Los Angeles County
Biographies
ALBERT JAMES CONDEE
CONDEE, ALBERT JAMES, Mining, Los Angeles, California, was born in Vinton County, Ohio, May 1, 1859, the son of Dr. Asa Condee and Eliza J. (Isminger) Condee. He married Tillie Y. Linville at San Bernardino, California, on December 20, 1881, and they have one child, Ruth Marie Condee.
Mr. Condee attended the public schools of his native county, and later attended Heald’s Business College at San Francisco, California, being graduated from there in 1877. He first arrived in California from St. Louis, Missouri, in March, 1874, locating at San Diego. His first employment in the Golden State was with the Stonewall Jackson Mine, located at Julian, California. This property was later purchased by ex-Governor Waterman of California. Mr. Condee spent the year 1876 in San Bernardino and in the year 1877 went to San Francisco, where he attended college.
In January, 1878, he went to Arizona and took a position as agent for a firm of Government contractors who had the contract for furnishing mule transportation for all Government freight in the Territory. They also handled the freight for merchants in Tucson, Prescott, Phoenix, Globe and other points, besides most of the mining machinery going into the Territory that year.
This was before the Southern Pacific Railroad had reached Fort Yuma, and most of the freight was carried by water from San Francisco to Yuma by way of the Gulf of California. In 1879 the Southern Pacific Railroad had crossed the Colorado River and commenced building east.
The Indians were then quite numerous and it required a great many soldiers at the different posts to keep them on the reservations. While Mr. Condee was not connected with the army in any way, he was acquainted with a great many of the noted army officers and Indian fighters, among them General Fremont, General Craig and others. Besides the military friendships he had formed, Mr. Condee enjoyed a wide acquaintance among the prominent mining men and merchants of the Territory. He it was who made the contract for transportation of the first mining machinery that was taken into Tombstone, Arizona, hauling it with mules.
After spending two years in Arizona, Mr. Condee returned to San Bernardino (1880) and engaged in the drug business there. He married there and conducted his drug business for about two years, when he turned his attention to other matters. In 1884 he became interested in large tracts of timber land and in water and power development in the San Bernardino Mountains. In 1885 he held leases on nine thousand acres of land, then used for grazing purposes, but which now includes the sites of the towns of Rialto and Bloomington, California. He followed this, in 1886, with the acquisition of a large tract of land in the northern part of the San Jacinto Valley and there engaged in grain raising on a large scale, having two thousand acres under cultivation at one time.
Later Mr. Condee became interested in the Bear Valley Irrigation Company and in 1891 was one of the organizers of the Alessandro Irrigation District, formed under the Wright Irrigation Law. He was by this time recognized as one of the substantial men of the community and in 1893, after taking part in the formation of the County of Riverside, California, was elected its first county clerk. He served in that office for two terms, relinquishing it to re-enter business.
In 1900 he went back to mining, making his headquarters in Los Angeles, and he has continued in it down to the present. He became associated in December, 1903, with Frederick H. Rindge, a California capitalist, and was sent to Colombia, South America, where he remained for two years in charge of mining interests for himself and associates. Upon completion of his work there he returned to Los Angeles and in 1906 was engaged in mining in California and Mexico, and in 1907 was sent to Alaska to look after the interests of the Three Friends Mining Company. There he spent the seasons of 1907, 1908, and 1909 and 1910, being in charge of the dredging on the Solomon River. The winter of 1910 Mr. Condee spent in New York City and while there disposed of the Three Friends Mine to the American Tobacco Company. It is recorded that a dredge on this mine took out one-half million dollars in twenty-one working months.
Mr. Condee inherited his liking for the mining business from his father, who was one of the pioneers of California in 1849. The elder Condee succeeded in taking out more than $50,000 from placer mines on the Feather River in California and returned to Ohio in 1853. He studied medicine and continued in the profession for more than twenty-five years, but still retained his interest in mining and other lines of activity. In 1866 he sank two oil wells in Ohio and in 1870 became interested in the development of large tracts of coal lands in the southwestern part of Missouri. In the early seventies he also acquired an extensive tract of iron land in southern Missouri and built a large iron furnace, but owing to the financial panic of 1873-1874 the venture proved unsuccessful.
The spirit of the pioneer was handed down to his son by Dr. Condee and the younger man’s life has been one of intense activity, often carrying him into places untouched by the developer’s hand. He has the distinction of having traveled from the Equator to the Arctic Circle in the same year. He made his first trip to Los Angeles in 1874 in a stage coach and also made his first journey from Los Angeles to Arizona in a stage. During his long service as a business man and in public office, Mr. Condee has been called upon to perform various duties in connection with the upbuilding of the country and has taken an active part in the history-making of the Southwest.
Mr. Condee is an ardent believer in the future of Los Angeles and the Southwest and is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of any movement that has for its object their betterment.
He is still in active business, having had charge of the Rindge Company’s mining interests since 1903, the properties being scattered in South America, Alaska, Mexico and California. He is also president of the Moapa Gypsum Company.
He is a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the Los Angeles Chamber of Mines and Oil, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Fraternal Brotherhood.
Transcribed 6-2-09
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 289, International
News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston,
Atlanta. 1913.
© 2009 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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