USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego county, California; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume II > Part 36
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THE PEOPLE'S NATIONAL BANK.
The banks of any city are a fair index of its commercial prosperity for they touch and control its financial development in an important way. It is there- fore necessary that they should be intelligently managed and controlled by shrewd and able men and founded upon solid and safe conservative principles. A finan- cial institution which fully meets all of these requirements is The People's National Bank, the oldest bank in National City and for the last twenty-two years one of the dominating factors in its business development. The concern was established by Henry Shaubut in 1890 under the name of The People's. State Bank. Mr. Shaubut retained the presidency and E. Thelen was made cashier. The institution was managed on a small scale for a number of years and in 1907 was purchased by B. J. Edmonds, who acted as cashier, with John L. Schon as president. They conducted the enterprise under the state charter for a short time and then reorganized, making the institution a national bank, under the title of The People's National Bank. At that time this was the only con- cern of its kind between National City and the Mexican border line and it con- trolled all of the business done in that section. It started with eighty-four thou- sand dollars in deposits and this amount has now increased to over half a million. In I911 the directors built a fine terra cotta fireproof building at the corner of Eighth street and National avenue and installed in it a complete equipment for a metropolitan bank, including a burglar proof safe. The officers of the bank at present are : Dr. E. M. Fly, president ; J. A. McCune, vice president ; and B. J. Edmonds, cashier. The directors are Dr. E. M. Fly, W. S. Hill, W. H. Harris,
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J. A. McCune, J. E. Ervay, L. M. Clayton, B. J. Edmonds and C. S. Owen. After The People's State Bank was made a national institution Mr. Edmonds took the former state charter and opened under it a state bank at Chula Vista as a branch of the first concern. He owns a controlling interest in both and his son, Warner Edmonds, is cashier of the Chula Vista Bank. The latter insti- tution has also developed rapidly and the building which it occupies is one of the finest and most modern structures in the city.
B. J. Edmonds is regarded in National City as a reliable, upright, able and thoroughly conscientious man. He is a native of New Jersey and studied law in that state, although he never entered into active practice. When he began his business career he was associated with his father, J. C. Edmonds, in the Meyer Rubber Company of New Brunswick, New Jersey, of which his father was manager. B. J. Edmonds was also associated with the internal revenue department of the United States government in New Jersey and was one of the prominent and representative men of his part of the state. Mr. Edmonds of this review came to California in 1900 and settled in San Diego, where he was first employed by the Santa Fe Railroad as manager of the wharf of the Oriental Steamship Company. For three years after this he was associated with the S. Levi Company, after which he was elected city auditor of San Diego. He served half of his term and then resigned in order to come to National City, where he purchased The People's State Bank. He is a man of commanding ability and resourcefulness and has inevitably been carried forward into important relations with the general business life of the city. Besides being cashier and owner of The People's National Bank he is also president of the National City Lumber Company, of the People's State Bank of Chula Vista and of the Central Mort- gage & Investment Company of San Diego. He is treasurer of the California National Life Insurance Company, also of San Diego, and is a member of the school board and the board of health of National City. He is also interested in a number of subdivision land tracts in and around National City, prominent among which may be mentioned the Marlborough Heights tract of thirty acres at Chula Vista, the Coombs tract at National City and the Delzen, Shanks and Edmonds tracts at Encanto. This branch of his business is rapidly expanding and is claiming a great deal of Mr. Edmonds' attention. Like all of the projects in which he is interested it has a broader effect than the mere influencing of one man's prosperity, for it touches one of the real sources of growth. Mr. Edmonds has gained many friends in National City during his twelve years of residence in this section, men who respect and honor him for the work he has done and the qualities in his character which influenced and promoted it.
E. W. DAVIS.
The men who are conducting important business enterprises in National City are the real promoters and upbuilders of municipal growth, for they are the contributing factors in the general activity which means progress. It is they who establish standards and policies, affect trade and commercial rela- tions and in various other ways influence by their individual prosperity the
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broader development of the municipality. There are shrewd and able men in all lines of activity in National City-men who represent the highest efficiency and the greatest attainment in their special occupations. Among those who occupy this gratifying position in the general contracting and building business is E. W. Davis, who has a record of having since 1909 built over one hundred and fifty private residences in the city and vicinity and erected also many of the largest and most important business and public buildings. He has attained success gradually, having worked his way upward by unaided efforts to promi- nence and prosperity, and this is an added point in his general accomplishments.
