USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume II > Part 45
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Upon the breaking out of the Civil war Mr.
Holabird returned to Vermont and at the age of seventeen years enlisted in the Twelfth Ver- mont Infantry. His term of enlistment expired in the summer of 1863. He was mustered out of the service immediately after the Battle of Gettysburg, in which battle his brigade actively participated.
Returning to Vermont only to realize that the war was not ended, he went to Boston and enlisted as a first-class fireman on the first Monitor "Monadnock," participating in the bombardment and capture of Fort Fisher, N. C. He was promoted by direct command of the Secretary of the Navy to acting assistant pay- inaster; the promotion coming just as the Con- federate army was capitulating, he left the service and cast his lot with the great western country.
Mr. Holabird entered into the service of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. Begin- ning in a humble capacity, he later became con- fidential agent of the president, Allen Manvil, in 1890, and had charge of a survey through Tejon Pass in an abortive attempt to build a line to San Francisco. Mr. Manvil died and the Santa Fe passed into new hands. Mr. Holabird became attached to the Southern Pacific Company in a confidential capacity, serving under Julius Krutt- schnitt, H. E. Huntington and C. P. Huntington, and finally became the confidential field expert for E. H. Harriman, chiefly advising regarding proposed railway extensions. In this capacity Mr. Holabird was sent to the Philippines to report upon a $40,000,000 railroad system the Insular Government desired to build. He advised against it. His services were then loaned to the Imperial Government of Japan, and he was sent to Man- churia to report upon the Chinese Eastern Raik- way that Japan had captured from the Russians, also reporting upon the railways of Korea.
During this interval the California Develop- ment Company (a corporation supplying water to Imperial Valley in Southern California) suf- fered great losses by floods, involving enormous expense in restraining and controlling the Colo- rado river. This expense, amounting to several million dollars, was made by the Southern Pacific Company. The debt became so great a burden that the California Development Company be- came a defaulter in the interest upon its bonds and Mr. Holabird became its receiver and general manager in December. 1909.
The finances of the California Development
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Company were in horrible shape and the canals in such a neglected condition that enormous losses were incurred annually by not only the California Development Company, but the settlers in the Imperial Valley. Five years have passed and the California Development Company is a prosperous corporation. Though still in Mr. Holabird's hands as receiver, it is worth, based upon a 5% capitalization, enough to pay off all the creditors, and this has all come about under the manage- ment of W. H. Holabird.
Although sixty-nine years of age, Mr. Hola- bird has the vitality and enthusiasm of youth and insists that his day of activity is not nearly over, and when the California Development Company is sold, as it will be soon, he will set himself up as a doctor of sick corporations, or do some other needed work.
Mr. Holabird is a member of the California Club of Los Angeles, Grand Army of the Re- public, Engineers and Architects Association of Los Angeles, Camp Fire Club of New York, Sunset Club of Los Angeles and Sons of the American Revolution, Connecticut Society.
Mr. Holabird educated himself. Having few advantages in the way of schools in his youth, he became a reader and searcher after truth. This method, aided by association with the very best people in the United States, fitted him for the duties of investigating engineer and manager of big business matters.
Mr. Holabird has two sons, R. D. Holabird of Berkeley, Cal., and Harry G. Holabird of Los Angeles. Emeline Holabird is his only daughter. Mrs. Phebe D. Holabird, the wife of W. H. Holabird, is a woman of great accomplishments and has always been a co-worker with her hus- band. Their home life of forty-five years has been one of the rare experiences of unchanging love.
GEORGE HANNA. An important real estate man of Los Angeles, one who holds office in various companies active in the development of this section of the state, is George Hanna, who since 1886 has been a resident and an important factor in the progress of this part of California. The birth of Mr. Hanna occurred in Salem, Washington county, N. Y., December 18, 1845, his parents being Robert and Mary Ann (Rea)
Hanna. He attended the public schools of Salem until the age of eight years, when his parents moved to Aurora, Ill., the boy continuing his education there until eighteen years of age, when he went into the mercantile business with his brother under the name of Hanna Brothers. Sell- ing their Aurora interests in 1873, the brothers re- moved to Chicago, where they interested them- selves in real estate business for a couple of years, at the end of which time they returned to Aurora and re-entered the mercantile business, Mr. Hanna in 1881 buying out the interests of his two brothers, who were at that time in partner- ship with him, and continuing the work alone for about five years, when a visit to California decided him to remove West and make his perma- nent abode here. Accordingly, in 1886, after closing his affairs in Illinois, he with his family returned to California, where he has made his home ever since.
On first coming to Los Angeles Mr. Hanna purchased an orange grove at the corner of Ver- non avenue and South Park street, just outside the limits of the city, and spent five years in the cultivation of oranges for which this part of the state is famous. He also took part in local affairs and held the offices of school trustee and deputy county assessor, as well as being receiver for the Visalia Water Company of Tulare county, Cal., where in 1892 he located for a short time and was active in irrigation and other interests of importance in the district.
In 1895 Mr. Hanna co-operated with others and formed the West Los Angeles Water Company, which supplied water to several of the suburbs of Los Angeles, and purchased the West Side Water Company of Los Angeles, in both of which organizations he held the offices of director, secre- tary, treasurer, general manager and part owner. Selling out the latter company in 1905, he, in association with H. J. Whitley, purchased fifty thousand acres in the San Joaquin Valley, which they called the Security Land and Loan Company, of which Mr. Hanna was local manager until said land was sold. In 1909 Mr. Hanna purchased an interest in the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company, in which he is still actively engaged. The offices held by him at present include the presidency of the Corcoran Water Company and the Corcoran Land Company, and the vice-presi- dency of the Security Land & Loan Company, as well as that of director in the Home Savings Bank
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of Los Angeles, the First National Bank of Van Nuys, Cal., the State Bank of Owensmouth, Cal., and the Bank of Lankershim, Cal. Fraternally he is a member of the Hollywood Lodge of Masons, and in politics he is allied with the Re- publicans, while his religious affiliations are with the Congregational denomination. By his mar- riage in Aurora, Ill., to Miss Julia Mandigo, December 25, 1872, Mr. Hanna is the father of a son and daughter: Rea, the elder, being the United States consul at Valparaiso, Chile, South America ; the daughter, Pauline, making her home with her parents.
WILLIAM CURLETT. An eminent posi- tion among the architects of America was held by the late William Curlett of Los Angeles and San Francisco, widely recognized as a man of talent in his profession and highly honored in selection for original designs of great building enterprises as well as in appointment to occu- pative positions of conspicuous pre-eminence. Ireland's contribution to the citizenship of the United States has been of far-reaching im- portance in the development of the new world along every line of enterprise, and not the least of her sons was William Curlett, born in county Down, March 3, 1846, a son of Daniel and Jane (Robinson) Curlett, and the recipient of the best educational advantages afforded by public and private schools in the home neighborhood. At an early age he became interested in archi- tecture and showed skill in the drawing of plans as well as in original designs. To develop this talent he devoted two years to the study of art and architecture in Manchester, England, and three years in an art school of Belfast, Ireland, following which he was employed for three years in the offices of architects and thus gained practical experience of the greatest value to his future work.
Attracted by the opportunities of the west. Mr. Curlett left Belfast, Ireland, in August, 1871, and arrived in San Francisco during Sep- tember, after which he was employed by Augustus Laver, one of the most celebrated architects of that day on the Pacific coast. The experience gained with that eminent man proved valuable to Mr. Curlett in his later enterprises as the head of an office of his own.
Notable office, bank and private buildings were designed by him along the entire coast as far south as San Diego. Included among his orig- inal designs were the following: The Phelan, Shreve and Head buildings; the Mutual Sav- ings Bank and the San Francisco Savings Union on California street ; a branch library for J. D. Phelan and another for A. B. McCrery ; the Flood residence in Menlo Park and the house of the same family on California street ; the homes of William H. Crocker, Judge San- derson, Robert Sherwood, L. L. Baker, A. N. Drown, E. F. Preston, J. D. Phelan and M. Pauline Payne, all in San Francisco or suburbs. In other parts of the state he was retained as architect for the public library at Marysville, the court house at Fresno, the court house in Los Angeles, the insane asylum at Stockton, the insane asylum in San Bernardino county, the residences of ex-Governor Markham, Col. Dan Freeman and Mrs. Mark Sibley Severance, and many other structures, public and private, that form a notable accession to the architec- ture of California. The Los Angeles Title & Trust building, the Gates hotel and the Mer- chants Bank building, constructed after his plans, represent some of his latest and most successful efforts. It was the ambition of Mr. Curlett to make the Merchants Bank building the best building in Los Angeles and the crowning achievement of his professional career. But his last illness prevented him from seeing his creation take concrete form, and a photograph of the building in its then present state, which he had requested be taken and sent to him, arrived too late.
