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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