USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume III > Part 19
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upon his time, being a director in various organ- in the legal profession and for the public welfare izations, prominent among which are the Los of Los Angeles city and county, rather than as his father's son. He is a man of sterling worth and great integrity of purpose, a worthy citizen and a true friend. His ability in the legal pro- fession has placed him in the front ranks among the men who are accomplishing much in that especial line, while it has also made him an in- valuable public servant, and on more than one occasion he has served with distinction and last- ing benefit to his constituency, which is at all times the general public and his fellow citizens. Angeles Trust & Savings Bank, the Mortgage Guarantee Company, the Citizens' Trust & Sav- ings Bank, the Southern California Edison Com- pany and the California Delta Farms, Incor- porated; a trustee of the State Normal School, the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Civil Service Com- mission ; also both trustee and treasurer of the University of Southern California, director of the Rosedale Cemetery Association and of the Ar- tesian Water Company.
Mr. Cochran was active in the organization of the Broadway Bank & Trust Company, holding the position of vice-president in that firm since its beginning, and was at one time a member of the firm of Cochran, Williams, Goudge, Baker & Chandler. For many years he filled the positions of secretary and director of the United Gas, Electric and Power Company, having been largely influential in its consolidation with the Edison Electric Company. He was concerned with the Seaside Water Company, and with the opening of the West Adams Heights tract in Los Angeles, and also has interests in the city of Santa Bar- bara, Cal.
The first marriage of Mr. Cochran was with Miss Alice M. McClung, a native of Canada, August 6, 1890, whose death occurred June 16, 1906. On April 3, 1907, he married Miss Isabelle M. McClung in Los Angeles, where he now re- sides at No. 2249 Harvard boulevard, his busi- ness address being the Pacific Mutual Life Build- ing, Los Angeles. His religious affiliation is with the Methodist Episcopal Church, he having been influential in the founding of the Westlake Metho- dist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, and he holds membership in the following clubs: The California, Jonathan, Los Angeles Athletic, Uni- versity, Los Angeles Country, Midwick Country and Virginia Country Clubs of Los Angeles, and the Bohemian and Pacific Union Clubs, San Francisco.
JUDGE LEWIS REED WORKS. The son of an illustrious father, Judge Lewis Reed Works is nevertheless known for the strength of his own character and for the splendid work he has done
Judge Works is a native of Indiana, born in Vevay, Switzerland county, December 28, 1869, the son of John Downey Works, United States Senator from California since 1911 and a man of power and influence in the state and nation, and Alice (Banta) Works, who is well known throughout California as the companion and help- meet of her husband. Judge Works received his early education in Indiana, and in 1883 removed with his parents to San Diego, where he con- tinued his public school studies, completing them later in San Francisco. In 1887 he was graduated from the San Diego Commercial College. From 1882 to 1890 he worked as a practical printer, the greater part of that time being during vaca- tions, but the last year he gave his entire time to the work and was half owner of a job printing business.
It was not until 1890, when he was twenty years of age, that Judge Works began to read law, and a year and a half later he was admitted to the bar of California and engaged in the practice of his profession in San Diego until 1901, when he removed to Los Angeles, where he has made liis home continuously since that time, being appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Cali- fornia for Los Angeles county by the governor in 1912, to serve until January, 1915. At the fall election of 1914 he was elected by the people to a six-year term in the same office, to commence at the expiration of his term under the appoint- ment. During the time of his legal practice Judge Works appeared as counsel in many important cases, including the San Diego and National City water-rate cases and the Salem Charles will case. He was a member of the lower house of the state legislature in 1899-1901, and in 1907-1909 was first assistant city attorney of Los Angeles. In 1910-1911 he served as a member of the Los Angeles charter revision committee, framing the
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charter amendments that were voted on by the people, March 6, 1911. He was also president of the Los Angeles board of public utilities in 1911, and in 1912 served as a member of the board of freeholders to frame a new charter for Los An- geles, in the same year also being a member of the board of freeholders to frame the charter for Los Angeles county, under which the county is now governed.