Mr. Curlett was a man of fine attainments and his life was one of useful and meritorious achievements. He possessed a personal poise and dignity that commanded respectful admira- tion and kindly qualities that endeared him to his friends. He had that pure love of art which makes professional ideals paramount to com- mercial gain and he strove to give the best that was in him to his work however much he was hampered by matters that conflicted with ideals of architecture and art. As one of the leaders of his profession he was showered with many honors in his lifetime. As president of the Cali- fornia Chapter, American Institute of Archi- tects, in 1910 he was instrumental in having the organization convene at San Francisco instead
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of Washington, D. C., the customary place of convention. In 1912 he was honored with the presidency of the California State Board of Architects. Elected a member of the advisory board of architects for the Panama-Pacific Ex- position, he was honored with the chairman- ship of this body, but resigned owing to the pressure of private business and to his growing ill-health. After an illness of two years he passed away January 20, 1914, at his home in Menlo Park. His burial was under the auspices of Masonic organizations with which he had been intimately identified for years. The last service was made the occasion also for many tributes from his former associates in the pro- fession of architecture, in general business, in society and in the Bohemian Club, of which latter for years he was a moving spirit. Sur- viving him are his widow, Celia A. (Eisen) Curlett, whom he married in Oakland, Cal., in 1873, and his two children, Aleck E. and Ethel A., the latter now Mrs. L. Mills. The son now has charge of the Los Angeles office for years maintained by the architect and now located in the Merchants National Bank building.
WILLIAM MITCHELL CASWELL. For more than thirty years associated with the bank- ing interests of Los Angeles and Southern Cali- fornia, and since 1904 assistant secretary of the Security Trust and Savings Bank, of Los An- geles, William Mitchell Caswell is one of the best known bankers in the state, and one of the most highly esteemed and influential. He has been in close touch with the financial affairs of the city for so many years that he has an un- usually sound grasp on the situation, and noth- ing startles or disturbs his judgment. He is pos- sessed of splendid executive ability and a power for the handling of detail work that is second to none, and which is a valuable asset to any con- cern with which he joins fortunes.
Mr. Caswell is a native of California, born in Nevada county, June 24, 1857. His parents were Samuel Bradford and Mary Bradford (Gibbs) Caswell, both natives of Massachusetts, where they were reared and educated and where they were married. They came to California in 1858, locating in Nevada county, where Mr. Cas-
well engaged in mining and mercantile business. It was in 1866 that they came to Los Angeles, where the father organized the general mercantile firm of Caswell & Ellis, continuing in business here until 1875. Following this he became audi- tor and clerk of the city council, in which ca- pacity he served for a number of years, and for seventeen years was auditor for the Los Angeles City Water Company. His death occurred in this city February 3, 1898. The son, William Mitchell Caswell, received his early education in Los Angeles, attending the Boys' Grammar School until 1871, when he entered the Cali- fornia Military Academy at Oakland and con- tinued there for two years. In 1874 he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, resigning in 1877 to return to his home in Los Angeles. He became a clerk in the United States Geodetic Survey during 1877-78, and from 1879 to 1882 served as a postal clerk. In 1882 Mr. Caswell commenced his long and honorable career as a banker, serving first as a teller with the First National Bank of Los Angeles for five years. In 1887 he became cashier for the Los Angeles Savings Bank, being with this firm for seventeen years, then accepted the position of assistant secretary of the Security Trust and Savings Bank (which merged with the former institution ), and which he still occupies.
The marriage of Mr. Caswell and Miss Cora L. Tubbs, the daughter of George W. Tubbs, was solemnized in Los Angeles, October 29, 1890. They have one son, George Bradford, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, class 1915. Both Mr. and Mrs. Caswell are well known socially in Los Angeles, where they have many warm personal friends. In his political associa- tions Mr. Caswell is a stanch Republican and has taken an interested part in the local affairs of his party for many years. He is a loyal supporter of Los Angeles and a firm believer in the future of the city, giving his support and co-operation to those measures which build substantially for the future welfare. He is associated with a number of fraternal and beneficial orders, being a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and is a past commander of Los Angeles Commandery No. 9, K. T., and a member of the California Society of the Sons of the Revolution. Socially he is a member of several prominent clubs, in- cluding the Jonathan Club, and both he and Mrs. Caswell are members of the Episcopal church.
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PRESTON K. WOOD. The story of the in- vention by Preston K. Wood of Los Angeles, Çal., of his famous pump for irrigating and other purposes, known as the P. K. Wood Deep Well Propeller Pump, is an interesting one, and is another demonstration of the well known saying that necessity is the mother of invention. While traveling in 1892 for a company which manufac- tured agricultural implements and gasoline en- gines and pumps, Mr. Wood was shown by a prospective customer in San Bernardino county a drilled well in a lemon grove where the owner wished to pump water to irrigate his lemon trees but regretted that no pump had ever been made which could get anything like a good supply of water from a well of these proportions. Mr. Wood, being of an inventive mind, during the journey out of that town, devoted himself to planning a pump of the style necessary to accom- plish the desired purpose, and within half an hour such a device had taken form in his mind, though it was not until 1897 that he made a practical test of his invention which proved to be a perfect success. Accordingly, he has today in Los An- geles a factory for the manufacture of these pumps, owned by the P. K. Wood Pump Com- pany. Incorporated, whose product is to be found in Mexico, Canada, Australia, Russia and the diamond and gold fields of South Africa, as well as in more than half the states of the Union. they being the manufacturers of pumps for min- ing, irrigating and water works. The company is a close corporation, the stock being owned by members of the family only, and Mr. Wood having now retired from the presidency, that office is held by his son, Preston K. Wood, Jr.
The son of Hiram and Mahala (Cole) Wood. Mr. Wood was born February 19, 1849, in Paw Paw. in Lee county, Ill., where he at- tended the public schools until the age of ten years, when he removed with his par- ents to Adair county, Mo., there continuing his education in the public schools. When twenty-one years of age he learned the plasterer's trade, which he followed for a number of years. later being employed for seven years as plaster contractor in Terre Haute, Ind., during which time he also served as deputy sheriff and in va- rious other offices made himself a valued citizen of his new home. Still engaging in plaster contract- ing, Mr. Wood removed to Independence, Kans .. in 1886 coming to Los Angeles, and here also he
continued in the same business, plastering the first five houses erected west of Union avenue in the Westlake district. Following this the real estate business employed his time for a year, dur- ing which period he was a member of the board of directors of the company that purchased sev- enty-five hundred acres of land between the cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach and started the town of Clearwater, Mr. Wood driving the first nail in the first building of the new town. In 1891 he sold his interest in the company, which was known as the Clearwater Operative Colony, in order to devote himself to his ranch which was located near there. The following year he engaged with the S. W. Luitweiler Machine Com- pany as salesman, continuing with the company until 1893, when he returned to his ranch, in 1895 again coming to Los Angeles and entering the employ of the Luitweiler Machine Company as salesman for a year, his invention of the won- derful pump having occurred during his former engagement with this firm. Leaving the Luit- weiler Machine Company, he now started inde- pendently in business, establishing the P. K. Wood Pump Company, of which he remained the president until his recent retirement. This pump is doing more than any other of its character to develop the arid sections of the western country and great credit is due Mr. Wood's inventive genius.
In his political interests Mr. Wood is a Pro- gressive, and fraternally he is associated with the Fraternal Brotherhood. He has been twice married, first in Terre Haute, Ind., in April, 1878. to Flora B. Stepp, who died in 1886, leav- ing two sons, E. F. and William Wood, who died in 1887. His second marriage was solemnized in Los Angeles, uniting him with Cora B. Shubert in October, 1888, and they are the parents of three children, Neva E., Walter A., and Preston K., Jr., of whom the last mentioned has succeeded his father as president of the P. K. Wood Pump Company.
E. ROBERT STOLL. A man who has been phenomenally successful during the thirty years of his residence in Los Angeles, E. Robert Stoll, who, with his wife and two sons, resides in a pleasant bungalow at No. 624 West Fifty-sixth street, proves what a plucky and industrious per-
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son can accomplish in Los Angeles. His parents, Andrew and Verena Stoll, both natives of Switz- erland, came to Los Angeles in 1886 and, having purchased thirty acres of land, commenced farm- ing. Their five children were all born in Switzer- land, and by name are: Edward, who for twenty years ranched in Ventura county, Cal., and now resides on Fifty-ninth street in Los Angeles; Ernest Robert; Hermina and Elise, twins, of whom the former is now the widow of Robert Bryant of Los Angeles, and the latter the wife of Jacob Siegrist, residing at Fifty-fifth and Figueroa streets, Los Angeles; and Louisa, now the wife of Charles Vanderkuhlen, and residing in Los Angeles.
Of this family, Ernest Robert Stoll was born in Canton Schaffhausen, Switzerland, June 1, 1865, grew up on his father's farm in that coun- try, and had the educational advantages offered by the schools of Switzerland, including the study of the French and German languages. In 1883, when eighteen years of age, he came to America, locating in Michigan, where for ten months he was employed on a farm at $9 per month. The next year he removed to Iowa, working for two years at $15 per month. His father came to this country in 1885, traveling all over the United States and finally deciding upon California for a home, located in Los Angeles in September, 1886. Here he purchased the thirty acres before men- tioned, which had been homesteaded by George Dye. The property was then farm land, without any improvements, and here the Stoll family worked together, farming, planting fruit, raising market garden produce, etc.
In 1904 the Stolls sold their property at a good profit for the purposes of subdivision. The fol- lowing year E. Robert Stoll started the Stoll Water Company, later taking in Fred Richmond as a partner, when the name of the firm became the Stoll-Richmond Water Company, an organ- ization which operated in the vicinity of No. 624 Fifty-sixth street. Mr. Stoll sank a well and laid water mains, and enlarged and expanded his business until compelled to sell out to the city in 1911. when his company had seven hundred water users on their books. Mr. Stoll has been a very active and successful man, attending strictly to business and enjoying a cheerful and quiet home life. He is now the owner of a good farm in the Imperial Valley, Cal., also three large apartment buildings in Los Angeles, one of
which contains stores and living rooms, the other two being devoted exclusively to apartments and having seventy-two and eighty-seven rooms re- spectively. In 1901 Mr. Stoll made his first pur- chase of a lot on Flower street, then an unim- proved section of the city, surrounded by water and mud. For the lot he paid $1700, and after improving it sold it four years later for $25,000. This was his first speculation in city lots and real estate.
Although enthusiastic over Los Angeles, his adopted home, Mr. Stoll has never lost his love for Switzerland, and has made three trips back to his native land, the first trip having been in 1900, the second in 1906, when he met and married Her- mina Uehlinger, a native of Switzerland, and the third trip in 1914, when his wife and two sons, Verner Robert and John A. Raymond, accom- panied him, their visit being cut short by the present European war, so that they returned to America in October, 1914. Mr. Stoll's wife is a talented lady who can speak English, French and German with equal fluency, as well as being a splendid home maker. By shrewdness and indus- try Mr. Stoll has accumulated a competency.
CHARLES HURLBERT TOLL. Among the men who are well known in banking circles of Los Angeles and elsewhere in Southern Cali- fornia should be mentioned Charles Hurlbert Toll who, as vice-president and director of the Security Trust and Savings Bank of Los An- geles, director of the Security National Bank of Los Angeles, and cashier of the Southern Cali- fornia Savings Bank, has for thirty years taken a prominent part in the financial life of this city and state. He is a man who has won his way to his present responsible position through the force of his own personality, through application and perseverance, and well deserves all he has received of honor and profit.
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