Butte County
Biographies
JOHN H. SMITH
JOHN H. SMITH.--Proprietor of Smith’s Chico, Butte Meadows and Westwood Auto Stage Line, John H. Smith has built up a splendid service and is making it a financial success, as well as a great convenience and comfort for the traveling public. Through tickets are sold from San Francisco to Westwood and vice versa, with a daily service between Chico and Westwood, a distance of eighty-two miles over mountain roads.
John H. Smith is a native of Columbus, Ohio, where he was born May 5, 1881. His father, Matthias, was an architect and superintendent of building, and superintended the building of creameries for a firm of large creamery contractors and builders in Ohio and in different states, with headquarters in Columbus. His death occurred there when John H. was a child. The mother, Eunice (Hamilton) Smith, was born in Ohio. In 1907 she came to Butte County, and now resides at Paradise. Three children were born to them, two of whom are now living. John H., the youngest in the family, was brought up in Columbus, attending the public schools of that city. He learned the carpenter and cabinet-maker’s trade and followed that business in Ohio. In 1907, he located in Chico and began work here with the Northern Electric Railway, and helped finish the first two coaches built here.
In July 1914, Mr. Smith started the auto-stage line, and took the government mail contract to Butte Meadows, at first running only one car. In 1917 he put in the Westwood stages, using two cars, and at the present writing, 1918, he operates four seven-passenger cars, Cadillac and Buick models, and also a Buick ten-passenger stage for special occasions. During the summer of 1918 he branched out still farther and started a stage line to Juniper Lake Resort, in Mount Lassen National Park, connecting with his Chico-Butte Meadows-Westwood line at Chester, to accommodate patrons of Juniper Lake Resort. The route covers eighty-two miles of beautiful mountain scenery the entire distance, and cars leave from Chico and Westwood, each way, twice a day. A young man of much executive ability, Mr. Smith is meeting with well earned success, and, under his management, the business has grown to be a factor in the development of the county. He is a member of the California Auto Stage Association, and of the American Automobile Association.
Mr. Smith married a native daughter of the county, Miss Nellie Lucas, born in Butte Meadows, a daughter of John H. Lucas, a native son and prominent stockman; he is a member of the city council of Chico and is represented on another page in this work. To Mr. and Mrs. Smith one child has been born, Elwood Hamilton.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1259-1260, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County
Biographies