USA > California > Kings County > History of Tulare and Kings counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 35
USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare and Kings counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 35
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The able assistant of Dr. George Gordon is W. D. Gordon, who
George Gordon
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has been identified with his enterprise since 1906 and is now taking the course at the San Francisco Veterinary College. He will grad- uate with the class of 1913, after which he will enter actively upon the practice of veterinary medicine and surgery.
Dr. George Gordon left Scotland in 1888, when he was eighteen years old, and has since returned to his native land four times. Ilis travels in South America have been extensive and he passed two years in the West Indies as a representative of the International Phosphate company, and was for a time located on Connitable island, off the northeast coast of French Guiana, near the city of Cayenne. While in South America he became assistant superintendent of the aforesaid International Phosphate company, and thus had a most valuable and interesting experience in a line only indirectly connected with his profession, but one of great importance in furthering pro- dnetion and commerce.
J. W. B. RICE
As farmer, cattleman and orange grower, J. W. B. Rice. whose activities center in the vicinity of Lemon Cove, has become well known throughout Tulare county. He is a native of Iowa, born December 30, 1860, who lived in his native state until he was eighteen years of age. At that time he set out to make his own way in the world, and Nebraska was the scene of his earlier independent labors. He had already had some experience as game collector for Central Park in New York City. After reaching Nebraska he found employ- ment until in the fall of 1882, when he went to Minnesota and thence back to Iowa. There he was employed three years collecting game for said Central Park, among them the Whooping Crane or American Ostrich which were worth abont $30 apiece. In capturing these birds he had many enjoyable and interesting experiences and some that were more unpleasant at the time than they are as reminiscences of the past. In April, 1886, he came to California, and in 1889 he married Miss Cora Marks, a native of Iowa, who bore him several children : Charles James and Mary Clementine (twins) ; Pearl, aged nineteen; Roy M., aged seventeen; Villa Frankie, Elmo D., Inez, Emma, Alice, Fern and Robert. Villa passed away, having been drowned when eighteen months old. Those of the younger children who are of the school age are acquiring education. Mr. Rice's father, James Nicholas Rice, a native of Indiana, and his good wife are still living in Cherokee county, Iowa. Mrs. Rice's parents descended from German ancestors; her father is dead, but her mother survives.
A year after he came to California, Mr. Rice, who had already 21
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begun in the cattle business, bought forty acres of land. He soon homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres and acquired another one hundred and sixty acres by purchase. Securing other tracts subse- quently, he came in time to own six hundred acres. He has about twenty acres of oranges but devotes much of his attention to cattle. When he came to the county, a little more than a quarter of a century ago, there was no business but cattle raising and the inhabitants were all cattle men or cattlemen's wives and children. In the development that has intervened he has had his full part, for he is public-spiritedly devoted to all affairs of the community. Politically he is a Socialist.
Mr. Rice is the pioneer orange grower of Tulare county. He took the first prize at the Citrus Fair at Fresno before the orange business of Tulare county had started, and in 1894 exhibited some beautiful oranges at the Palace Hotel at Visalia, which were the first oranges grown from budded trees to secure a premium in Tulare county. Mr. Rice is the manager of the Marx and Rice Co., growers and shippers of oranges, pomelos, limes and lemons; also nursery stock.
IVAN C. BURKE, D. D. S.
The profession of dentistry approaches nearer and nearer to the realm of exact science with each passing decade and only those of its devotees who keep informed of the details of its progress win permanent success. One of the up-to-date doctors of dental surgery of central ('alifornia is Ivan C. Burke, of llanford. Kings county. Dr. Burke is a progressive son of a progressive state, having been born in Crawford county, Kans., September 21, 1885. When he was about five years old he was taken to Walla Walla, Wash., in the public schools of which city he received his practical English educa- tion. Desiring to follow a professional career, in 1904, when abont nineteen years old, he entered the dental department of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of San Francisco, from which he was duly gradnated with the D. D. S. degree in June, 1907, immediately after which Dr. Burke began the practice of his profession in Seattle, Wash. In 1908 he came to Hanford and opened an office in the First National Bank building where he has since devoted himself with much snecess to the general practice of his profession, keeping abreast of the times, employing the best facilities in the way of instruments and appliances, and his work is of a class well calculated to give permanent satisfaction.
