Los Angeles County
Biographies
MATHEW W. EVERHARDY
EVERHARDY, MATHEW W., President of the Place Market Company, Los Angeles, Cal., is a native of Leavenworth, Kan., where he was born October 8, 1862, his parents being Jacob Everhardy and Mary P. (Shoemaker) Everhardy.
He was married on May 17, 1893, to Miss Elizabeth A. Platt at Los Angeles, and has two children, John Raymond Everhardy and Elizabeth Everhardy.
Mr. Everhardy’s education was derived from public and private schools in Leavenworth up to the time when he was fifteen years of age, when he began his work of building up a career.
At that age, in the year of 1876, his father, with the assistance of his son, devised a project of going to the Northwest Pacific Coast for the purpose of buying cattle and horses and driving them back across the continent.
They left Leavenworth in a sleigh, crossing the Missouri River on the ice; the journey was a memorable one. They went to Omaha on the Missouri Pacific and thence to San Francisco in an emigrant car attached to a freight train the journey occupying fourteen days over the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads.
From San Francisco Mr. Everhardy and his companions embarked on the old side-wheel steamer The Ancon, for Portland, Ore., the plan being to buy the herds of cattle and horses in eastern Oregon and drive them back across the plains to Cheyenne and Laramie City, the country between being at that time practically an unknown wilderness.
The outfits were purchased at The Dalles, and then on to Prineville, Ore., where the cattle and horses were purchased. When all were collected these amounted to 3600 head, divided into two herds of 1800 each, and the little company started back over the 1400 miles of unknown wilderness, through hostile bands of Indians and presenting every wild-animal terror and every natural drawback that an untraveled wilderness possessed. Mr. Everhardy followed this vocation, hazardous as it was, for four years, with a great degree of success.
His next venture was made at Tombstone, Arizona, the picturesque mining town which was the scene of many early day exciting episodes. Here he embarked in the meat and cattle business with continued success crowning his efforts; so much so that he gradually extended his business to Bisbee and Benson, and he acquired an extensive cattle range on the San Pedro River, in Cochise County, in Arizona.
This proved highly remunerative for a time, but there came a continuous season of droughts which produced such a series of disasters that Mr. Everhardy decided to give up this side of his enterprises, and having heard about the attractions of Southern California, he went to the neighborhood of Santa Ana and Anaheim, locating in 1887. In 1890 he removed to Los Angeles and engaged in business there. He has succeeded to an extent that has placed him among the foremost in the business and financial world of the Southwest.
An indication of the extent of his various business interests is given in the fact of his being the president of the following named corporations, all of which are the creations of his industry and talent:
The Palace Market incorporation, with a wholesale house at Fourth and Central avenue; the Palace Produce Company, at 359-363 Central avenue; the Palace Markets, at 622 South Broadway and 303 South Spring streets, retail stores.
Mr. Everhardy is also a director of the Mexican Associated Oil Company and a member of the Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Home Builders.
He is a member of the Los Angeles Lodge 99, B. P. O. E.; West Gate Los Angeles Chapter, and Los Angeles Commandery, Knights Templar, Royal Arcanum and the Jonathan Club.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 752,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2011 Joyce
Rugeroni.
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