Butte County
Biographies
WALTER A. CLARK
W. A. CLARK.—The career of
W. A. Clark, already successful and more than promising as the
efficient superintendent of the Gridley Rice Mills for the Rosenberg Brothers
Company of San Francisco, reminds one of a most important industry of
California, rivaling one of the greatest interests of Louisiana, and also of
the operations of a milling establishment widely notable as the producer of a
high-grade table product from Japanese and Italian rices.
Situated in a most favored district for the growing of rice, the heart of the
rice belt may well be spoken of as “the Crowley of Louisiana;” and there is
something fitting, therefore, in the fact that the Gridley mills should draw on
Louisiana for their rice-milling expert.
Born at Gueydan, in Louisiana, April 10,
1885, Mr. Clark was brought up in that Southern State and there received his
education in private schools, building at the outset the foundation so
necessary for a self-made man. In 1906, he went to work in the rice mills at
Jennings, La., for the Jennings Rice Milling Company, and soon received
promotion after promotion so that he continued in that line of trade. In
November, 1915, he came to California and to Gridley, where he assumed the superintendency of the rice mill then operated by the Butte
County Rice Mills Company. In the winter of 1916-1917 this organization was
enlarged by the purchase of another large mill in San Francisco, and its name
was changed to the Pacific Rice Mills and he then became superintendent of the
Biggs mill. In July, 1918, he resigned his position with the Pacific Rice
Mills, to accept his present place as superintendent of the Gridley Rice Mills,
for the Rosenberg Brothers Company. The establishment mills both
California-grown and imported foreign-grown rice, and operates under most
cleanly and sanitary conditions. Its product, therefore, is an excellent and
wholesome, though cheap food, and sells in all parts of the United States and
even through the West Indies. Of pleasing personality and alert in his business
methods, Mr. Clark proves a valuable representative both in advancing the
company’s interests and in maintaining that bond between town and business
concern which must always exist if the commercial interests of a community are
to develop and expand. His interest in upbuilding and
improving land to yield the most by intensive farming is not confined to this
immediate section but extends to the whole of the Sacramento Valley. His years
of experience in rice culture and in the manufacture of rice products enable
him to be of the greatest help to the growers of this section of California.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
13 October 2009.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1247-1248, Historic Record Co, Los
Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies