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 52
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Mr. Behymer is probably one of the most widely traveled residents of Los Angeles. Traveling has been his recreation, though primarily performed in the line of duty. His name is one of the best known and his personality one of the best loved among artists in all quarters of the world, and none of the artistic centers of Europe are strange to him.
His favorite organization at Los Angeles is the Gamut Club, of which he is now president. Largely due to his wide personal acquaint- ance, this club has every year entertained some of the world's most famous artists. He is honorary president of the National Musical Managers of America and Canada. He is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and of The Uplifters, and frequently is on their entertain- ment committees. He is an officer of the Los Angeles section of the Drama League of America and of The Arts Alliance, is an honorary member of the Savage Club of London and a member of the Wagner Opera League of Bayreuth. Moreover, he is the dean of Los Angeles theatrical and musical managers. For many years he has been a popular member of Los Angeles Lodge No. 99 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Knights Templar and a member of Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic Shrine.
STEPHEN INNES. To make slight mistakes in business is, perhaps, a not unusual experience with the average man, but it very often is a serious matter when he invests heavily in bonds and stocks on his own initiative and finds his investments worthless. Hence is needed the honest,. well qualified, thoroughly informed dealer in stocks, bonds and investments, whose business it is to know values and protect his clients. Such an able business man at Los Angeles is found in Stephen Innes, 311 I. W. Hell- man Building, who has been a resident of this city since 1907.
Stephen Innes was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 23, 1870. He attended the William Penn Charter School, Philadelphia, then entered the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in 1893 with the degree of B. A. His tastes led him to embark in the real
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estate business, in which he continued in the east until 1907, when he came to Los Angeles and established his real estate office in the Citizens National Bank Building. He was associated with George Greene as a partner for five years, but since then has been alone, and has developed a large business in stocks and bonds, having his office now in the I. W. Hellman Building. He has many clients in New York City whose inter- ests require him to frequently visit that city. The confidence reposed in him by local business men may be indicated by the fact of his election in 1918 ås a member of the Los Angeles Realty Board and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Innes was married in New York City to Miss Louise B. Smithers, who is a daughter of F. S. Smithers, president of the F. S. Smithers Company, prominent bankers and brokers in New York.
LEWIS DENT COLLINGS has been a hard-working member of the Los Angeles bar since 1911, and through his individual efforts built up a good practice and prestige, and since January 1, 1919, has been associated with Edmon Gordon Bennett, one of the best known lawyers in the west. The firm is Bennett & Collings, with offices in the Washington Building.
Mr. Collings was boru at Dora, Texas, March 10, 1887, and repre- sents a family of pioneers and distinguished characters in the history of the southwest. He is a son of Edmund L. and Katie (Beall) Collings, both native Texans. The paternal ancestors of the Collings family reached Rhode Island a few days after Roger Williams. They were a Scotch Presbyterian family. Mr. L. D. Collings is eligible to member- ship in the Sons of the American Revolution, and through his mother is related to the Grant family, General Grant having married Julia Dent. His maternal grandfather, Captain W. D. Beall, was one of the founders of El Monte, California. During 1859-60 he had a government contract to furnish corn for the army horses in southern California. He died at Sweetwater, Texas, in 1912. He was a lifelong friend of John Quinn and John Guest, old timers who are still living at El Monte in Los An- geles County. Captain Beall was a captain of cavalry in the Confederate army. Edmund Lewis Collings, grandfather of the Los Angeles lawyer, was the first captain of the Texas Rangers, a famous organization per- fected and maintained in the state of Texas for guarding the frontier. He was with the Rangers engaged in that dangerous duty when he was killed by the Indians in 1863 near the present site of Stamford, Texas. Edmund L. Collings, Jr., is a retired banker and cattle man and with his wife now lives at Pecos, Texas. Their six children, four daughters and two sons, are all living and are all native Texans. Mrs. Sam F. Means is a resident of El Paso. Lewis D. is the second in age. H. Earl lives at Pecos and Sarah, Nannie May and Warren are still at home. Mr. Collings' father is a past grand master of Texas State Grand Lodge of Masons.
Lewis D. Collings was educated at Baylor University at Waco, Texas, graduated in law from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Ten- nessee, in June, 1908, and took post-graduate work in law at Vanderbilt University at Nashville. He was admitted to the Tennessee bar in June, 1908, and to the Texas bar in September of the same year, and gained admission to practice in California in February, 1911. Since the latter date he has been in practice at Los Angeles.
September 26, 1910, Mr. Collings married Miss Annie May Meyer, of Jefferson, Texas, where she was born and educated. She was an
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under-graduate of St. Mary's College at Dallas. Her father, Edward Meyer, of Jefferson, was formerly assistant general land agent of the state of Texas. Mr. Collings is a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity and secretary of the Alumni Association of Los Angeles. In politics he is a democrat, and in 1919 was a candidate for the Board of Education at Los Angeles. He is a Mason, a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, City Club of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Bar Asso- ciation and the American Bar Association, and with his wife affiliates with the First Baptist Church.
Mr. Collings received his honorable discharge from the army Decem- ber 23, 1918. He volunteered, and spent four months in the Officers' Training School at Camp Pike, Arkansas, where he was a member of the Fifth Company of the Third Battalion, I. C. O. T. S. Mr. Collings is an all-around athlete, and while in college and university won the university letter for his work in baseball, football, basket ball and tennis.
CHARLES E. PUTNAM is a business man and lawyer of many influ- ential connections in Los Angeles, and for a number of years was active in educational work both in this state and in the far East.
Mr. Putnam, who first came to Los Angeles more than a quarter of a century ago, was born in Pierce county, Wisconsin, May 8, 1869, son of John D. and Catharine Helen (Lovell) Putnam. His father, who was born in Brooklyn, Connecticut, June 19, 1837, was educated at a normal school in Hartford of his native state, and in 1859 moved to St. Croix, Wisconsin, where he followed farming until 1875. Upon his removal to Pierce county, in that state, he bought a flour mill and operated it until 1891. Having made a success of his various business efforts, he then sold his Wisconsin interests, and on coming to Los Angeles retired, but invested his surplus capital in a large tract of land in eastern Los Angeles. In 1893 he was appointed by President Grover Cleveland as Chinese inspector of California. While living in Wiscon- sin he had been honored with a seat in the Legislature. He died in 1894. He and Catharine Helen Lovell were married at Amenia, Con- necticut, in 1859, and were the parents of seven children.
Charles E. Putnam attended the local schools of Pierce county, Wis- consin, and graduated from the River Falls High School in that county in 1887. For the two years following he was active assistant to his father in the milling business, but in 1889 entered the University of Minnesota, from which he graduated in the law department with the degree LL. B. in 1893. With the diploma of this school he came to Los Angeles, but instead of practicing his profession, taught in the city for two years and then had charge of the public school system of Petaluma, California, until 1901. Having more than a local reputation as an educator, he was then selected by the Federal government as one of the division superintendents of schools in the Philippine Islands and remained identified with the great cause of public education in those islands until 1906, when he was transferred to the law division of the Executive Bureau as assistant chief. In 1907 he resigned, after having spent nearly seven years in the far East, and returning to Los Angeles was admitted to the bar and has been steadily practicing law and looking after his business interests. He is secretary and treasurer of the White Star Oil Company. As a lawyer he specializes in corporation law and probate work ..
Mr. Putnam is a member of the Sigma Chi and Phi Delta Phi fraternities, and is a Chapter Mason. November 9. 1914, he married Winnie Blackman.
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JOHN J. SCHUMACHER is secretary and a director of the Southwest- ern University, an institution of higher education, of which a more com- plete account will be found on other pages of this publication.
Mr. Schumacher has been a resident of California most of his life. He was born in Schell City, Missouri, December 19, 1885, son of Joseph and Kunigunda Schumacher. He remained in Missouri to the age of eight years, and prior to that time had attended a kindergarten and pri- mary school in Schell City. His father having died in 1891, his family moved to Los Angeles in 1894, and he was put into the St. Joseph's Paro- chial School. In July, 1899, he entered St. Anthony's College at Santa Barbara, taking the classical course and graduating in 1904.
With this liberal education he returned to Los Angeles and promptly began his business career as bookkeeper and cashier for R. H. Whitten, book publisher, continuing until 1910. Mr. Schumacher was one of the men chiefly responsible for the organization of Southwestern University, and has ever since been its secretary and a director. During the first three years the offices of the University were in the Union Oil Building and since then at 206 South Spring street. Mr. Schumacher is a member of the Knights of Columbus.
SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY. Now in the sixth year of its existence as a corporation, Southwestern University has passed its period of pio- neering and its prestige and usefulness are thoroughly established in the appreciation of the public by its record for high usefulness and service in the particular field it occupies. Southwestern University is an entirely in- dependent non-sectarian institution, devoted exclusively to the utilitarian branches of higher education. The University was organized May 10, 1913, and was chartered as a "benevolent and beneficent institution for educational purposes with all the powers necessary to successfully conduct separate schools or colleges or seminaries or departments for the study of each or all of the liberal and learned arts and professions and for any scientific or other educational purposes, and to grant such literary honors and degrees as are usually granted in universities or colleges or other in- stitutions of learning."
The full scope of the charter powers has not been exercised, and the University so far has been composed of a School of Law and a School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance. When it was established there was no School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance, or Business Admin- istration, as standardized in leading eastern universities, in existence in California. There was also only one established Law School in Southern California offering systematic instruction. Therefore, the University has been conducted very commendably, not as a competitor of other co-ordi- nate institutions of learning, but primarily to fill an increasing and recog- nized need in special fields.
The growth of Southwestern University has been due to normal evo- lution rather than to corporation promotion. The Southwestern College of Law was organized by John J. Schumacher on November 25, 1911, and was continued until May 10, 1913, when it was absorbed by the Southwestern University proper. It was Mr. Schumacher who undertook the arduous task of organizing the faculties of both schools under the charter granted the Southwestern University in 1913. Men of the local community possessing the necessary qualifications were gradually associ- ated, and for the rest leading universities were drawn upon. Up to Feb- ruary 1, 1913, Southwestern University was located in the Union Oil
Wariant Blandendo.
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Building. Larger quarters were then required, and a permanent location was found in the Wilcox Building at the corner of Second and Spring streets. Here provision has been made for adequate quarters and equip- ment to facilitate the continued and increasing usefulness and efficiency of the work. The University now has a library of approximately sixteen hundred volumes in the legal section, and also a special department of reference works required by the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance.
The professional School of Law began in the school year 1913-14 under the deanship of Hugh Evander Willis, A. M., LL. M., who was engaged from the Law School faculty of the University of Minnesota. April 15, 1915, he was succeeded by Arthur J. Abbott, J. D., then a member of the faculty of the School of Law, as Acting Dean. Mr. Ab- bott has been dean of the School of Law since January, 1916. The fac- ulty of the School of Law is composed of professional law teachers, most of whom are also engaged in the active practice. Special lectures are given by members of the judiciary and by prominent members of the California bar.
One of the primary reasons that lead to the establishment of this School of Law was the need for an institution which should employ the "case book" method, as a basis of its law instruction. This system, which has been adopted by nearly all the leading universities in America, has been faithfully continued by Southwestern from the beginning. An ad- mirable statement of the purpose and scope of the School of Law is found in an official announcement as follows: "It is the primary pur- pose of the School of Law to train men and women for the practice of the profession of law. Its curriculum is modern and thorough. It offers no "short cuts" to the prospective practitioner. On the contrary, the in- struction offered by the School of Law is given in the belief that it is essential to the scholarly teaching of law that emphasis be placed upon the origin, theory and scientific basis of the subject. At the same time the curriculum is distinctly practical, particular stress being placed upon procedure, trial practice and subjects treating with the actual administra- tion of the law."
The faculty of the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance was at first under the general direction of W. M. Burke, A. M., Ph. D., Dean. Mr. Reynold E. Blight, C. P. A., taught the major curriculum of the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance during its first actual year in 1912-13, and since June, 1916, he has been dean of the school. It is unnecessary to state that the School of Commerce is not an ordinary "business college," but it has been conducted primarily to train its stu- dents in the broad technical and scientific phases of commerce and in- dustry with a view to fitting them to hold important administrative po- sitions.
DAVID BLANKENHORN, president of the well-known bond and in- vestment house, Blankenhorn-Hunter-Dulin Company, and an executive official in a dozen or more corporations of Southern California, is a Californian whose rise to prominence in business affairs has been at- tended with phenomenal rapidity and results that justify his friends in calling Mr. Blankenhorn a business genius.
He was born at Pasadena December 31, 1886, a son of Louis Blankenhorn. His father, who was born at Poughkeepsie, New York, in May, 1847, was educated in his native city and on removing to Chicago in young manhood became connected with the Chicago, Milwaukee &
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St. Paul Railroad as assistant freight agent. In 1883 he moved to Cali- fornia, and here was engaged in the stock and bond business and had an active part in a number of civic organizations. He has lived retired since 1914. He is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner. At Milwau- kee, in 1881, Louis Blankenhorn married Lillian Stevens. They have four children : George, of Philadelphia; MacLaughlin, of Los Angeles ; David and Barbara.
David Blankenhorn lived at home and attended the grammar and high schools in Pasadena to the age of seventeen. So far as known, Mr. Blankenhorn served no business apprenticeship, but started forthwith in the real estate business on his own account at Pasadena. In 1908 he formed the David Blankenhorn Company, of which he was and is still president. In 1914 Mr. Blankenhorn became associated with Mr. R. E. Hunter under the firm name Blankenhorn-Hunter Company, a cor- poration, with a capital of $300,000. In February, 1919, Mr. Garrettson Dulin and Mr. E. S. Dulin became partners in the firm and the firm name was changed to Blankenhorn-Hunter-Dulin Company. This com- pany has become one of the leading private banking, investment and bond houses on the Pacific Coast, maintaining offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Pasadena. The company does a general underwrit- ing business, handling bonds, securities and financing public utilities, water companies, reclamation and irrigation projects.
Mr. Blankenhorn for a number of years has proceeded on the theory that farm land of good quality accessible to water forms an incomparable security for conservative investment. Consequently his firm has financed a large number of irrigation and reclamation projects in the state of California.
The spectacular transaction involving the recent purchase of the world famous Santa Catalina Island, with its improvements, hotels, docks, shipping, etc., was handled by Mr. Blankenhorn. Mr. William Wrigley Jr., of Chicago, the world renowned chewing gum magnate, who purchased with the Blankenhorn-Hunter Company the controlling interest in the island, previously held by the Banning family, has been associated with the Blankenhorn-Hunter Company since 1915.
As the representative for Mr. Wrigley and the Blankenhorn-Hunter Company's interests, Mr. Blankenhorn became president of the Santa Catalina Island Company and the Wilmington Transportation Company. The latter company owns and operates the transportation lines between the mainland and the island, and Mr. Blankenhorn will have many im- portant responsibilities in connection with the proposed development of the resort.
Mr. Blankenhorn is also president of the Blankenhorn-Hunter-Dulin Company, president of the Blankenhorn-Hunter Company, and vice- president of the Corona Foothill Lemon Company, and a director in the Fresno Canal and Land Corporation, Guaranty Realty and Building Company, Harris Realty and Building Company, Hunter Fireproof Storage Company, Laguna Lands (Incorporated), Orange Land and Improvement Company and Orion Realty and Building Company. He is a member of the California Club, Midwick Country Club, Anandale Country Club, Valley Club and Tuna Club of Catalina Island.
During the war with Germany Mr. Blankenhorn and his partners, Mr. R. E. Hunter and Mr. E. S. Dulin, together with eleven of their associates in the business, enlisted in the military service. Captain Blankenhorn enlisted February 20, 1918, and at the time of the armis- tice was stationed at the port of embarkation in Hoboken, awaiting
He H. Fileon
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transfer across, where he had been assigned as commander of an ord- nance department in France. Prior to his arrival in Hoboken he was depot ordnance officer of the Chicago General Supply Ordnance Depot in Chicago.
