Butte County
Biographies
GEORGE E. SPRINGER
GEORGE E. SPRINGER. – A business
man of wonderful capacity for scientific and eminently practical organization
and systematic, telling work, who also has the rare gift of affability, growing
out of a large, generous heart, so that he can easily command the most
effective cooperation from others, is George E. Springer, a native son of
Oroville, who has made an enviable name and place for himself entirely by his
own individual efforts. He was born on September 16, 1873, the son of George B.
Springer, a native of Gowanda, N. Y., who crossed the plains to California in
1860, enduring all the hardships and surviving the many dangers of the trip.
George B. Springer was a blacksmith by
trade, and a very good one, so those who saw him at the anvil say; and he had a
finely-equipped shop at Marysville in early days, and was well known by
ranchmen and miners of Yuba County and the Sierra region, who soon learned the
value of his expert and thoroughly dependable service. About 1871 he located in
Oroville, where he followed the same line of business in which he had
demonstrated his ability as a pioneer contributing to the great work of
developing a commonwealth; and there he was proprietor of the old Red Front
blacksmith shop on Huntoon Street. He owned the old
mining district called Lynchburg, a tract of about eighty acres, now Ora Vista Hill; and he leveled the gravel pit and set out
some of the land to orchards. He retired from active business some years before
his lamented death in 1912, a man liked and esteemed by everyone who had come
to know him. His wife, who was Harriett A. Thomas before her marriage, was a
native of Maine, and crossed the great prairies with her parents. Her father,
William Thomas, of Thomaston, Maine, became a prominent cattleman in Butte
County; he was survived by his wife, who eventually married Benjamin Blevins,
one of the old and very interesting characters of Butte County, and at one time
the owner of the Friesleben ranch. Mrs. George B.
Springer died in 1881.
George E. Springer, the subject of our
review, was reared in Oroville; and after completing his courses in the public
schools, he entered the hardware store of Brock & Taber. On the
establishing of the Oroville Union High School, however, he returned to his
studies, and was a member of the senior class, along with A. E. Boynton and
Clem Perkins, but did not finish the course, as he was offered an opportunity
to become a clerk in Bill’s Hardware Store. He did continue studying, however,
and after a while took and successfully passed the county high school examinations
and obtained a teacher’s certificate. He taught at Paradise for four years; and
then, coming into his home town, where the best possible proof of his real
ability would need to be shown, he taught for six years in the Oroville
schools. During that time he became principal of the grammar school, and the
last year he was vice-principal of the Oroville Union High School.
In June, 1902, Mr. Springer was married in
the city of San Francisco to Miss Mary E. Benner, who was born
near Pentz, Butte County, and had also been engaged
in educational work, following her graduation with honors from the Chico State
Normal School. After his marriage, he settled in San Francisco, and from 1902
until 1905 was busy there representing the Equitable Life Assurance Society. In
May of the latter year he associated himself with the Northern Electric
Railroad, and from its inception took charge of its rights of way and land
department. This was before it was incorporated in October, 1905. He had his
headquarters in Chico until 1907, and then removed them to Marysville. The same
year he was also elected assistant secretary of the company, to act in
connection with his former duties; and he thereupon removed to the San
Francisco office, from which point he conducted the rather varied and at times
difficult operations necessary to success. He continued actively with the
company until August 1, 1914, when he resigned. He then accepted the tender of
the executive secretaryship of the Union Sugar
Company, and also of the Alameda Sugar Company, both of San Francisco; and in
1918 he was also made general manager of the Alameda Sugar Company. This is the
oldest beet-sugar factory in the United States, having been established in
1869. The plant of this company is located at Alvarado. The Union Sugar
Company’s plant is located at Betteravia, in Santa
Barbara County. Both companies have extensive landed interests.
Mr. Springer has lost none of his old-time
affection for Butte County, and is very optimistic for its future greatness,
both in farming and in horticulture; and as an evidence of the faith that he
professes, he is a partner, with two others, in the Citrus Land Syndicate,
owners of some fifteen hundred acres at Tres Vias, where they are planning intensive farming and the
growing of orchards.
Mr. and Mrs. Springer have one child,
Albert Marion. The family are active and popular in
social circles. Mr. Springer was made a Mason in Oroville Lodge, No. 103, F.
& A. M., and was demitted from that lodge to Durant Lodge, No. 268, F.
& A. M., of Berkeley. He has been an active member of Argonaut Parlor, No.
8, N. S. G. W., at Oroville, of which he is Past President and Past District
Deputy. He is a member of the Oroville Lodge, No. 59, I. O. O. F., and is a
Past Grand therein; and is also a member of Encampment No. 22, at Oroville, and
is Past Chief Patriarch, and a member of Orange Grove Rebekah
Lodge, No. 84. He belongs also to Chico Lodge, No. 423, B. P. O. Elks, and is
otherwise associated with various social organizations, being a member of the
Masonic Club of San Francisco, the San Francisco Commercial Club, and the
Commonwealth Club.
As might well be expected of a man of his
preparation and attainments, Mr. Springer is always deeply interested in
educational work; and busy as he has been, he has found time to serve for nine
years as a member and president of the board of school trustees of Piedmont,
where he resides.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
24 April 2008.
Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C.
Mansfield, Pages 893-894, Historic Record Co, Los
Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies