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 6
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JOHN C. CLINE. There are many reasons why John C. Cline is probably the best known public official of Los Angeles County. While now in his second term of service as county sheriff he held the same office twenty-five years ago, has been a resident of Los Angeles half a century since early boyhood, is a former collector of customs for the Los Angeles district, and in both business and public affairs he has associated with the leading men of both the old and the newer genera- tion of Southern California.
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Though born a British subject, a native of Australia, Sheriff Cline is member of an old Maryland family of thoroughly patriotic Ameri- can antecedents. His paternal grandfather Casper Cline was a native of Maryland, an extensive planter and land owner, served with the rank of captain in the American forces during the War of 1812, and by character as well as practical work stood as one of the first citi- zens of his community. His wife was Catherine Evans. Her father was Colonel Robert Evans, an ancestor of the late "Fighting Bob" Evans, one of the best known and most picturesque figures in the Ameri- can navy. The Evans family came originally from Wales and for many years lived on the Howard Woods tract of Baltimore, ground that is now embraced in the Druid Hill Park. One of the sons of Casper Cline was George T. Cline, who became a lumber manufacturer and a millionaire property owner in Chicago where he died in 1906. The father of Sheriff Cline was John A., who was born at Frederick, Mary- land. From some of his ancestors he doubtless inherited the pioneer spirit of adventure, and in 1848 he left his ancestral home and the com- forts and other advantages of social position to seek his fortune in new lands. He went to Australia, engaged in mining at Ballarat, and later at Melbourne became proprietor of the Spreadeagle Hotel, the largest house of entertainment at that time in Melbourne. He also conducted a hotel at Ballarat and operated a stage line between the two cities. His business affairs were prospered in Australia but eventually he returned to Maryland, and later joined his brother George T., in lum- ber operations around Lake Michigan. In 1869 he turned over his lumber business to his brother and brought his family to Southern California with the intention of making Los Angeles his home. After that he lived retired and was a resident of California nearly thirty years. He died in July, 1896. He was prominent in the Odd Fel- lows and Knights of Pythias fraternities, was a stanch republican in politics, and was a member of the Methodist church and widely known for his charity and good fellowship.
In Australia John A. Cline married Miss Agnes Neven. She was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Her father, William Neven, was a landed proprietor in Scotland. He also indulged in extensive travels, and while in Australia at Melbourne his daughter and John A. Cline became acquainted. John C., William H., George T. and Casper W. are the four sons of John A. Cline and wife, and all are residents of Los Angeles.
John C. Cline was born at Ballarat, Australia, May 2, 1860, and was taken from that country too early for him to have any impressions of the land of his birth. He spent part of his childhood in Maryland, in the Middle West, and was nine years of age when he came to Los Angeles. He acquired a good education in grammar and high schools, and also completed a course in the La Fetras Business College. After leaving school he was employed for a time with a railroad surveying party under Chalmer Scott for the Southern Pacific Railroad between Yuma and Port Ysabel, Mexico. On returning to California he was appointed deputy to City Surveyor Hansen, and subsequently served as deputy county assessor, and in 1883 was elected township constable. At the close of this term he was appointed deputy sheriff under Sheriff Kays, and held that office for six years. Mr. Cline has always been a steadfast Republican, and was an effective leader and organizer in his party when it represented the minority of membership in Southern Cali- fornia. When he was first elected sheriff of Los Angeles county in 1892,
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his election by a large majority was counted as a signal triumph for the republican forces and his individuality combined against the concen- trated democratic forces. He was sheriff of Los Angeles county from January, 1893, to January, 1895. Mr. Cline was one of the original Mckinley supporters in California and began the work of building up support for that Ohio statesman in the Sixth and Seventh Congressional districts a year and a half before the general campaign of 1896 was started. In 1896 he was a delegate to the State Convention. In 1899 he received the appointment of Collector of Customs in the district of Los Angeles under President Mckinley, and was chief of the office supervising the collection in three ports of entry, Los Angeles, San Pedro and Santa Barbara. He handles the affairs of his office with a rare degree of business ability, and with the tact and judgment required of the office, and after four years was reappointed for a second term by President Roosevelt. At the close of his second term he voluntarily retired from official life for several years. Mr. Cline was elected sheriff of Los Angeles County in the fall of 1914, beginning his first term of office in January, 1915. He was re-elected in 1918, getting a majority over four opponents at the primaries, and his present term expires in January, 1923.
