USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs, Biographical, Volume III > Part 25
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61
Mr. McAllister's first position in Virginia City was with the Fulton Foundry of that place. He began as an apprentice boy and remained with the company for nineteen years, resigning in 1882 the position of general manager of the plant. Leaving Virginia City he went to Tombstone, Ariz., to take employment as a machinist in a foundry there, but before the deal was closed he had purchased the plant in which he intended to work and thereupon began the operation of the Tombstone Foundry and Machine Shop. For eleven years he was thus engaged and during that time was one of the leading men of the town. He served as a member of the board of supervisors for one term, and it was while he held office that an attempt was made to rid the country of Geronimo and his savage followers. A large reward was offered for the Chief and a lesser amount for each member of his tribe, but the whites were unable to capture or kill the red- skins and the rewards were never claimed. Dur- ing the early part of his residence in Arizona Mr. McAllister experienced the dangers and depredations caused by the uprisings of the Apaches.
In 1893 Mr. McAllister established his manu- facturing business in Los Angeles and from that year until his death was identified with the substantial growth of the city's industries. Be- ginning in a small way, with an unpretentious factory, in 1900 he built a modern plant, known as the Fulton Engine Works, and today this ranks with the leading establishments of the kind in the United States. He incorporated his company several years ago, increasing its capital and scope, and through his direction of its affairs, as presi- dent of the board of directors, he made it one of the most successful enterprises in the South- west.
Although he was regarded as one of the most public-spirited men in Los Angeles, Mr. McAl- lister never took an active part in politics. Dur- ing his residence in Nevada and Arizona, how- ever, he was a worker for the Republican party and on various occasions held public office. He
692
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
served two years as school trustee in Virginia City, and also held the same office for two years in Tombstone, after which he was elected super- visor. He served four years as treasurer and tax collector of Cochise county, Ariz.
Mr. McAllister was prominent in Masonic circles, having taken all the degrees, and also be- longing to the Mystic Shrine, and was identified with the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Gamut Club. In Virginia City, Nev., on June 4, 1873, he married Elizabeth McAllister, and the two children born to them are Lillian (Mrs. C. A. King) and Frank Allister McAllister.
VESTAL AND HUBBELL. The poultry ranch of T. C. Vestal and O. B. Hubbell, estab- lished in Van Nuys, Cal., in September, 1913, comprises twenty acres and includes twelve poul- try houses, three brooders, eighteen incubators, and the owners have also built two beautiful resi- dences on the place. When they bought the prop- erty this was uncultivated land, but they have developed it and introduced a fine water system with pipes for irrigation, so that now they have one of the show places of the district. In addi- tion to their principal interest of poultry raising the owners have set out an orchard of walnut and fig trees on the place. Vestal and Hubbell make a specialty of full-blooded barred Plymouth Rock fowls, having also one pen of White Leg- horns and expecting, by the fall of 1915, to have three thousand White Leghorn laying hens, which number they intend to increase to five thousand by the year 1916. They also deal in day-old baby chicks, and have a pen of Cornish Indian Game Cocks. The brooder houses are heated by a hot water system, and are three in number, with a capacity of seventeen hundred chicks each, the incubators used being Schofield, Buckeye, Pioneer and Jubilee, with a capacity of ten thousand eggs.
Coming to California in 1890 as a young man, a native of Randolph county, N. C., T. C. Vestal settled in Shasta county, after two years remov- ing to Sonoma county, where he remained four- teen years, engaged in the raising and marketing of poultry, in which business he made his start in Two Rock Valley, five miles west of Petaluma, Cal., with a capital of only $80, buying his eggs
for hatching from Mr. Hubbell, now his partner, and being trusted for same one year. While raising chickens, he also milked from twenty-five to thirty-five cows for a neighbor in order to get enough money to carry on his poultry ranch. Though having a hard time at the start, Mr. Ves- tal is now reaping the benefits of his early strug- gle, and is a self-made man in the highest sense of the term. For four years prior to coming to Van Nuys, he and Mr. Hubbell carried on a large hay and grain establishment in Petaluma, and sell- ing this out, they invested in Van Nuys lands, be- sides their twenty-acre ranch there, owning other valuable property in Van Nuys.
Mr. Vestal was married in 1898 in Sonoma county to Belle Gaston, a native daughter, and three children were born to them: Wilburn (de- ceased), Genevieve and Eleanor Marie. Mr. Ves- tal is a member of Petaluma Lodge No. 30, I. O. O. F., and of the Canton.
Mr. Hubbell is a native of Michigan, where he was born August 31, 1863, when only four months old coming with his parents across the Isthmus of Panama to California, where his father, Orton Hubbell, was one of the pioneer settlers of Marin county, coming to the state in 1856. Mr. Hubbell has had twenty-five years of experience in the poultry business, and is now an expert in that line, his name being well known in the Petaluma section, where he was considered one of the best informed men on the subject and received the name of "the Petaluma expert." His establish- ing a business in Van Nuys, with his reputation and experience as a poultry expert, has been a decided boom to the chicken industry of that dis- trict, and he has planned the chicken ranches for the North Van Nuys Acre Tract of land. He was married in 1888 to Phebe Ames, a native of Sonoma county, and they have had two chil- dren, Carlyle (deceased) and Howard. For five years Mr. Hubbell was associated with the California Fruit Canners' Association of Santa Rosa, and both he and his partner are members of the Federation of Poultrymen of Van Nuys. They are now experimenting on a new strain of fowl, a cross of the Black Minorca and the White Leghorn. Both Mr. Vestal and Mr. Hub- bell are men of long experience in the poultry business, and will soon have the largest number of laying hens in the San Fernando Valley.
Josias J. Andrews
695
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
JOSIAS J. ANDREWS. During the past twenty-five years Josias J. Andrews has been so closely identified with the affairs of the city as to be recognized as a leading citizen of more than ordinary merit and a maker of his- tory in the truest sense of the word. He has been actively associated with the political and governmental affairs of the municipality almost since his advent into the city itself, and is always to be found arrayed staunchly on the side of the people and of right. He served as a member of the grand jury in 1908, which was near the close of the term of office of former Mayor Harper, and he was one of the six men who made the minority report which led to the recalling of Mr. Harper from his high office. In recognition of his services Mr. Andrews was appointed police commissioner by Mayor Alex- ander, serving for nine months or until the close of that term of office. Following this he was elected a member of the common council, serving in this capacity for three and a half years, and while a member of the council he took an active part in the affairs of the city and was a member of eleven different committees on public service. In all his associations with the municipal affairs of the city he has always evidenced the courage of his convictions and has stood firmly for what he believed to be the right and for the best interests of the people. He has never been swayed by personal motives, or by outside interests, and pressure from any such source has only served to make him stand the more firmly by his principles of justice and public welfare.
Mr. Andrews is a native of Ireland. When a lad of thirteen years his parents removed from there to the United States, settling on a farm in Whiteside county, Ill. There he grew to manhood, receiving his early education in the common schools of the county. Later he at- tended an academy in northern Iowa, and fol- lowing this he attended Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, receiving his degree in 1868, after which he attended for one year the law department of Michigan University and on ex- amination in Davenport, Iowa, was admitted to the bar.
During the Civil war Mr. Andrews enlisted in the one hundred days' service, May 19, 1864, and was discharged October 29 of that same year, after having been first sergeant in Com-
pany A, One Hundred and Fortieth Illinois Volunteers, and serving for five and a half months. Before his enlistment Mr. Andrews had been engaged in teaching school and after the close of the war he returned to this occupa- tion. Subsequent to his graduation from col- lege he became principal of the schools of Toledo, Iowa, and from there he went to Eagle Grove, Wright county, Iowa, where he engaged in business enterprises, organizing the Bank of Eagle Grove, which later became the State Bank of Eagle Grove, and of which Mr. An- drews was president. He also became actively interested in the commercial and municipal affairs of the city, and was elected as one of the first town trustees.
The call of the far west was, however, con- tinually sounding for him, and in the summer of 1890 Mr. Andrews disposed of his interests in the little Iowa city and came to Southern California. One of his first investments here was the purchase of a thirty-acre fruit ranch at Ontario, in San Bernardino county. This place is located on Euclid avenue in the heart of the beautiful orange grove district, and under the skillful management of Mr. Andrews it became one of the show places of the district. He raised oranges, lemons and olives and spared neither labor nor expense to improve his gróves and make them profitable and beautiful. He made a careful and thorough study of fruit rais- ing, and became known as an expert orange grower and an authority on matters of im- portance, thoroughly efficient in every branch of the work. While a resident of Ontario he served on the committee that settled the water disputes of that section and became a director and president of the San Antonio Water Com- pany.
It was in 1902 that Mr. Andrews disposed of his Ontario property and came into Los An- geles to make his home. He became interested in real estate, buying property, improving it and then selling again. He associated himself with the well-known real estate firm of David Barry & Co., and has been heavily interested financially in many of their subdivisions in and about Los Angeles, among which may be men- tioned Fremont place, one of the handsomest residence parks of the city. This park is beau- tified by massive entrance gates and has a num- ber of especially attractive features in its im-
29
696
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
provements. Another business undertaking in which Mr. Andrews has been interested, to- gether with a syndicate of prominent men, was the development of Victoria park and the plac- ing of this tract on the market.
Politically Mr. Andrews is a Progressive and he is altogether progressive in profession and practice in the broadest sense of the word. He was twice elected to the city council and during the time of his service was active in procuring the passage of various progressive measures. He was a strenuous advocate of the law which later was incorporated in the city charter limit- ing the height of new buildings, and was in- strumental in having it passed. It will be re- membered that this was an issue at the time and that the opposition was strong and well conducted. There were other measures also of great importance which owe their passage to his support; and during the entire term of his service he was constantly in the public eye, and one of the best known men in Los Angeles. He also helped to organize and is a director of the Continental National Bank.
Aside from his business and political associa- tions Mr. Andrews is well and favorably known throughout the county to a wide circle of ad- miring friends. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, affiliating with the Ontario lodge, although being well known in the various or- ganizations of the order in Los Angeles. He is a power for good at all times, and his in- fluence is a constant factor in all affairs of importance. He is a member of the various city clubs interested in the betterment and up- lift of the social and moral conditions of the city and is prominent in their work.
The marriage of Mr. Andrews occurred in Illinois, uniting him with Miss Anna Anthony, a native of New York, now deceased. Mrs. Andrews was a second cousin of the famous Susan B. Anthony, her father being an own cousin of the noted suffrage advocate. She bore her husband two daughters, Jesselyn, who passed away in Los Angeles and who was for a number of years an assistant in the City Library, and Anna, who is well known in Los Angeles.
The real estate ventures and investments of Mr. Andrews have been extensive and profit- able and he today owns interests in some of the most valuable property in and around Los
Angeles. He has always had the most im- plicit faith in the future of the city of his adop- tion and in his investments has always shown especially good judgment. That he has been instrumental in aiding in the establishment of a splendid city government in the Angel City is one of the greatest gratifications that Mr. Andrews enjoys, and his record in the council and in other civic matters is justly merited.
FRANK W. HOVEY. Although a resident of Los Angeles county but nine years, from 1902 to 1911, when his death occurred, Frank W. Hovey made many warm friends in the Angel City, and in Hollywood, where he made his home, and during that time was closely associated with the affairs of the city and of the state. He was progressive and wide awake to the best interests of the community, and was especially interested in political and governmental questions, taking an active part in the affairs of the Republican party, with which he was affiliated. He was also deeply interested in woman's suffrage and gave much as- sistance toward the forwarding of the cause in this state, making many addresses in its favor and working earnestly for the cause while it was a question at issue before the voters of the state. Since his death, which occurred September 26, 1911, when he was returning from delivering an address on equal suffrage, his widow and son have continued to reside in Hollywood.
Mr. Hovey was a native of New Brunswick, Canada, having been born there March 9, 1863. His parents, William E. and Elizabeth (Brown) Hovey, removed to Houlton, Me., when the son was but seven years of age, and there he grew to manhood, attending the public schools and afterward graduating from the old Houlton Academy, which was afterwards known as the Ricker Classical Institute. Later he attended the Maine Central Institute, graduating in 1884, and three years later, June 1, 1887, he graduated from the Boston University Law School, receiving the degree of LL.B., and also of Magna cum Laude. He was admitted to the bar at Portland, Me., in April, 1887, and began the practice of law that same year at Pittsfield, that state. For the first. year he was associated in partnership with J. W. Manson, and later continued his practice alone.
697
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
During the years that Mr. Hovey resided at Pittsfield he was closely associated with the affairs of his city in many ways. He was for six years a member of the school board in Pittsfield, and was also a trustee for the Maine Central Institute, of which institution he was a graduate. He repre- sented his district in the State Legislature in 1889-1890, was district attorney for Somerset county from 1891 to 1895, and during 1895 and 1896 he was a member of the Maine Senate. He removed to Biddeford, Me., in 1900, and was city attorney there during 1901 and 1902.
It was in 1902 that Mr. Hovey came to Los Angeles, arriving here May 1. Opening offices for the practice of his profession, he soon built up a large and successful practice, gained through painstaking and conscientious care in the discharge of all legal duties. For several years he was a member of the Republican district committee and also of the Republican state committee. He was a prominent member of the Union League and a charter member of the Hollywood Lodge, I. O. O. F., Enterprise Encampment, and the Veteran Odd Fellows Association, and on numerous occa- sions was a delegate to the Grand Lodge, he being a past grand. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hovey were always interested in church work. On coming to Los Angeles they united with the Union Avenue Methodist Church, and at the time of his death Mr. Hovey was president of the official board of that body.
The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Hovey occurred at Pittsfield, Me., June 3, 1887. Mrs. Hovey was formerly Miss Gertrude Sawyer, a native of Maine, and the daughter of Capt. Charles H. and Etta H. (Farnham) Sawyer. She was a class- mate of her husband at the Maine Central Insti- tute during their student days. She bore her husband two children, a son and a daughter. Of these the daughter, Ruth, died in childhood, while the son, Byron Price Hovey, is at present a stu- dent in the Hollywood high school.
Although loyal and affectionate citizens of Cali- fornia, both Mr. and Mrs. Hovey retained their affection for their former home-state, and kept alive these treasured associations through their membership in the Pine Tree State Association of Los Angeles, Mr. Hovey being vice-president of the association at the time of his death.
JOSEPH F. SARTORI. Los Angeles has been brought forward as a financial center through the sagacious leadership of the men who, at the head of its vast banking interests, have wisely guided affairs to the end that the welfare of the community may be best promoted and the prosperity of the people conserved. With the coming to the city of Mr. Sartori and the organ- ization by himself and associates in 1889 of the Security Savings Bank (now the Security Trust & Savings Bank) a most important factor entered into the banking history of the metropolis of the southwest. From that date to the present Mr. Sartori has been largely instrumental in outlining and carrying forward those policies which have made the "Security" the largest, as well as the oldest savings bank in the southwest, and the fact that the institution has attained its present magnitude may be attributed, in no small meas- ure, to his far-sightedness and sound financial pol- icies. The building in which its business is con- ducted is also the product of the same minds and energy that have so successfully controlled the destinies of the bank since its inception and fit- tingly conveys the impression of strength and sta- bility which make it a proper home for this great institution.
The president of the Security Trust & Savings Bank comes from an honored German family whose record for honesty and integrity is unim- peachable, and upon entering the field of bank- ing he received an unexpected and hearty support from a great number of persons who were ac- quainted with the family on the continent and with their reputation for probity and business acumen. While of European parentage and fam- ily, he himself is a native of Iowa, and was born at Cedar Falls on Christmas day of 1858, being the son of Joseph and Theresa (Wangler) Sartori. After he had graduated from Cor- nell College at Mount Vernon, Iowa, in 1879, he matriculated in the law depart- ment of the University of Michigan, and con- tinued his studies until graduation in 1881. Meanwhile he had spent one year (1877-78) in the University of Freiburg, in Baden, Germany. Upon the completion of his college course he en- tered the office of Hon. Leslie M. Shaw, at Den- nison, Iowa, where he studied for eight months. Upon being admitted to the bar in 1882 he formed a partnership with Congressman I. S. Struble, of Iowa. In June of 1886 he married Margaret
698
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
Rishel, of Lemars, Iowa, and on the 19th of March, 1887, they came to California, locating in the then new town of Monrovia. From 1887 un- til 1889 he was cashier of the First National Bank of Monrovia, which he assisted in organizing and of which he is now a vice-president and director.
At the time of his removal from Monrovia to Los Angeles and the organization of the Security Bank the remarkable "boom" of the preceding few years was beginning to collapse, prices were fall- ing, money was scarce and financial conditions generally unsettled. The new bank, organized in February, 1889, not only weathered the storms of financial depression and business failures, but constantly gained strength and prestige until at the present time it has a capital and surplus of more than $3,700,000 and resources exceeding $43,000,000. The high ideals, untiring energy, and superior executive ability of Mr. Sartori, to- gether with the loyal co-operation and support of his co-workers, have developed, in the Security Trust & Savings Bank, an institution remarkable not only for its financial stability and strength, but also for the universal feeling among its cus- tomers that they will at all times be accorded fair, honest and courteous consideration. This con- fidence has never been violated and no one of its vast army of depositors has ever suffered a loss through his dealings with this great banking house.
The remarkable insight of Mr. Sartori into banking and economic conditions was never better illustrated than in his fight before the state legis- lature in 1911 for real reforms in the state bank- ing laws and proper supervision of state finan- cial institutions. As the leader for improved bank- ing conditions he was repeatedly before the com- mittee on banks and banking, the effect of his arguments appearing in the resultant legislation. His knowledge of national financial and industrial conditions also received recognition in his ap- pointment as a member of the currency commis- sion of the American Bankers Association, and in his election as president of the Savings Bank sec- tion of the same Association for the year 1913-14. In addition to his important banking interests he is a director of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. Growing business enterprises have enlisted his co-operation and he has served as a director of the Los Angeles Brick Company, secretary and treasurer of the Central Fireproof Building Company, secretary and treasurer of the
Century Building Company, and secretary-treas- urer of the Commercial Fireproof Building Com- pany. The fields of finance and commerce have not engrossed his attention to the exclusion of all participation in social functions and recreative organizations. On the contrary, he has been the leader in a number of clubs, notably the Los An- geles Country Club, of which he is a charter member and in which he has been honored with the presidency ; the California Club, of which he has served also as president; and of the Los An- geles Athletic, the Jonathan, Annandale Golf, and Crags Country Clubs.
GEORGE EDWIN BERGSTROM. From 1905 until the spring of 1915 one of the leading and well known architectural firms of Los An- geles and Southern California was that of Parkin- son & Bergstrom, but in May, 1915, the firm dis- solved their ten-year partnership agreement by mutual consent, Mr. Parkinson continuing at their old location, and George Edwin Bergstrom is now located in the Citizens National Bank building. Mr. Bergstrom is one of the leading young archi- tects of the Southwest and a man of great ability and splendid promise. His early inclination for a technical education was favored by his parents and he was given every advantage possible to further his career. After graduating from the high school at Neenah, Wis., his native city, in 1892, he entered Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass., graduating in 1893, and then entered Yale University, in the Sheffield Scientific School, class of 1896. This was followed by a course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Bos- ton, Mass., from which he graduated with the class of 1899.
Mr. Bergstrom is the son of George O. and Alice (Smith) Bergstrom, and was born in Neenah, Wis., March 12, 1876. Since coming to Los Angeles he has taken an active part in mu- nicipal affairs, rendering valuable service on va- rious public boards and commissions, prominent among which may be mentioned the Los Angeles housing commission, of which he is president ; the Los Angeles building ordinance commission, and the Los Angeles charter revision commission. Mr. Bergstrom is also well known socially and is a member of several exclusive clubs, including the California Club, the Los Angeles Athletic
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.