USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Los Angeles from the mountains to the sea : with selected biography of actors and witnesses to the period of growth and achievement, Volume II > Part 22
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The next change in scene and occupation took him to the far north- west, and through the territories of Washington and Oregon he prospected for gold until the Indians became so troublesome as to drive him out. Going to San Francisco he continued his journeys through the locality known as Tombstone, Arizona, and was probably one of the first white
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men to prospect in that mining district. Sometime later he went on to the Mule Pass Mountains, close to the Mexican line, where Bisbee is now located, and was also one of the pioneers in that locality. In these and other districts of Arizona Mr. Higgins continued his work as a miner and mine developer until long after his fortune had been assured. He still retains extensive interests at Bisbee, but since 1900 has been a resident of Los Angeles.
At Los Angeles and vicinity he has invested heavily in real estate and other properties. In 1910 he erected the ten story office building, 120x160 feet, at the corner of Second and Main streets, known as the Higgins Building. In 1914 he organized the Higgins Estate, and became its president. Mr. Higgins has never married, and has generously dis- pensed his means for various charitable causes and institutions. He is a member of the Catholic church and is a republican in politics.
ROBERT ARNOLD ROWAN, whose sudden death July 25, 1918, brought a general sense of bereavement and loss to the entire city and the many friends and business associates 'all over California, was identified as a responsible factor with that part of Los Angeles development which has resulted in a lofty sky-line and the creation of great and enduring edifices in the business district. As a real estate owner, developer and financier he has exemplified and extended the splendid talents he in- herited from his late father, George D. Rowan, one of the pioneers in Los Angeles real estate development. Of his father more is said on other pages.
Robert A. Rowan was born in Chicago, Illinois, August 20, 1875, and a year later his parents came to California. He attended public schools at Pasadena and in 1893, at the age of eighteen, gave up his school work to begin his business career. For several years his home was in New York City, and his first employment there was with Ward & Huntington, exporters of hardware to South America. In 1894 he entered business for himself as a merchandise broker.
In 1897 Mr. Rowan entered the real estate business in Los Angeles. In that field his career has presented some of the most remarkable suc- cesses in the business annals of Los Angeles. From 1898 to 1901 he was associated with William May Garland. In 1901 he became an in- dependent operator, and in 1905, with several of his brothers, organized the firm of R. A. Rowan & Company, of which he was president at the time of his death.
R. A. Rowan & Company is an organization of expert men, and while capable of highly specialized work it has not confined itself to one restricted field. Its operations have included both residential tracts and business property, though it is in the downtown district that the most important achievements are credited to the company.
Mr. Rowan was associated with A. C. Bilicke in organizing the Alexandria Hotel Company and the construction of the Alexandria Hotel. Mr. Rowan was secretary and treasurer of that company. The Alexandria Hotel is a peer of the many magnificent establishments of the kind in America, and is one of the institutions that have served to spread the fair fame of Los Angeles abroad. Mr. Rowan and associates also erected the Security Building, the Merchants National Bank Build- ing, the Title Insurance Building, and the Title Guarantee Building. These solid fireproof structures have not only served to meet the grow- ing demands of Los Angeles commercial life, but through their archi- tecture are peculiarly appropriate to the growing ideals of a community
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where the spirit of beauty joins hands with utilitarianism. Among vari- ous residence districts into which the Rowan Company has extended its activities should be mentioned Windsor Square district of approximately two hundred acres.
At the time of his death Mr. Rowan was credited with being one of the largest individual property owners in Los Angeles. He was also a stockholder. and director in a number of business concerns. His name was usually found in connection with every large public movement of the city and as a member of its leading commercial and civic organizations. He belonged to the Los Angeles Athletic Club, which he had served as president, to the Los Angeles Realty Board, the California Club, Jona- than Club, Los Angeles Country Club, San Gabriel Valley Country Club and Pasadena Country Club.
February 28, 1903, at Los Angeles, Mr. Rowan married Laura Schwarz, daughter of Louis Schwarz, a pioneer Los Angeles business man. Four young children were left to mourn their father's death, the oldest thirteen and the youngest six years. Their names are Lorraine, George D. and Robert A., Jr., twins, and Louis.
The death of such a man naturally called forth expressions of esteem from all his old friends and associates, and a significant part of these tributes which cannot be quoted in detail was the emphasis they placed not upon his spectacular financial success, but the bigness and nobility of his nature and the qualities of heart and mind that dominated him and made him one of the city's master builders. He was called "the best of sons, of husbands, of brothers, of fathers and of friends," and one who knew him well said: "His integrity, his energy, his initiative and his lack of all malignity even towards those who imposed on him made him a splendid type of the American."
Some of the special qualities that stood out in his life were described in one of the local papers as follows: "To write of Mr. Rowan is to write of the building of the city. For while it was the noble traits of his character that he impressed more deeply on the community than any of his great material achievements, it was Mr. Rowan who really made Los Angeles a city in its structures.
"When the father died in 1903 it was found that all of his large prop- erty had been left to Mrs. Rowan and 'Bob' as trustees. Since then Mr Rowan administered the estate, which is still intact and under his skill is quintupled in value. His old friends describe Mr. Rowan as a born business man. He took to business naturally and soon left school to assist his father.
"His essentially notable traits were amiability, accompanied by po- tency and capacity. He was never known to say an ill word of anyone. Often he would be deceived in men, in that those he took close to his regard would disappoint him or impose on him and for the moment he would show a little irritation, but immediately he would offer excuses for them and never in his entire career was he ever found seeking revenge or trying to get even, no matter what injury had been done him. Never was there any pettiness, any shadow of maliciousness in word or deed of 'Bob' Rowan. He was too big souled, too immersed in big affairs, too loyal to the city he loved to be capable of smallness. His soul was big with its power for good, but there was no place in his being for the little. In his hands were the affairs, the vital affairs, of innumerable people ; in no instance was there any wavering, any defect of integrity coupled with ability that imperiled one penny."
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JOHN FARRELL POWERS. Los Angeles has been the home of many well-known former Chicagoans. One of the more recent additions from that source is John Farrell Powers. Mr. Powers in a few years has done much to increase the prestige and elevate the standards of Pacific Coast baseball. He came to Los Angeles not like his fellow Chicagoan, A. G. Spalding, long after the climax of his career, but in the fullness of his enthusiasm and power as a baseball promoter, and is known all up and down the coast as one of the controlling owners of the Los Angeles Baseball Club.
Mr. Powers was born in Chicago March 14, 1881, a son of John and Mary (Farrell) Powers. His father was born in Ireland and was well educated for the demands of an executive career. For many years he served as a member of the City Council of Chicago, and the gifts of humor and executive ability which distinguished him have been freely endowed upon John Farrell Powers.
The latter was educated in St. Patrick's School in Chicago and from there entered St. Ignatius College, where he became very much interested in athletic sports. He was an enthusiastic baseball player, and even while there showed special ability in managing school athletics. Later he entered Notre Dame University, and while there was as much a factor in the promotion of college sports as he had been at St. Ignatius. In Notre Dame he pursued a civil engineering course, but all the time he could spare from his studies he devoted to the betterment of Notre Dame's baseball nine, which for years has had a high reputation among college and university nines of the middle west.
After leaving Notre Dame Mr. Powers was for four years a civil engineer with the Illinois Tunnel Company, and assisted in constructing the tunnel under the Chicago River. In 1904 he gave up a good posi- tion with that company to enter business for himself and located at Dan- ville, Illinois, where he became member of the firm of Powers & Supple Company, dealers in general building material. They soon had an ex- tensive business, both wholesale and retail. As a business man of that Illinois city Mr. Powers lost no opportunity to support and build up a good baseball club. In 1907 he became owner and president of the Dan- ville Club. Danville belonged to what was then one of the best organi- zations of minors in the middle west, the Three I League, embracing a number of the larger cities of the three states of Illinois, Indiana and lowa. For three years Mr. Powers was at the head of the Danville or- ganization, and he put his club among the leaders of the league. In 1910 Danville was a contender for the pennant to the very last, and it was only after a hard-fought contest in three games that the title went to another club.
In 1910 Mr. Powers removed to Los Angeles, where he found a city, a climate and a spirit of enterprise that thoroughly appealed to him. He acquired some valuable real estate in the city, and on one of these properties erected one of the most beautiful homes in southern California. He also became financially interested in a number of busi- ness projects, but the interests which make him best known to the public at large are baseball. February 2, 1915, he acquired the controlling in- terest in the Los Angeles Baseball Club, was elected president, becoming associated with Tom Darmody, one of the brainiest men in baseball. It was largely this combination that revived the confidence and enthusiasm of the supporting public in the Los Angeles organization, and under its leadership the national pasttime on the coast has made larger strides than ever before.
JOHN F. POWERS
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Mr. Powers is a member of the Chicago Athletic Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Knights of Columbus. June 26, 1905, he married Miss Nelle Kelly of Danville, Illinois. They have one child, Michael Kelly Powers.
GENERAL PATRICK H. BARRY is governor of the Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle. He was appointed in December, 1912, taking up his duties January 17, 1913, as acting governor, and since the first of March, 1913, he has been governor of this institution.
While a lover of California and occupied in the congenial duties of supervising an institution for the welfare of his fellow comrades who saw active service in the Civil war, General Barry spent the greater part of his life in the middle west and in the far east. He was born in County Cork, Ireland, August 23, 1844, and as a boy was brought to the United States by his parents, who lived in Boston. He had all the enthusiasm and patriotism of the typical Irishman, and at the out- break of the Civil war attempted to enlist in the army, but was rejected on account of age. He determined to become a soldier, and leaving home and going to a locality where he was unknown he was accepted as a private in Company E of the Sixty-third New York Regiment in Septem- ber, 1861. He had just past his seventeenth birthday. The Sixty-third New York was part of Meagher's Irish Brigade, one of the hardest fighting and most brilliant organizations in the Union army. With the Sixty-third New York General Barry participated in the siege of York- town, the battles of Fair Oaks, Gaines' Mills, Bottom's Ridge, Savage Station, Cold Harbor, Malvern Hill, Second Bull Run and Antietam. At Antietam he was wounded in the ankle and discharged. He recovered and re-enlisted July 2, 1863, in Company A, 12th Massachusetts In- fantry. With this regiment he was a participant at Mine Run, the Wild- erness, Laurel Hill, Spottyslvania Court House, Bowling Green, second battle of Cold Harbor and Petersburg. The concluding scenes he saw as a member of the Thirty-ninth Massachusetts, to which he had been transferred. He was in the thick of the fighting at the famous Crater before Richmond. There he displayed that heroism which is the basis of many of the citations and medals and honors which are mentioned in the present great war. While attempting to save a comrade from a building that had been set on fire he was horribly burned about the face, but refused to go to the Field Hospital, and a few moments later his right arm was shattered by the fragments of a bursting shell. This wound necessitated amputation above the elbow and he came home from the war with one arm in his sleeve, yet in spite of this handicap he proved . himself no mean competitor in the practical affairs and business of life.
July 2, 1865, the second anniversary of his re-enlistment in the army, he married in Boston Miss Mary Monahan, a native of Ireland. They lived in and near Boston until the spring of 1880, when they sought the new lands of the middle west. General Barry took a homestead and tim- ber claim in Wheeler county, Nebraska, and lived there to endure all the hardships of pioneer experience. In 1882 he moved to another locality in Greeley county, to a tract sold to settlers by the Irish Catholic Asso- ciation. General Barry lived there until 1904, and became highly pros- perous as a farmer and stock breeder. On leaving the farm he moved to Greeley Center, where his wife died November 25, 1907.
Of his active connection with military affairs since the Civil war it is best to rely upon an article written and published in the Twentieth Century Farmer of Omaha in 1911. Quoting from this article: "When
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Silas A. Holcomb was elected governor of Nebraska he made Patrick H. Barry adjutant general of the Nebraska National Guard. General Barry immediately took up the seemingly hopeless task of making the Nebraska National Guard an effective force. Working night and day he whipped it into some semblance of a fighting force, and thus it was that when President Mckinley called for troops in the Spanish-Ameri- can war the Nebraska guardsmen were not only among the first to re- spond, but were among the best drilled, best equipped and best discip- lined volunteer troops sent to the front. General Barry's standing among the Nebraska veterans of the Spanish-American and Philippine wars is evidenced by the ovation given him every time he attends one of their reunions. As an organizer, as a disciplinarian and as a manager of men General Barry has proved his efficiency, and these are the quali- ties that induced the governmental authorities to take him from the quiet retreats of his country home in Nebraska and put him upon the board of managers that has to do with the management of one of the largest and finest sanitariums in the world, that maintained by the United States government at Hot Springs, South Dakota, for the care and comfort of disabled volunteer soldiers."
The appointment referred to in this quotation was the selection of General Barry as a member of the board of managers in charge of the Battle Mountain Sanitarium at Hot Springs, and it was from the duties and responsibilities of that office that he came to California to take up his present duties at the Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle.
General Barry, like most nien of progressive thought and action, has had a varied political experience and affiliation. Even while living in Massachusetts he became identified with the Greenback movement, and in Nebraska was affiliated with the Farmers Alliance and the People's party, having been elected and served two terms as a member of the Nebraska Legislature. In later years he has chosen a rather independent course in casting his ballot.
General Barry had an ideally happy home life. He and his wife enjoyed an uninterrupted companionship for over forty years, and it has been his privilege to see five sturdy sons grow to manhood and fill places of usefulness in the world. These sons are: Judge James B., of Sawtelle. California; Patrick, of Greeley Center, Nebraska; John P., who lives on the old homestead at Greeley Center; Francis A., also a farmer of Greeley Center, and Thomas M., a stockman and farmer at Greeley Center.
RT. REV. THOMAS JAMES CONATY. While his long and distinguished service was too broad to be credited to any one community, Los Angeles takes proper pride in the fact that the last twelve years of Bishop Conaty's life were spent in Southern California, as Bishop of Monterey and Los Angeles.
He represented the famous Milesian stock, inhabitants of Ireland for centuries, and was born at Kilnaleck, County Cavan, August 1, 1847. He died in his sixty-ninth year, September 18, 1915. His parents, Patrick and Alice (Lynch), Conaty, brought their family to Massachu- setts May 10, 1850. Bishop Conaty was educated in the public schools of Taunton, Massachusetts, and on December 30, 1863, entered Montreal College and in September, 1867, became a member of the junior class of Holy Cross College at Worcester, Massachusetts. He graduated A. B. in July, 1869, and took his theological work in the Grand Seminary at Montreal, where he was ordained priest December 21, 1872. George- town University conferred upon him the degree D. D. in 1889 and he also
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had the degrees J. C. D. and D. D. from the Laval University of Quebec in 1896.
January 1, 1873, he became assistant pastor of St. John's church at Worcester, Massachusetts, and during his seven years labor there distinguished himself by his strong personality, his genial disposition and his unlimited capacity for work. January 10, 1880, he became pas- tor of the Sacred Heart church of Worcester. For fourteen years at Worcester he was a member of the City School Board, and some of the best educational measures of the city are credited to his liberal and far reaching policies. He was also elected a trustee of the Worcester Public Library for two consecutive terms.
He was selected by the American Catholic Bishops, trustees of the University, to succeed Bishop Keane as registrar of the Catholic Uni- versity at Washington, and was appointed to that office by Pope Leo XIII November 20, 1896. June 19, 1897, the Pope also conferred upon him the title of Domestic Prelate and nominated him in 1901 as Titular Bishop of Samos. November 24, 1901, he was consecrated Bishop by Cardinal Gibbons at Baltimore. March 27, 1903, he was appointed Bishop of Monterey and Los Angeles, and took active charge of the diocese in June of the same year.
Bishop Conaty was long identified with educational and social move- ments. From July, 1892, until 1896 he served as president of the Catholic Summer School of America at Plattsburg, New York. He was president of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America from 1886 to 1888, and lent the full strength of his position and his personality to the spread of that movement. From 1900 to 1903 he was president of the Confer- ence of Catholic Bishops of America. He also founded and edited for four years the Catholic School and Home Magazine.
While such severe demands were made upon him in the exercise of his administrative functions, he also found much time for literary effort, and his literary output covered a large field of religious, educational and civic subjects. He also ranked among the foremost pulpit orators and lecturers of the country. Among his numerous writings are "New Testa- ment Studies," published in 1896. He was identified with numerous movements for the moral and civic betterment of Los Angeles. He was a member of the Newman Club, Sunset Club, California and University Clubs of Los Angeles, the Municipal League and the Choral Society, and was an associate member of Grand Army Post No. 10 at Worcester, Massachusetts.
REV. FRANCIS J. CONATY, who is a nephew of Bishop Conaty, was for a number of years associated with his honored uncle in the ecclesias- tical duties of the diocese and is pastor of the Cathedral Chapel at Los Angeles.
Father Conaty was born at Taunton, Massachusetts, March 19, 1880, son of Francis P. and Nellie (Linnane) Conaty. His parents were natives of the same Massachusetts town. Father Conaty attended gram- mar and high schools, graduating from the latter in 1898, and then en- tered Holy Cross College at Worcester, Massachusetts, from which he was graduated with A. B. degree in 1902. His studies for the priest- hood were pursued for two years at the Grand Seminary in Montreal, and two years at St. Mary's Seminary at Baltimore. He was ordained priest September 23, 1906, and at once came to Los Angeles to serve in the Diocese of Monterey. He was chancellor and secretary of the diocese until January, 1918, and has been pastor of the Cathedral Chapel since
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1914. Father Conaty is a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Library and has held that office since September, 1915.
EDWARD R. SNYDER. There was not enough oil development and production in Southern California thirty years ago to justify hardly a line of comment in the histories of that period. Therefore, when it is stated that Edward R. Snyder was connected with oil operations around Los Angeles twenty-five years ago, the statement is in itself conclusive of his veteran association with this, one of the largest and most im- portant industrial activities of California.
Mr. Snyder, who has been an executive official of half a dozen or more oil development and production companies, was born at the center of the original oil fields of America, the state of Pennsylvania. His birth occurred in Fayette County, August 14, 1866. His parents were John L. and Susan (Neil) Snyder, both natives of Pittsburgh. A tew years after his birth his parents moved to Beaver County, Pennsylvania. There he received his education in the public schools and in the Wood- lawn Academy. At the age of sixteen his father died, and that event compelled Edward R. Snyder to give up further school attendance and assume the major responsibilities of looking after the home farm. Thus he contributed largely to the support of his widowed mother and the family. In 1886, at the age of twenty, he got his first experience in the oil operating and developing business, though he still continued the management of the farm. Subsequently he was made superintendent of the pipe lines and production of the Mahoning Gas Company. By reason of his experience, Mr. Snyder was really an expert in nearly all phases of oil production when he came west to California, and in the fall of 1893 located at Pasadena, where he still resides. He then went to Gila Bend, Arizona, and was employed four months in drilling a water well for the Southern Pacific Railway Company. On returning to Los An- geles, he went to work as driller and tool dresser with various oil operators.
In 1896 Mr. Snyder was identified in putting down the first oil well at Coalingo, California, in what afterward became one of the famous fields on the Pacific Coast. A year later he took up leases on oil lands, forming a partnership with H. L. Chadwick and J. P. and J. W. Brunton. This firm drilled twelve wells, which they later sold. Mr. Snyder then entered the contracting business on his own account, incorporating the Kreyen-Hagen Land and Oil Company, the Black Mountain Petroleum Company and the Directors Oil Company, the last being a contracting land holding company. Mr. Snyder was president and manager of these three corporations until 1901. In that year the charters of the first two were surrendered, but Mr. Snyder still continues as president of the last company.
In 1901 a transfer in his operations were made to Watsonville, California, where he organized the Alberta Oil Company and was its vice president and manager four years. He then drilled a well for the new Moody Gulch Oil Company at Alma, California. For a time after that he was practically retired and lived in Los Angeles. In 1914 Mr. Snyder became identified with the Trojan Oil Company, which com- pleted a well in the Maricopa district. Mr. Snyder was vice president and director of this company.
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