Los Angeles County
Biographies
FREDERICK LINCOLN BORUFF
BORUFF, FREDERICK
LINCOLN, Farmer and Land Developer, San Fernando,
Cal., was born at Clear Creek, Ind.,
on the 31st of March, 1865. The son of
William Henry Boruff and Margaret Eleanor Foster, he comes of sturdy fighting
stock – a fact well illustrated by his own progressive career. His paternal grandfather was a General in the
Finn army at the age of twenty-six, and his grandmother, who was a descendant
of Sir Robert Nesbitt, was born on the battle ground of Bannockburn.
Mr. Boruff married Mrs. K. C. Porter (formerly Katie Anne Caystile) at San Fernando, February 25,
1908.
Mr. Boruff
received all his actual school education in the public schools of Indiana and left the
grammar school in 1881, at the age of sixteen, to make his own way in the
world. Having inherited a strong taste
for farming, he immediately went to Iowa
to scan the agricultural prospects there.
The absence of an encouraging outlook conspired with a roving
disposition to send him to New Mexico,
where for two years he “punched cattle.”
In 1883 Mr.
Boruff returned to Macedonia,
Iowa, farmed
for two more years and then entered the journalistic field as owner and editor
of the Botana Valley News, a non-partisan weekly devoted chiefly to agricultural
interests. During his editorship he
developed a keen interest in the political situation in Iowa and soon became an aggressive
Democrat. Throwing all the weight of his
influence into the cause, he materially aided his party to win the first State
success the Democrats of Iowa had known for twenty-five years. Partly in reward for his efforts he was
appointed in 1886 Chief Deputy Auditor of Pottawattamie County
under Ira F. Hendricks.
Politics becoming
distasteful to him, Mr. Boruff resigned his office and early in 1887 traveled
for the Western Wheeled Scraper Company of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. During the next three years he covered the
greater part of the United
States, doing a large jobbing business and
acquiring a knowledge of men and detail of which he
subsequently had occasion to avail himself.
In July, 1890,
Mr. Boruff went to Chicago and entered the real
estate business, with offices in the old Lakeside Building. For ten years he was a successful realty
operator, dealing largely in city and suburban property, and doing much to
develop the latter. His interest in
politics, and perhaps the hereditary love of a “good scrap” reviving, he
organized the Tammany Society of Chicago, and from disintegrated elements built
a coherent, harmonious association of thirty-seven thousand members in twelve
hundred precincts. During this time he
became a warm personal friend of William Jennings Bryan, and also a prolific
contributor on political and allied subjects to many papers. The strong attraction that California
and her agricultural and horticultural possibilities had long held for Mr.
Boruff drew him from Chicago
to this State in the fall of 1900. He
first settled in Los Angeles, subsequently
moving to San Fernando, where he has a model
farm and the largest private nursery in California. This property contains more than 700,000
stock trees, chiefly of oranges, lemons and olives. On olive culture he is an enthusiast, second
to none in that part of the world. He
has studied the subject in practically all of its phases; historic, economic
and botanic. He sees a wonderful future
for the industry in California,
once the importance and feasibility of extensive olive culture are generally
realized. To him the fertility of California’s soil and
the magic of her climate seem limitless in their power for good. He believes that there is no effective
medicament that cannot either be found or produced in that State. He terms California the “Drug Store of the World,” in
the best sense of that therapeutic phrase, and cannot understand the slowness
of many native sons to sense the virtues of their birthplace. However, he is not permitting himself to
worry over their want of foresight and enthusiasm, but is devoting his own
energies to the task of justifying his own boundless faith in his adopted
State. He specializes in dry farming and
has become an expert in this branch of agriculture, which promises to
revolutionize farming methods and make arid wastes productive fields.
In 1912, Mr.
Boruff organized the Lake Front Improvement Company, a development concern of
which he is president. This company has
large holdings in the upper end of the San Fernando Valley of California, surrounding the Owens River
Reservoir, with more than five miles of frontage on the lake. The entire tract of the company contains
about 612 acres of land and it is the intention of Mr. Boruff and his
associates, who have already done a large amount of improvement work, to
develop it ultimately into one of the finest residential sections near Los Angeles, with country
homes all through the foothill section in which it lies.
Two features,
upon which work was started soon after the company was incorporated, are a
sportsman’s club, to cost $10,000, which will be the headquarters for hunters
and fishermen, and an elegant country club.
This club will have splendid golf links and other features intended to
make it a leader of its kind in Southern California.
Mr. Boruff was a
delegate to the Farmers’ National Congress in 1891 and is a member of the
National Good Roads Congress, of the Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles, the
Jonathan Club, and the Los Angeles Athletic Club. He is also a Mason, Thirty-second degree, and
was the youngest member of that order in Iowa.
From 1901 to
1905, Mr. Boruff was Manager and Director, Western Development Company; 1902 to
1906, President, Porter Land & Water Company. He is Secretary, Sespe Brownstone Company,
and President, California Packing Case Company.
Transcribed by Bill Simpkins.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 805, International
News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston,
Atlanta. 1913.
© 2011 Bill
Simpkins.
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