Aside from his political and governmental activities, Judge Works has been and is still associated with a multitude of other interests which bring him into constant and close contact with his fellow citizens. He was a charter mem- ber of Company A, California Naval Militia (Naval Reserve), which was the first battalion organized in California, where he served three years and from which he was honorably dis- charged. He is a member of the National Academy of Political and Social Science; the National Geographic Society; the Southwest Society ; the National Municipal League; the Los Angeles Municipal League; the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; the Los Angeles City Club and the Severance Club, being president of the last named, and once a president of the City Club. He is also a member of several social clubs, and is a past exalted ruler of San Diego Lodge No. 168, B. P. O. E.
The marriage of Judge Works and Miss Har- riet L. Wilson occurred in Los Angeles in 1903. Mrs. Works is the daughter of the late William Wilson, and is a native of Ontario, Canada, born January 6, 1877. She is well known socially in Los Angeles, where together with her distin- guished husband she enjoys the friendship of a wide circle. Judge Works is also a prominent member of the Christian Science Church and active in its affairs. Judge Works is the father of one son, Pierce, born in 1896 of a prior mar- riage, and a student at the University of Cali- fornia.
G. R. TIFAL. A native of Germany and a resident of California only since 1907, G. R. Tifal has nevertheless been an important factor in the development and upbuilding both of Los An- geles and Monrovia, and much valuable residence and business property has been owned and im-
proved by him. With his home located in the beautiful little city of Monrovia, and with offices there and in Los Angeles for the conduct of his business of designing, contracting and building residences and business blocks, and for the pro- motion of various real estate enterprises, Mr. Tifal is well known in both cities and is ac- credited as one of the leading citizens of the county.
The native city of Mr. Tifal is Posen, Germany, he having been born there December 18, 1878. At an early age he came to the United States with his parents and settled in Monticello, Wis., where he was reared and educated. Later he went to Beaumont, Tex., where he learned the planing- mill business and after a time engaged in this line for himself, owning his own mill. At a still later period he went to Mexico City, Mexico, where he was employed in a planing mill for some time, but his health failing in 1907 he came to Monrovia, where he has since made his home. Two years were spent in recuperating and in looking over the conditions of the country, and in 1909 he opened his present business of contract- ing and building, making a specialty of fine resi- dences, bungalows and office buildings. Later his younger brother, C. H. Tifal, joined him and since that time the firm has been known as Tifal Broth- ers, with offices at No. 5204 South Park avenue, Los Angeles, and at No. 628 Myrtle avenne, Mon- rovia.
In addition to their contracting and building business the Tifal Brothers also have a variety of other interests. They own and conduct a planing mill at Monrovia, and have been heavily inter- ested in real estate. They subdivided the Tifal Brothers East Fifty-second street tract of nine acres in Los Angeles, which consisted of fifty- eight residence lots and seven business lots and was put on the market in 1911. At the present time it is built up and most of the lots are sold. The brothers have constructed some three hun- dred residences in Los Angeles and more than eighty in Monrovia. Prominent among the latter are the homes of P. E. Hatch, Charles Ainley, Fred Ainley, Mrs. Eva Busch, P. Bachert, C. H. Holmes, Frank Miller, O. N. Bryant, and many other handsome residences. They also have erected for sale some thirty houses in Monrovia, ranging in value from $2300 to $8000, and in Los Angeles they have built and owned more than sixty-four houses and business blocks. They also
James Schuylery
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constructed the Frank L. Chance block at Glen- dora.
G. R. Tifal has been prominent in the local affairs of Monrovia since he first established his home there. He is an active worker in the cause of temperance and has taken an interest in all municipal affairs. For a number of years he served on the board of town trustees and for a part of this time has been chairman (mayor) of the board.
The marriage of Mr. Tifal took place in Beau- mont, Tex., January 1, 1902, uniting him with Miss Clara E. Zacharias, the daughter of John and Rosalie Zacharias, and a native of Wisconsin. She has borne her husband three children, one son and two daughters, Chester, Adela and Beatrice.
The junior member of the firm of Tifal Broth- ers, C. H. Tifal, is a young man of great promise. He does the designing for the firm and is one of the leading bungalow designers in Southern Cali- fornia, which is equal to saying, in the world, for it is an acknowledged fact that this part of the state leads the world in the construction of this type of dwelling.
JAMES DIX SCHUYLER. To write a full and complete history of the life of Mr. Schuyler would be to present an epitome of the develop- ment of hydraulic engineering not only in the west, but practically throughout the world, for he was recognized as a world-wide authority on hydraulics and by experience in different coun- tries had equipped his mind with a practical knowledge unsurpassed by any engineer of the present generation. In the control of enter- prises of vast magnitude, as consulting en- gineer in the United States, British Columbia, Mexico and the Hawaiian Islands, and as the author of technical works, including "Reser- voirs for Irrigation and Water Power and Domestic Water Supply," he attained a fame that made his influence felt among every class of people, but particularly in his own profes- sion, as evidenced by the award of the Thomas Fitch Rowland prize to him from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Honors came to him repeatedly in the latter years of his life. More than once he was selected with a few other leaders of the profession to give his opin-
ion in enterprises involving the expenditure of vast sums and in no instance did the results prove his decision to be at fault ; on the other hand, his judgment was always sustained by the evidence of experimental development. Per- haps no citizen more distinguished than he has been given to the country by the historic and aristocratic family of Schuyler, whose associa- tion with America dates back to the founding of New Amsterdam by the Dutch after the dis- covery of the Hudson river by Henry Hudson, that intrepid navigator from the Netherlands. Other Schuylers have attained prominence and have been characterized by a ripe statesman- ship, but none has surpassed him in efficient service to the country.
The son of Philip Church and Lucy M. (Dix) Schuyler, of Ithaca, N. Y., James Dix Schuyler was born in that city May 11, 1848, and re- ceived a public-school education supplemented by attendance at the Friends' College from 1863 until 1868. Native abilities inclined him to en- gineering and through his own efforts he se- cured an early and excellent training in that line of work. In western Kansas, when hostile Indians still made the country wild and danger- ous, he engaged in engineering for the Kansas & Pacific Railroad as early as 1869. The ex- perience developed his innate courage and taught him to defend himself against redmen and outlaw whites. More than one skirmish enlivened the routine of work, and in one of these attacks he sustained a serious bodily injury. As early as 1873 he went from Colorado to California, but it was not until 1893 that he established an office and a home in Los Angeles. This city profited by his distinguished citizen- ship until 1902, when he removed to Ocean Park, and there his earth life came to a close in September, 1912. To develop a reputation as one of the foremost engineers of the world was a task not of a few months or a few years, but of several decades, and renown came with the remarkable success achieved in enterprises sur- passing all previous attempts and daunting the courage of the most skilled engineers.
As assistant state engineer of California from 1878 to 1882, as chief engineer and superinten- dent of the Sinaloa & Durango Railroad in Mexico, 1882-84, and as an engineer in the building of the sea wall at San Francisco, 1884- 85, Mr. Schuyler became known as one of the
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rising engineers of the west. After building the Sweetwater dam in 1887-88 he was retained for the construction of the Hemet dam, which ranks as the highest masonry dam in western America. During subsequent years he devoted much attention to hydraulic engineering and built water works in Denver, Colo., Portland, Ore., and many other cities. During 1903-05 he engaged as consulting engineer in the building of the dam on Snake river at the head of the Twin Falls canal, which is probably the largest irrigation system in America. A similar posi- tion was held with the American Beet Sugar Company in California and Colorado during a period of nine years of irrigation and water supply development. While giving his entire time to such work his inventive faculties were brought into action and he devised the sluicing process which is recognized as one of the greatest improvements in modern engineering. One of the first enterprises in which the sluic- ing process was tried successfully was in the construction of the St. Francis dam for the Bay Counties Power Company. As consulting en- gineer of the Great Western Power Company of California he directed attention to the possi- bilities of a project that since has developed into the largest power plant in the state.
The board of three consulting engineers selected to report on the plans for the Los Angeles aqueduct had Mr. Schuyler as one of its members. No task of his forceful career was more deeply interesting to him than this stu- pendous project. Carefully he studied all of the plans for bringing the water two hundred and fifty miles from the Owens river through one of the driest deserts in the world and through mountains that made the construction of tunnels a feat calling for the highest en- gineering skill. When he and the other mem- bers of the board went over the ground in 1907 and studied every phase of the project, they recommended a cut of twenty-three miles from the estimated length of the canal and this made a saving to the city of several million dollars, besides expediting the gigantic task. Mexico, Japan, Hawaii, Brazil and Canada sought the services of this distinguished engineer. In Hawaii he was consulting engineer in the con- struction of the highest dam, chiefly built by the sluicing process. In addition he was con- sulting engineer for the territorial government on Nuuanu dam, Honolulu. His work in Can-
ada included the office of consulting engineer for the British Columbia Electric Railroad Company and the Vancouver Power Company in the construction of dams and the reclama- tion of swamp lands. In behalf of the United States Indian Bureau he built the Zuni dam in New Mexico. As might have been anticipated, he was called into service as consulting en- gineer in the Panama canal construction. Presi- dent Roosevelt commissioned him to accom- pany President-elect Taft to the isthmus as one of seven engineers to report on canal plans and construction. The unanimous report of this board of engineers was in favor of carrying out the plan adopted by congress for a lock-canal, but recommended a modification of the height and slopes of the Gatun dam, lowering it by twenty feet.
With far-reaching professional activities that took him into many parts of the world, Mr. Schuyler became known as one of the greatest engineers in the world and received many hon- ors from others of his calling. He was a past vice-president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers of London, England, the Technical Society of the Pacific Coast, Engineers and Architects Association of Southern California, Franklin Institute and American Geographical Society, while he published various reports for the United States Geological Survey, numer- ous reports on irrigation for the state of Cali- fornia and other articles and extended technical reports that are now recognized as authority in their various lines. Socially he was a charter member of the California Club and a member of the Union League Club, while with his wife, whom he married July 25, 1889, and who was Mary Ingalls Tuliper, he was a distinguished and favored guest in circles where brilliancy of intellect and efficiency in the public service formed the sine qua non of admission and where citizens of broad culture recounted the inci- dents of his career with admiring enthusiasm, proud that they could call this great engineer a fellow citizen and friend.
MRS. FRANCES BOESCH. Although a na- tive of Germany, Mrs. Boesch has been reared and educated in America, her parents having come to this country in 1854, when she was little more
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than a child. They located first in Pennsylvania, but eight years later went to New Ulm, Minn., where Mrs. Boesch received her education and grew to young womanhood. Her parents, Lewis and Amelia Schuetze, resided for many years near Berlin, where the daughter Frances was born. In Minnesota she met and married Jacob Mueller, the issue of this marriage being three children, namely : Fred J. Mueller, a graduate of Cornell University and now in the fruit raising business at Corona, Riverside county, Cal .; Olga, now married to Edmond Mayer, residing in San Diego, and the mother of three children (Lorle, Vera and Norma) ; and Frances, married to A. Metzger and living in Indianapolis. Mr. Metzger, who is a man of some prominence in Indiana, entertained Governor Johnson of California when the western statesman was on a recent visit there. They have four children, namely: Mar- garet, Alexander, Norman and Louise.
After the death of Mr. Mueller the widow married Werner Boesch in 1893, and six years later she was again left a widow. In 1902 she came to California to make a permanent home and has since resided here. She had spent many win- ters here previously with Mr. Boesch and was especially fond of Los Angeles and quite natur- ally chose this city for her home, erecting a beau- tiful residence on Westlake avenue. Since lo- cating here she has spent much time in travel, both in America and abroad, and she is also often to be found at San Diego with her daughter and grandchildren, Mrs. Boesch being especially fond of the latter. She has many friends in Los An- geles and is a favorite with a wide circle.
