Butte County
Biographies
WENDELL P. HAMMON
WENDELL P. HAMMON.--The name of Wendell
P. Hammon is as naturally associated with the idea of
the development of Northern California as the name of California itself is
associated with the idea of a domain of gold and prosperity, of fruit and
flowers, and of sunshine and health. Oroville knows him as a man who did much
to bring the town out of the lethargy that followed the mining boom, and make
it a solid, progressive community. San Francisco
and the rest of the state know him as a business
man of high enterprise and
unimpeachable integrity. It is perhaps as a pioneer in the field of gold
dredging that Mr. Hammon is best known; not that he
has confined himself to this, however, for he has been and still is deeply
interested in the growing of fruit, particularly of oranges, and is connected
in one way or another with a number of corporations of varied scope. His name
is almost a household word in California,
where he is known as a builder of electric railroads and a leader in the
development of hydro-electric power projects, as well as the world's most
prominent dredge-mining operator.
W.
P. Hammon was born on May 23, 1854, in Conneautville, Crawford County,
Pa., the son of Marshall M. and Harriet S.
(Cooper) Hammon. His paternal ancestors settled at Providence,
R. I., about the year 1726. The early education of Mr. Hammon
was obtained in the grammar schools of his birthplace and in the state normal
school at Edinboro, Erie
County. He left the latter institution in 1875, before graduation,
however, and came to California.
Upon his arrival here he looked about for an opening and soon secured a
position as a salesman with L. Green and Sons, of Perry,
Ohio, a large fruit-importing concern. He
took a keen interest in the fruit industry, and two years later, seeing an
opportunity to launch out for himself, engaged in the nursery business.
Meanwhile he studied the subject carefully, and in a few years began to be
spoken of as an
authority on horticulture. He
removed to Butte County
in 1890, and this proved to be the scene of most of his future operations. He
planted a large orchard about ten miles below Oroville, near the Feather
River, and devoted most of the next ten years to fruit-growing. In
those days the Sacramento Valley
was not very well established as a fruit-growing
center, and the opening up of the
large grain ranches to more intensive cultivation, especially to fruits, had
not been accomplished, nor were there transportation facilities by which to get
the products of the farms into markets at nominal cost.
It
is to such men as Mr. Hammon that the citizens of the
county owe their prosperity and advancement; he did a great deal of the
pioneering in the fruit-growing industry, and it was while he was pursuing the
development of his ranch by superintending the digging of a well, that he was
handed some shining particles that had come out with the dirt. Thus it was that
he became interested in dredger mining. When he saw the shining particles of
gold thickly imbedded in the dirt, he at once decided that if a machine could
be constructed that would handle large quantities of this dirt, a tremendous
industry would be established in this county, and it would add very materially
to the wealth of the state. From a very small beginning the dredging industry
grew to large proportions, and the man who was the pioneer of dredger-mining
soon became a millionaire. Through his initiative the world has had many
millions of dollars added to its wealth from lands that had been considered worthless
and from the tailing piles left by the early placer-miners, the dredger
following in their path and once more turning over the piles of rock and soil
in search of the yellow metal. Although confining his principal operations to California,
Mr. Hammon also operated in a small way in Eastern
Oregon, Idaho and Arizona.
After
finding excellent pay-dirt on his own property, Mr. Hammon secured an option on about one thousand acres and
prospected it thoroughly, with gratifying results. Gold dredging had never been
carried on successfully on the Pacific
Coast, and to many this method
appeared impractical. Mr. Hammon, however, came
across a new type of dredge built and, after organizing the Feather River
Exploration Company, began operations on March 1, 1898. As in the case of every
new enterprise, progress was difficult and there were many who scoffed at the
idea and predicted failure, and for a time it was all outgo and no returns. The
dredging machinery was improved from time to time until success was assured.
The rest of the story is so well known that it needs no telling. Today Mr. Hammon directs the largest gold-dredging operations in the
world. His companies have control of more than ten thousand acres of land in California
and Oregon, and more than thirty
dredgers are at work. Among his corporations engaged in the industry are the
Yuba Consolidated Gold Fields Company, the Calaveras Dredging Company, and the
Powder River Gold dredging Company. The gold dredging operations have advanced
Oroville and Butte County
to a place in the front rank as a mining district, the world over; and
Oroville, like Ballarat and Kimberley,
has become a by-word in London, Paris
and New York.
Mr.
Hammon continues to be a large factor in the
fruit-growing industry. He has invested many thousands of dollars in developing
orange and olive groves in Northern California, and is today the largest single
producer in Butte County
and vicinity. His investments in this line have not been made from sentimental
reasons, but have been the result of hard-headed, clear-sighted, business-like
investigation into conditions that actually exist. Among some of his holdings
are the Gawthorne Grove of forty acres; the Hammon Grove of olives, of sixty acres. At Palermo
he owns a beautiful summer home, which has been made of the show places of the
county; also what is known as the Hammon Orange
Grove, of one hundred twenty-five acres. These tracts are watered from the Palermo
ditch, the water coming from the Middle Fork of the Feather River.
From his groves Mr. Hammon has been selling over four
hundred tons of olives annually to the various olive factories in Oroville and
vicinity, and over one hundred fifty car loads of oranges have been marketed in
the East each year, in time to catch the fancy holiday markets and command the
highest prices paid during the season. Employment is given about thirty people
during slack times, and during the busy season the number is increased to over
one hundred fifty. Two large packing houses are kept busy packing the fruit for
shipment. All this contributes towards the prosperity of the community. Mr. Hammon considers his orange and olive groves among his very
best investments, which is a guarantee to others that they are safe in making
investments in the same localities. He is president of the Oroville Orange and
Olive Groves, and is an officer and a director in the Finnell
Land Company, Hammon Engineering Company, Plumas
Investment Company, Yuba Construction Company, and Sierra Pacific Electric
Company. He was one of the organizers of the Ventura Consolidated Oil Fields Company,
Montebello Oil Company, and Ventura Refining Company, as well as its heaviest
backer; and he was interested in the installation of hydro-electric and
irrigation projects.
The
marriage of W. P. Hammon united him with Miss Gussie
Kenney, born in Placerville, Cal.,
a daughter of Ephraim Kenney. Her father was a forty-niner, and a prominent
mining man of the early days of Placer
County. Of this union three
children have been born. Wendell C., a graduate from Stanford
University, is now a First Lieutenant in the
Fourth United States Regiment of Engineers in France.
Glenn A. was a student at Stanford until the declaration of war, when he
enlisted for duty; he is now inspector of armored tractors and tanks at the
United States Ordnance Depot at Peoria, Ill.,
with the rank of Second Lieutenant. The daughter, Georgia, a graduate from Mills
College, became the wife of Scott Hendricks, who
is now Judge Advocate at Camp Zachary Taylor, at Louisville,
Ky. Mrs. Hendricks died in San
Francisco in 1915.
Ever
since settling in Butte County,
Mr. Hammon has been one of
its most influential citizens.
Emphatically a man of work, he is never idle. No enterprise of worth has been
projected that failed of his support and substantial encouragement; and every
plan for the promotion of public welfare has had the benefit of his keen judgment
and wise cooperation. A man of broad and charitable views, he aids every
movement
for the advancement of education,
morality and the well-being of the state. He is a citizen of whom any community
might well be proud.
Transcribed by Sande Beach.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 647-649, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Sande Beach.
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