Butte County
Biographies
GEORGE K. BACON
GEORGE K. BACON.--That a man may accept the responsibilities of an
onerous business career and those of public office and, indeed, be the better
able to perform the latter duties because of success in the commercial world,
is proven in the record of George K. Bacon, manager of the Biggs Lumber Yard of
the Diamond Match Company, and president of the City Board of Trustees as well
as of the School Board of Biggs. Born at Oakland, Cal., January 25, 1863, Mr.
Bacon was the son of William K. Bacon, who came from Calhoun County, Ill.,
across the plains in 1854, having lost his wife, who died in Illinois. He was a
widower, therefore, when he reached the Golden State, and so began to solve the
problems of existence here under adverse circumstances. Of his children by his
first wife three only grew up, and they came across the continent with their
father and settled for a while at Mountain View. Later the senior Bacon removed
to Oakland, where he became a merchant, and still later he was a partner in the
firm of Bacon and Bamber, doing an express business
in that city. The three children are: Mrs. E. B. Tucker, who lives at Coalinga;
Mrs. T. R. Perry, who resides at Sebastopol; and Seibert M., who when sixteen
years of age, was thrown from a horse and killed.
Later, W. K. Bacon invested in mines, was
unsuccessful, and moved into the country, taking up his residence for a while
in Monterey County, then going to Contra Costa and then to Butte County, where
he finally died, nearly eighty years of age. While at Oakland his second
marriage occurred, to Miss Margaret Cameron, who was born in Canada, of Scotch
parentage, and came to California in 1859. They had four children: William E.
Bacon, principal of the Yountville School; George K. Bacon, the subject of this
sketch; Hardy Devere Bacon, who resides in Brentwood,
Contra Costa County; and M. Winnifred, the wife of
J. S. Crain, a resident of Berkeley, but a large property-owner in
Butte County.
George K. Bacon was seven years old when
he went to Monterey County, where he received, in a public grammar school, all
the schooling he ever enjoyed. In Contra Costa County he learned the blacksmith
trade, and when he was of age he first came to Butte County. Upon arriving
here, he went to work for the A. M. Leach Lumber Company at Honcut, a business formerly conducted by Harrison Jones,
then managed by the Leach Lumber Company, and then by A. M. Leach,
who was driven into insolvency. In 1899, he came to Biggs and worked for a year
as a carpenter; and for three years he ran a dairy, supplying the citizens at
Biggs.
About 1904 Mr. Bacon engaged with the
Sierra Lumber Company of Chico to work in their yard at Biggs; and when, in
1906, they sold out to the Diamond Match Company he remained with the new
management and has been the company’s manager ever since.
Mr. Bacon was married at Honcut, in 1889, to Miss Laura E. Baxter, of that
town, by whom he has had two children: Hattie Carol and Baxter Devere. They live in a cozy and convenient home surrounded
by two and a half acres of land, on which an older house stood when Mr. Bacon
secured the property. This land he has improved until it is now one of the
desirable residence sites in the town. Mr. Bacon is a member of Fremontia Camp, No. 452, W. O. W., at Biggs.
Mrs. Bacon’s father was John Baxter, a
native of Scotland, who settled in Georgia when he was nineteen years of age,
and came across the plains with mules, outfitting at Memphis, Tenn., in 1849.
He settled at Marysville and engaged in mercantile business when there were
only three huts in the neighborhood. In California he was married to America
Ann Hammond, a native of Illinois, who came to the coast in 1855, and by her he
had seven children, four of whom are still living: David S. Baxter, who is in
the employ of the Southern Pacific at Dunsmuir; Edward S., who is a storekeeper
and the postmaster at Oregon House, Yuba County; Laura Ellen, who is Mrs.
G. K. Bacon; and Hattie J., who is the wife of Stirling
Cole, and lives in Delano, Kern County.
In April, 1916, Mr. Bacon was elected a
member of the city board of trustees, and upon the organization of the board he
was chosen president, and has continued to fill that office to the entire
satisfaction of the community. His responsibility in this department of civic
activity, as well as in his work as a school trustee, may be gathered from the
fact that the city of Biggs owns its electric light and water plant, running
the current for street lighting and domestic purposes through a transformer
located west of Gridley, and buying its power from the Pacific Gas and Electric
Company. The water is pumped from three deep wells, and these up-to-date
facilities are in line with others that mark the town as one of the most
progressive communities in this section of the state, enjoying as it does a
population of five hundred. The board of trustees meets on the first Monday
evening of each month, and at present consists of G. K. Bacon, president; C. E.
Chatfield, W. E. Stevenson, V. R. Rolley, and W.
I. Ricketts. Miss Marcia Webb is city clerk.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
04 August 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages
1011-1013, Historic
Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies