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 45
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the Los Feliz Rancho and extended the water system adequate to the needs of that time. An interesting evidence of the high station of honor he enjoyed in his home city and state came in 1893 when a petition and memorial signed by thirty-nine senators and twenty-six assemblymen of the State Legislature, the justices of the Supreme Court, many mem- bers of the Bench and Bar of San Francisco at Los Angeles, besides other business men and citizens, presented his many qualifications to President Cleveland and urged his appointment to the post of minister to Gautemala. Mr. Sabichi also served as a member of the Park and Police Commission of Los Angeles.
This true and faithful citizen of Los Angeles passed to his reward April 12, 1900. In his social and intellectual qualities, his civic pride, his ability as a professional and business man, and in all other relation- ships, he was undoubtedly one of the best representative men ever pro- duced by southern California. He was for many years a member of the Native Sons of the Golden West and was a Catholic in religion.
On May 4, 1865, he married Magdelina Wolfskill. She was born in Los Angeles, a daughter of William Wolfskill. They were married in the old Plaza Mission by Father Mora, who later became Bishop of the Diocese. Her mother's maiden name was Magdalina Lugo. William Wolfskill was one of the earliest settlers of Los Angeles, and owned a splendid domain containing one of the first orange groves in Southern California outside of those of the ancient missions. The Wolfskill Rancho was at Alameda Street, between that thoroughfare and Central Avenue and Third and Fourth streets, and the birthplace of Mrs. Sabichi was the present site of the Los Angeles Ice Company. William Wolfskill at one time also owned the Santa Anita Rancho. Her brother sold this to M. H. Newmark, who in turn sold it to Lucky Baldwin, and part of the property is today owned by Anita Baldwin. William Wolfskill was a native of Kentucky and crossed the plains on foot to California through New Mexico. What is now called Central Avenue was at one time Wolfskill Avenue, and bisected Wolfskill property in Los Angeles. That property contained a hundred acres. William Wolfskill was the father of two sons and four daughters, and employed a tutor in his home for the education of his children. The only recreation of the early days was the annual fiesta or bazaar held by the Sisters of Charity, lasting three days, and ending with a dance, which was looked forward to and back upon as the central event in the social cal- endar by the Wolfskill daughters and other members of the social set. Mr. Sabichi's mother is buried at the old San Gabriel Mission under one of the pillars, while the mother of Mrs. Sabichi was baptized at the old Santa Barbara Mission.
For twenty years after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Sabichi lived on the twenty acre place at Seventh and San Pedro avenues. They were the parents of thirteen children. Those living today are: Agatha, widow of J. J. Fay, Jr .; Joseph Rodney, of Culver City; Dr .. George Carlos, of Bakersfield, California; William Wolfskill, of Los Angeles; Lewis Sabichi, of Los Angeles; Rose, wife of Dr. H. A. Putnam, of Monrovia, California ; Beatrice, wife of C. L. Mitchell, of Los Angeles. Mrs. Mitchell was born in the present Sabichi residence on Figueroa Street.
JOHN EMMETT MURRAY. Death coming suddenly on August 2, 1919, removed one of the most active workers and influential members from the Masonic bodies of Southern California, and also an old-time
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Los Angeles resident and former business man, in the person of John Emmett Murray.
He was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1854, and was sixty-five years of age when he died. A few years after his birth his parents removed to Peoria, Illinois, where he received a public school education, and had his first business experience as an employe of the T., P. & W. Railroad. Later he was engaged in the wholesale produce and the wholesale fuel business. His father was an honored citizen of Peoria, where at one time he was chief of police. The maternal grand- father of the late Mr. Murray was a member of the Scotch Grays under Wellington at the battle of Waterloo.
Mr. Murray, who first came to California forty years ago, gave the last years of his life to untiring effort and work in connection with Masonry. For thirty-four years he was a member of Knights Templar Commandery No. 9, and in point of service was the eighth oldest mem- ber of the Commandery. He was chairman of the Visiting Committee of Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and for several years had devoted his entire time to that branch of the work, and was a source of comfort and solace to hundreds of the sick and distressed among his brethren. He was buried from the Scottish Rite Cathedral, and was the fourth to be buried from there, an honor not often granted. He was chairman of the Relief Committee of all Scottish Rite bodies and, be- sides his connection with the Los Angeles body of the Masons, he was a member of the Masonic Veterans' Association of the Pacific Coast at San Francisco, and an honorary member of Moslem Temple, Detroit, an honorary member of Peoria Commandery No. 3, K. T., also an honorary life member of Peoria Consistory.
Mr. Murray died suddenly while quietly conversing with his wife, who had just recovered from a long serious illness. He married in his early years Miss Inez Young of Peoria, and had by this marriage a son named Emmett Murray. The first Mrs. Murray died in 1909. In 1910 Mr. Murray married Miss Lucy Emery Wheeler, a native daughter of California. Mr. and Mrs. Murray planned and. personally supervised all details of the building of the beautiful Murray Apartments on Orange street. These were the first thoroughly modern apartments in that section of the city, and it was due to Mrs. Murray's careful planning that they were so exclusively furnished and artistically decorated.
Miss Lucy Wheeler, as Mrs. Murray was before her marriage, was one of the first public stenographers in Los Angeles. She was also first to rent her own office and to hire others to work for her. For several years she kept from ten to fifteen girls employed, and her business standing was such that she had exceptional bank and local business references. Her notary commission came from old-time Governor Budd, and when first granted it was considered remarkable that a woman should hold a notary commission. She continued to own her business for four years after her marriage, turning over its management to an assistant, but later sold it. She had studied law and had a good knowl- edge of legal matters. Most of the work of the City Hall was done in her office for a number of years, including the writing of the specifica- tions for the Third and Broadway Tunnel and other municipal works of twenty years ago. Mrs. Murray is a member of the Ebell Club, par- ticularly active in the Browning Department. Prior to her marriage she had traveled through the Orient, Japan, China and Manila. She is a member of Immanuel Presbyterian Church.
Mrs. Murray's family is an old one in California. Her maternal
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grandfather, Captain William Emery, came around the Horn in 1849 on his own ship. He had been all over the world in it. He was first a resident of Sacramento, doing much to build up that pioneer city, and later was at San Francisco and at San Diego. He had two sons, Henry and Herbert Emery. Henry Emery was a constructive factor in the upbuilding of San Diego and was supervisor when the Coronado Hotel was built. He owned great tracts of land in the Pine Valley and sur -. rounding valleys, which he later sold to the San Diego Water Company. Mrs. Murray has heard this uncle tell many interesting pioneer stories, and she was particularly entertained by his tales of Indian troubles. His life was once saved in an Indian attack when he stubbed his toe and fell, his enemies thinking he had been killed.
The Emery family is one of the largest and oldest in the United States. The tradition is that two brothers of the name came from Eng- land about 1640. The Wheeler family came a few years later. Mrs. Murray's father was Samuel H. Wheeler. He was consulting engineer to Mr. Holiday, the inventor of the first cable car system, and had the active supervision of the first line installed at San Francisco. He was also manager of the old Fulton Foundry, where the ship "Oregon" was built. He stood high in Masonry and spent his entire life in San Fran- cisco, where he was one of the founders of the Mechanics Institute. He owned a fine scientific library, which was purchased by the State Uni- versity at Berkeley. He was once offered the chair of mathematics in that institution, but declined the offer.
JAMES G. DONAVAN. is founder, vice president and general manager of the Donavan & Seamans Company, whose jewelry and precious stones establishment is one of the show places of Los Angeles. They rank as one of the foremost firms in the United States as jewelry and diamond merchants.
Like many other large and successful businesses, it was far from being a conspicuous enterprise when it was first started in Los Angeles in 1894 in Spring Street near Temple, then in the heart of the shopping center. Later the store was moved to Third and Spring streets, and that was their location for over twenty years. From there the company came to its present elegant quarters at 743 South Broadway, where the tiled floors, show cases of mahogany and rosewood make an appropriate setting for the company's display of high class jewelry, gold and silver- ware and flawless precious stones.
Before he became a metropolitan jeweler Mr. Donavan was an expert watchmaker, and had a long and varied experience in that delicate mechanical trade. He was born at Aurora, Illinois, June 19, 1866, son of Daniel and Eleanor (O'Connor) Donavan, both members of pioneer families of Aurora. His mother died in 1913, at the age of eighty-six. His father was a contractor. The parents had five children. One daughter is Mrs. S. D. Seamans, wife of the other member of the firm Donavan & Seamans Company.
James G. Donavan attended public school at Aurora, also the old Jennings Seminary there. He left school to work in an Aurora watch factory, serving his apprenticeship under some of the master watch- makers of the country. Later he was employed in some of the biggest watch factories in America, and for many years that was his line of business.
Having accumulated some money from his thrift, he finally, in 1890, engaged in the retail jewelry business at Aurora, Illinois. Mr. Donavan
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first came to Los Angeles for a two weeks' vacation with his sister. He decided to stay two weeks longer, then three months, and finally could resist the lure of Los Angeles no longer, and after selling his half interest in the store at Aurora settled here permanently. When he entered business in 1894 he had only one eight foot show case for his goods, but that was the nucleus of the business now known as the Donavan & Seamans Company, which was incorporated in 1905 with a capital stock of two hundred thousand dollars. The company employs twenty-five people, and Mr. Donavan has not only had a phenomenal success in a general business way, but is recognized as an authority in appraising and dealing in diamonds and precious stones. In the year 1919 was celebrated the silver anniversary of the establishing of the business. Mr. Donavan is well known in Los Angeles financial circles, and besides his office as vice president and manager of the Donavan & Seamans Company he is interested in the Farmers & Merchants Bank, the First National Bank, the Security Trust & Savings Bank of Los Angeles and the Hamilton Watch Company at Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Donavan married at Los Angeles Miss Rose Ganahl. Her father, F. J. Ganahl, was a prominent wholesale and retail lumber dealer at Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Donavan have four children : Eloise, James, Jr., Frances and Daniel. The Donavan home is a commodious residence at Twenty-second Street and Western Avenue. Mr. Donavan built this home literally in a wheat field, and has seen his surroundings improved into a beautiful and attractive section of the city. He is a member in and a director of the Los Angeles Merchants & Manufac- turers Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Knights of Columbus and the Newman Club. He is a republican.
LEWIS MARTINDALE FARNHAM, who is corporation secretary for the Public Utility and Land Companies controlled by Messrs. Allan C. Balch, William G. Kerckhoff, Ben R. Meyer and Abe Haas, of Los Angeles received his early training with a New England railroad, came to Cali- fornia about twenty years ago with health broken down by overwork, and since 1903 has been connected with that group of financiers whose capi- tal and resources comprise one of the largest aggregates of power and influence in the affairs of Southern California.
Mr. Farnham was born at Bangor, Maine, May 26, 1864, a son of Jolın N. and Nancy Melinda (Wentworth) Farnham, his family being of Puritan English stock. He was educated in the Bangor public schools and in 1878, at the age of fourteen, went to work in a book store. He continued the quiet routine of a book and stationery store eleven years, and then became an employe of the Maine Central Railroad. During the following nine years he served successively as accountant, rate clerk and paymaster, and was cashier of the local freight office when he came to California late in the year 1898. He came west to avoid a threatened nėrvous prostration caused by overwork. After three months he con- cluded to remain in California, sent back his resignation to the Maine Central Railroad, and during the next five years worked as storekeeper and bookkeeper with the Napa Consolidated Quicksilver Mining Com- pany at Oak Hill. For about a year he also acted as superintendent of the Aetna Quicksilver Mining Company during the period of cleaning up before the mine was finally closed down.
Mr. Farnham came to Los Angeles in 1903, at which time he began work for the Pacific Light and Power Company, then under the manage- ment and control of Messrs. Balch, Kerckhoff, Kaspare Cohn, Hass and
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H. E. Huntington. After a few months he was appointed assistant audi- tor, in 1907 became auditor and assistant secretary, in 1912 resigned as auditor and was elected secretary of the Pacific Light and Power Cor- poration and a number of affiliated companies owned by the same people, including the Southern California Gas Company. Much of the story of the industries originated and controlled by these interests has been cited on other pages. It will be recalled that in 1913 Balch, Kerckhoff, Cohn and Haas sold their interests in the Pacific Light and Power Corporation to Mr. Huntington, and then turned their attention to the Southern Cali- fornia Gas Company, the Midway Gas Company and the San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation and affiliated companies. At the change of ownership Mr. Farnham remained with the latter group. In 1916 Mr. Kaspare Cohn of the firm died, and the affairs and management of the companies were taken by his son-in-law, Ben R. Meyer. Mr. Farnham has continued with these four individuals and the companies controlled by them to the present time and is now vice president and secretary of the Southern California Gas Company, of the San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation, the Midland Counties Public Service Corporation, the Fresno Farms Company and is now secretary of the Fresno City Water Corporation and the Lerdo Land Company. He is also associated with the Broadway Building Company, Kearny Boulevard Heights Com- .pany, Producers Gas and Fuel Company, San Joaquin Holding Company, Stratford Inn Corporation, and is assistant secretary of the Midway Gas Company.
Mr. Farnham is a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Com- merce. November 24, 1892, he married Miss Faustina Ankeny Gerrish at Milford, Maine.
MIDWAY GAS COMPANY. Los Angeles was first given a natural gas supply in 1913, when through the enterprise of A. C. Balch and his able financial and business associates a system was installed by which a supply was drawn a hundred and ten miles from the Midway oil field. The list of well-known California capitalists who wrote this new chapter in Southern California development included Mr. Balch, William G. Kerckhoff, Kaspare Cohn, Ben R. Meyer, A. Haas and A. B. Macbeth, who in 1914 became associated as general manager of the Midway Gås Company and vice president and general manager of the Southern Cali- fornia Gas Company.
The Midway Gas Company was incorporated on November 18, 1911, for the purpose of constructing a gas transmission main from the Mid- way field in Kern County to Los Angeles. Up to that time as much of the gas produced in the Midway Field as was required in the operation of the oil wells was used for consumption in the oil fields and the rest of the gas was wasted.
Mr. John Martin was the prime mover in the attempt to serve the larger cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles with natural gas. He began his efforts in 1910 and after being unable to interest San Francisco capital, he presented the proposition to the principal owners of the South- ern California Gas Company and the San Joaquin Light and Power Cor- poration-Messrs. A. C. Balch, William G. Kerckhoff, Kaspare Cohn, Ben R. Meyer and A. Haas, who brought about the organization of the Midway Gas Company.
In March, 1912, the Company entered into a contract for an addi- tional supply of natural gas, giving them an aggregate supply of over thirty million cubic feet per day. The transmission line from Midway to
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West Glendale near Los Angeles was started in April, 1912, and completed in September of the same year at a cost exceeding a million five hundred thousand dollars. The first regular service began on April 28, 1913. For three years the projectors and managers were beset with an unprecedented train of difficulties, owing to breaks in the lines, excessive loss of gas, and other factors. These difficulties and troubles were eventually remedied and overcome, the credit for which largely belonged to the general man- ager, A. B. Macbeth.
In 1915 the company contracted for an additional supply from the Fullerton Field and eventually approximately 20,000,000 cubic feet of gas per day were being sent through the transmission lines from the Midway Field and approximately 15,000,000 cubic feet per day were being sent through the transmission lines from the Fullerton Field and this 35,000,- 000 cubic feet of gas were marketed and sold in Los Angeles and vicinity.
About July 1, 1919, the Midway Gas Company purchased the stock of the Valley Natural Gas Company and consolidated the operation of the companies. The Valley Company owned contracts with the Standard Oil Company for supply of natural gas, and the consolidation of these companies enlarges the use as well as better conserving the supply of natural gas which is being developed in Kern County.
The Midway Gas Company sells natural gas to all the distributing companies in Southern California. It is the only gas company in Cali- fornia which is fully and properly equipped to take gas from either gas wells or oil wells, handle the same through its compressor plants and sell and deliver to distributing companies gas at a uniform pressure for consumers.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS COMPANY. As a corporation whose serv- ice is decidedly of a public nature and whose product is used throughout the Los Angeles district, the history of the Southern California Gas Com- pany has special interest in this publication.
Under the present form the company has existed since 1910. When organized on October 5th of that year the present company acquired the Domestic Gas Company of Los Angeles.
Going back two years further, during the summer of 1908, William G. Kerckhoff and A. C. Balch, who were respectively president and vice president and general manager of the Pacific Light and Power Company, began the negotiations which led to the purchase of the City Gas Com- pany, properties of the Pacific Light and Power Company. The new property was operated under the name of Domestic Gas Company and started in with about fifty-eight hundred consumers and one · hundred six miles of mains.
Such rapid progress was made in the building up of the business dur- ing the following two years as to justify the reorganization under the title of the Southern California Gas Company, which took over the properties and business of the Domestic Gas Company, including eleven thousand consumers in Los Angeles, Tropico and Glendale, with approxi- mately two hundred miles of mains. The gas properties in San Ber- nardino, owned by the Pacific Light and Power Corporation, and the gas properties in Riverside, owned by the Southern California Edison Com- pany, were purchased early in 1911, and expanded the service by six thousand additional consumers and one hundred ten miles of mains.
The Company in 1911 constructed a gas plant at Colton, with a ca- pacity of 2,000,000 cubic feet per day, and mains were laid from Colton
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to San Bernardino and Riverside. Since then the generating plants at San Bernardino and Riverside have been used as reserve plants.
In 1912 the capacity of the generating plant at Los Angeles was doubled.
In 1912-13 the company contracted with the Midway Gas Company for a supply of natural gas, which supply was largely increased through contract made in 1915 with the Standard Oil Company for a supply of natural gas from the Fullerton Field.
By 1917 the company was supplying gas at wholesale and retail for light, heat, fuel and industrial purposes to Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and seventeen other cities and towns in Southern California the population of the territory served by the company being estimated at over 600,000. The distribution system, aggregated 662 miles of mains served 37,000 consumers.
Further progress has been made since then. In 1918 the company bought the gas properties at Redondo from the Western Fuel Gas & Power Company, and in 1919 bought the gas properties in Los Angeles from the Economic Gas Company.
The Southern California Gas Company manufactures artificial gas, also supplies straight natural gas, purchased under contract with the Mid- way Gas Company. The domestic consumption is mixed natural and artificial product.
SAN JOAQUIN LIGHT & POWER CORPORATION is intimately re- lated to a group of corporations and public utilities that serve Southern California, most of its officials being executives in the Midway Gas Com- pany and the Southern California Gas Company.
The history of this corporation includes the story of the first system to transmit electricity for power. The original San Joaquin plant was first put in operation in 1896, designed for transmission for the commer- · cial light and power supply in the city of Fresno. At that time many experts were confident that the electric current could not be profitably transmitted even to this thirty-six miles, and it was the successful opera- tion of the San Joaquin plant No. 1 which disproved and discarded many old theories on this score. The pioneer plant continued in operation fifteen years, until it was superseded in 1911 by the great power house which represented the acme of electric power development.
The original San Joaquin plant, with some additions to its original service, was sold in 1902 to a new company composed of men themselves pioneers in the field of electric transmission. They were William G. Kerckhoff, A. C. Balch, Kaspare Cohn and Abe Haas and Messrs. Kerck- hoff and Balch assumed control December 1, 1902. Mr. A. G. Wishon was made general manager in May, 1903. The first two were officials in the Pacific Light & Power Corporation, while Mr. Wishon was one of the originators and a part owner of the Mount Whitney Power Com pany. Mr. Kerckhoff had been prominent in the lumber industry for many years, and in 1897, with A. C. Balch, had organized the San Gabriel Electric Company, which was the nucleus of the great Pacific Light & Power Corporation. Mr. Balch as an electrical engineer had distin- guished himself by work in the northwest, and in 1898, with Mr. Kerck- hoff, built the Azusa Plant, now a part of the Pacific Light & Power Corporation.
Mr. Wishon was the man who with indomitable perseverance, and with a clear vision of possibilities, had first made use of electric current for pumping water for irrigation in the farming area of Tulare County.
I.v Gordon,
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Mr. Balch is responsible for bringing into practical use electrical power for pumping and drilling oil wells.
Since the formation of the San Joaquin Light & Power Corporation its facilities have been improved to serve an immense territory in the re- gion generally known as the San Joaquin Valley, the area served being equal to the areas of the New England states of New Hampshire, Massa- chusetts and Connecticut.
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