Butte County
Biographies
LOUIS D. MACY
L. D. MACY.—As the owner and proprietor of the Johnson House, Chico, L. D. Macy has been closely identified with the city since August 21, 1903. He was born in Boonville, Cooper County, Mo., July 28, 1868, a son of J. A. Macy, who was born on the island of Nantucket, Mass., from whence he moved to Indiana. While living there the father married Mary Rutherford, who was born near Indianapolis, and they later returned to Cooper County, Mo., and farmed for a number of years, and then moved to Bates County, Mo., and farmed for a number of years, and then moved to Bates County. In 1885, Mr. Macy and his family came to California, settling in Fresno, where he engaged in contracting and building. He died in Fresno, past eighty-three years of age; his widow, now in her eighty-eighth year, still lives in Fresno. They had eight children, six of whom are living.
L. D. Macy is the fifth child in his parents’ family and was reared on a farm in Missouri, attending the public schools until he was fourteen, when he began to “paddle his own canoe.” He worked at farm work two years, then bought an outfit and rented some land, engaging in raising corn and hogs, in Bates County, Mo. In 1887, he located in Fresno, Cal., where he became a general contractor for leveling and checking land, and also engaged in ranching. In 1892, he had thirty-five hundred acres in wheat, but the severe drought for a series of years caused him a loss of seventy thousand dollars. He quit ranching and engaged with Fresno Agricultural Works as a traveling salesman, and later was in the livery business on Valencia Street, Los Angeles, afterwards operating the Richard Livery Stable on South Main Street in that city. He bought horses and mules for the Los Angeles and San Francisco markets. After four years, Mr. Macy sold out and removed to Tuolumne County, and purchased the Maier Hotel, which he improved and ran for a time. He erected the Chieftain Hotel in Tuolumne but sold out in 1905, having previously purchased the Johnson House in Chico, Butte County, and located here on August 21, 1903, as stated. He has been very successful as a hotel-keeper and has built up a large patronage, and is known as a thoroughly up-to-date business man. With Mrs. Gale, he built the Barber Hotel at Barber, and ran it five years, when he sold out.
Mr. Macy is a man of varied talents and has engaged in ranching, having owned four hundred twenty-three acres on Deer Creek, planted to grain and fruits, one hundred twenty-five acres to prunes, and one hundred twenty-five acres in alfalfa. This he sold to Baker and Brand. He also owned three hundred fifteen acres near Stockton, where he raised grain and beans for nine years, selling that in 1917.
The Johnson House is one of the oldest and best known hotels in Butte County and has the largest number of rooms, all modern in appointment. It is headquarters for farmers, lumbermen, miners, home-seekers and tourists; all guests made to feel at home and are accorded most courteous treatment. Mr. Macy is a member of the Chico Business Men’s Association, is liberal and kind-hearted, and has the faculty of making and retaining friends.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1161, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies