Los Angeles County

Biographies

 

 

 

 

WILLIAM E. HAMPTON

 

 

     HAMPTON, WILLIAM E., Manufacturer, Los Angeles, California, was born in Illinois, August 18th, 1852.  His father was William Edward Hampton and his mother Matilda M. (Eastin) Hampton.  He was married to Frances Wilhoit, of Charleston, Illinois, in the private chapel of the Sisters of Providence in Indianapolis, Indiana, by the Right Reverend Francis Silas Chatard, D.D., Bishop of Vincennes.

     At the age of fifteen years he began his first work in the wholesale and retail grocery of Wright-Minton & Co., of Charleston, Illinois.  After working in this establishment for three years he became the traveling agent and cashier for the commission house of C. P. Troy & Co., of New York, remaining in this position until 1876.

     At this time he returned to Charles, Illinois, and established the dry goods house of Ray & Hampton.  In 1879 Mr. Hampton purchased the entire interest of his partner and continued in the dry goods business in his own name very successfully until 1886, when he retired and moved to the Pacific Coast, and after living a retired life and traveling for two years, moved to San Francisco.

     In 1890 he built a factory in San Francisco for the manufacture of patent non-shrinking wooden tanks, and this was the birth of an industry which he has built up until today it is the largest manufacturing concern of its kind in the world.  He managed and conducted the original business for two years in the name of “W. E. Hampton” and then changed the name of the business to “Pacific Tank Co., W. E. Hampton, Proprietor,” and continued the business under this name for eleven years, having established branches and agencies throughout the Pacific Coast States and then had the business incorporated under the name of “Pacific Tank Company,”  Mr. Hampton retaining the presidency and active management of the business.

     In 1898 Mr. Hampton decided to make his home in Los Angeles, moved his residence to this city and built a factory for the manufacture of his product.  In 1904 he built another factory at Olympia, Washington, and when this was destroyed by fire in 1909, he built a factory in Portland, Oregon, giving him a chain of factories in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, from which he ships his product to all parts of the world.  In 1900 Mr. Hampton purchased the controlling interest of the California Redwood Pipe Company and organized as its successor the National Wood Pipe Company.  A year later he branched out into the manufacturing and contracting business on a larger scale in Los Angeles, organizing the Pacific Coast Planing Mill Company, built a large factory and took the active management of this company.

     In 1906, the year of the great fire in San Francisco, Mr. Hampton purchased the stock and business of the Mercantile Box Co. of that city, reorganized it and built the plant which he still owns and operates on Berry street in San Francisco.

     In 1909 the business of the Pacific Tank Company and the National Wood Pipe Company was consolidated under the corporate name of “Pacific Tank & Pipe Company,” the combined business now being under Mr. Hampton’s personal management, and he is today President and General Manager of the manufacturing companies which he has established, Pacific Tank& Pipe Company, Pacific Coast Planing Mill Company, National Wood Pipe Company and Mercantile Box Company, with offices and factories in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon.  He also holds directorships in the following companies and organizations: Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank, Olympia National Bank, Associated Jobbers of Los Angeles, Municipal League of Los Angeles, Columbus Club of Los Angeles, and is President of the Industrial Realty Company of Los Angeles.  He holds a similar position with the Factory Site Company, and is Vice President of the Tidings Publishing Company.

     At the present time he is a member of the Special Harbor Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, which has in its hands the future of the Los Angeles Harbor. This committee is working in conjunction with the civic authorities on plans by which they hope to make it one of the most important ports to be engaged in world trade with the completion of the Panama Canal.

     Mr. Hampton is Past Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus of Loa Angeles, and is a member of the California, Jonathan, Newman, Columbus and Gamut Clubs of Los Angeles and of the Los Angeles Country Club.

 

 

Transcribed 7-23-08 Marilyn R. Pankey.

 Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I,  Page 115, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.  1913.

© 2008 Marilyn R. Pankey.

 

 

 

 

 

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