Los Angeles County
Biographies
WILLIS H. BOOTH
BOOTH, WILLIS H., Banking and Real Estate, Los Angeles, California, was born in Winnemucca, Nevada, on February 15, 1874, the son of L. Booth and Ellen Ann (Bratt) Booth. He married Chancie Ferris in Los Angeles, January 21, 1899, and to them there has been born one child, Ferris H. Booth. Mr. Booth missed by five years becoming a son of California, for it was at that age that he was taken to Los Angeles, where he has grown up with the city, being educated in its public schools and the University of California.
His family owning the firm of L. Booth & Sons, a large machinery house of Los Angeles, Mr. Booth, upon the completion of his education, in 1895, entered at once in that business, being made treasurer of the firm. He held this office for approximately thirteen years, becoming a commercial and a civic factor. In 1908 the Booth Company was consolidated with the Smith Machinery Company, under the name of the Smith-Booth-Usher Company, at the present time one of the leaders in its line on the Pacific Coast. Mr. Booth was elected secretary of the new firm, a position he still retains.
Two years prior to the merger of the machinery concerns, Mr. Booth aided in the organization of the Pacific Electric Heating Company, a concern manufacturing electric heating appliances at Ontario, California, and he was elected vice president of it. This company has a large plant as its California base and in addition has branch factories in Chicago, New York, Vancouver, B. C., and Toronto, Canada. The whole put together make it one of the large modern electric industries, with most promising prospects for the future.
Although he devotes a great deal of his time to this corporation’s affairs, Mr. Booth has other interests which claim his attention and into each of which he injects the spirit of progress. He was elected vice president of the Equitable Savings Bank, one of the large Los Angeles financial institutions, in 1908, and still occupies that office. He is also treasurer of the Booth Investment Company, a Booth family corporation, with real estate and other holdings in and about the city. Mr. Booth has been one of the conspicuous men in the growth and improvement of Los Angeles and has figured in practically every movement having for its object the improvement of the city and its establishment as a metropolitan municipality.
He was elected president of the Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles in 1909, and during his administration numerous plans for the upbuilding of the city were originated and carried to a successful issue. One work in which he was most active was the annexation of San Pedro to Los Angeles, a transformation that made Los Angeles a deep water port and placed it in line for the commercial benefits that are sure to accrue to the entire Pacific Coast with the opening of the Panama Canal. Work of building a modern harbor is now in progress and Mr. Booth has been an ardent advocate of this at all times.
He was president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the Pacific Coast in 1910, and under his leadership a commercial delegation, made up of leading men in all the organizations in the association, toured the Orient in a study of conditions and to devise means for increasing American strength in that part of the world.
He is Commander of Los Angeles Commandery No. 9, Knights Templar, and holds membership in the leading clubs of his city, among them the Jonathan Club, Sunset Club, California Club and the Los Angeles Country Club.
Mr. Booth has been an ardent supporter of higher education. He has recently been honored by being chosen a director of Occidental College.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 443,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2010 Joyce
Rugeroni.
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BIOGRAPIES