place. He continued to follow his trade, although he hoped to give this up as soon as the grove was in bearing. Mrs. McArthur recalls these days as the happiest of her life and declares that even the later years of prosperity failed to hold the joy that filled the time when she and her husband were build- ing their first home, planting their trees and watching them grow.


The boom of 1888 swept the residence por- tion of the city in their direction, however, and responding to much pressure Mr. McArthur sold seven of his ten acres to a syndicate which platted the tract, with Lovelace avenue running through its center, and sold it in city lots. Mr. McArthur retained a substantial interest in the property and it netted him a handsome profit. Later he platted the remaining three acres him- self and sold the lots from time to time, much profit accruing from the transaction. With his increasing prosperity other interests claimed the attention and co-operation of the former carriage-maker, and he was associated with va- rious enterprises from time to time with vary- ing results, but his good judgment insured a net profit always. One of his several under- takings was silver mining in Orange county, while his real-estate undertakings and invest- ments in Los Angeles were very profitable and also very extensive.


The active interest of Mr. McArthur in the affairs of the city continued until the time of his death, November 30, 1911. Since that time his widow has continued to reside in Los An- geles, where she has a handsome home on Bel- mont avenue. She is a prominent member of the Unitarian Church, where she is active in all church work, and has a wide circle of ad- miring friends. Another of the interests of Mrs. McArthur lies in the work of the Southern California Pioneer Society. with which she is actively connected.


Mr. and Mrs. McArthur were the parents of two children, both daughters. Viola C., the first born, makes her home with her mother, and


is her constant companion and most intimate friend, while Myrtle A. is the wife of Oliver Nauth, a well-known newspaper man connected with the Tribune-Express.


JOSEPH JORDAN. Coming to Alhambra when the town was in its infancy, in 1887, and opening up a small bakery in a tent on Main street, where for some time he conducted a grow- ing business, Joseph Jordan has since that time been a resident of the beautiful San Gabriel val- ley suburb, and is today one of its leading citi- zens. From this small beginning he developed and extended his business undertaking, and as one of the pioneer merchants of the town he has grown and prospered continually since. After a short time he rented the I. V. W. block and for two years conducted his bakery there. He next leased a lot on Garfield street and erected a building of his own, suitable for the conduct of his business, in which location he continued for thirteen years. He then bought a lot on Main street and erected a more substantial and modern building, in which for several years he continued to run his bakery business. The property is now leased, Mr. Jordan having retired from his for- mer occupation, and is now giving his entire time to the management of his extensive real estate and property interests, and to the care and enjoyment of his home place. This home place is located on Alhambra road and consists of three acres, all of which is set in fruit. Mr. Jordan has made many real estate investments in Alhambra and vicinity and has used such wis- dom and foresight that he has reaped a hand- some profit from his ventures. In 1910 he erected the Alhambra Hotel, a handsome mod- ern structure, which is thoroughly up to date in every respect and a credit to the thriving little city. The property is leased to a good advan- tage to all concerned.


Mr. Jordan is a native of Germany, having been born in Bavaria, September 2, 1856. He passed his boyhood in his native city, receiving his education there, and later learning the bakery trade. In 1883 he determined to come to America and for a time was located at Bloomington, Ill., working at his trade there for three years. He came to California in the spring of 1886 and for a very short time was with Louis Ebinger, the


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pioneer baker of Los Angeles. The little town of Alhambra was just being developed and the op- portunities offered there appealed to Mr. Jordan and on March 26, 1887, he transferred his inter- ests to that place, where he has since remained. His interests in Alhambra prospered from the first and he soon became an integral part of the thriving little city. He has been associated with all movements for progress and general better- ment, and stands four-square for right and a general forward movement of the community, as against all other policies. He has always advo- cated the improvement of the city along sub- stantial lines and not a few of the movements along this line have received much impetus from his support.


The marriage of Mr. Jordan occurred in the Fatherland, uniting him with Miss Fanny Kleinle, who like himself was a native of Germany. The eldest of their three danghters, Grace, became the wife of Roy Harvey, and they live in Alaska. Anna is the wife of Joe Joudan of Los Angeles. Minnie is the wife of Frank Letchner of Alham- bra and the mother of one son, Willie. Mrs. Jor- dan passed away in 1891.


GUY B. BARHAM. While not a native of California, Guy B. Barham is a thorough west- erner, his birthplace being in the sister state of Oregon. His life has been spent in the west, and mostly in California, he being but a babe when his parents came to this state. Since then he has made his home within its confines, and the years of his manhood have been passed princi- pally in and near Los Angeles. Starting at the bottom of the ladder he has steadily climbed into a place of prominence and influence in the affairs of the city and of the state, having served at various times in positions of trust and power, and always with the greatest of satisfaction to the public, his service being distinguished for its clean, business-like administration of the affairs that came under his control. As would be natural with one whose faith in the fortunes of the city has always been one of his strongest characteris- tics, Mr. Barham has from time to time invested in Los Angeles real estate, with the result that today he holds property of great value, and the end is not yet.


It was at The Dalles, Ore., March 21, 1864, that Guy B. Barham was born, the son of Richard M. and Martha (Arnold) Barham. When he was two years old the parents removed to Watson- ville, Cal., and later, in 1873, settled at Anaheim. Here the son received his early education, at- tending the grade schools at Anaheim and later completing his education in the schools of Los Angeles. It was in 1883 that the family came to this city to make their home, and a year later young Barham became a railway postal clerk, running on the Southern Pacific lines. From this on his progress was steady, one step being gained after another, until he has reached the top of the ladder. In 1888 he became deputy collector of the internal revenue service at Los Angeles, but resigned in 1890 to engage in the custom house and internal revenue brokerage business, which line of occupation he has since continued to fol- low.


The public has claimed the services of this ca- pable young man several times, however, calling him from his private occupations to fill a position of trust for the public good. He has always re- sponded to such summons with the best of his ability, and has rendered a service of which he may well be proud, and for which his city and his fellow citizens may well be grateful. Promi- nent among such occasions may be mentioned his work as police commissioner of Los Angeles, from 1895 to 1896, and his service as president of the board of bank commissioners of California, from 1902 to 1906, both being positions in which his influence was widely felt, and which give indi- cation of the esteem in which he is held in the city and state of his adoption.


Socially Mr. Barham is very popular. He is a prominent member of the California and Jona- than Clubs and of the Los Angeles Country Club. He is also an active member of the Elks, and close in the inner circles of all important matters pertaining to the welfare of the local order. In the north he is well known through his membership in the Bohemian Club, this being a direct result of his great popularity while in the service of the state. His wife, who like himself is a popular member of their social circle, was before her mar- riage Miss Marie Humphreys Baby, of Detroit, Mich., at which place they were married August 4, 1903. They have one child, a daughter, born April 6, 1915.


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Altogether Mr. Barham is one of the most prominent of the California pioneers, a man of great business ability, possessing a public record for splendid service that has won him a lasting place in the annals of his city and in the esteem of his fellow citizens. In addition to the interests already mentioned it may be said that Mr. Barham holds the controlling interest in the Los Angeles Evening Herald and directs the policy of that paper.


A. E. ENGELHARDT, M. D. As mayor of Glendora for the past two terms, vice-president of the Glendora Bank and the instigator of many local improvements, Dr. A. E. Engelhardt is rightly recognized as one of the leading citizens of Glendora. He has made his home there since 1887, and now owns extensive real estate through- out the state, principally in the southern part. He is keenly interested in fruit culture and most of his property is set to orchards and groves. He has been extremely successful and has accumu- lated much property. The town of Glendora owes many things to Dr. Engelhardt, he having been one of the pioneer boomers of the locality. It was he who erected the first modern business building there, which was occupied by his drug business, which he operated in partnership with his brother, John P. Engelhardt.


Dr. Engelhardt is a native of Ohio county, Ind., born August 28, 1856, the son of Henry D. and Anna (Diel) Engelhardt, both natives of Ger- many, where they were reared and educated and where they married. They left their native land early in the '40s and came to America, eventually locating in Ohio county, Ind. When the son was eleven years of age the family removed to Kentucky, where they resided for five years, and then again moved, this time going to Missouri. Dr. Engelhardt received his medical education in the Cincinnati (Ohio) Medical College, and after his graduation practiced for three years in Platte county, Mo. In 1887 he came to California and located at Glendora, where he has since made his home, practicing medicine there for twenty-three years. For three years he served as postmaster, and engaged in the drug business in partnership with his brother under the firm name of Engel- hardt Brothers. After a time, however, the splen- did opportunities in real estate appealed to Dr. Engelhardt and he became interested in the de-


velopment of ranch lands and orchards and has for many years been so engaged. He has planted many orange and lemon groves and later sold them, after they had come into bearing. He bought eighty acres of raw brush land south of the town and planted twenty-seven acres to oranges, and put down one of the first wells in the valley. Later he sold this property to Pasadena investors. Dr. Engelhardt's home place is a five acre tract, and this he has improved, planting orange and lemon trees and developing the same. He also owns a fine ten acre lemon grove in the valley, twenty acres at Corona and a forty acre fruit ranch at Exeter, Tulare county.


Dr. Engelhardt has done much for the com- munity in the way of commercial and educational development. He rendered valuable service on the school board, and his work as mayor of the municipality is of an exceptionally high order. He has been instrumental in having many splendid improvements made. Eight miles of electric light conduits have been built and ornamental street lights installed. Many miles of cement sidewalks have been laid, and the old water system pur- chased and $62,500 worth of bonds voted for the extension of the system and the improvement and modernization thereof. Many further street improvements have also been planned and will doubtless be executed during the term of office of Dr. Engelhardt as mayor. In company with W. G. Hall he formed the Glendora Independent Water Company and sunk seven wells.


The marriage of Dr. Engelhardt occurred in 1887 in Missouri, his wife being formerly Miss Rosa Clardy. Of their union were born three sons, all of whom are well and favorably known in Los Angeles county ; they are: C. C. Engel- hardt, in charge of his father's ranch at Corona ; W. E. Engelhardt, manager of the ranch at Exeter ; and Walter L. Engelhardt, a graduate of the law department of the University of Cali- fornia, class of 1914, who was admitted to the bar in June of that year. He has now opened offices in the Black building in Los Angeles, for the practice of his profession.


Dr. Engelhardt is a man of great ability and is well liked by all who know him. He is possessed of splendid judgment and rare foresight, while his poise and executive ability are far above those of the average man. He is a prominent figure in the fraternal world and is a member of several well- known beneficial and fraternal orders, including


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the Independent Order of Foresters, Modern Woodmen, Woodmen of the World and the Fra- ternal Brotherhood. Both Dr. and Mrs. Engel- hardt take an active part in the work of the Christian Church, of which they and also their sons are members, Dr. Engelhardt having been an elder and also superintendent of the Sunday school for many years.


THOMAS JEFFERSON MOFFETT. A well-to-do agriculturist of Los Angeles county and an extensive and successful apiarist. Thomas J. Moffett is prosperously engaged in his congenial occupation on one of the most pleasant homesteads in the vicinity of Sherman. His ranch contains one hundred and sixty acres of land, a large part of which is under cultiva- tion, and with its comfortable and convenient set of farm buildings is attractive to the passer- by, giving visible evidence of the enterprise and thrift of the owner. A son of James S. Moffett. he was born July 4, 1840, in Pope county, Ark., near Dover.


Born and reared in Tennessee, James S. Moffett migrated from there to Arkansas about 1832, taking up land, and being employed as a tiller of the soil until the breaking out of the Mexican war. When that was declared he offered his services to his country, and being made captain of Company A, Arkansas Mount- ed Rifles, commanded by Colonel Yale, served until his death in San Antonio, Tex., where he received a soldier's burial. He married Eupha Hamilton, who was born in Tennessee, of ex- cellent New England stock, some of her an- cestors having crossed the Atlantic in the May- flower. She remained in Arkansas until 1852. when she came across the plains in an ox-team train to California, bringing her seven children with her. Locating in Ione, Amador county, she lived there until marrying again, when she came with her husband to Los Angeles, in which city she made her home until her death, at the age of seventy-two years.


