San Diego County
Biographies
EARL MONTGOMERY CRANSTON
Although Earl Montgomery Cranston’s useful career was
ended at the comparatively early age of sixty-nine, he was widely known and
beloved in this section of Southern California. At the time of his death,
June 3, 1933, he was president of Homeland Acres Company and the
Escondido Land and Town Company in San Diego county,
which has there been in active operation for a period covering forty-six years.
He was born in Middleport, Ohio, in December, 1863, his parents being Bishop
Earl Cranston and Martha (Behan) Cranston. The father, a bishop of the
Methodist Church, lived to the advanced age of ninety-two years, and died on a
farm near Cincinnati, Ohio, August 18, 1932. The mother died in the ’seventies.
Earl M. Cranston was graduated graduated
(sic) from the University of Denver in Colorado in 1885 and the
following year received the degree of LL. B. from the College of Law of
the University of Cincinnati. In 1886 he began the practice of law in Denver,
Colorado, where he continued in the work of his chosen profession for a third
of a century with marked success. He was elected to the Colorado legislature in
1888, also served as county attorney of Arapahoe county
in which Denver was located, and as United States attorney for Colorado. It was
in December, 1920, that he came to Escondido and on the ground continued his
duties as president of the Escondido Land and Town Company, in which he was a
stockholder for more than twenty years. The company originally laid out over
twelve thousand acres now comprising the town and adjacent territory and in
times of prosperity and depression alike has carried forward the work of
development during the past forty-six years. The splendid Escondido fruit and
farm district is evidence of the foresight and courage of the promoters and
officials of the company, which is the largest stockholder of the Escondido
Mutual Water Company which distributes water for its stockholders in the water
district.
In 1891, in Denver, Colorado, Mr. Cranston was united in
marriage to Miss Florence T. Pitkin and they were the parents of four
children, three sons and one daughter, as follows: Frederick P., assistant
city attorney of Denver, Colorado; Dr. Earl Cranston, professor of
history at Colgate University of Hamilton, New York; John M., who was
graduated from the law department of Stanford University of California in 1932,
and is now with the law firm of Gray, Cary, Ames and Driscoll, of San Diego;
and Florence, who is Mrs. G. G. Wilkins, of Solana Beach,
California. Mrs. Cranston resides at Montview,
the beautiful family home, two miles out of the town of Escondido.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
04 May 2012.
Source: California
of the South Vol. II, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages
367-368, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis.
1933.
© 2012 Marie Hassard.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S SAN DIEGO BIOGRAPHIES