Los Angeles County

Biographies


 

 

WILBER OLIN DOW

 

 

DOW, WILBER OLIN, Real Estate and Investments, Los Angeles, California, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 21, 1860, the son of Justin Sylvanius Dow and Naomi (Moore) Dow. His grandfather was John Wesley Dow, a noted Methodist clergyman descended of Lorenzo Dow, the noted ecclesiast, who served the Methodist Church for many years in the early part of the Eighteenth century and later became an international figure through his joining the Catholic Church and because of his eccentricities and zeal. Mr. Dow married Irene Eladsit Bowen at Santa Cruz, California, December 26, 1886, and to them there have been born five children, Tisdale, Justin, Wilber O., Jr., Naomi A. (deceased), Ione E. and Adelaide D. Dow.

            Mr. Dow received the first part of his education in the public schools of Minneapolis and continued his studies at intervals on the Pacific Coast, attending school in San Mateo, California, Pescadero and Los Angeles. He was graduated from the Los Angeles Business College in 1878, when he was less than eighteen years of age.

            Mr. Dow, whose life has been a progression of successes won by hard work, has risen from chore boy on a farm to the direction of a corporation with a million dollars of capital and is today engaged in one of the most gigantic home-building enterprises in the Southwest, where all records in this respect have been shattered within recent years. He spent his early days upon the farm of his father and moved with his parents, in 1875, to California. At that time the Southern Pacific was the only main line railroad in the State, although he traveled on the Central Pacific to Sacramento. From there the family went to San Francisco by boat and in 1876 Mr. Dow located in Los Angeles, then a city of about five thousand inhabitants.

            During all the time he was attending school Mr. Dow was engaged in work of one sort or another, including farming and contracting, but when he finished his business course in 1878 he went into the railroad business in the service of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. His first work was in the surveying department, which he followed for several years, then he became a civil engineer and from this went to firing a locomotive. He “fired” for about seventeen months between Los Angeles and Tucson, Arizona, at a time when travel over the desert in this section was a matter of hardship, but he stuck to his post and was rewarded in the early part of 1882 with appointment as locomotive engineer. He served in this capacity until the fall of 1887, the last two years of this time as engineer of the “Overland Limited.” Even in those early days Mr. Dow was noted as one of the most capable men who sat at a throttle, he having developed as high as seventy-three miles an hour with his train at one time. Devotion to duty has been one of the man’s strongest characteristics and in his engineering days has been known to remain at his post for sixty-three hours on a stretch, without sleep or rest.

            While serving as an engineer, Mr. Dow was also interested in a variety of small commercial enterprises and when he gave up railroading on account of ill health, he decided to devote himself to his private business. Within a short time after he quit the road he went into partnership with Walter Mallard, later Assessor of the city of Los Angeles, in the wholesale coal business, they purchasing the holdings of Mellus & Dickerson. Their yards were located at that time on Fourth and Broadway, the principal retail thoroughfares of Los Angeles. On the site there now stands a large modern department store.

            Mr. Dow disposed of his interest in the property later and purchased the coal business of Walter Maxwell & Company, another large wholesale concern, and this he conducted until 1890, when he sold out and engaged in the real estate, mining and investment business. He had for a partner in his realty operations L. M. Grider, and continued in association with him for about seven years. At that time the partnership was dissolved and Mr. Dow organized the Dow Real Estate Company, a corporation of which he was president. About the same time he organized the Home Real Estate Company, subdividing large tracts of land and building homes. Both of these ventures proved successful, but Mr. Dow, in time, closed out his interests and became identified with the Pasadena Park & Improvement Company as General Manager, in which capacity he had charge of the subdivision of Pasadena Heights, containing 320 acres.

            Upon the completion of this work Mr. Dow sold out his interest and after four years, in which he looked after his other investments, organized the Sunset Park Land Company and the Dow, Smith Company, in both of which he was President and General Manger.

            Mr. Dow still is interested in these companies, in addition to the Central California Farms Company, of which he is Vice President and General Manager, but the greatest work of his life and the one to which he devotes the greater part of his time at present is the Railway Realty and Investment Company. This corporation, which was organized by Mr. Dow and his associates in June, 1911, is unique in that it is owned by railroad men, operated by railroad men and devoted to the interests of railroad men. It is one of the most substantial and active development corporations in the United States, serving the two-fold purpose of building homes and cultivating the agricultural resources of Southern California and of providing safe investment for the railroad man that he may have something tangible to rely upon when “the age limit” shall have put him out of active service.

            Within the first nine months of its operation the company had $300,000 of paid-in capital and had declared four dividends on a basis of twelve per cent per annum and is today engaged in the building of homes and the handling of more than 46,000 acres of fertile orange land in the famous Delano-Porterville orange district of California, which is being held for the men of the railway service.

            Mr. Dow, having spent so many years in the real estate business in Los Angeles, has had an active part in the upbuilding of the city and surrounding territory and is firmly of the opinion that it will rank with the great centers of the world.

            He has devoted a large part of his time to the education of his children and one of his sons is today a celebrated artist and caricaturist. He is a home lover, but at the same time a man of affairs. Always a staunch supporter of the Republican party, he has supported its candidates and many years ago was one of the active campaigners in behalf of Milton Lindley, candidate for County Treasurer of Los Angeles.

            Mr. Dow was a member of the National Guard of California for many years, in Company A of the First Regiment. He was a charter member of the Union League of Los Angeles.

 

 

 

Transcribed by Marie Hassard 11 October 2010.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 529, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.  1913.


© 2010 Marie Hassard .

 

 

 

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