Mr. Davis was born in Massachusetts and was reared upon his father's farm, in that state. At the early age of eight he was obliged to assist in the work of improvement and development and he continued in this occupation until he was eighteen. Feeling this to be inadequate, however, his ambition lying beyond farming, he determined to make his own way in the world. Accordingly he learned the piano-making trade at Leominster, Massachusetts, and he worked at it in that city for a number of years in the employ of the Richardson Piano Company. He was an expert cabinet-maker and, therefore, was given charge of the case making, as this required expert skill. By a natural evolution he became interested in general carpentering and when he came to National. City in 1904 he engaged in this occupation for five years. This was the real foundation of his present success in building, for his skill in the mechanical details of construction has united with his natural artistic sense to make him specially efficient in his chosen work. In 1909 he definitely estab- lished himself in the contracting and building business and his enterprise has in three years become one of the largest of its kind in the city. Mr. Davis has a working staff of from twenty to thirty employes and all the departments of his business are proportionately large. He does general contracting and build- ing but by a process of special development along lines which most attract him has directed his attention mainly to the planning and building of private residences. He has erected over one hundred and fifty dwellings in National City and vicinity, among the most important of which may be mentioned the residences belonging to Joe Fritz, Payne Brown, Mr. Kimball, Mr. Vorhees, Mrs. Whittemore, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Grant, Mr. Percival, Mr. Baker, Mr. Ogden, Mr. Tinkham, Mr. Morse, Dr. Carl S. Owen, J. M. Kendall, Mr. Mason, Mr. O'Connor, Mr. Carter, Mr. Walker and Mr. Mckinley. All these homes are located in National City, but Mr. Davis' operations have extended beyond the municipal limits and he has erected a fine residence for Mr. Woods in Coronado, and for Mr. Sash in San Diego, for Mr. Smith, Mr. Dibble and Mr. Covin in Chula Vista, for Mr. Black in San Diego and for Mr. Miller and Mr. Boyde- son in Beverly. He has besides been active in erecting public and business structures and planned and built the National City postoffice building, the Epis- copal church parsonage and the Sinclair Hotel. His attainments along this line have received the recognition of his associates in the business and he is a director in the National City Building Company, having formerly served as its manager.
Mr. Davis married, in 1899, Miss Mary L. Currier, a native of New Hamp- shire, and they have three children, Ethel M., Frances L. and Doris L. Mr. Davis is a member of Southwest Lodge, No. 283, A. F. & A. M., of National City.
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He is not active in the public life of his community, for he prefers to devote his entire time to the conduct of his business. Although he has been engaged in this line of work only a short time, he has gained a reputation for artistic skill and ability which has a firm backing of real attainment. His patronage has assumed large proportions as a result of the quality of bis work and the straightforward methods to which he has steadily adhered.
WILLIAM B. CONNIRY, JR.
The career of William B. Conniry, Jr., one of the best known men in the automobile business in San Diego, offers an answer to the old question concern- ing the qualifications which most truly insure success. His prominent and influ- ential position in the city today is the direct result of his hard work and persever- ance in the past and these qualities are still forceful elements in his continued advancement. He has met with discouragement and defeat but has never aban- doned hope and has not hesitated to labor with his hands to save himself from failure. Today he is enjoying his reward in a prosperity which places him among the most truly representative men of the city and in the respect and esteem of many friends.
Mr. Conniry was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, November 30, 1879, and is a son of William and Margaret Conniry, of that city. He attended the gram- mar and high schools in New Jersey and remained in that state until he reached manhood. One of his earliest ambitions was to see California for he had been attracted by stories of the opportunities which the western country offered. The desire to study conditions in the state led to his journeying to San Diego in August, 1906. He arrived in that city just as the foundations of the U. S. Grant Hotel were being laid. He recognized at once a rare business chance for even then the spirit of progress pervaded the city, giving promise of great activity · along advancing lines. Furthermore, Mr. Conniry intended to go into the auto- mobile business and there was only one establishment of this character in the city. Accordingly he returned east, sold his property on April 29, 1907, and returned to San Diego, where after a short period in the electric sign business he opened a shop for selling second hand automobiles, with a department equipped for doing all kinds of repairing. The opportunity in his way was undoubted but before Mr. Conniry was well enough established to take advantage of it the panic of 1907 was affecting all lines of business and the newly founded enterprise suf- fered with the rest. Mr. Conniry resolutely took up the fight, in which he was aided in a splendid way by the foreman of his blacksmith shop, who was an expert mechanician and unusually able in his line of work. However, Mr. Con- niry was denied even the help of this man's ability, for his foreman died a short time after the business was established, leaving a place which it was extremely difficult to fill. He found the task so hard that, combined with other obstacles and discouragements which beset him, he was on the point of abandoning his enterprise when the tide suddenly turned. On the very day which he had appointed for the sale of his shop he sold five fine cars and this renewed his ambitions and hopes. With characteristic determination he donned overalls and
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WILLIAM B. CONNIRY. JR.
