Butte County
Biographies
FRED N. PAXTON
FRED N. PAXTON.--A very promising
although an already prominent man, is Fred N. Paxton, the efficient and popular
postmaster of Oroville, who was born September 16, 1883, at Granite Mountain,
Mont., the first white child born in that mining camp. His father was E. C.
Paxton, who was born in Winchester, Iowa, crossed the plains in the late
fifties, and settled at Tooele, Utah, from which place he afterward came to
Montana, where he was the superintendent of a mine. Grandfather John Paxton was
born in Pennsylvania, and also crossed the plains in the late fifties, bringing
his family to Iowa. There he ran a hotel for a while, then tried his capacity
for farming, and also his luck at mining, and when he died, in Utah, he had
reached his four score and thirteen years.
E. C. Paxton followed mining from a lad,
and was among those who early poured into Virginia City and the Black Hills,
and ventured much in Montana and Nevada. He was by no means an ordinary miner,
however, but a master mechanic, and so became mine foreman and then
superintendent. He opened up many mines, some of which proved to be very
profitable producers. After superintending the mine at Granite Mountain he went
to Maiden, Mont., where he was also a mining superintendent. In 1888, he came
to California, bought some property at Paradise, Butte County, and there
established his home, after acting as the first superintendent of the Yellow
Stone Mine in Trinity County. Coming back to Butte County, he had a mine at
Yankee Hill, and later also had charge of the Pete Wood Mine. When he moved to
Oroville in September, 1898, he followed contracting and building, and with
such success that he was finally able to retire. At his death here, in 1913, he
had reached the age of sixty-five. His wife had been May Nelson, the daughter
of Mathias Nelson, before her marriage, and she was born near Stockholm, in
Sweden. Mrs. Paxton died at Paradise, this county, in 1896, the mother of five
children: Clara May; Fred N.; Bert N.; Nellie N.; and William N., the last two
born at Paradise and all living but Clara May. After the death of his wife Mr.
Paxton kept the family together until they were grown.
Fred N. Paxton was brought up principally
in Butte County, Cal., and attended the public schools at Paradise and
Oroville, graduating finally from the Oroville high school. After that, he
learned the carpenter trade, and engaged in contracting and building with his
father until failing health necessitated the retirement of the elder Paxton.
When Mr. Paxton’s father died he continued
a general contracting and building business alone. Profiting by an excellent
course in architecture and drafting in the International Correspondence
Schools, he was able to make his own designs and thus to control his work and
carry out his own original ideas from start to finish. He built, for example,
his own residence, a two-story structure with a basement at 923 Spencer Street,
and one after another put up many residences and business houses in Oroville
and vicinity.
An active Democrat since becoming of age
and for years the efficient secretary of the Democratic county central
committee of Butte County, Fred Paxton was appointed postmaster of Oroville by
President Wilson, in 1914; and on November 16 he assumed charge of the office.
How well he has administered the affairs of the office may now be seen from the
recent history of the postal service in Oroville. When Mr. Paxton became
postmaster, the post office was in the old Odd Fellows’ Building, on Montgomery
Street, and from there it was moved to its new quarters in the Gardella Building on Huntoon
Street, on Saturday night, July 31, 1915, without the least
interruption in the dispatch of mails, so that by Monday morning the delivery
of the mail through the carriers and from the general delivery windows went on
as usual. Aside from the fine appearance of the new quarters selected, there
are other advantages connected with them in the matter of added floor space and
better lighting facilities.
Only those who were present could well be
aware of the labor and responsibility involved in successfully making this
removal of an office full of valuable property. The mail-boxes were removed
bodily from the old quarters, and were polished up so as to be in harmony with
the new surroundings. At the same time two new rural automobile routes were
established, which took the place of the former four wagon-routes. Routes One
and Four were combined as Rural Route A, while Routes Two and Three were combined as Route B. The establishment of
automobile rural routes is a recent innovation in the postal delivery service,
and the practice has proven very successful both in an economic sense and as to
increased distribution. The following quotation from the Postmasters’ Journal
shows the success of automobile delivery: “From April 1 to June 19 revision of
rural service and the inauguration of motor vehicle service resulted in a
reduction of operating expenses of $744,300. This sum has been used to
establish 733 new routes to serve 85,472 additional families, or 427,300
additional people.” The management of the Oroville post office is wide-awake as
to its own service and in relation to the surrounding country, as is shown by
the fact that it has three city carriers and six clerks, and that three star
routes lead from Oroville: one to Merrimac, a distance of thirty-four and a
half miles; one to Woodleaf, twenty-nine miles; and
one to Lumpkin, twenty-six and a half miles.
On January 21, 1917, Mr. Paxton was united
in marriage in Oroville with Miss Evangeline E. Osborne, born in Texas, a
daughter of Mrs. Anna (Boren) Osborne, who was a classmate of Postmaster
General Burleson, and now resides at Dinuba. Mrs. Paxton is a graduate of the
Visalia High School and was a resident of Hanford for a number of years before
her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Paxton have one daughter, Virginia Osborne Paxton.
Mr. Paxton is a member of the Chamber of Commerce; Foresters of America; and
the Loyal Order of Moose.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
22 October 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages
1063-1064, Historic
Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies