WENDEL J. MILLER

Butte County

Biographies

WENDEL J. MILLER

WENDEL J. MILLER.--One of the most successful men in Butte County, whose untiring industry, farsightedness and integrity yielded in time handsome and well-deserved material returns, was Wendel J. Miller, the late president of the First National Bank of Chico, who was born in Frenchtown, Butte County, August 27, 1873, the son of Joseph Miller, a native of Baden, Germany, who came to the United States in 1856. Joseph Miller stopped for a couple of years in Missouri, the state in which so many of his fellow countrymen at that time found a home; but influenced by the reports of still greater attractions in California, he engaged to assist in driving a band of cattle across the plains and set out for the Golden West. Arriving in California, he seized the miner's pick and began to dig for gold; but four days afterward he threw the pick away, none to infatuated with that method of earning a living, and went on to Jamison Creek, where he followed the trade he had learned in Germany, that of the butcher. He then went to Thompson Flats and continued in the same business, and from there removed to Frenchtown, where he opened a butcher shop with Frank Cannon as a partner. This he ran for four years, making a specialty of sending meat into the mines by pack-trains. After that he opened business in Cherokee on a larger scale, raising cattle in connection with his other interests. Joseph Miller married Miss Julia A. Benjamin, a native of Wales, who, with their two children, a son and a daughter, shared his prosperity. When he retired, he made his home in Chico Vecino. He died about eight years ago, three years before the demise of his wife.

Wendel J. Miller, the only son and the younger of the two children, was brought up in Frenchtown and attended the public schools, and the Garden City Business College at San Jose, from which he was graduated in 1889. Thereafter he at once engaged in stock-raising and farming with his father and uncle, Wendeline, and after his father's death had entire charge of one of the largest stock ranches in the vicinity of Chico. This ranch

consisted of a range of four thousand acres on the Pentz and Oroville road, two thousand acres on the Cherokee and Oroville road, and some fine foothill ranges, making in all about eight thousand acres of cattle range, upon which there were about five hundred head of cattle. He raised shorthorn cattle, and also horses and mules. He had a farm of two thousand one hundred acres in Glenn County, on Butte Creek, adjoining the Dodge rice lands. The last three years of his life were spent in Chico, looking after his varied interests, which included eleven hundred acres of farming land, three and a half miles south of the town, which he devoted to the growing of wheat and barley. He died in San Francisco on December 26, 1914, and was buried in Chico Cemetery, where his wife has erected a magnificent mausoleum.

Without doubt one of the important men of commercial affairs of his time in this country, Mr. Miller was one of the organizers of the First National Bank, and at the time of his lamented death was its president. He also helped to organize the People's Savings and Commerical Bank, and was a director in that flourishing institution until he died. He was, besides, a stockholder and director in the Bank of Durham. He was a member of the Chico Lodge of Elks, and of the Woodmen of the World, and was also an active member of, and liberal contributor to, the various commercial organizations of Chico.

In Cherokee, on April 5, 1895, Mr. Miller married Miss Susie Sturmer, a native of Cherokee, and the daughter of Jacob Sturmer, an outline of whose interesting life is presented elsewhere in this work. She was reared and educated in Cherokee, and early developed that business sagacity and executive ability which proved so valuable to her after Mr. Miller's death. Since then she has continued to manage the ranches and to conserve and develop the important interests intrusted to her charge. Her only child, Mae, died when four years of age, and the entire responsibility of her estate has therefore fallen upon her. She executes her task, however, with exceptional aptitude, at the same time taking a wide interest in civic affairs. In party politics, she is democrat.

Transcribed by Sande Beach.

Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 479-480, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.

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