In Pasadena, December 28, 1909, he married Miss Emma Peterson. They have two children: David Jr., born in 1910, attending Throop College of Technology at Pasadena, and John, born in 1913, a kinder- garten pupil.
GEORGE E. REID. A resident of Los Angeles twenty-one years, 1 George E. Reid has been increasingly identified with banking and bank management and is one of the best known men in the financial district.
Mr. Reid was born at Springfield, Ohio, December 17, 1870, a son of William B. and Martha A. (Crandall) Reid. His early life was spent at Jackson, Michigan, where he attended grammar and high schools, graduating from high school in 1890. His first business experience was work as cashier for three years with the Standard Oil Company. At To- ledo, Ohio, he was assistant cashier and head bookkeeper of the Draper & Nugent Manufacturing Company until 1895, and the following year was bookkeeper for the Woolson Spice Company of that city. His next employment really created the influence which brought him to Los An- geles. He was paymaster and later salesman for the Snell Cycle Fitting Company, and in October, 1898, came to Los Angeles as representative of this corporation. The following December he resigned to become bookkeeper and teller with the Southern California Savings Bank. With that institution he was connected five years and resigned the position of teller in 1903. During the last three years of the same period he was also assistant to the manager of the clearing house. The Broadway Bank and Trust Company next had his services as teller until 1904, after which he was with the Central Bank, subsequently known as the Central Na- tional Bank and now the Security National Bank, being teller for this institution until 1907. Until October, 1909, he was assistant cashier with the Merchants Bank & Trust Company, which later merged with the Western State Bank. For over ten years Mr. Reid has been identified with the Home Savings Bank. He went with that institution in October, 1909, as assistant cashier, and on January 1, 1918, became cashier of the institution.
Mr. Reid is a prominent republican, has been treasurer of the Tem- ple Baptist Church since its organization in 1903, and is treasurer of the Southern California Baptist Convention, which represents the Baptist churches from Fresno to San Diego. He has held that official honor for the past eleven years. For twelve years he has been on the Board of Man- agement of the Y. M. C. A., and until July, 1917, was supreme treasurer of the Fraternal Brotherhood. Mr. Reid served the Y. M. C. A. in France as secretary in the treasury department headquarters, Paris, for four and one-half months. October 11, 1900, he married Miss Olive Barringer. They have one child, Frances, aged thirteen years, and a student in the public schools.
AL W. FILSON. It is a large world that knows the name Al W. Filson, who for over thirty years was a prominent star and vaudeville artist and until recently was also a participant in a number of prom- inent movie screen enterprises.
Mr. Filson, who has had his home in Southern California for a number of years, was born at Bluffton, Indiana, January 27, 1857. His'
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father, Snyder Filson, was a manufacturer and built one of the first large woolen mills in the state of Indiana. Snyder Filson married Katharine Case.
Al W. Filson attended public schools to the age of eight, and then entered the Notre Dame School. He had a remarkable voice as a boy, and was solo singer at the laying of the corner stone of the Catholic Church at Notre Dame. At the age of twelve his voice broke and he soon afterward left school, and going to Grand Rapids, ' Michigan, be- came a messenger and later telegraph operator for the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad. In the meantime a large circle of friends had come to appreciate his exceptional talents, and it was this appreciation which put him on the stage. He made his first important public appearance at the Coliseum Theatre, in Chicago. On June 28, 1881, he married Jennie Sherman, whose stage name was Errol. They played in vaudeville as the famous team of Filson & Errol. Mr. Filson and his wife were on many circuits and produced George M. Cohan's first literary effort, "A Tip on the Derby," and furnished amusement to a whole generation of theatre goers. They finally retired in 1908 and have since had their home in Los Angeles. Mr. Filson in 1912 resumed a new phase of his old profession when he became associated with Mr. Selig in character leads in motion pictures, and he was also with D. W. Griffith until 1916.
For several years Mr. Filson used his means and time in the build- ing of houses in the Los Angeles district. In 1912 he also became in- terested in the Midway Northern Oil Company as a director, and in 1918 was elected president. This company operates in the Coalinga field and has seven wells, with a production of 900 barrels a day. Mr. Filson is a member of Elysian Lodge of Masons and the Union League Club.
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