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 III > Part 13
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Since early in 1908 Mr. Hellman has been one of the active man- agers of his father's estate. These interests alone constitute a business of great magnitude, and taken in connection with affairs accumulated under his personal initiative, it is evident that Mr. Hellman has for a number of years been one of the busiest men in Los Angeles. He is vice president and active manager of the Hellman Commercial Trust and Savings Bank, which was formerly the All Night and Day Bank, is a director of the Merchants National Bank, the Title Guarantee and Trust Company, is vice president of the Marine Commercial and Savings Bank of Long Beach, is a director of the First Bank of Hermosa Beach and the Redondo Savings Bank, and is interested in other country banks ; he is also a director of Aronson and company, one of the large stock and bond houses of Southern California.
With all these heavy responsibilities, Mr. Hellman has again and again responded to calls demanding his civic services and has interested himself in many problems affecting greater Los Angeles, including har-
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bor and aqueduct improvements. He is a member of the West Shore Gun Club, and the San Gabriel Valley Country Club, the Union League Club, Jonathan Club, life member of the Mystic Shrine, is a thirty-second degree Mason and Elk, and belongs to the Los Angeles Athletic Club. He refits himself by such wholesome recreations as automobiling, golfing and hunting. November 30, 1911, at Los Angeles, Mr. Hellman married Miss Florence Marx, and at this time is the proud possessor of two young lady daughters, Miss Ida Hermanie Hellman and Miss Evelyn Hellman.
GEORGE BEEBE, a former assistant attorney general of California, is a native of Los Angeles, and for a number of years has enjoyed a suc- cessful association with the bar and business and civic affairs.
His father, the late Charles A. Beebe, was a pioneer resident of Los Angeles, and is remembered for his long, faithful and skillful service as a practiced accountant with some of the prominent business firms of the city. He was born in Stonington, Connecticut, March 2, 1831, was educated there, and in 1857 came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama. In 1859 he came to Los Angeles with the father of Mark G. Jones, former county treasurer. His first home in this city was in the old Lafayette, now the St. Elmo Hotel. Mr. Jones established in this city a general merchandise and ship chandlery business near the Plaza, and Charles A. Beebe was its manager for several years. Later he resumed accounting with General Phineas Banning, then with the Los Angeles Milling Company, and finally with the Capital Milling Company. His business career terminated with his death on April 23, 1895, and during that time he had been associated with many of the business leaders and builders of the city. In 1869, at Stonington, Connecticut, he married Almira Clark Lewis. They had two children: Miss Mary C. of Los Angeles, and George.
Mr. George Beebe was born in Los Angeles, August 5, 1871, and was graduated from the local high school in 1889. For several years he was earning a living at different occupations. The most valuable experi- ence and training of that period came from his employment as an exam- iner of titles with the firm of Pendleton & Williams. His early law studies were directed by Mr. Edwin A. Meserve, and in 1899 he was admitted to the bar. During the next two years he remained as clerk to Mr. Meserve and also secured some clientage of his own.
In 1901 he was appointed city prosecutor, and through his work in that office he attracted much attention to his qualifications as a skillful advocate and thoroughly grounded lawyer. He resigned that position April 1, 1907, to accept the appointment with the attorney general and obtained this broader experience for nearly eight years, during which time he was connected with many of the important cases handled by the state department of justice. In January, 1915, Mr. Beebe retired from office and has since been busied with a large private practice in his native city. He is also vice president and a director of the National Creamery and Produce Company.
Mr. Besbe has affiliations with Golden State Lodge of Masons, the Elks, Native Sons of the Golden West, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Cham- ber of Commerce, Los Angeles Bar Association, and the republican party. November 16, 1911, he married Addie Mae, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel H. Schutt of Halsey Valley, New York.
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HERBERT CUTLER BROWN. A lawyer who has many titles to distinc- tion and success, especially in the field of corporation practice, Herbert Cutler Brown was admitted to the California bar more than twenty-five years ago. After some youthful experience as an editor and owner of several newspapers, Mr. Brown, who is a college graduate, first came to Los Angeles in the winter of 1887-88, and therefore knows something of the city at the height of the early boom days.
He was born at Charleston, Illinois, July 31, 1865, son of Calvin and Marion (Bliss) Brown, both natives of Massachusetts, where the former was for a number of years a successful banker. Several in- dividuals in the direct ancestral lines were with Washington in the Revolutionary war and also in the War of 1812, Colonel Isaacher Brown having gained special prominence in the latter struggle. Mr. Brown is therefore eligible, though he has never taken the pains to qualify, as a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Both parents spent their last years in Southern California, locating at Pasadena in 1890. They died in Los Angeles, the father in 1918, at the age of seventy- seven, and the mother in the same year at seventy-six.
Herbert Cutler Brown spent his early youth in Chicago, attending the public schools of Hyde Park. He is a graduate of Beloit College, Wisconsin, with the A. B. degree, class of 1887. In 1890 he again came West to Los Angeles, with his parents, and began the diligent study of law with Brunson, Wilson & Lamme. Admitted to the bar in the early part of 1892 and after one year of practice alone, he became associated with Judge D. P. Hatch and John M. Miller under the firm name of Hatch, Miller & Brown, a firm that during its existence handled many cases of interest as well as great importance. After sixteen years of almost constant professional labors, Mr. Brown retired in 1908 and spent the next seven years in the East. The character of the practice which he left is indicated by the fact that he was attorney for such interests as the American Steel & Wire Company, the Employers' Liability Insurance Company, the Fidelity & Casualty Company, the Maryland Casualty Company and other insurance and gas corporations. Mr. Brown has resumed his former place in the Los Angeles bar since 1915, and is now an office associate with Delphin M. Delmas and Harry W. McNutt.
February 14, 1895, Mr. Brown married Miss Zoe Elsie Lowe, a daughter of the late Professor T. S. Lowe, of whom there is a permanent memorial in Mt. Lowe and Mt. Lowe Railroad. Mr. and Mrs. Brown have two children: Zoe, Mrs. J. W. Robson of Pittsburgh, and Cutler Brown, the latter born in Los Angeles and the former in Pasadena. In 1919 Mr. Brown was married to Katharine McNeff of New York City. She is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. B. McNeff of Portland, Oregon, and a graduate of Columbia University. Mrs. Brown has always been active in art circles.
Mr. Brown is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Los Angeles Bar Association, and in past years has thrown a considerable weight of influence in behalf of the republican party. He was twice offered an appointment from the Governor of the office of judge of the Superior Court and the nomination for state senator, but he has always steadily declined political honors.
JOHN L. BUTLER is captain of police of Los Angeles. Many unusual characteristics and experiences contribute to his well-known qualifications for this responsible office. He is a man of great ability, absolutely tear- less, and of a personal integrity that insures him the respect of all classes.
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Mr. Butler was born in the rugged country of Northwestern Ar- kansas, at Siloam Springs, Benton County, December 13, 1870, son of William C. and Cherry L. (Lewis) Butler. Until he was eighteen years old he attended public schools and worked on his father's farm, and then for a couple of years was employed by his father on the fruit and grain ranch. In 1890 he went out to the State of Washington, locating at Tekoa, in Whitman County, where he put in four arduous years as a wheat and general farmer. Returning home in 1894, Mr. Butler attended Bentonville Business College and the Mason Valley Institute, both well- known institutions of Arkansas, being a student there for two years. He then had six months of work as a teacher in Benton County.
This briefly sums up his experience prior to coming to Los Angeles in 1897. In Los Angeles he spent one year as a gripman on the Temple Street cable line. Then for two and a half years he was a conductor with the Los Angeles Traction Company, and he left the street car to become a patrolman with the Los Angeles police force. He has had many promotions, all of them merited by reason of service. June 1, 1905, he was appointed acting sergeant, and on December 1, 1906, be- came sergeant. January 1, 1912, he was advanced to lieutenant, and on October 16, 1916, took a leave of absence to serve as chief of police, which position he held until the close of his term, July 7, 1919. On December 25, 1918, he took the examination and was appointed captain of police. Upon his retirement as chief he resumed his position in the police department with the rank of captain. As chief of police he was ex-officio trustee of the Policemen's Relief and Pension Fund. May 1, 1908, he was detailed to traffic duty and organized the traffic squad and formulated and put into effect the first traffic regulations in the city. He held this assignment until he became chief, during which time he made extensive studies of traffic in the larger cities of the country and incorporated the best features in the regulations of this city.
Chief Butler is a member of the Advisory Board of the United States Explosive Commission and a deputy inspector of the State Board of Health. He is affiliated with the Independent Order of Foresters, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a Mason, Knight Tem- plar and Shriner, and is past patron of the Order of Eastern Star. He also belongs to the Chamber of Commerce, is a republican in politics and a Protestant in religion. August 29, 1894, at Colfax, Washington, he married Sarah N. Faust, nee Conner.
JACOB STERN. Thirty years ago Jacob Stern was partner in a small general merchandise store at Fullerton, the store building having a twenty-five-foot frontage. The great extent of his present interests can not be confined to any one building or even a single county of California. It is said that Mr. Stern owns land in nearly every county of California. He is president of the Stern Realty Company, Incorporated, of Los An- geles, which handles a vast amount of his property interests. He is an executive and director in a number of other corporations, and is un- doubtedly one of the wealthiest and has been one of the most successful business men of Southern California.
He came here practically friendless and alone. He was born in Saxony, Germany, September 20, 1859, a son of Marcus and Rosetta (Goodman) Stern. His parents spent all their lives in Germany, where his father was a dealer in hops and cattle. Jacob Stern grew up on his father's farm and had a substantial education acquired in the common schools and also a business college. After leaving school, until his
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twentieth year he assisted his parents on the homestead farm, marketing the live stock and produce. He left the port of Hamburg in June, 1884, crossed the ocean to New York, thence went to Cleveland, was also at Bryan and Bucyrus, Ohio, and for about five years was employed in the wholesale clothing house of Lehman, Richman & Company at Cleve- land. Mr. Stern came to Fullerton, California, in 1889, forming a partnership with Mr. Goodman. They had only a small stock of general merchandise, but their business grew and prospered until the merchan- dise was housed in a building 270 feet in front, covering seven-eighths of an entire block, and representing an investment of half a million dollars of capital. This was the Stern & Goodman Company, Mr. Good- man having entire charge of the store at Fullerton, while Mr. Stern looked after the hay, grain and real estate departments, with headquar- ters in Los Angeles. It is estimated that three-fourths of the hay and grain business of Orange County was handled by Mr. Stern. The Stern & Goodman Merchandise Company sold their stock of goods at Fuller- ton in 1918, but still own the Stern & Goodman Block. In former years as merchants they dealt in every conceivable commodity likely to be required by their widely extended patronage. They were even interested in live stock, town lots and farms. In 1904 Mr. Stern opened his real estate office in the Pacific Electric Building at Los Angeles, and in 1915 moved to the Haas Building, Seventh and Broadway. For several years he specialized in oil lands and general lands, chiefly in Los Angeles and Orange County, and the Stern Realty Company, incorporated in 1911, now handles real estate and investments, including citrus and other groves, unimproved land, but still makes a specialty of Orange County property. Mr. Stern has been interested in developing some of the choice suburban sites around Los Angeles. Among them is Richfield Acres, Yorba Linda, Orange County, Leffingwell Heights tract and East Whittier Acres, also Auburndale Acres near Corona, and several other tracts in the southern part of Los Angeles County and Orange County. In the month of October, 1919, he sold to Pacific Colony part of Wrights tract, near Pomona, for $175,000. He is owner of the Stern lease, from which, in October, 1919, the General Petroleum Company brought in a gushing oil well, with a flow estimated at five thousand barrels per day. Mr. Stern is also president of the Richfield Mutual Water Company, the Corona Pumping Company, the Coyote Hill Land Company, and is a director of the Central Pacific Improvement Company. He owns more than twenty thousand acres of land in California, besides several build- ings in Los Angeles. He was formerly interested in the general mer- chandise firm of Stern Brothers at Anaheim, his partnership with his brother continuing until 1909, when he sold out his interests. He also owned a store at Placentia, and oil wells at Olinda, in Orange County, and likewise conducted a general store, also in Brea, and Yorba Linda. In 1891, at Los Angeles, Mr. Stern married Miss Sarah Laventhal, daughter of E. Laventhal, a pioneer settler in Los Angeles County, now deceased. The wedding was one of the largest affairs in the city of Los Angeles. Mrs. Stern was born at Fullerton and was a teacher in Los Angeles before her marriage. For a number of years Mr. and Mrs. Stern lived in Fullerton, but in July, 1904, they bought the magnificent Colonel Northam home in Hollywood, at the corner of Vine Street and Hollywood Boulevard. This is one of the show places of the beautiful Hollywood District. The five acres of land surrounding the residence is adorned with every art of the landscape gardener. Mr. and Mrs. Stern are the parents of four children, two sons and two daughters.
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The oldest child, Harold M., graduated from the Hollywood High School in 1910, from the University of California in 1913, and took his law degree at Harvard Law School in 1916, in which year he was admitted to the California bar. During the war he was in the navy with the rank of ensign, serving on the Eastern coast, and is now assisting his father in business. The daughter, Elza, is the widow of Melville Jacoby, who died of influenza in January, 1919. Helen, the second daughter, is in the Hollywood High School, and Eugene J. is also in high school. All the children were born in California. For six months Harold was also on duty with the Bureau of Imports in the War Trade Board at Wash- ington.
Mr. Stern joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Fuller- ton and is also affiliated with the Fraternal Aid and Knights of Pythias. He is a republican, a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Cham- ber of Commerce, Realty Board and Automobile Club of Southern Cali- fornia. He is a fine representative of the men who have accomplished big things in the advancement of all enterprises in California. Mr. Stern's assistance as one of the firm of Stern & Goodman, to the ranchers at Ful- lerton will long be remembered and their leniency and advice in enabling the ranchers to hold on to their holdings during the hard times from 1890 to 1900.
JOHN JOSEPH JENKINS. Whether he is known by personal acquaint- ance-a privilege esteemed by many of the leading business men and citizens of Los Angeles-or by the thousands and hundreds of thousands who know his name as a symbol of good service in connection with the City Dye Works and Laundry Company, the outstanding feature of John Joseph Jenkins is an unlimited energy for work and a never-ending desire to make his work of real benefit and service to his fellowmen.
A great many people work as a necessary prerequisite to getting something they need or desire. Though Mr. Jenkins began to make his living by work when eleven or twelve years of age, apparently he has not yet become satisfied that work is entitled to be followed by rest. Some of his old friends recall an incident that when he was a boy in St. Paul, Minnesota, and worked as a devil in a printing establishment, he showed an extraordinary ability at feeding a printing press at a rate of speed and precision unknown in that shop. He was feeding the press rapidly because that was his way of expressing his character and his energy, and not merely for the sake of promoting himself higher on the pay roll. His enthusiasm was not shared by his fellow workmen and did not become contagious, since one night a burly Irishman met him outside the shop and warned him that he must slow down in his speed and be satisfied with producing only the normal output agreed upon by his fellow employes. He was not convinced then nor since that this was a sound principle for either the individual or an organization of labor, and rather than conform, he just naturally discharged himself, and has been more or less an active opponent of union labor to this day, par- ticularly so far as the unions countenance and uphold a practice of hold- ing back the individual desire to do one's best. However, this is only incidental to his main career, and is mentioned here largely for the light it throws on Mr. Jenkins' working ambition.
He was born in Philadelphia, June 11, 1869, son of George Spratt and Marietta (Carrell) Jenkins. His paternal ancestors were Welsh Quakers. His grandfather, David Hall Jenkins, was born June 9, 1812, ,at Philadelphia, while his wife was born in Monmouth, New Jersey,
Jeudino
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in April, 1812. On his father's side Mr. Jenkins is a great-great-grandson of John Chapman, who served as a private soldier in Captain William Price's company with the Chester County Pennsylvania Militia in 1777. There were seven Jenkinses who were ministers of the gospel. The family history goes back to 1667 to Morgan Rhydderch, an old chieftain, who was a grandson of Griffith Ap Griffith, of the time of Queen Eliza- beth.
George Spratt Jenkins was born at Covington, Pennsylvania, Febru- ary 12, 1844, and died at Los Angeles June 26, 1918, at the age of seventy- four. During' the Civil war he was with a Pennsylvania regiment for four years and six months, being a lieutenant when mustered out. He was retained in service a number of months after the close of the war. By profession he was an expert accountant. He had lived in Los Angeles about twelve years. His wife was born in New York City August 1, 1850, of English ancestry. She died at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1896. John Joseph is the only one now living of five children, two of whom died in infancy. There were also two daughters, one of whom was Gertrude Thompson Jenkins, named after the Long Island family of Thompsons. She died at Spokane, Washington, in 1914.
John Joseph Jenkins has been earning his own way since he was eleven years old. In the summer of 1881, when President Garfield was shot, young Jenkins was selling newspapers on the streets of Philadelphia. He continued to live in Philadelphia until he was thirteen years of age, attending the common schools as opportunity offered. From there he went to St. Paul, Minnesota, working for a time in a cracker and candy factory, then in a wholesale stationery and drug house, and afterwards started to learn the printer's trade, with results which have already been noted. He made many friends in St. Paul, especially among the French Canadians there. He had some part in city politics. Later he became associated with the St. Paul Title Insurance Company. Its gen- eral superintendent sent him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to lay the foundation for a title insurance company in that state and city. He laid that foundation, though at the same time he was in competition with a million and a half dollar corporation. He formed an abstract company called the Bissell, Millard & Jenkins Abstract Company. Later Mr. Millard left to become secretary of a big business organization in Chicago. Mr. Jenkins had most of the business responsibility for carry- ing out the plans of his aged associate, Colonel Bissell, who soon after- wards died, leaving the affair incomplete. The business was a long cherished ambition of Colonel Bissell, and in order to complete it, Mr. Jenkins organized what was known as the Lawyers Title Abstract Company, all the stock being sold to lawyers. Mr. Jenkins personally took upon himself the matter of selling the stock, though without experi- ence in that line. The first lawyer he approached on the subject was Philander Knox, known in American history as secretary of state and now United States senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. Knox not only took a kindly interest in the young stock salesman, giving him a great deal of good advice, but placed his own name on the top line of the stock subscribers. In about two years after the death of Colonel Bissell, Mr. Jenkins had the company well organized and was its general manager. At that point his health broke down, and he had to retire. In the mean- time he had read a great deal of title law and had almost a lawyer's knowledge of this subject.
In the meantime, while making a trip for Colonel Bissell, Mr. Jen- kins' fertile mind had conceived the idea of a service whereby a man's
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suit might be taken care of in the same way that his shirts were handled by laundries. The idea itself was original and the execution of it was big and important under the directing genius of Mr. Jenkins. He formed the Enterprise Pressing Company at Pittsburgh, and built up the industry to most promising proportions. Five years later his health again broke down and he sold out and in 1899 came to Los Angeles, expecting to see California and die, but found so much inspiration, as well as health, in the West that he determined to remain and live.
In 1899 Mr. Jenkins bought a half interest in a small plant, which properly speaking could not be considered even the corner stone or any part of the foundation of the present magnificent establishment known as the City Dye Works and Laundry Company. The plant had a one- horse wagon for delivery, employed six persons, and its boiler was capable of carrying only five pounds of steam. This little shop was at 345 South Broadway. Without considering the subsequent history of twenty years' steady growth and expansion, it is sufficient to say that the City Dye Works, of which Mr. Jenkins is president and manager, is now a big plant, with branch stores at Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasa- dena and Ocean Park, and altogether employs three hundred persons. The main plant itself covers four acres, located at 3000 Central Avenue, between Twenty-ninth and Thirty-second Streets. The concern main- tains forty automobile delivery wagons and has one of the largest if not the largest private garage in the city. The National Association of Cleaners and Dyers has called this one of the model establishments of the kind in the United States. It is a big industry, divided into many departments, there being a special organization and department for gloves, garments, blankets and laces, carpets, hats, ostrich feathers.
Mr. Jenkins was one of the two original Southern California good roads boosters. Together with Robert C. Lennie, long since deceased, he built the first bicycle path from Los Angeles to Santa Monica out of a fund raised through the sale of good roads buttons to the bicycle riders of that period. This well-constructed six-foot roadway was the object lesson that awakened the public to the idea of improved highways, which has since resulted in our splendid system of boulevards. Mr. Jenkins was also secretary of the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway Association and a member of the executive committee who laid out the auto road through the Salton Desert in Imperial Valley and demonstrated the practicability of constructing a highway through what was formerly an impassable desert waste to automobiles.
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