Los Angeles County
Biographies
FREDERICK TOMLINSON GRIFFITH
GRIFFITH, FREDERICK TOMLINSON, Business Man, Los Angeles, California, was born in that city October 15, 1863. He is the son of John McKim Griffith and Sarah (West) Griffith. He married Eleanor Hurd at Syracure (sic), New York, June 1, 1894, and to them there was born one child, Margaret Griffith.
The Griffiths are of Welsh origin and one of the oldest and most aristocratic families in America. They settled in Maryland in Colonial days, and the men served in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Mr. Griffith’s father went to California in 1853, located in Los Angeles seven years later and there became one of the leading lumbermen of the period. In addition to his lumber operations, he operated stages between Los Angeles and Wilmington, Cal., and later to Yuma, Ariz., in opposition to that other noted California pioneer, Hon. Phineas Banning.
F. T. Griffith received his preliminary education in the public schools of Los Angeles and later attended St. Matthew’s Military Academy at San Mateo, Cal., being graduated in 1884. He then spent a year at Ross’ Finishing Academy, at Media, Pa.
Returning to Los Angeles in 1885, Mr. Griffith entered the employ of his father, then operating the Griffith-Lynch Lumber Company. Although he began at the bottom, Mr. Griffith advanced rapidly and in 1890, less than five years from the time he started, had passed from yard laborer to the position of foreman, then into the sales department and finally to the position of General Manager.
After handling the company’s business successfully for two years, Mr. Griffith, in 1892, obtained a leave of absence and went to Europe, where he remained for two years. Returning in 1894, he resumed the management of the lumber company for two years, then became Secretary of the Western Commercial Company of Los Angeles, a cement, lime and plaster concern. At the end of a year he returned to his father’s company and for the next few years devoted himself to handling its affairs. As the representative of the company on the Los Angeles Board of Trade he was elected a Director of the body in 1900 and served for a year.
In 1905 the elder Griffith sold his lumber company, dying shortly afterwards, and Mr. Griffith then spent several years traveling in various parts of the United States. Part of the time he devoted to looking over oil and mining property in the West.
Mr. Griffith became a stockholder and salesman of the Riverside Portland Cement Company in 1910 and since his connection with it has been an influence in building the company up to proportions it had never known before. In addition to this he has other interests, having become one of the organizers, in 1912, of the Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company of California, an enterprise which gives promise of becoming one of the important industries of the Southwest. The company controls a large deposit of rock salt of the richest quality in Death Valley and also a fine deposit of gypsum, used in the manufacture of wall plaster. In the enterprise Mr. Griffith is associated with a number of the leading business men of Los Angeles. He holds the office of Vice President and General Manager.
Mr. Griffith is associated in the Oro Del Norte Co. of San Francisco, which is engaged in the extraction of gold and platinum from magnetized iron beach sand (known as “black sand”), by a special process. The company owns a plant at Crescent City, California, Mr. Griffith being a member of the Board of Directors and Business Manager.
He is a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, of the Los Angeles Country Club, Jonathan Club of Los Angeles, also the Bohemian Club and Southern Club of San Francisco.
Transcribed 7-7-09
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 314,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2009 Marilyn R. Pankey.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPIES