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 34
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 | Part 62
236
LOS ANGELES
(Stine) Milliron. As a boy in South Dakota he attended public schools at Kimball, also the Ward Academy, and at the age of fourteen a private tutor was brought into the home for his benefit. At sixteen he entered the high school at Sioux City, Iowa, graduating a year later. During the Philippine insurrection he enlisted in the United States Hospital Corps as a first-class private and remained with the army until honorably discharged in February, 1904. He remained in the Philippines as a Civil Service employe, being supervising revenue agent. He also studied law at night, and in December, 1912, returned to the States, spending his vacation in Los Angeles. In June, 1913, he entered the National University Law School at Washington, D. C., and was graduated in June, 1915, receiving the degrees LL. B. and LL. M. The university gold medal was bestowed upon him in recognition of his standing in all subjects and courses.
After graduating, Mr. Milliron came to Los Angeles, was admitted to the California bar and United States courts, and has since had a busy practice. He is a member of Henry S. Orme Lodge No. 458, F. and A. M., is a Royal Arch, Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, International Association of Lions Clubs, Los Angeles City Club, the Bar Association, Automobile Club of Southern California, the Sigma Nu Phi college fraternity, and in politics is independent.
Mr. Milliron married Miss Edith Morgan on September 21, 1909, at Manila, Philippine Islands. They have two children: Grace Elizabeth, born at Manila May 12, 1913, and Jay William, born at Los Angeles June 2, 1915.
JOHN MUNRO, who has been a resident of California since 1898, is a lawyer of exceptional ability both in the criminal branch of his profes- sion and also as a counsellor in mining litigation. He has been asso- ciated with several prominent members of the Los Angeles bar at dif- ferent times, but is now alone in practice, with offices in the Bryson Block.
He was born at Dominionville, Canada, November 2, 1874, a son of Dr. James T. and Christina (Robertson) Munro. His parents are still living in Montreal. For years his father was a prominent surgeon in that city, a graduate of McGill University of Montreal. He held the rank of captain in the British army and served in that capacity in the Fenian raid of 1872. For years he was prominent in the conservative wing of Dominion political parties and at one time was slated for the cabinet in the provincial government of Montreal. John Munro is the oldest of three children. His brother, Dr. James Howard, is a Montreal surgeon and served with the rank of captain in the Medical Corps of the French army during the European war. The daughter, Olive, is the wife of Doctor O'Hara, a physician at Montreal.
Mr. John Munro was educated in the public schools of Ottawa, Canada, received his A. B. degree from Queen's University at Kingston in 1896, did post-graduate work in Manitoba University at Winnipeg in 1897, and finished his law course in the Nashville College of Law, re- ceiving his LL. B. degree in 1898. He came to California that year, and in 1906 was admitted to the bar of this state, and since 1910 has had a large amount of practice in the Federal courts. He was associated with the Los Angeles law firm of Harris & Harris in 1906-07. He has also practiced in Nevada, having a branch office in the Gazette Building at Reno, from which he handles his mining litigation. Mr. Munro is
Fawickershamg
237
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA
fond of the criminal branch of the law. During 1908 he was associated in practice with Gen. Johnston Jones, practiced alone during 1909, and in 1910 was senior member of the firm Munro & Robertson. He was also associated with Judge Pirkey, a former Superior Court judge. The firm of Munro & Pirkey continued three years, until Judge Pirkey went to the state of Washington to take a government position, and is now on the Superior bench of that state.
Mr. Munro is an active republican, is affiliated with San Fernando Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is past master of San Fernando Lodge No. 343, F. and A. M., and is a Scottish Rite Mason. He is a member of the Municipal League, Union League, City Club, Chamber of Commerce, California State Bar Association, and in religion is a Christian Scientist.
September 6, 1911, at Riverside, California, he married Miss Jane Harriss. She was born and educated at Omaha, being a graduate of the Omaha High School and the Jones College of Music of that city. Mr. and Mrs. Munro have one daughter, Norma K., born in Los Angeles.
FREDERICK A. WICKERSHAM is a young California business man, grandson of a California pioneer, and since leaving the naval service has been head of the Frederick A. Wickersham Company, distributors and sales agents at Los Angeles for the Daniels car. The Daniels car is an automobile that has been manufactured for seven years by the George E. Daniels Company, and has found increasing favor and pat- ronage with that portion of the automobile buying public content only with the best and most efficient car and of finest design and workman- ship. The Daniels car is the product of the former chief designer of the Simplex automobile.
Mr. Wickersham was born at Petaluma, California, August 17, 1896, a son of Frederick A., Sr., and grandson of I. G. Wickersham, who came to California in 1851 across the plains, locating at Petaluma, where he established one of the first banks of the state. Upon his death his son Frederick took over the management of the bank and was its active head until his death in 1901. Frederick A. Wickersham, Sr., was born at Petaluma, was educated in the grammar and high schools there, graduated from the University of California, and in addition to his office as president of the Petaluma Bank was largely interested in sugar, oil and lands, and in many ways was a leader and a man of great useful- ness in the northern part of the state. Frederick A. Wickersham, Jr .. attended public schools, Mount Tamalpais Military School, graduated in 1914 from the Belmont Military Academy at Belmont, California, and until 1917 continued his education in Stanford University. Early in the war with Germany ne enlisted in the navy as a sailor, was advanced to petty officer, and at the signing of the armistice was commissioned en- sign. He received his honorable discharge January 11, 1919, and at once located at Los Angeles and secured the agency for the Daniels auto- mobile.
Mr. Wickersham is a member of the Theta Chi and Phi Delta Theta college fraternities, the Olympic Club of San Francisco, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and while in the service was a member of the Illinois Athletic Club and the Boston Athletic Club.
BRUCE HOPKINS CASS has been a merchant and manufacturer at Los Angeles for over thirty years, and through his business and personal in- fluence has always been working with the constructive forces in the up- building of the Southern California metropolis.
238
LOS ANGELES
He was born at Albion, New York, September 16, 1858. His father, Pliny Cook Cass, was born in New Hampshire in 1819, of old New Eng- land stock. Pliny C. Cass spent many years in California, coming out in 1850 and again in 1854, but soon returned to the East. In February, 1888, he brought his family out and settled permanently. Following the Civil war he had moved to southwestern Missouri, and after that war lived in Indian Territory for several years.
Bruce Hopkins Cass spent ten years of his early life as a United States licensed Indian trader in old Indian Territory. He had acquired all his education near Joplin, Missouri, but his opportunities have been largely of his own creation. About 1888 he engaged in the hardware business at Los Angeles, and soon afterward established the Cass Brothers Stove Company, his associate being his brother, A. B. Cass. After two years they consolidated with E. E. Crandall, and about two years later Mr. John Smurr bought the Crandall interests, at which time the Cass-Smurr Company came into existence. In 1890 Mr. Cass also bought a stock of goods at Winslow, Arizona, and at is required three vears to dispose of this general merchandise, he spent much of his time back and forth between Los Angeles and Winslow. In 1893 he estab- lished another business firm, known as Nauerth & Cass Hardware Com- pany. Their store was at 324 South Spring street, while the Cass Stove Company was at 316 South Spring. In 1896 Nauerth & Cass moved to the present location of the business, 412-414 South Broadway. That was then an out-of-the-way section of the city, and the temporary quar- ters of the firm was an old adobe building until a more suitable struc- ture could be provided. While the location of the business was regarded unfavorably by the friends of Mr. Cass, his foresight proved his wis- dom, and today this store is in the very center of the business district.
About ten years ago another change was made in the firm, when Mr. Damerel bought the interest of Mr. Nauerth, the resulting organization being the Cass-Damerel Hardware Company. Later the stove interests were consolidated and the new business title was the Cass-Smurr- Damerel Company.
In February, 1919, Mr. Cass resigned as president of this corpora- tion to devote all his time to a new company called the Cass Manufac- turing Company, manufacturing all kinds of heating and ventilating ap- pliances for public buildings, and all classes of hotel, restaurant and kitchen equipment and fixtures. The leased quarters of the new busi- ness are at 332 South Spring street. The company manufactures ranges and other appliances unexcelled in quality. As a firm they have prac- tically no competition on the Pacific coast. The company has already installed equipment for new hotels and other institutions.
Mr. Cass is an old line republican. He is treasurer and director of the Edmonds Midway Oil Company. He has given his time to business, home and family, and outside of these interests has seldom identified himself with clubs or with politics, though he is recognized for his eminent public spirit and his helpful co-operation with that body of citizens who have developed Los Angeles during the last three decades.
At Los Angeles, October 8, 1890, he married Louise Hunter, of Mansfield, Ohio. Mrs. Cass is quite prominent socially and during the war gave all her time to auxiliary movements. She is a former vice- president of the Ebell Club. They have three children. The daughter Ruth is the wife of Harry Elliott, a Los Angeles lawyer. The other daughter, Bernice, is the wife of Dudley Watson, and lives at St. Louis. Before her marriage she was her father's secretary and had a very thorough business training.
239
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA
The only son, Clarence Cass, now twenty-seven years of age, is also associated with his father in business, was educated in Los Angeles schools and in Stanford University. At the beginning of the war with Germany he left his business affairs to enlist in the National Army, was trained at Camp Lewis and Camp Kearney, and became corporal in the Headquarters Company of the One Hundred Sixtieth Infantry. He was one of three selected from a thousand picked men at Camp Kearney to go overseas with this Headquarters Company. Not one report of his was ever returned for correction. He spent nearly two years overseas.
CHARLES HALSEY ELMENDORF, real estate and investments, directing one of the large business organizations of that kind in Los Angeles, has been identified with this line of work for forty years, his experience covering the Middle West and Pacific Coast.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, September 14, 1858, son of Rev. Anthony and Sarah (Clark) Elmendorf. His father was of pure Holland-Dutch stock, and his mother of English stock. Jan Elmendorf came to America from Leyden, Holland, in 1620, and settled on the Hudson River at a point afterward known as the city of Kingston. Rev. Anthony Elmendorf, D. D., was born at Kingston, in Ulster county, New York, and many of the family still reside there. The Elmendorfs were represented by soldiers in the Revolution as well as in the Civil war. A Jan Elmendorf was on Governor Clinton's staff. The military record of the family may be completed by referring to Charles H. Elmen- dorf Jr., son of the Los Angeles business man. He recently returned from nineteen months of service with the Fourteenth United States In- fantry, having enlisted at the age of eighteen as a raw recruit, and was mustered out as a battalion sergeant major at the age of twenty. Rev. Anthony Elmendorf built and for many years was pastor of the Clare- mont Avenue Dutch Reformed Church in Brooklyn. His wife, who was a native of New Brunswick, New Jersey, represented a family of mer- chants and bankers.
Charles H. Elmendorf entered grammar school at New Brunswick, New Jersey, and completed his education in Rutgers College. For four years he was in the wholesale paper business in New York City, but has for the last forty years been in the real estate and investment business. For some years he was also a breeder of Hereford cattle and served as president of the American Hereford Association. During his residence in the Middle West he was a private banker in Iowa.
Mr. Elmendorf is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and for many years has been an active Presby- terian and is now a member of the Wilshire Presbyterian Church.
September 22, 1880, at Warsaw, New York, he married Jeanie Frank, daughter of George W. Frank of Warsaw. Her mother was a McNair, of pure Scotch ancestry. Her grandmother was a Pierpont. The Frank family was prominent in Western New York as merchants, bankers and politicians. Augustus Frank, an uncle of Mrs. Elmendorf, was a mem- ber of Congress three times during the Civil war, and represented his district with distinction. George W. Frank was a man of prominence and wealth, a successful banker, negotiator of loans and real estate, and lived at Warsaw, New York; Corning, Iowa, and Kearney, Nebraska.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Elmendorf are as follows: George Frank, who married Minnie Swezey, a daughter of G. D. Swezey, pro- fessor of astronomy in the University of Nebraska; Edward Elmendorf, unmarried ; William McN. of Berkeley, California, who married Evelyn
240
LOS ANGELES
Bohall; Charles H. Jr., the soldier of the family; Eleanor, wife of Frank K. Lord, and Margaret, wife of Edgar A. Russell, who is a senior lieutenant in the United States Navy.
JOHN E. COFFIN, whose name has become associated with some of the prominent manufacturing and mining corporations of the southwest, came to Los Angeles more than thirty years ago, and these years have been filled with interests of increasing importance and value.
Mr. Coffin is a birthright Quaker and represents an old Quaker family that originally came from England and bought the Island of Nantucket. He was born at New Garden, North Carolina, September 17, 1860, a son of Dr. Samuel D. and Mary A. (Newlin) Coffin. His father, who was born in North Carolina in November, 1825, was a graduate in medicine from the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and of the Miami College at Cincinnati. He practiced medicine at Bloomingdale, Indiana, at Fairmount, Kansas, retired from his pro- fession in 1884, and in 1890 removed to Whittier, California, where he died in 1903. He married in North Carolina in 1853, and his widow is still living. Of their six children the two survivors are Dr. W. V. Coffin, of Whittier, and John E. Dr. Samuel Coffin was a cousin of the famous abolitionist Levi Coffin, known as the president of the under- ground railroad, and was associated with his cousin in this enterprise, and later during the Civil war was an examining physician for the Union army.
When John E. Coffin was six months old his parents removed to Bloomingdale, Indiana, and there he attended school until the age of ten. He then went with his family to Fairmount, Kansas, continued his education in the public schools of that locality, and at the age of four- teen entered Earlham College at Richmond, Indiana. He was a student in that institution three years, then attended Haverford College, Penn- sylvania, this college having the highest standard of any Quaker col- lege in the world, graduating in 1882. After graduation he spent one year in postgraduate work in the Haverford Observatory with one of America's best astronomers. During this period he compiled and pub- lished an interest table which is now used in some of the banks and busi- ness houses in Los Angeles. For one year he taught in the Vermillion Grove Academy in Illinois, and for another year was employed in the office of the United States Electrical Company at Chicago. On com- ing to Los Angeles Mr. Coffin was in the real estate business until 1888, and is familiar by personal experience with the big boom of the eighties. He served as deputy city treasurer under M. D. Johnson until 1892, and was then appointed assistant superintendent of the Whittier State School. holding that post for two and a half years and for a similar period was superintendent. On resigning Mr. Coffin became associated with Henry Lindley, George Mason and his son Dean of Los Angeles in organizing the Pokegama Sugar Pine Lumber Company of Siskiyou county, Cali- fornia. Mr. Coffin was secretary and director of this corporation for seven years. On selling out his interests he returned to Los Angeles and with others organized the California Furniture Company. This has since been his chief business enterprise, and is one of the leading con- cerns of its kind on the Pacific coast. Mr. Coffin is vice-president and in charge of the promotion department.
He is also president of the Consolidated Reservoir & Power Com- pany, a director of the Laguna Land and Water Company, and presi- dent of the Empire Arizona Consolidated Copper Company. He is well
John de Caffein
241
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA
known in social and business circles, a member of the Chamber of Com- merce, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, University Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, and is a republican and a member of the Quaker church at Whittier.
At Los Angeles, December 31, 1889, he married Bertha Lindley.
EDWIN CHARLES THORNE is a Los Angeles architect, and during the past half dozen years has given his services to a number of commercial and industrial organizations in planning and carrying out their construc- tion work. Mr. Thorne for a number of years was in the employ of the city government of Los Angeles as an assistant building inspector and structural engineer.
He was born in Nansemond county, Virginia, April 16, 1867, and has lived in Los Angeles for over thirty years. His parents were Charles Ransom and Eliza Ann (Bogardus) Thorne, both natives of New York state, his mother being of English and Holland-Dutch ancestry, while his father was of a Quaker family with a mixture of French, Spanish and Holland-Dutch blood. Charles R. Thorne moved from New York to Virginia for the sake of his health, and was a planter in the latter state for five years. He then moved to Michigan, and from there to Illinois, where he traded for a large tract of land and cleared up a hun- dred sixty acres in Tazewell county. Still later he was a farmer and building contractor in Kansas and Nebraska, and in 1888 came to Los Angeles, where he did considerable building and contracting for a dozen years. He died at Los Angeles in 1901, at the age of sixty-three, and his wife passed away in 1915, aged seventy-nine. He was a Royal Arch Mason, and in Los Angeles both he and his wife joined the Baptist Church. He had been reared a Quaker and his wife a Presbyterian. They had a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters. Those now living are: Mrs. W. E. Railsback, of Kansas; Dr. Elwood James Thorne, an osteopath physician at Pasadena; Mrs. George W. Watkins, of El Centro, California; Edwin Charles, and Herbert W., an assistant building inspector at Los Angeles. The oldest of the family was Mrs. W. E. Latham, who died in Nebraska in 1918. Another son died at the age of five years in Illinois. The first three of the family were natives of New York state, one other was born in New Jersey, and the last in Virginia.
Edward Charles Thorne was educated in the public schools of Illi- nois, Kansas and Nebraska. He took work through the International Correspondence School in training for his profession. Up to the age of sixteen he worked at farming, and then served an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade, and followed that occupation from 1888 to 1907, being a mechanic, foreman and superintendent. For two years he was also in the mercantile business. He has been studying architecture since 1900. For three years he was an assistant building inspector at Los Angeles, and from 1909 to 1912 was structural engineer in the employ of the city government. In 1912 he applied to the State Board and received a cer- tificate as an architect. The following year he was employed profes- sionally by the Union Realty Company, and since 1913 has been practic- ing his profession alone. His offices are in the Western Mutual Life Building.
While living in Nebraska Mr. Thorne served five years in the First Nebraska Regiment of National Guards. He is an independent repub- lican in politics and is a member of the University Methodist Episcopal Church at Los Angeles. He also belongs to the Automobile Club of Southern California. His home is at 1232 West Thirty-first street.
242
LOS ANGELES
At Holdrege, Nebraska, May 7, 1887, he married Miss Hilda W. Rundstrum, of Galesburg, Illinois, where she was born and educated. They have four children, the first born at Holdrege, Nebraska, and the others in Los Angeles. Agnes E., the oldest, is the wife of Roy C. Wilson, of Santa Paula, California; Ina G. is at home; Elsie M. is the wife of William C. Minger, of Los Angeles, and Dorothy B. is at home. Mrs. Minger's husband served as a lieutenant in the Forty-second Field Artillery and was twice ordered overseas, the influenza epidemic coun- termanding the order the first time, and the armistice preventing his de- parture the second time. Mr. Thorne's children were all educated in the public schools of Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.
DUKE STONE, who came to Los Angeles from Oklahoma, where he practiced law a number of years, is regarded as one of the ablest trial lawyers of the Los Angeles bar, and does a large business representing casualty insurance and other corporations in Southern California. A lawyer of tried and tested ability, he is a man of many other interests, and his private tastes run to ranching. He has a home in the foothills at 2107 Beachwood Drive, Hollywood, and also owns a ranch of thirty acres in the San Fernando Valley, where he practices his hobby when free from the cares of his law office. This little ranch is all irrigated, and part of it is planted to walnuts.
Mr. Stone was born at Big Rock, twenty miles from Clarksville, Tennessee, the great tobacco market, on August 29, 1877, a son of Wil- liam J. and Mary Ellen (Beresford) Stone. His father was a native of Tennessee, and his mother of Kentucky. They were married in Ten- nessee. William J. Stone served four years in the Confederate Army. In the early part of the war he was in Morgan's famous cavalry, and when most of the organization was captured, he joined a command under General Bragg. He was shot through the leg at the battle of Murfreesboro. He was a Tennessee farmer, and in 1887 moved with his family to Brownwood, in central Texas. He was interested in politics both in Tennessee and Texas, and was one of the leading democrats of those states. Both he and his wife died in Texas and are buried at Brownwood. They had a family of five sons and three daughters, all living except the oldest son, William, who died in Tennessee, and these children have all made good records. J. C. is an attorney at Muskogee, Oklahoma; R. G. is in the lumber business at Henryetta, Oklahoma ; W. I. Stone was one of the first settlers at El Centro, California, and is in the real estate business in the Imperial Valley. The next in age is Duke. Mrs. Thomas J. Beasley is the wife of a Texas legislator and her home is in Mccullough county, Texas. Mrs. John B. Young is the wife of a merchant at Checotah, Oklahoma. Mollie Jessie, the youngest daughter, is a teacher in the University of Oklahoma.
Duke Stone was ten years old when the family removed to Texas, and he finished his education in the public schools of Brownwood, and from high school entered Howard Payne College in that city, gradnat- ing with the degree A. B. in 1900. He also did post-graduate work at Baylor University, at Waco, and to pay the expenses of his higher educa- tion he taught country schools.
Mr. Stone was admitted to the bar in the territory of Oklahoma in 1903, and practiced at Ada. He did a large business there, became prominent in politics, and from Oklahoma came to Los Angeles July 22, 1912. He was admitted to the bar in September, and while getting estab- lished did some brief work and assisted the late H. H. Trowbridge, then
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.