WESLEY J. BRYANT

Los Angeles County

Biographies

WESLEY J. BRYANT

BRYANT, WESLEY J., Real Estate Speculator, Los Angeles, California, was born in Greenville, Drake County, Ohio, on April 2, 1862. His father was Enos Bryant and his mother Sarah A. (Townsend) Bryant. He is a near relative of David Bryant, an early pioneer. Mr. Bryant married Mary A. Williams on January 9, 1888, at Cherokee, Iowa and to them there have been born two children, Hazel Hope and Arley Tennyson Bryant.

Mr. Bryant received his education in the public schools of Woodbury County and Cherokee, Iowa, graduation from the high school of the latter place. He studied law, but did not apply for admission to the Bar, therefore never practiced his profession, preferring to go into the merchandise business.

When he was seven years of age (1869) Mr. Bryant moved with his parents to Michigan, but they stayed there only one year, and then moved to Woodbury County, in the northeast part of Iowa, a spot in the wilderness where they endured the hardships and perils of frontier life. When he was twenty-one years of age Mr. Bryant was teaching school, and while so occupied devoted much of his leisure time for a space of three years to the study of law, in which he could have qualified. Later, however, he followed the merchandise business for five years, a line in which he attained a considerable degree of success.

At the conclusion of this period he went to California and located at Palms, a suburb of Los Angeles, where he bought considerable property. He opened real estate offices (1890) in the Natick House, Los Angeles, and shortly afterwards was appointed to the office of Justice of the Peace of Ballona Township for a three-year term. At the expiration of that term he was again elected for the following term of four years. A notable record which he made is that during all his term of office no appeals from his decisions ever resulted in a reversal by a higher court. At the close of his second term as Justice, Mr. Bryant devoted his time to real estate, a field in which he as attained prominence because of his handling numerous large deals which have been part of the advancement of the City of Los Angeles and vicinity, his word always being as good as a bond among his business associates.

Mr. Bryant has at all times taken a keen interest in public affairs and is one of the men who has been concerned in various movements having for their object the improvement of his adopted city. He was actively connected with the Citizens’ Improvement Association, an organization which has done much to build up Los Angeles’ most beautiful residential section, and he is now President of the Ninth Ward Improvement Association. Both of these bodies, in which Mr. Bryant is a dominant factor, have been important links in the chain of modern upbuilders in the Southwest. In addition to his real estate and building activities, Mr. Bryant is an ardent worker for educational and for good road improvement. In state and National politics he is a staunch Republican, and in local affairs has worked with the Good Government forces.

He is President of the Good Government organization of Boyle Heights, a populous section of the city, and is a member of the Good Government Committee of Los Angeles proper. In recent years this party, which is non-partisan, has become an influential force in the politics of Los Angeles. He is First Vice President of the Ohio Society, an organization of Buckeye State natives; has been a member of the Knights of Pythias for 27 years, and also belongs to the Woodmen of the World. Mr. Bryant, who enjoys the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens, has succeeded in every enterprise in Los Angeles that he has undertaken, and is very popular.

Transcribed By: Michele Y. Larsen on 10 December 2011.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 908, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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