Butte County
Biographies
SANDER CHRISTENSEN
Among the pioneer rice-growers of the Richvale district, mention should be made of Sander Christensen, who was born in Frederikshavn, Denmark, September 26, 1870. He was an apt student and received a good education in his native town, where he also became a bookkeeper. At the age of twenty-one he left home and crossed the ocean to America; and the first four years in this country were spent in Racine, Wis., as a bookkeeper in the largest grocery establishment in that city, conducted by M. C. Hansen. His next stopping-place was in Wyoming, where he took up farming in Sweetwater County, on Currant Creek. He had decided that he would study methods of irrigation, and after settling down on his farm, gave particular attention to the intricate details of the subject, in order to make his work a success. He surveyed his land and constructed the ditches with his own hands, and in fact became one of the pioneers in his section. In 1897 he went to Northern Colorado and continued farming, raising alfalfa by irrigation, and carrying on a dairy business. Eleven years were spent in Colorado.
In 1911, Mr. Christensen came to California, and on arriving in Butte County got right into the rice business, in April of that year. This was an experiment conducted by the Richvale Land Company, when they put in twelve acres. In 1912 he put in twenty-nine acres, which yielded forty-two sacks to the acre. This was the first rice field in the Richvale colony, there being only some fourteen hundred acres of rice in the whole of the county that year. The acreage planted by our subject was such a fine field that pictures of it were taken by all the real estate boosters and used for advertising purposes. In 1913, Mr. Christensen had about one hundred acres in rice. The following year, in company with his present partner, Carl Burmester, he went to the Natomas district, sixteen miles north of Sacramento, and farmed nine hundred acres; but finding that the land had been too recently reclaimed for rice-growing, he went over to Glenn County. That same year, having known Robert Tyson, president of the Seaboard National Bank in San Francisco, for several years, he undertook to put the Minor Ranch, six miles southeast of Willows, and owned by the R. J. Tyson Company, into condition for the growing of rice. In 1917, over five hundred acres of this ranch was in rice, which promised rich returns.
At Ogden, Utah, in 1897, Mr. Christensen was united in marriage with Jennie Melgaard, a native of Denmark, who had come to America on the same steamship that brought her future husband to the “land of promise,” in 1893. They have two children, Bernice and Carl. In 1911, with his wife, he left on a year’s vacation, going to Denmark, after which he bought a ticket from Frederikshavn direct to Nelson, Cal. The family home is on thirty-six acres in the Richvale colony, on the Nelson-Biggs road, where they live in the enjoyment of the esteem of a wide circle of friends.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1019-1020, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies