Los
Angeles County
Biographies
COLONEL PIUS JAMES DURBIN
Colonel Pius James Durbin, a
resident of Vernon, Los Angeles County, is one of Southern California’s most
picturesque and interesting characters.
He has become widely known as an extensive landowner, public-spirited
citizen and community developer, being one of the principal promoters of the
Vernon manufacturing district, and he also gained distinction at one time as
the largest hog raiser in the United States, as an expert and national known
veterinarian and horse breeder, and as an intimate and lifelong friend and
associate of the late William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) during the adventurous
days when the Indians roamed the plains.
Colonel Durbin was born in Estill
County, Kentucky, April 25, 1866, a son of William Barker Durbin and a grandson
of Pius Durbin, both of whom were born on the same farm. His great-great-grandfather, Hayden D.
Durbin, immigrated from England to the old Virginia
colony in 1712, in company with William Barker, who was of Basque French
origin. The Durbin’s and Barker’s were
early settlers of Kentucky and the town of Covington in that state is the
result of their subdividing and colonizing efforts. Representatives of the two families, who
intermarried, still reside in that vicinity, and at one time owned all the land
comprising Estill County, purchasing it at twelve and one-half cents an
acre. Frank Durbin, great-grandfather of
Colonel Durbin, was twice married and had thirteen children by each wife. His twenty-six children were evenly divided
in sex, there being seven sons and six daughters by one marriage and six sons
and seven daughters by the other union, all of whom lived to marry and have
families of their own. One of the
grandmothers of Colonel Durbin reached the advanced age of one hundred and
three years. She passed away in King
City, Missouri, and was buried at Cameron, Missouri. William B. Durbin, the father of Colonel
Durbin lived eight miles from Covington, Kentucky, and devoted his attention to
the pursuits of farming and stockraising.
He is survived by his wife, now ninety-two years old, who makes her home
in Kansas City, Missouri. Four sons and
four daughters of the family are also living.
When Pius James Durbin was still
quite young the family moved to King City, Missouri, to buy land on the
Comstock Purchase. He remained on the
home place with his father until he had attained his majority and after leaving
Missouri homesteaded in Kansas and Nebraska.
Subsequently he made his way to Colorado, engaging in the livery and
stage business for twenty-one years, at Denver, Colorado Springs and Cripple
Creek. He had two claims and preempted a
homestead. At the age of thirty-two
years he went to northern Minnesota, where he acted as superintendent of a
“company farm” for two years and then returned to Colorado, where he remained
for a similar period. When thirty-seven
years old he came to what is now Vernon, California, and here leased and bought
land. He owned a tract of eleven acres
and devoted his attention to the hog-raising business on an extensive scale for
a period of nine years, having the garbage contract in Los Angeles. One year his hogs, which were of the Duroc
Jersey breed, numbered thirty-six thousand, and he became widely known as the
“red hog man.” He and others leased land
in Arizona, raising hogs and sheep, and establishing The Red Hog Livestock and Immuning Company in Phoenix, of which Company Colonel
Durbin was president. His activities as
a hog raiser began early in life when he was given two sows in payment for
husking corn for his father. Eventually
he became an extensive dealer. He is now
one of the largest landowners of Los Angeles and Orange counties, his holdings
in the latter county, leased and owned, embracing
twenty thousand acres. Colonel Durbin
was one of the small group of men, including Messrs.
Furlong and Leonis, who leased the Vernon land they
owned to the numerous factory proprietors represented here, and he was largely
instrumental in making this an exclusive manufacturing district. Moreover, he is known throughout the country
for his skill as a veterinarian, knowledge of which profession he acquired by
reading and perfected by experience.
On the 23rd of July,
1902, in the state of Colorado, Colonel Durbin was united in marriage to Anna
Major, a native of Evansville, Indiana.
They became the parents of two children, Adeline Nellie and William
Amos, both of whom are deceased.
Colonel Durbin gives his political
allegiance to the Democratic Party and has served on the board of trustees of
Vernon for the past twenty-eight years.
Interested in the cause of education, he is a director of the Vernon
high school and was on the building committee.
In religious faith he is a Catholic.
The Colonel belongs to the Ancient Order of Cowboy Rangers and was
initiated into the order with Buffalo Bill at Denver. As stated above, he was an intimate friend of
“Buffalo Bill,” in whose company he shot buffalo on the Smoky River and on the line
of the Texas Pacific Railroad in his youth and of whom he was an associate in
the early days of Denver and the mining camps.
In later life he spent a month each year with Cody’s Wild West Show. Clad in the garb of the western plains, he
rides annually in the Los Angeles Fiesta parades, and in countless other ways
he perpetuates the old spirit and color of the early west.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. III, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 373-375, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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