IVAN T. JOHNSON. One of the leading men of San Gabriel today is Ivan T. Johnson, proprietor of the East San Gabriel Egg Ranch, one of the best known and most reliable egg and chicken ranches in California, as well as one of the largest and most profitable. The ranch is located in East San Gabriel and consists of nine acres of land, with the attendant improvements, and is stocked with White Leghorn fowls of a superior strain. The growth of this great in- dustry and the rise of Mr. Johnson from a very small beginning to his present position of promi- nence in the poultry world is almost phenomenal, and speaks volumes for the integrity of purpose,
patient application to details and general business ability of the proprietor. In 1904, in partnership with S. A. Swanson, Mr. Johnson rented a tract of twenty-five acres at Temple street and West- ern avenue, Los Angeles, where he started in busi- ness with forty chickens. With him to make a start in any given line was to immediately make a close and careful study of all phases of the indus- try and to follow every possible avenue that might lead to success. This was his plan in this new venture, and so successful was he that at the end of two years he moved out to East San Gabriel, having at that time nine hundred hens. There he purchased five acres of land which has since been increased by the purchase of four additional acres, while at this time he has six thousand laying hens. The improvements on this property are of the very newest design and are so arranged as to give every possible scientific advantage to the fowls. In fact the ranch is acknowledged to be the best appointed, as well as one of the largest, in Los Angeles county.
Starting with an ordinary White Leghorn stock Mr. Johnson has developed a strain of his own which he has found especially satisfactory both from the point of view of hardiness and from the general productiveness of the hens, they having proven exceptionally good layers. The ranch is well known all over the state and the proprietor has an appreciable business outside of the county, and has shipped chicks as far as Phoenix, Ariz. The sale of chicks is one of the most profitable features of this ranch, an average of 25,000 baby chickens being sold each year. These are shipped when a day old, and large or- ders have been sent as far as Tucson and Phoenix, Ariz., and Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, Cal., with very small loss, although as many as four hundred have been shipped at a time, and on one occasion a shipment to Santa Barbara was de- layed for thirty-six hours. The incubator capac- ity of the hatchery is ten thousand eggs at one time. Eggs are also sold for hatching purposes, as many as forty thousand having been sold in a season. Another feature is the sale of two- year-old breeding stock, for which there is always a big demand. The eggs are sold to Los Angeles firms by contract and are always guaranteed to be absolutely fresh.
The care of the chickens, their housing and feeding is a question to which Mr. Johnson has given unlimited care and study, and there is never
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any relaxing on this point. As a result the fowls are healthy and strong, free from disease of any sort. They are fed with a mash made from Mr. Johnson's own formula, and grain is bought by the car load. All this conspires to produce a high grade stock and is well worth the time and effort required. Mr. Johnson has exhibited at poultry shows and fairs all over California and has taken many prizes. In the local and county exhibitions and fairs he has taken an average of seventy-five per cent. of the first prizes. One year in the Los Angeles Poultry Show he took all the first prizes for his strain, and on another occasion (in 1913) he carried off three out of five such honors. Re- cently he shipped eight hens and four cocks to Sweden, and while there took four prizes at the Fair.
In the spring of 1914 Mr. Johnson bought the interests of his partner in this enterprise and since that time has been the sole owner and proprietor of this splendid business. The interest on their original investment has been very great and the business as it stands today is very valuable. Just how valuable may be estimated in some measure from the fact that in 1913 the receipt from the sale of eggs alone was $15,000, while the profits from other sources were very large.
Mr. Johnson is a native of Sweden, born in the central part of that country, November 2, 1871, his parents residing on a farm, where he was reared. He attended school and worked on the farm until he was twenty years of age, when he responded to the call of the West and came to the United States. For two years he worked on a ranch in Minnesota, and following this was simi- larly employed in Indiana for three years. Sub- sequently he was variously employed in Chicago for two years, then in 1901 came to California. For a time he worked on a small fruit ranch at the corner of Melrose and Western avenues, until he made his splendid venture in the poultry business in 1904.
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