As he has prospered in his profession Dr. Burke has from time
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to time made judicious investments in real estate. Besides some good town property, his holdings include one hundred and sixty acres near Walla Walla, Wash., which under the superintendency of a hired farmer is producing good alfalfa in paying quantities. At Hanford Dr. Burke is popular in all eireles, political, professional, social and fraternal, and his public spirit has brought him high esteem as a citizen. He is a member of the Independent Order of Red Men and is devoted heart and soul to all of the interests of that beneficent order. His marriage in 1909 united him with Miss Vera A. Donald- son, of Kansas, a charming woman of many accomplishments, who is bravely aiding him in his struggle for professional and social advancement.
G. X. WENDLING
A native of New York, G. X. Wendling came to California in January, 1888, and was in the employ of the Valley Lumber Company of Fresno until November 3, 1889, when he located at Hanford. Probably no man did more than he to promote the establishment of Kings county in 1893. To that end he labored indefatigably and with great efficiency for months, appearing so often at Sacramento as sponsor for the proposed organization that he came to be known as the "Father of Kings County." When he came to the town he engaged in the lumber business on his own account and he was one of Hanford's foremost citizens until February 21, 1897, when he removed to San Francisco, where he has large and varied interests. He organized in that city the California Pine Box and Lumber Co., which turns ont one hundred and sixty million feet of box material annually. He organized also the Weed Lumber Company, of Weed, Cal., the productiveness of which he has seen increased from eight million feet of lumber in its first year to seventy-five million feet at the present time. An idea of the extent of his activities may be gleaned from the following list, showing his connection with various enterprises. He is a director in the Anglo & London-Paris National Bank of San Francisco and president of the Napa Lumber Company, the Stanislaus Lumber Company, the Big Basin Lumber Company, vice-president of the Klamath Development Company of Klamath Falls, Ore., and president of the Wendling-Johnson Unmber Com- pany, the California Pine Box Lumber Company, the Wendling Lumber Company, the Wendling-Nathan Lumber Company, the Weed Lumber Company and the First National Bank of Weed.
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TULARE HOME TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY
Those admirable public utilities of Tulare, its telephone and telegraph service, are controlled in part by the corporation named above, which is officered as follows: G. C. Harris, president; Dr. T. D. Blodgett, vice-president; Sol A. Rosenthal, secretary and treasurer; G. C. Harris, S. B. Anderson, N. G. Cottle, Dr. T. D. Blodgett and Sol A. Rosenthal, directors. This company took over the plant of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company, and transformed its Tulare business into that of a local corporation. Nearly all the stockholders are men of Tulare and vicinity, and the people of the town take much interest in the company's snecess and advancement. The Home company has put in two miles of cable and practically rebuilt the line, discarding everything antiquated in the operating system for something up to date and thoroughly efficient. This has been done regardless of cost and with a view single to the very best service, a fact which the business community fully appreciates. The present system, known as the common battery system, is so satisfac- tory that the number of the company's patrons has been increased three hundred in the last three years. The president of the new com- pany was its founder and the chief promoter of the project along local lines. A second company known as the Lindsay Home Tele- phone and Telegraph company, was subsequently organized, which company was incorporated with aims and conditions similar to those of the Tulare City company, and the plant was bought from private parties in Lindsay. Plans are now being perfected to im- prove it and put the system on a plane with that of the Tulare City company. Both companies make connections with the long distance lines of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph company.
The president of this company, Gurdon C. Harris, a man of long and informing experience in the telephone business, was long con- nected with the business of the Bell Telephone company in Minnesota, where he was born and passed the earlier years of his life. He came to California in March, 1905, still in the service of the Bell company, for a time as division wire chief, the duties of which position took him to practically every part of the state, and for two years his headquarters were at Sacramento. There he became a member of the Sacramento lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and since he came to Tulare he has been made a Mason in Tu- lare City Lodge No. 326, F. & A. M. In a position in which he is in con- stant touch with the people of his community, in a social as well as in a business way, he is commending himself to all with whom he has communication as a courteons and obliging semi-publie official who has the interest of the patrons of his company and of the people at large close to his heart and desires to render to everyone every due consideration or concession.
Orlando Moore
Muriel L. Moore
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ORLANDO MOORE
Visalia has no more prominent citizen along industrial and agri- cultural lines than Orlando Moore. The son of Henry C. and Amelia (Renalds) Moore, he was born at Venice Hill, Tulare county, C'al., March 30, 1869. His father and mother were natives respectively of Missouri and Iowa.
Henry C. Moore came to California in the early '60s, taught school in Tulare county and raised sheep, and later he operated one of the pioneer sawmills in the mountains which was one of the first in this vicinity, but at length he returned to Missouri. Eight years later he came back to California with a carload of cattle and went into the cattle business on a section in the swamp lands of Tulare county with R. E. Hyde as a partner. Eventually, however, he sold out his interest to Mr. Hyde and went to Puget Sound, where he farmed and operated a saw and shingle mill seven years. He came again to Tulare county in 1900 and has since lived there.
In some of the ventures mentioned above, Orlando Moore was his father's helper and after a time he engaged extensively in the cultivation of watermelons, in one season he receiving $2700 from the sale of melons; at the Fourth of July celebration at Visalia in 1903 he had seventeen horses and five wagons selling melons through the town, he and his brother Edward making a fine display of his produet with five four-horse teams. Mr. Moore was the pioneer orange grower at Venice Cove. Buying twenty aeres there, he raised the trees from seeds, brought fourteen acres of the fruit to hearing and sold out for $14,500. The nursery business also commanded the attention of Mr. Moore and his brother for a while. In 1910 he sold out his Venice Cove property and bought twenty aeres near the west city limits of Visalia, which he has improved and put on the market in half-acre and quarter-aere lots. He owns also a mountain ranch of one hundred and sixty acres and one hundred and sixty acres near Spa on the Santa Fe, five miles northeast of Alpaugh. One of his possessions is a fine anto-truck with a capacity of fifty people, and with which he made an experimental run to San Fran- cisco with fruit that he took through without bruising or otherwise injuring it. Ile contemplates a like trip with his auto-truck to Port- land, Ore., with fruit from Tulare county, and it will doubtless at- tract much attention to this part of the state. The raising of toma- toes has been another experiment of Mr. Moore's which has proved noteworthy. He set half an acre to fifteen hundred vines, and sold his product as high as ten cents a pound; for tomatoes grown on five acres in a single season he received $1750.
Mr. Moore's latest venture has been in the field of invention. In the year 1912 he took out a patent upon a detachable tread for
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any sized double-tired anto-trnek. This invention enables the truck to be changed into a tractor for field and farm purposes, and it bids fair to become an extremely useful and popular devise. Its advan- tages may be listed as follows: Protection to the rubber tire; in- crease of tractile power so that it can be used in a field for the purposes of plowing or discing and seeding summer fallowed or loose sandy land; prevention of slipping upon a muddy or sandy road; great strength and durability; inexpensive and capable of lasting a lifetime; and easily and quickly adjusted.
Socially Mr. Moore is identified with the Fraternal Brotherhood. IIe and Mrs. Moore are members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Visalia. He married, in 1903, Muriel Witherell, a native of Knox- ville, Ill., and they have three children, Ramon, Ralph Spencer and Kathryn Moore.
GEORGE W. BAUMANN
In Iowa George W. Banmann lived until he was five years old, and after that he lived in Kansas until 1878, when he came to Visalia, Cal. He was born in the Hawkeye State March 10, 1859. February 9, 1890, he married Miss Martha A. Lathrop, daughter of Ezra Lathrop, a California pioneer, and she bore him two sons, Grover Cleveland and Ezra Gottfried Banmann. A separate biographical sketch of Ezra Lathrop appears elsewhere in these pages.
Soon after Mr. Baumann located at Visalia he began farming, but three years later returned to the East, to come back a few months later bringing his parents. The family located near Farmersville, where he operated rented land. Soon after his marriage he home- steaded one hundred and sixty acres near Lindsay, where Mr. and Mrs. Banmann settled, and at the same time engaged in the stock- raising business in the mountains. Later on he bought three hun- dred and twenty acres at Poplar, where they engaged in running a good-sized dairy in connection with the farming and stock business. In 1906 he rented his farm and moved to Lindsay, whence in the following year he moved to Tulare, which was his home as long as he lived. His death occurred Jannary 16, 1909. A man of much publie spirit, he was a helpful friend to every good movement for the benefit of the community. Fraternally he affiliated with the Mod- ern Woodmen of America and the Ancient Order of United Workmen through their local organizations in Tulare.
Mrs. Baumann is identified with the order of Royal Neighbors, is a stockholler in the Tulare National Bank and is extensively en- gaged in stockraising on twenty-two hundred acres of land. carrying
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an average of three hundred to four hundred head of stock. She was one of the pioneers of Tulare City, coming here with her parents before either a schoolhouse or a church had been erected here, and later for eleven years she taught in the public schools of Tulare county and city. She has a distinct recollection of the digging of the first grave, so far as the white population is concerned, at Tulare. when her schoolteacher's wife, Mrs. Haslip, was buried, she being the first white person who was laid to rest in the city of Tulare. She remembers when religious meetings were held in the waiting room of the depot and has a vivid recollection of a Christmas tree. gifts from which were distributed in that same room. A woman of forceful character and of winning personality, she does much good and has many friends.
ROBERT C. CLARKE
A native Canadian, Robert C. Clarke, of Tulare, Tulare county, Cal., was born in New Brunswick, in quaint old St. John, December 29, 1829, and when this is written is in his eighty-fourth year. He was educated in his native town and there learned the carpenter's trade. In 1852 he boarded the ship Java, an old whaler, bound for San Francisco by way of Cape Horn, under an arrangement permit- ting him to earn his passage. Richly he earned the money he might have saved in that way-if he had had it. At Valparaiso he went ashore when the cargo, consisting of building materials, was sold. to be delivered at Caldera. Finding employment at his trade in this latter Chilian port, he earned enough money to pay his fare from there to his objective point, but it took him about half a year to do it under labor conditions prevailing there at the time; he ar- rived at San Francisco in the fall of that year and went almost im- mediately to the mines.
In the digging's at Sonora, Tuolumne county, he labored a short time with such indifferent success that when he was offered eight dollars a day to work at his trade at Stockton he fairly jumped at a chance to better his condition. Two years he was employed at Stock- ton, then went to Knight's Ferry, Stanislaus county, and resumed mining and, not altogether expectedly, met with some little success. He constructed an irrigation conduit for running water into his claim, and his ernde and primitive ditch was the beginning of the ex tensive irrigation system now being completed in that section, down through the San Joaquin country. That his part in this great work may have a historical record it should be said that his work on his ditch was begun in the early '50s. Mining some of the time in Ama
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dor county, as well as at Knight's Ferry, he made the latter place his headquarters for ten years. For a time he was in the mercantile business, with James Allen as a partner. Sheep raising on the ranges along the Tuolumne river also commanded his attention tem- porarily. It was in 1875 that he came to Tulare county and bought one hundred and sixty acres, three miles north of Tipton, where he ranched successfully till 1909, when he retired from active life and came to Tulare City to pass the years of rest that were before him. In the earlier period of his farming he grew grain and alfalfa. Later he ran a dairy and had an annual average of fifty acres of alfalfa. Alfalfa seed also he made a source of revenue. He bred some fine horses, ranging in weight from fourteen hundred to eighteen hun- dred pounds.
Tulare City Lodge No. 326 ineludes Mr. Clarke in its member- ship. He married, in 1887, Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, a native of Pennsylvania, and they have children named Nettie A. and Roberta (. Samuel Sampson, Mrs. Clarke's father, was born in Ireland and eventually made the United States his adopted country. Twice he came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, first in 1851. He mined for gold in Tuolumne county and went back to Pennsyl- vania, whence he had come, in the late '50s. There he spent the declining years of his life and passed to his reward. His wife was, before her marriage, Miss MeKewon. In 1859 she and Mrs. Clarke, her only child, came to California by way of the isthmus and estah- lished a home in Stanislaus county, where Mrs. Clarke grew to wom- anhood and was married.
WINFIELD SCOTT BLOYD
In Colchester, McDonough county. Ill., Winfield Scott Bloyd, now a prominent business man of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., was born November 18, 1858, son of W. Washington Bloyd, of whom a sketch appears elsewhere in this publication. In 1861 his parents brought him across the plains to California and settled in Tehama county. removing from there to the San Joaquin valley, and in 1871 located in Kings county. Here they made their home until after the Mussel Slough fight, when they turned their faces toward the Northwest and for a year and a half resided in Oregon. Then they returned to C'ali- fornia and bought a ranch at Summit Lake, in Fresno county, which they operated two years and sold out, in 1892 coming to Grangeville, Kings county, where they began raising fruit.
In 1905 Mr. Bloyd came from the ranch to Hanford, and he has since made his home in that city. For three years he bought and sold
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hay and he and his brother Levi are now contractors of cement work, doing an increasing volume of business, which requires the investment of considerable capital and the employment from time to time of a number of skilled workmen. In different parts of the city are to be seen evidences of their handicraft and enterprise.
Mr. Bloyd affiliates with the Fraternal Aid and the Woodmen of the World. As a citizen he is public-spirited and helpful to all the interests of the community and in political principle is Republican. In 1881 he married Miss Louisa Samuels, a native of California, who died in 1900. In 1902 he married Mrs. E. Eddy. He has two daughters, Mrs. John Bassett and Miss Ruby Bloyd.
WILLIAM HENRY THAYER
That old and reliable dairyman, William Henry Thayer, of Cor- coran, Kings county, Cal., is a native of Dunkirk, Chautauqua county, N. Y., and was born November 15, 1834. He was brought up to farm- ing and to country work of various kinds and educated in such public schools as were available to him in his childhood and boyhood. He came to ('alifornia in 1863, and engaged in farming and the breeding of horses, cattle and hogs, a business which he has since made his life work. From time to time as his means has permitted he has bought tracts of land, his first venture in the acquirement of land in Kings county being in 1881, when he took up three hundred and twenty acres in the Dallas district, as swamp and overflow lands, and this he has successfully reclaimed. In the dyking of this land Mr. Thayer found the skeletons of several human beings, evidently the remains of de- ceased warriors who had engaged the Mexicans. On Mill creek, in Tu- lare county, he also acquired a hundred and sixty acres, which he has deeded to his children, and later in 1900 he bought the hundred and sixty acre tract on which he now lives, situated one mile east of Cor- coran. He operates three hundred and twenty acres which is included in his dairy plant. His homestead is a fine large property, with good buildings of all kinds, including a residence which has many modern improvements. His cattle are of good breeds, as fine specimens as can be produced, and he has become known in his market for the excellence and purity of his products, which find ready sale wherever they have been introduced.
By his marriage, which was celebrated April 18, 1877. Mr. Thayer identified his fortunes with those of Miss Sarah M. Austin, who was born at Sacramento, Cal., March 27, 1863. Mrs. Thayer has borne her husband the following children, who will be found mentioned here in the order of their nativity: Arthur Y., Enos E., Lillie, Henry, Jennie, Cora, Clarence, Mabel and Lester.
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Of progressive ideas and patriotic impulses, Mr. Thayer is a model citizen, who performs his whole duty as such in society and at the polls. While he is not an active politician in the ordinary sense of the phrase, he takes a lively and helpful interest in all questions of publie policy and has never been known to withhold bis encouragement from any measure which in his opinion has promised to bring better things to the lives of any considerable number of his fellow citizens.
CHARLES W. TOMPKINS
As secretary and treasurer of the Tulare County Beekeepers' Association. Charles W. Tompkins is most prominent in that industry. He is the son of Caleb and Lavonia (Saxby) Tompkins. His father was born in Canada. his mother in Wisconsin: the former died Sep- tember 11. 1908. the latter Angust 19. 1879. Caleb Tompkins came to California and settled at Tulare in 1882 and found work at his trade, which was that of the carpenter, and was elected constable and served for some eight years as a night watchman. He was a man of great decision of character. brave to a fault, and was very efficient as a peace officer. Following are the names of his children who survive at this time: Charles W .. who is mentioned below; Benjamin W .. who married Gussie Woodard and has four children living at Corte Madera. Marin county, Cal .: Ida, who married Jesse Halla and has two children: and Fred, who married Margaret Frary and has two children.
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