USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 21
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 21
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LEO KROONEN. A master of his profession as an architect, a thor- oughly capable business executive, Leo Kroonen during his long residence at Corona has put his faculties and influence behind every notable project for the general welfare, and the community owes him a great debt for the thoroughly constructive work he has done here and in the vicinity.
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Mr. Kroonen was born at Uithoorn, eighteen miles from Amsterdam, Holland, March 31, 1857, son of Peter and Cornelia (Koiman) Kroonen. He was reared and educated in his native city, served an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade, also studied architecture, and had earned a high place in that profession in Holland before he left there at the age of twenty-eight and came to the United States. Before coming to California Mr. Kroonen had practiced as an architect at St. Louis, Missouri, at Galveston and Fort Worth, Texas, and on the Pacific Coast he was located six months at Los Angeles and then at Claremont, until he located at Corona.
As an architect and contractor Mr. Kroonen has a long list of notable buildings to his credit. He put up the high school, city hall, grammar school, most of the fruit packing houses at Corona, the San Jacinto gram- mar school in Riverside County, the chemical plant and packing house at El Cerrito ranch, and a large number of the costly and tasteful residences. Mr. Kroonen has been an investor and developer in the Corona fruit section and owned the oldest grove and shipped the first oranges, also served as a director for two years of the Temescal Water Company, and for four years was a director of the First Exchange Association of Corona and helped organize it. However, his most important interests have been in the line of developing and exploiting some peculiarly rich and valuable natural resources of the vicinity of Corona. An article published several years ago gives a description of these properties which may be properly included here for historical purposes :
"His holdings cover an area of about 700 acres altogether, and he has already spent many thousands of dollars in preliminary development work in the twenty-four years that he has owned the properties. On 160 acres of the cement property alone an expert engineer has estimated that the outcroppings show sufficient, almost pure, cement rock to operate a cement plant of 2500 barrels daily capacity for over two hundred years, and analysis by the best cement experts in the country show that a perfect Portland cement can be made from the materials in the deposit, also that all transporting of rock from cement beds to plant can be done by gravity, and that under these conditions the highest grade of Portland cement can be manufactured for 56 1/6 cents per barrel, after due allowance for interest and depreciation on plant, according to report made February 11, 1906.
"Mr. Kroonen's clay properties are situated three miles west of Corona and the same distance from the Santa Fe Railroad, and contains 200 acres. The deposit is well developed, having 1900 feet of tunnel work to show the extent of the different kinds of materials, the whole mountain being a mass of clay, lying in strata from 50 to 500 feet in thickness and extending from 200 to 1000 feet above the road bed. The stratified deposit of rich, pure, blue vitrifying clay, flint clay, plastic clay and modeling clay, each perfect in texture and composition, is suitable for the manufacture of all kinds of vitrified ware, sewer pipe, electric conduit, street clinker, paving blocks, face brick glazed and unglazed, roofing tile, floor tile, terra cotta, drain tile, etc., as well as fire brick of all kinds. All the clays can be taken from deposits by open quarry in one canyon, where the canyon crosses the deposit and exposes the clay for hundreds of yards on either side, with a height above the road bed of from 200 to 800 feet, and as the deposit extends for three-fourths of a mile on each side of the canyon it will be readily seen that the materials are inexhaustible."
Mr. Kroonen is a republican in politics. On June 30, 1889, he married Miss Mary Walkenshaw, of Auburndale, California. She was born on the Jureupa Ranch in San Bernardino County on September 18, 1869, and
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was educated in the public schools. They have three children: Leo Lorenzo, born July 3, 1899, at Ventura; Oscar William, born November 21, 1901, at home; and Mary Cornelia, born February 24, 1905.
STEPHEN D. HACKNEY was an Illinois farmer for about twenty years, and since transplanting himself to the beautiful environment of Riverside County he has continued an occupation close to the land, but in the form of orange culture, and is one of the prosperous ranchers in the Highgrove section.
Mr. Hackney was born at Bunker Hill, Illinois, December 14, 1861, son of James and Amelia ( Britton) Hackney, now deceased. His father was born in New York City and his mother near Chicago. James Hack- ney went to Illinois when a youth, was a farmer there, fought as a soldier in the Mexican war, and joined the rush to California in 1849. After his return he lived on his Illinois farm until his death. He was the father of six children: William, of Litchfield, Illinois; John, of Bunker Hill; Joseph, of Long Beach, California; Edward, of Hutchinson, Kansas; Thomas, of Guthrie, Oklahoma; and Stephen D.
Stephen D. Hackney after completing his public school education at Bunker Hill turned his attention to farming and remained in Illinois until 1904. In that year he came to Riverside, and soon acquired and has developed a fine orange ranch in Highgrove, where he has ten acres. Mr. Hackney has served as a member of the Riverside City Council, and is a republican, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Modern Woodmen of America.
December 20, 1881, he married Miss Charlotte Elizabeth Hume, daugh- ter of William James and Hannah (Snedeker) Hume, of Bunker Hill, in which Illinois town she was reared and educated. Mr. and Mrs. Hack- ney have had seven children: Millie, deceased; Paul; Esther, wife of Sidney Hilton, of Los Angeles; John, at home; Vivian, Hume and Carl, all deceased. Mr. Hackney has one grandchild, Betty Lou Hilton. His son Paul volunteered and served in the navy as a yoeman during the World war. For one year he was stationed at Plymouth, England, and for six months in New York City. He is now bookkeeper on a large sugar plantation at Honakaa, Hawaiian Islands.
HON. SAMUEL MERRILL-Though he reached the peak of his political fame in Iowa, where he served as governor four years, Samuel Mer- rill turned an enormous amount of capital and enterprise into South- ern California, where he was associated with other prominent Iowa men in some of the projects of development that have brought San Bernardino County several of its most prosperous communities. Sam- uel Merrill spent his last years in Los Angeles, but his only son is a prominent citizen of the Rialto district of San Bernardino County.
Samuel Merrill was born at Turner, Maine, August 7, 1822, of old New England and English ancestry. He represented the eighth gen- eration of this New England family. He was a descendant of Na- thaniel Merrill, who came from England and settled at Newburg, Massachusetts, in 1636. Governor Merrill's parents were Abel and Abigail (Hill) Merrill. Through his mother he was a descendant of Doctor Hill, who came from England to Saco, Maine, in 1653. Sam- uel Merrill was one of the youngest children of his parents, and at the age of sixteen he removed with them to Buxton, Maine, where he taught and attended school. His first choice of a profession was teaching. For a brief time he taught in the South, but being an aboli- tionist he did not prove congenial to the people of that section. In
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1847, with a brother, he engaged in merchandising at Tamworth, New Hampshire, and he gained his first political honors in that state. He was elected on the abolitionist ticket in 1854 to the New Hampshire Legislature and was re-elected in 1855. In 1856 Samuel Merrill moved to Iowa, and for a number of years was the leading merchant of McGregor, that state. He was elected a member of the Iowa Leg- islature that met early in 1861 to provide for the exigencies of the Civil War. In the summer of 1862 he was commissioned colonel of the 21st Iowa Infantry, and commanded a force that distinguished itself in an encounter with the Confederate troops in Southern Missouri during the early part of 1863. Subsequently with his regiment he took part in the Vicksburg campaign, and while leading an impetuous charge at Black River Bridge in Mississippi he was shot through both thighs, a wound that closed his military career. Resigning his com- mission, he resumed his place at McGregor. In 1867 he was elected governor of Iowa, and by re-election in 1869 he served from January, 1868, to January, 1872. Soon after leaving the governor's office he closed up his business interests at McGregor and removed to Des Moines, and for a number of years was one of Iowa's foremost bank- ers and business men. He was president of a number of railroad, banking and insurance companies, and was associated with Russell Sage and others in building the Ill Railroad, the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. He was founder and president of the Citizens National Bank of Des Moines, and continued as a director and the principal stock- holder of that institution until his death.
Governor Merrill early became impressed with the great possi- bilities of Southern California, and he began acquiring interests in this section of the state about 1886. He invested heavily at the be- ginning of the great real estate boom, and realized handsomely on some of his investments, though on the whole his plans did not ma- terialize. No less than three towns owe their inception to develop- ments instituted by him and his associates. These towns are River- side, South Riverside, now known as Corona, and Rialto. At East Riverside he and his associates paid in a lump sum $75,000.00 to Matthew Gage for water rights, and this was the first real develop- ment in that section. The South Riverside purchase included 16,000 acres. The Rialto, or, as it was known, Semi Tropic tract, originally contained 29.000 acres. Before he left Rialto Governor Merrill and associates had invested fully $670,000.00 in water development and other improvements. They paid Henry Pierce and other men of San Francisco $470,000.00 for the lands in the Rialto tract. Governor Merrill was president of the California Loan & Trust Company until it went out of business in 1894. He organized and built the Southern California Motor Road, connecting San Bernardino with Riverside, but later his controlling interests were sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Following the death of his first wife Governor Merrill made his permanent home in Southern California, although still retaining business interests in Iowa. He closed out most of his interests in his various colonies in 1893, and spent the remaining years of his life in Los Angeles, where he died November 30, 1899, when in his seventy-eighth year.
In early manhood Governor Merrill married Miss Elizabeth D. Hill of Buxton, Maine. She died in March, 1888. In 1894 he mar- ried Mary S. Greenwood, of Massachusetts, who survives him.
In 1887 Governor Merrill was granted a pension of over eight hun- dred dollars a year on account of wounds received in the Civil war.
& H. Menils
Sena M. Merrill
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This money he donated to support three beds for disabled soldiers in a hospital at Des Moines. He was always a liberal patron of relig- ious, charitable and educational institutions. For many years prior to his death he was a trustee of Iowa College at Grinnell. While he was governor the cornerstone of the present capitol at Des Moines was laid. Almost the last act of his life, consistent with his liberal and public spirited record at all times, was to vote for water bonds at a special election in Los Angeles for the purpose of giving that city a perpetual water supply. Soon after voting he was stricken with paralysis and never recovered. His enfeebled condition was aug- mented by an accident that befell him on the Traction Street Railway a year or two previously. At the time of his second marriage Gov- ernor Merrill divided the bulk of his estate among his children, re- serving enough to provide himself and wife for the rest of their days. At the time of his death it was estimated that his wealth approxi- mated five hundred thousand dollars. He was a life-long member of the Congregational Church, and his remains were laid to rest in the old Iowa family vault in Des Moines. His surviving children are a daughter and son. The daughter, Hattie G., is a graduate of Welles- ley College of Massachusetts, the wife of Dr. John W. Craig, of Los Angeles. Dr. and Mrs. Craig have three children, Charles, Allan and Elizabeth. Charles, while with the colors at Camp Kearney, died of pneumonia.
The surviving son, Jere Hill Merrill, was born at Des Moines No- vember 25, 1873. For a number of years he was in the mercantile business at Los Angeles, and in 1906 he purchased a bare tract of land, comprising his present magnificent home property, located a half mile from Foothill Boulevard, near Rialto. This he has developed to citrus fruit, and by other improvements has added greatly to the beauties of the country along Riverside Avenue. Like his father, he is a stanch republican, and is a ready worker for public betterment of all kinds. He is a member of a number of fraternal societies, be- longs to the Congregational Church, and Mrs. Merrill is a Methodist.
On October 14, 1897, he married Miss Sena Jones. She was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, December 4, 1878, daughter of W. H. H. and Harriet (Laybourn) Jones, the former a native of Grayson, Virginia. Her father was a contractor, and early in the Civil War enlisted in Company G of the 13th Illinois Infantry. He was first made a cor- poral and later, in recognition of his service and ability, was pro- moted to second lieutenant and then to first lieutenant. He received his honorable discharge February 18, 1865. For many years he was one of the leading contractors and builders of Pasadena, and died September 21. 1921, at the age of eighty-one. His wife, who was born in Manchester, Indiana, lives with her daughter, Mrs. Merrill, at Rialto. Mrs. Merrill finished her education at Pasadena, where he1 parents lived after moving from Marshalltown, Iowa.
ARCHIE D. MITCHELL is a native Ontario boy who has won numerous distinctions as a lawyer and in the civic affairs of that locality since he qualified for his profession.
He was born at Ontario January 18, 1891, son of John and Mary M. (Winn) Mitchell. His parents were among the Canadian settlers of Ontario, California. His father was of Scotch and his mother of English ancestry. Archie D. Mitchell was reared and educated at Ontario, grad- uated from the University of Southern California in 1912, and for ten years has enjoyed a successful practice. For four years he was city Vol. 111 10
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attorney, and he practices in the District Court of Appeals. In a business way he is identified with the Security State Bank of Ontario, the Peerless Petroleum Company, and the Burton Fruit Products Company, and also with the Ontario Commercial Aviation Company. Mr. Mitchell during the war was in the naval aviation and was commissioned chief quarter- master.
He was chairman of the Democratic County Central Committee and a leader in local politics. He has filled various chairs in the Odd Fellows and Woodmen of the World and Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks fraternities, is a member of the El Camino Real Club, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Brentwood Country Club, and the Congregational Church. In 1920, at Riverside, Mr. Mitchell married Miss Frieda Graet- tinger, daughter of Alois and Mary E. Graettinger. Her father was one of the prominent physicians of Wisconsin until he retired some ten years before his death.
CHARLES E. MEAD. The attractive and splendidly equipped drug store of Mr. Mead at 121 Euclid Avenue in the progressive little City of Ontario, San Bernardino County, has become under his ownership and management the leading establishment of the kind in the city, with facilities and service of metropolitan order. In addition to having developed this substantial business enterprise Mr. Mead is also treasurer of the Peerless Petroleum Company, which is capitalized for $240,000 and the offices of which are maintained at Ontario. He is a director and was one of the organizers of the Security State Bank of Ontario, which recently opened its doors at the corner of Euclid and B streets, Ontario.
Mr. Mead was born at Lexington, Missouri, on the 4th of January. 1876, and is a son of Charles V. and Anna (Limerick) Mead. Mr. Mead gained his preliminary education in the public schools, and thereafter con- tinued his studies in the State Agricultural College of New Mexico, at Las Cruces, in which he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Science. After coming to California he was for several years owner of the retail drug business conducted at Colton, San Bernardino County, under the title of the Mission Drug Company. He then transferred his interests to Ontario, where his success as a reliable and progressive business man has been unequivocal and substantial, his initial enterprise at Colton hav- ing been based on very modest capital.
Mr. Mead served as first lieutenant in a New Mexico regiment of volunteer infantry during the period of the Spanish-American war, and he is thus eligible for and holds membership in the Spanish-American War Veterans Association. In the period of the World war Mr. Mead showed again his patriotism, as he aided in the various campaigns of local order in support of the Government war-bond issues, Savings Stamps, Red Cross service, etc., and made his individual subscriptions of liberal finan- cial order. He is a stanch republican, he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he is affiliated with the Masonic Fraternity, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, in each of which he has passed various official chairs.
At El Dorado Springs, Missouri, on the 23d of September, 1908, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Mead and Miss Rosa Schmidt, daughter of William F. Schmidt, she having come to California in the year 1900. Mr. and Mrs. Mead have no children.
The Mead family was founded in America in the Colonial period of our national history, and the subject of this review can trace his lineage in a direct way back to Oliver Cromwell.
Isabelle Loubet
J. P. Loubet
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THOMAS E. FENTRESS .- Riverside has many consistent and effective boosters, but no one is more enthusiastic about the city of his adoption than Thomas E. Fentress, one of the solid business men of the city, and a teaming contractor upon an extensive scale. He located here because he was convinced of the great possibilities of this region, and his convic- tions have become strengthened with his residence here, and to his efforts in its behalf Riverside owes a strong support to its most public-spirited movements. He was born near Decatur, Illinois, May 26, 1857, a son of Silas and Harriet (Gilmore) Fentress, both of whom are now deceased. Silas Fentress was born in Kentucky, but later moved to Illinois, where he continued his farming operations. The Fentress family is of Revolu- tionary stock and English descent. Mrs. Fentress was born in Indiana, and her family is also of Revolutionary stock, but of Irish descent.
Growing up in Illinois, Thomas E. Fentress attended the public schools near Hillwood, that state, and then became a farmer, operating land in Illinois until 1877, when he went on a farm in Southeastern Kansas, near Oswego, and remained there until 1888. In February of that year he made a trip to Riverside in response to letters relatives of his wife had written giving such glowing accounts of the city and county that he felt inclined to investigate. Not only was he fully satisfied that these accounts were more than true, but he was embued with the determination to participate in the enjoyment of these advantages, so, returning to Kansas, he disposed of his holdings there, returned to Riverside and has since made this city his home, although it was necessary for him to make several trips back to Kansas before he fully arranged his affairs. His first investment was in an orange ranch which he conducted for four years, and then traded it for town property, and embarked in his present business of general team- ing, which he has since expanded to large proportions.
On December 31, 1882, Mr. Fentress married at Labette City, Kansas, Josephine A. Webb, a native of Indiana, and a daughter of William J. Webb, and a member of an old Delaware family of English descent. Mr. and Mrs. Fentress have the following children: George E., who is asso- ciated with the General Petroleum Company near Placentia, California; Pearl, who is the wife of Charles Van Decker, of the Gudes Bootery of Los Angeles, California; Mande E., who is the wife of Russell Shedd, a realtor of Phoenix, Arizona; and Daisy May, who is the wife of Clifford Shigley, a civil engineer employed by the Sierra Power Company. Mr. Fentress is a republican, and while he has not taken a particularly active part in politics, has always done his duty as a good citizen by earnestly supporting those measures he felt would be beneficial to the majority. He finds his greatest pleasure in his home circle and has not cared to connect himself with any organizations outside of his membership with the Fra- ternal Aid Union. He and his wife are honored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and can be depended upon to do their part in all of the work of their congregation. Earnest, hard-working and thrifty. Mr. Fentress has forged forward, making a success of his various under- takings because of his good business sense and his sterling honesty. While he has achieved a material success, he was gained something of still greater value, the respect and good will of his fellow men.
JEAN PIERRE LOUBET was a young man when he came from his native France to the United States and established his residence in Cali- fornia, a stranger in a strange land and dependent entirely upon his own resources for the winning of success and independence. His ability and energy have enabled him to make the most of the advan- tages that have here been afforded him, and he is to-day one of the
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substantial and honored citizens of San Bernardino County, where his fine farm home is situated two miles west of Chino, on Edison Avenue.
Mr. Loubet was born in Montregeau, Province of Haute Garrone, France, on the 7th of February, 1874, and is a son of Joseph and Antoinette (Perrez) Loubet. His father was lessee of a public abat- toire, and in this connection the son learned the butchering and meat- cutting trade, his early education having been gained in the schools of his native province. In 1889 he came to the United States and made his way forthwith to Los Angeles, where he entered the employ of Sentous Brothers, wholesale meat dealers and operators of a large abattoire. In 1896 Mr. Loubet came to Chino and purchased the meat market of Richard Gird. This initial business venture on his part proved very successful, and in 1898 he expanded his business to include wholesale slaughtering and dealing. He developed a large and prosperous wholesale trade, and continued the enterprise until 1906, when he sold the plant and business to the firm of Steel & Dixon. He built the first ice plant at Chino, with a daily capacity for the production of five tons of ice. In 1905 Mr. Loubet made his first purchase of land, by acquiring forty acres of swamp land, which he reclaimed through effective tile drainage. With increasing suc- cess in his farming enterprise he added to his holdings, and he now owns ninety acres of choice and well improved land in this valley. In 1912 he drilled a well, and the same has since given adequate water supply for effective irrigation of his land. He is one of the successful and progressive representatives of agricultural and live- stock enterprise in this section, and since 1918 he has conducted a prosperous business also in the buying and selling of hay, grain and feed, which he sells in the cities and towns of Southern California. He has become also a successful contractor in the building of macad- emized roads in San Bernardino County. Mr. Loubet has proved himself a man of action and has won success worthy of the name, the while he has secure place in popular confidence and esteem. He is a. loyal and liberal citizen and is one of the honored pioneers of the Chino district. He and his family are communicants of the Catholic Church.
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