Besides his prominent part in official affairs Mr. Cline is owner of much valuable property in Los Angeles, and has busied himself with its improvement and with an active part in every movement calcu- lated to advance the welfare of Los Angeles. He contributed much to the success of the annual fiesta by organizing the first club of Cabal- leros, which later became the feature of the parade. At the time of President Mckinley's visit to Los Angeles Sheriff Cline acted as grand marshal of the Fiesta Parade, and was also grand marshal of the Free Harbor jubilee and of the Fiesta Parade at the time of President Roose- velt's visit in 1903. He was a leader in the organization known as "Teddy's Terrors," a political club of Roosevelt times. Sheriff Cline is affiliated with Lodge No. 99 of the Elks at Los Angeles, Lodge No. 42 of the Masons, with Los Angeles Scottish Rite Consistory, Al Malai- kah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, with the Knights of Pythias and is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Union League Club, Cham- ber of Commerce and Automobile Club of Southern California.
Octobe- 12, 1885, at Los Angeles he married Miss Margaret Lee Terry, a native of Lafayette, Indiana. To their marriage were born three sons, J. Banning and George C., deceased, and Harry W. Harry W. is deputy under his father and chief of the criminal department of the office. Mrs. Cline is a daughter of George and Louisa (Stout) Terry. Her father was a decendant of the Terry and Mills families of New Orleans, who later became early settlers in Indiana. The grandfather of George Terry had a factory operated by water power for the manufacture of the large "Grandfather" cabinet clocks, with wooden wheel mechanism, of which he was the inventor. The Stout family for many years had their home in New Jersey and were also early settlers in Indiana.
GILBERT S. WRIGHT. There are few men whose fortunes and activi- ties have been more closely linked with the development of property in and around Los Angeles during the last quarter of a century than Gilbert S. Wright. Mr. Wright is more than a skillful real estate operator. knowing land values from the standpoint of the practical farmer and owner long before he was a broker and dealer.
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Mr. Wright was born at Vevay, in southern Indiana, August 21, 1869, son of William Patton and Elizabeth Bonner (Ungels) Wright. Five years after his birth his parents removed to Memphis, Tennessee, and soon afterward located at Cairo, Illinois. Gilbert S. Wright at- tended the public schools of Cairo up to his twelfth year. In 1881 he entered the Chickering Institute at Cincinnati, but in 1883 came to California with his parents. His father first located at Colton while prospecting for a ranch, and then secured a twenty-acre tract at Duarte, in Los Angeles County, which he developed as an orange grove and eventually made one of the show places of that vicinity. While there Gilbert S. Wright continued his education in the local schools and also worked on the home ranch for two years.
His first business experience was at Los Angeles as office boy with Ben E. Ward, a well-known real estate man of the time, with offices on Court street, then the center of business activities. Mr. Wright was with Mr. Ward until the collapse of the boom of 1887, and during the next three or four years he busied himself with the improvement of two ranches owned by his father, one at Clearwater and one at Glendale. In 1890 his father gave him the Glendale ranch. This land was pur- chased originally at one hundred and fifty dollars an acre. Mr. Wright developed it by setting it into oranges and made it one of the highly improved estates of that community. In 1890 Glendale had a popula- tion of not more than one hundred people. Mr. Wright kept the ranch until 1905, and then broke it up into lots and sold it, realizing twenty- five hundred dollars an acre.
Long before this he had resumed active connections with real estate circles in Los Angeles. In 1894 Mr. Wright became associated with an important real estate office of Los Angeles, where he built up the rental department to splendid proportions, the first rental depart- ment in Los Angeles. In 1897 he left this position to become asso- ciated with Harry R. Callender as the Wright & Callender Company, with offices at 215 West Third street. Their business was exclusively rentals. In 1899 their clientage had grown so as to necessitate their taking larger quarters at Fourth and Broadway, where the O. T. John- son Building now stands. In 1901 they moved again, this time into the Wright & Callender Building, a three-story pressed brick and plate glass structure which was erected for them by their client, C. J. Fox, 1iow of Lamande Park.
In 1906 Wright & Callender bought the southwest corner of Fourth and Hill streets, and the Wright & Callender Building Company, which they organized and of which Mr. Wright is vice president, erected an eleven-story fireproof building, which is the most conspicuous structure in that immediate vicinity. The attractiveness of the building for busi- ness purposes is well illustrated in the fact that during the first five years after its erection the vacancies did not exceed one-half of one per cent. The ground covered by this building is 61x140 feet and was formerly owned by General Mansfield.
In 1909 a reorganization of the firm occurred when Mr. Andrews entered a partnership, the title of which is now the Wright-Callender- Andrews Company. Mr. Wright is president of the company, which handles general real estate transactions, loans, insurance and rentals. It is one of the oldest and most substantial firms. in Los Angeles.
Mr. Wright is well known socially, a member of the California Club, the Los Angeles Country Club and the Chamber of Commerce, and he has been liberal of his time and efforts in civic movements and
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the general upbuilding of his home city. He is a Republican voter and a member of the Episcopal Church. August 19, 1897, at Goderich, Ontario, Canada, he married Miss Mary Atrill. They have two chil- dren. Mary Elizabeth is now attending the Marlborough School for Girls of Los Angeles. Gilbert Atrill, born in 1903, is a student in the Claremont School for Boys at Claremont, California.
DENNIS SULLIVAN. The memory of hardly any Los Angeles pioneer is now more clearly defined in material lines and institutions of the city than that of the late Dennis Sullivan. It was the fortune of Dennis Sul- livan to live nearly forty years in a district and community which when he first homesteaded there was far away from the town of Los Angeles and a strictly ranching community, but which before his death had be- come incorporated in the city itself, and is now a district of beautiful homes, churches and schools, and with property constantly increasing in value.
Dennis Sullivan was born at Bantry, County Cork, Ireland, Decem- ber 25, 1832. His parents were Timothy and Catherine (Harrington) Sullivan, both now deceased. When he was nineteen years old Dennis Sullivan determined to seek his fortune in the Western Hemisphere. His first location was at Fall River, Massachusetts, and he became a farmer near that great textile manufacturing center. He lived there until 1870, and in the meantime married and some of his children were born.
Dennis Sullivan was a passenger on the first train that came over the Union Pacific Railroad into San Francisco in 1870. From San Francisco he came south to Los Angeles, arriving in March of that year, and soon afterward homesteaded and bought a section of land in the Cahuenga Valley, where his was practically the first white family to locate. At that time the valley had only a few Mexican ranchers. On the ranch he established the home, and it was in that community that he spent the rest of his industrious years.
The limits of the Sullivan homestead may be traced today by the city streets extending from Vermont avenue to Normandie avenue on the east and west, and from Santa Monica boulevard to Melrose avenue on the north and south. His home was well out in the country, but year after year the city encroached upon him, gradually absorbing his ranch, and finally all was taken into the metropolis of the Pacific Coast. Much of this was sold in acreage and was platted and improved by the second purchaser, but the Sullivan estate still owns an appreciable amount of very valuable property in that district.
Dennis Sullivan died October 25, 1908, at his home where he had lived for thirty-eight years. The property he acquired by patent from President Grant. The old homestead is now the site of the new State Normal School, said to be the finest normal school in the United States.
Dennis Sullivan was a man of fine business judgment, industrious and capable in all his affairs, and withal was exceedingly generous and free handed. He donated an acre of land for the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, and also the grounds for the parish house.
In Fall River, Massachusetts, March 5, 1859, he married Miss Mar- garet Murphy, daughter of Timothy and Ellen (O'Neil) Murphy. She was born at Castletown, Ireland, February 3, 1843. She died March 16, 1917. They were the parents of nine children, three sons and six daugh- ters, all of whom are well known in Los Angeles and vicinity. These children grew up and most of them lived at the old homestead until 1912.
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The late Dennis Sullivan and wife were prominent members of the Catholic Church and generous supporters of its various causes and philanthropies.
HENRY E. HUNTINGTON. If there is "a name to conjure with" in California it is that of Huntington. Collis P. Huntington was the master mind in consolidating the Southern Pacific Railway, and rivaled the late J. J. Hill as an empire builder. Collis Huntington had many able lieu- tenants and associates, but probably not one better fitted to wield the scepter of power which he forged than his own nephew, Henry E. Hunt- ington, whose work, whether considered in connection with that of his uncle or individually, gives him a place among the dominant great figures in American finance and constructive enterprise.
Henry E. Huntington was born at Oneonta, New York, February 27, 1850, a son of Solon and Harriet (Saunders) Huntington. His father, Solon Huntington, was born in Connecticut in 1821. The Hunt- ingtons came to Connecticut Colony as early as 1632 and throughout American history have been notable for their strong, sturdy qualities, and not a few of them have been distinguished for their abilities. Solon Huntington was educated in Connecticut and at the age of seventeen left home and found employment with a merchant at Boston. In 1842 he established a store of his own in central New York, and subsequently took into partnership his brother Collis and for a number of years after- wards the brothers were associated as owners of lands and in other en- terprises. In the family of Solon and Harriet Saunders Huntington were seven children: Mrs. B. W. Foster, of Huntington, West Vir- ginia ; Howard and George D., now deceased; Henry E .; Harriet and W. B., both deceased; and Mrs. E. B. Holliday, of San Marino, Cali- fornia.
Henry E. Huntington attended private and public schools in his native town and acquired his first business experience in a hardware store there. At the age of twenty he went with one of the large hardware houses in New York city. From 1871 to 1876 he was engaged in lum- bering and lumber manufacture at St. Albans in West Virginia. It is said that his successful experience in the lumber industry recommended him to his uncle, Collis Huntington, who made him superintendent of construction of the Huntington lines, then building from Louisville to New Orleans under the title Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern. He was superintendent of construction with this railroad from 1880 to 1884. In 1884 he was made superintendent, in 1885 was receiver, and from 1886 to 1890 was vice president and general manager of the Ken- tucky Central Railway. From that point no consecutive account. could be given of his rapidly accumulating interests as a railroad builder and financier. He was vice president and general manager of the Elizabeth, Lexington and Big Sandy & Ohio Valley Railways in 1890-92, and in the latter year joined his uncle in the Southern Pacific, serving as assist- ant to the president from 1892 to 1900, as second vice president during 1900, and later as first vice president of the Southern Pacific Company. He was also president of the Southern Pacific Railways of Arizona and New Mexico, the Carson & Colorado Railway, the Market Street Cable Railway of San Francisco. While in San Francisco he acquired the San Francisco Street Railway, but in 1898 sold that property and be- gan acquiring street railroads at Los Angeles. With the development of the great urban and interurban system of transportation in and around Los Angeles his name is most conspicuously identified. He
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became sole owner of the street railway system, bought connecting lines and established the Pacific Electric Company, and did the pioneer work, both planning and building, until Los Angeles became the center of a radiating interurban system with thousands of miles of track. Without doubt this system of transportation has been the chief element in mak- ing Los Angeles the city it is. He extended the system to the ocean beaches and up through the inland country over the orange belt, and when the system had passed the stage of experiment he sold out to the Southern Pacific Company.
Since 1910 Mr. Huntington has considered himself retired, but there are few men in the fullness of their strength and powers who offer counsel to no larger a number of important corporations, and he is still chairman of the board of directors of the Newport News Ship- building and Dry Dock Company, chairman of the board of directors of the Safety Installation Wire and Cable Company, director of the Chesa- peake & Ohio Railroad, the Hocking Valley Railroad, Southern Pacific. Minneapolis & St. Louis and many other railroad organizations, and a director of the Equitable Trust Company of New York, the National Surety Company, and of an imposing list of other companies, the names of which are in the nature of a catalog of railroad properties in the United States and of railway, land and commercial institutions in California.
It is a matter of special significance that Mr. Huntington held the post of chairman of the board of directors of the Newport News Ship- building and Dry Dock Company during the great war. This company is one of the largest shipbuilding concerns in America, has built many battleships for the government and its facilities were enormously in- creased to meet the urgent demands of the war and in 1919 the company had contracts for four United States battleships, forty-one destroyers, two troop ships and eight oil ships for the government. Records of the company have been 'entirely free from labor disturbances. It is Mr. Huntington's policy to pay men living wages, and he has always taken a personal interest in seeing that men in his employ are properly ad- vanced. Some years ago he said that he always had three or four men ready to occupy the post of president whenever it was necessary for the incumbent of that office to step out.
Mr. Huntington is credited with being one of the greatest builders of resorts on the Pacific coast. Probably no one individual through the resources and enterprise at his command has done more to make of Los Angeles a great and powerful metropolis than Mr. Huntington.
He is a member of the Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Country Club, California Club, San Gabriel Country and Anandale Country Club of Pasadena ; the Metropolitan Club and the Union League Club of New York City ; and of his numerous club memberships he doubtless regards the one affording greatest distinction as that in the Hobby Club of New York City. This club is limited to fifty members, and at present there are thirty-five members. The essential principle of the club is that each member must have a hobby. Mr. Huntington's hobby is books and paintings. Some of his interests outside of business are represented by his membership in the American Museum of Natural History, the Con- cordance Society, the Southwest Museum of Los Angeles, the Pasadena Music and Art Association, the Society of Colonial Wars, and the Bibli- ophile Club of Boston. Mr. Huntington owns the finest private col- lections of English literature and Americana in the world, including
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the original manuscript of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, the first collection of Washington manuscripts, the largest private collection of Lincoln letters and manuscripts. The home where he delights to spend his time and where he has most of his treasures is near Pasadena, a magnificent country estate, the development of . which has been made to express Mr. Huntington's versatile interests as a lover of beauty and nature.
The Huntington library, which will soon be erected, will give the name of Henry E. Huntington a dominant place among American bene- factors. The magnitude of this undertaking has been described in a local publication and is here reproduced :
"Henry E. Huntington, millionaire shipbuilder and owner of the Los Angeles Street Railway, shortly will begin work on the construction of a magnificent private library building, to cost in the neighborhood of $225,000, near his palatial residence at San Marino.
"The structure will house the finest collection of paintings in Ameri- ca and the most important private collection of books in the world. The big institution, once completed and set in good running order, will be presented as a public benefaction to the people of the Southland, repre- senting a gift valued intrinsically at more than $20,000,000.
"Plans for the building have been in process of preparation by Archi- tect Myron Hunt of this city for several years, but the erection of the institution has been postponed from time to time owing to the prohibi- tive prices of labor and material.
"The Huntington private library will be 200 feet square anl hold about 200,000 volumes, as well as provide ample space for a large pic- torial exhibit. It will be built after the fashion of a great vault. with large exhibit rooms and cataloguing department. It will require !wenty years, it is said, for a thorough cataloguing of the rare volumes, mani- scripts and early editions that Mr. Huntington now has stored in his residence on Fifth Avenue, New York City.
"The assemblage of the books and manuscripts comprising the pres- ent Huntington library covers a period of ten years, and it is said that the British museum is his only competitor in number and rarity of ex- hibits. He has bought up the ancient collections of a number of men- bers of the English nobility, selecting from them the choicest volumes and selling the remainder at auction. He is said to possess first editions of all the great writers of the Elizabethan period.
"It is understood to be Mr. Huntington's plan ultimately to give his rare and beautiful collections, together with the palace in which he will house them, to the public. He is sixty-eight years of age and is he- lieved to fear that further postponement in carrying out his long-cher- ished beneficiary plan might lead to failure to bring about its completion. so, despite the still prevalent high prices, work will be begun on the library in the very near future.
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