Butte County
Biographies
JOHN F. RAMLEY
JOHN F. RAMLEY.--An Enterprising business man, who is now associated with the Union Oil Company of California, with an office in Colusa, and who has supervision of all of the Company’s business in Colusa County, as well as that part of Sutter County known as Sutter Basin and District Seventy, is John F. Ramley, formerly a resident of Chico and at that time a member of the firm of Ramley and Marselus, proprietors of the Park Service Station.
A native of Georgia, John F. Ramley was born at Gainesville, June 1 1885, a son of D. C. Ramley, who was a large planter of that state and a descendant of ancestors from the north of Ireland, known as Orangemen, who came to the United States and settle in South Carolina. The mother in maidenhood, was Miss Clara Cooper; she passed away in 1897. The father moved to Oregon in 1889 and is now engaged in the sheep business in the eastern part of the state.
The family of Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Ramley consisted of four children, three girls and one boy, John F., the subject of this review, who received his early education in the public schools of Kentucky. About the age of eighteen he migrated westward, coming as far as the Indian Territory, and, in that part now included in Oklahoma, he went to work in the oil-fields at Bartlesville, where he continued from 1903 to 1905. In the last-named year he came to California and for six months he was employed in the Santa Maria fields at Orcutt. From there he went to Port Harford and entered the employ of the Union Oil Company as stillman at the refinery for two years. Subsequently he shipped on trans-Pacific liners, making several trips to the Orient, including China, Japan and the Philippine Islands. Mr. Ramley then got the Alaska fever and spent one season in prospecting and mining in that country and met with good luck. He then went to Alberta, Canada, and took up a half section of land, kept it one year and then abandoned it on account of a crop failure, relinquishing his right to the land. He went to Washington and followed lumbering, running a donkey engine, and later as a mechanical engineer in the Puget Sound shipyards, until 1912, when he returned to California and found employment running a hoist engine on the irrigation project in Stanislaus County, on the Tuolumne River. He next went to Napa and was in the employ of the Gildersleeve Construction Company, working on steel and concrete bridges. In 1913, he entered the employ of the Associated Oil Company and was sent to Chico to open a service station and distributing plant. He superintended the construction of the plant and remained for one year as manager. His next move was his connection with the Triangle Service Station, until June, 1917, when he formed a partnership with Mr. Marselus, under the firm name of Ramley and Marselus. They leased a corner at Fourth and Main Streets and erected the Park Service Station, which is one of the most centrally located stations in Chico; it is unique in design and artistically decorated, and is the local sales-depot for the Union Oil Company. On April 10, 1918, Mr. Ramley disposed of his business interests in Chico and Butte County, and accepted the position of Supervisor for the Union Oil Company at Colusa.
Mr. Ramley was married, in Chico, to Miss Ethel Lewis, a native of Chicago, Ill., a daughter of E. J. Lewis, cashier of the Diamond Match Company, who is mentioned at length on another page of this work. They have one son, Eugene Fennimore. Mrs. Ramley is a member of the First Methodist Church and of the Eastern Star. Mr. Ramley belongs to the Great Oak Camp, W. O. W.; Brotherhood of American Yeomen, being foreman of Homestead No. 3858, in Chico; the Chico Business Men’s Association; Automobile Club of America; and American Automobile Association. Since entering business, Mr. Ramley has demonstrated his ability as a manager, and his many friends predict for him even greater successes in the future.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1277-1278, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County
Biographies