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went to the forge, resolved to do the work himself if a competent blacksmith could not be found. He worked at hard manual labor many hours of each day but was rewarded by seeing his business gradually increase and then expand and develop rapidly along progressive, modern lines. Three times Mr. Conniry has been obliged to enlarge'and change his quarters to secure increased accommo- dations and recently he erected a fine building one hundred and fifty by fifty feet. This also has become entirely inadequate to accommodate his rapidly growing patronage and he contemplates further enlargement in the near future. Besides his individual enterprise he is part owner of the agency which sells the Frank- lin automobile in San Diego.
In 1909 Mr. Conniry went to San Francisco with the ostensible purpose of purchasing automobiles but when he returned he presented to his many friends in the city his wife, who was in her maidenhood Miss Mary Early, of San Francisco. She has already become widely known and popular in social circles of San Diego and Mr. Conniry is recognized as one of the leading men of the city, his name standing in business circles for strict integrity, industry and straightforward methods. His success did not lie at the end of a royal road but was attained only after hard and persevering labor.
JAMES G. FLEMING.
James G. Fleming is a native of southern California and the son of a pioneer in its settlement and at the present time one of the most enterprising and suc- cessful fruit growers in Paradise valley. In partnership with his mother he owns thirty-five acres near National City, all planted in oranges, apricots and other fruits and he has done much during his active career to promote the devel- opment of one of the important industries of the state. He was born near National City, in Paradise Valley, February 9, 1878, and is the son of John and Eliza (Burnside) Fleming. The father was a native of Ontario, Canada, and came to San Diego in 1877, where he died one year afterward His widow is living on the homestead in Paradise valley. The first of the family to come to California was James Fleming, an uncle of the subject of this review, who came to the state by way of the Isthmus of Panama in 1869. He spent the first four years in San Francisco and in the mines around that city and then returned to Canada, where he remained until 1874. In that year he again came to California and bought one hundred and sixty acres near National City, to which he added five acres within the town limits. Upon this property he raised garden truck and was successful and prominent in this line of occupation. He later extended his activities to include fruit raising in Paradise valley, where he bought ten acres of land, upon which he set out orange and apricot trees. He gave much of his time and attention to the development and improvement of this property and its management formed one of his principal interests at the time of his death, in 1893.
James G. Fleming of this review since purchasing the fruit ranch from his uncle has been developing and improving it largely. It now comprises thirty- five acres and is one of the finest orchard properties in this section of the county,
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made profitable to its fullest extent by the able management of its owner. Some idea of the amount of production may be gained from the fact that the oranges average from one hundred to two hundred and fifty boxes to the acre and in 1910 Mr. Fleming took from two hundred and fifty apricot trees twenty-four tons of fruit. Some of the trees planted by his uncle thirty-six years ago are still bearing.
Mr. Fleming's ability and attainments have drawn him into important busi- ness and public relations in National City. He is interested in a number of subdivision tracts and for the past six years has had entire charge of the picking crews of the American Olive Company in San Diego county. He is a director in the Homeland Building Company of National City and has for some time been an active operator in the oil fields of Kern county. In official circles, too, he is well known and prominent, having served as trustee of National City for some time and as president of the town board for three years. He is public-spirited and intelligently interested in every phase of the development of his city. Although still a young man, Mr. Fleming has attained a prominent place in pub- lic esteem and is a native son whose career is a credit to San Diego county.
ANDREW ERVAST.
Andrew Ervast, chief engineer with the Spreckels Companies, in which con- nection his labors have been a vital element in the development of this district and the promotion of important interests controlled by that corporation, is one of California's native sons, his birth having occurred in San Mateo county, on the 21st of November, 1876. His father, Andrew Ervast, Sr., came to this state in 1853, being attracted by the gold discoveries, and engaged in placer mining for a number of years in Chinese Camp, Tuolumne county, and later was identified with the Spring Valley Water Company of San Francisco for eighteen years. His death occurred in 1887.
Andrew Ervast, Jr., who was but ten years of age at the time of his father's demise, pursued his education in the public schools in San Mateo, under private tutors and in the San Francisco School of Engineering. He has been a resident of San Diego since 1897 and throughout the intervening years has been con- nected with the Spreckels Companies, representing the Coronado Beach Com- pany, Hotel Del Coronado, Coronado Tent City, The San Diego Electric Rail- way Company, the Southern California Mountain Water Company, the Cor- onado Water Company, the San Diego and Coronado Ferry Company, the San Diego and Coronado Transfer Company, the United Light, Fuel and Power Company and the San Diego and South Eastern Railway Company. He was first an assistant to the resident engineer on the Morena dam construction but his recognized ability, unfaltering energy and laudable ambition soon won for him promotion to the position of chief engineer and he has been at the head of the engineering department continuously since 1905. In this capacity he has been con- nected with all of the business operations of the company. He designed and built the pipe line system, all save about seven and a half miles, whereby San Diego is supplied with water. This system also includes the filter plant. He likewise
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designed and built the pipe system which supplies Coronado City with water and he built the reinforced concrete car barn at Fifteenth and M streets, the San Diego electric railway power plant, the condenser circulating system and the underground crude oil storage reservoir. In addition to the important duties which he has performed as chief engineer of the Spreckels Companies he has served as city engineer of Coronado, in which connection he constructed the Coronado sea wall, paved Orange avenue and several miles of other streets. He also put in some fifty thousand dollars' worth of sewer construction there, consisting of the east side sewer system and the outfall sewer of the old system. He has also made many surveys for the company and his work has been of a most difficult, arduous and responsible character. He also laid out North Island and at all times he has manifested marked capability in the ready solution of intricate, complex and involved engineering problems.
In July, 1900, Mr. Ervast was married to Miss Vera Samborn, a native of Minnesota, and their children are Frederick W. and Dorothea E. Mr. Ervast holds membership with the Native Sons of the Golden West, with the Elks lodge of San Diego and with the Cuyamaca Club. He is alert and enterprising, a typical representative of the progressive spirit of the west which has brought about its rapid and substantial development.
W. S. CLARK.
No man is more widely and favorably known in Otay as a progressive and public-spirited citizen than W. S. Clark, its present postmaster, who was a pioneer in San Diego county and for almost a quarter of a century one of the dominating figures in the development of the lemon-growing industry in this part of the state. He was born in Scotland in 1845 and spent his youth in his native country, where he acquired his education. In 1865 he crossed the Atlantic to America and went immediately to Natchez, Mississippi, where he clerked for three years in a general store. His next location was made near Topeka, Kansas, where he settled upon a farm of four hundred acres, a property which he improved and developed along progressive and practical lines for a number of years. In 1885 he came to California and in the same year settled in Otay, in San Diego county. At that time the country was wild and unsettled, deer were plentiful and pioneer conditions prevailed everywhere. Mr. Clark bought land and with characteristic energy began its improvement and development. He cleared the property and set out lemon trees and gradually, by intelligently directed work and progressive methods, made it one of the most valuable and productive fruit ranches in the county. For years the work of improvement was steadily carried forward, Mr. Clark working along lines of progress and advance- ment and making his influence felt as a force for good in the fruit-growing industry. In 1911 he sold his property and since then has given all of his atten- tion to his public duties. In 1898 he was made postmaster under President McKinley's appointment and has served continuously since, discharging his duties in a capable, quiet and conscientious manner. In all business and political rela- tions he has proved his loyalty, discrimination and forceful ability and has
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gained during the years of his residence here a high place in the regard of his fellow citizens.
In 1871 Mr. Clark married Miss Mary Wilson, a native of Ireland, and they have one son, G. L., who is assistant postmaster of Otay and who also conducts a general grain and feed store in the city. Mr. Clark gives his allegiance to the republican party and was justice of the peace for eight years, and is now in the twenty-third year of his service as notary public. He is a member of the Meth- odist Episcopal church and takes an active part in its affairs. Throughout the entire course of his residence here no movement for the public growth or advancement has sought his aid in vain, for he is eminently progressive and loyal in all matters of citizenship. Public-spirited to a marked degree, he is one of the best and most favorably known men in this vicinity, to which he came as a pioneer and where he has lived an upright, honorable and straightforward life for over twenty-seven years.
ZEMRO F. CALLAHAN.
San Diego has given to California her full share of conspicuously successtul men, men of broad ability and forceful personality who have become leaders in politics or have developed important business institutions or established con- nections which affect every phase of development and growth. Among their number none is more deservedly important by virtue of his work, standards, active policies and real accomplishment than Zemro F. Callahan, founder, devel- oper and upbuilder of the Callahan Construction Company, master of architect- ure, master builder and one of the greatest individual forces in the general growth of San Diego.
Mr. Callahan is a typical son of Maine and was born at Seal Harbor in that state, November 23, 1867. The son of a farmer, he wrestled with a rocky farm in his boyhood days, aiding his father in the struggle to obtain a living from the barren soil. At intervals he attended school and after completing the usual course in the common schools of his native city he went to Rockland, Maine, where he took a course in a commercial college. Afterward he worked in various cities throughout the state as a house carpenter and finally returned to Seal Harbor just at the beginning of its boom as a summer resort. Here he was employed under one man for nine years as general foreman and superintendent of construction, gaining a practical experience which was invaluable to him both because of its intrinsic importance and by reason of the impetus which it gave to his ambition. He determined to study construction and to get the advantage of scientific training along this line and accordingly went to Boston, where he entered the office of Andrews, Jacques & Rantoul as draftsman and superintendent of construction. While engaged in this position he took a special course in archi- tecture in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and thus completed a splen- did special training which is one of the very real factors in his prominence and success.
Leaving Boston in 1902 he came to California and in October of the same year opened an architect's office in Redlands, where he remained for fifteen
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