A wide-awake, active little hustler of twelve years when he came with the family to Cali- fornia, Thomas J. Moffett worked for about a year as a farm hand, and then, although but thirteen years old, began placer mining on his own account. He was subsequently variously


employed in Amador county, working in the mines, hotel or sawmill until 1857, when as a result of the Frazer river excitement, he went there and prospected for one season. Coming to Los Angeles county in 1868, he rented land in this vicinity for two or three years, and in its management met with encouraging success. Purchasing then one hundred and sixty acres of railroad land, he improved the ranch on which he has since lived, and in addition to carrying it on in an able manner has several seasons rented large tracts of near-by land in order that he might enlarge his agricultural operations. He is very practical, seizing every offered opportunity for advancing his interests, and besides carrying on general farming in a scientific manner, has made a specialty of bee raising, having at times had as many as two hundred and twenty stands, although at the present time his apiary contains but fifty stands.


January 29, 1887, Mr. Moffett married Anna G. Cottle, who was born in Missouri and came with her parents to California at an early day ; her death occurred April 30, 1913. Politically Mr. Moffett supports the principles of the Dem- ocratic party by voice and vote, although in local affairs he is extremely liberal. He is re- tired from active business and lives in his beau- tiful home at Beverly Hills.


JOHN PAUL KREMPEL. The picturesque scenic attractions of Los Angeles furnish an har- monious background for original types of build- ing and for more than twenty-five years have afforded an appropriate environment for the efforts of the pioneer architect, John Paul Krem- pel, whose name is indissolubly associated with many of the substantial structures that give per- manence to the architecture of Southern Cali- fornia. That honors have been accorded him on the part of those of his own profession appears in his prominent identification with the State Board of Architecture, the American Institute of Architects, the Engineers and Architects' Asso- ciation ; in his secretaryship of the Architectural League of the Pacific Coast and in his presidency of the southern district of the state board of archi- tecture for a period of more than ten years beginning in 1901, by appointment of Governor


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Gage and by successive reappointments by Gov- ernors Pardee, Gillett and Johnson. That the general public recognizes his high talents appears in his selection as architect of many of the most expensive residences and business blocks in this section of the state. Long after his life work shall have ended these will remain to mark his genius and perpetuate his personal conception of architecture. It has not been his policy to adhere with slavish devotion to any one school of the profession ; his ideal is a composite, embodying the features more or less of all schools and com- bining the best of the present day out of the best of the past. The Greek classic style, also the renaissance, as exhibited by St. Peter's at Rome embraces in his opinion the most popular and useful of all schools. The Spanish renaissance or mission style he considers especially well adapted to Southern California and he utilized it, although not with rigid or imitative fixedness, in the Bivouac, the residence of Gen. Harrison Gray Otis in the Wilshire district, building the beautiful structure of earth material in consonance with that style of architecture, but showing an har- monious blending with another style in the en- trance, which embodies the features of the peri- style to a Grecian temple.


The early environment of John Paul Krempel was such as to develop his native love of archi- tecture. As a boy he was familiar with the beau- tiful castles on the Rhine and lived near the far- famed town of Bingen. Born at Kreuznach, Ger- many, October 19, 1861, a son of John P. and Susan (Stocker) Krempel, he was sent to the gymnasium in his native town and put through a severe course of mental training. From 1880 to 1885 he studied architecture in Berlin, where he had the advantages offered by such institutions as the technical high school and the Building Academy. In 1887 he came to Los Angeles and here, through all the successive periods of retro- gression or wonderful progress, he has since fol- lowed his profession. Many of the structures designed by him have been carried out by his friend and compatriot, Carl Leonardt, the builder. Included in his early work were the drawings for the old Los Angeles theatre on Spring street (later the Orpheum) ; a three-story brick block at Third and Spring (where the Stimson building now stands) ; the Turner hall on Main street (where the roundhouse once stood) ; the Catholic church in East Los Angeles ; and the Charles Stern resi-




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