Los Angeles County

Biographies


 

 

EDWIN KITCHEN ALPAUGH

 

 

EDWIN KITCHEN ALPAUGH.-- Orange Grower and President of the Provident Pledge Corporation, Los Angeles, California, was born in Asbury, New Jersey, February 28, 1853, the son of John R. Alpaugh and Sarah Ann (Ingham) Alpaugh.  He married Sarah E. Slack, daughter of General James R. Slack, at Huntington, Indiana, May 17, 1882 and to them there was born a daughter, Mary I. Alpaugh.  Mr. Alpaugh is descended from Colonial stock, connected on the maternal side with the Runkle and Ingham families of New Jersey.  The Runkles trace back in direct line to the middle ages, at which time they were among the nobility of Germany.  The first of this branch in America was Adam Runkle, the great-great-grandfather of Mr. Alpaugh, and a man of prominence and great religious fervor during the Revolutionary period.  His son, William, great-grandfather of Mr. Alpaugh, was a wealthy farmer and land owner of New Jersey, noted as one of the commanding men of his section.  His daughter married Jonathan W. Ingham and they were the parents of Mr. Alpaugh's mother.

         Mr. Alpaugh spent his childhood in New Jersey and from 1860 to 1863 attended an academy at Clinton, N.J., but the family removing to Indiana in 1863, the greater part of his life was spent in the latter State.  His parents located on a farm and he helped his father during the greater part of each year, going to the country school for about three months out of the twelve.  Concluding his schooling when he was about sixteen years of age Mr. Alpaugh worked on the farm of his father until 1871, when he moved to Wabash, Indiana, and went into the drug business.

         For the next two years Mr. Alpaugh confined his time to the drug business in Wabash and in Lagro, Indiana, and in 1873 moved to Huntington, Indiana, where he obtained employment as a clerk in a drug store.  The confining life of stores told on his health in time, and in 1876 he gave up the drug business, in which he had become known as a capable pharmacist, and went to Tennessee, where he worked in the woods for three years.

         Returning to Huntington, Indiana, in 1879, Mr. Alpaugh embarked in the drug business for himself and conducted a store there for about five years, but sold it out at the end of that time and went into the lumber business with his brother-in-law.  They operated under the name of Slack & Alpaugh, and for more than ten years, Mr. Alpaugh was active in the business, but sold out his interest in 1895 and practically retired from active business for several years.

         Accompanied by his wife, Mr. Alpaugh traveled through the northwestern part of the United States for some time, going as far north as Alaska and then returned to Indiana by way of the Pacific Coast.  They halted in Los Angeles for a time and Mr. Alpaugh was so impressed with Southern California during his brief stay there that he sold his home in Indiana in 1898 and returned to Los Angeles, in and near where he has made his home ever since.

         For about two years Mr. Alpaugh was not actively engaged in business, but in the early part of 1900 he purchased thirty acres of the finest Valencia orange land from L. J. Rose Sunny Slope estate, one of the celebrated fruit ranches of Southern California, and has been engaged as an orange grower since that time.  He makes his home on the ranch, and in addition to having been for many years a large shipper of fruit from his own land, is Vice President of the Citrus Cove Ranch Company.

         In 1911, upon the organization of the Provident Pledge Company of Los Angeles, Mr. Alpaugh, who had devoted himself exclusively to orange growing, was called from his ranch to take the office of President of the concern.  The Provident Pledge Corporation is capitalized at $500,000 and was organized for the purpose of lending money at a minimum rate of interest, with the result that it has served to free Los Angeles, to a great extent, from the loan shark evil.

         Mr. Alpaugh devotes a large part of his time to business, but also continues as one of the large individual orange growers of Southern California.

         During the time he was engaged in the drug business, Mr. Alpaugh took an active interest in scientific matters and was a member of the American Society for the Advancement of Science, but upon retiring from the business he gave up his membership.  He continues his studies of scientific subjects, but his only affiliation outside of business circles is the Jonathan Club of Los Angeles, and the Cazadores Gun Club, near Los Patos.

 

 

 

 

Transcribed by Rhonda Ruick O'Brien.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Pages 463-465, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.  1913.


© 2010 Rhonda Ruick O'Brien.

 

 

 

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