Los Angeles County
Biographies
ERNEST ALVAH HERON
HERON, ERNEST
ALVAH, President, Oakland Traction Company, Oakland, Cal.,
was born in Galena, Ill.,
May 18, 1852, the son of Samuel Buttles Heron and
Jane (Tippett) Heron.
His paternal ancestors came to this country from Scotland
and settled in New England; on the maternal side his
forbears were English.
On June 15, 1892,
Mr. Heron was married in Stockton
to Miss Elizabeth Mead Dudley, daughter of the well known attorney of that
city, and their children are William Dudley and Ernest Heron, Jr.
From 1859 to 1867
he attended the public schools in Galena,
two years of this period as a student in the high school, which he left, when
he was sixteen years of age, to become a bookkeeper in a business house of his
native town. After a few months of this
occupation, he traveled through the Northwest as a salesman for wholesale
grocery houses until 1871, when poor health forced him to relax his activities.
In April, 1873,
Mr. Heron came to California and
went to work as a bookkeeper for Myers Truett, a
speculator in lands and similar investments.
Within a few months, however, he shifted to San
Luis Obispo, where for about a half year he was
employed, again as a bookkeeper, by Goldtree
Brothers. He then returned to San
Francisco and to Myers Truett, but at the
end of three months entered the Custom House as an inspector, a position which
he retained until December, 1875, when he moved to Oakland
and became the private secretary of E. C. Sessions, a banker and real estate
operator.
Mr. Heron’s
interests on the east side of the bay have been wide and varied and have
contributed much to the development of that part of the State. His initiative and progressive instincts were
too pronounced to permit him to hold, for any length of time, a subordinate
position. In 1876 he was one of the
organizers of the Highland Park-Fruitvale Railway, and in the following year he
entered the real estate business on his own account. In this he was active for twenty-five years,
devoting much of his energy to car line extension, as a practical means of
aiding, not only his own business, but also the community in which he
lived. His most important step, perhaps,
in this direction was the part he played in 1889, as one of the organizers of the
Piedmont Cable Railroad Company, of which he became president. This was absorbed by the present Oakland
Traction Company, a corporation which Mr. Heron has served as president since
1895. He was also one of the organizers
and the president of the San Francisco, Oakland
and San Jose Consolidated Railway, now known as the Key
Route. This
is one of the most important urban and interurban electric transportation
systems in the United States,
connecting San Francisco with the
other bay cities. Its western station is
built in deep water in the middle of San Francisco
bay, and is connected to the mainland by one of the longest piers in the world,
over which the trains fly at a high rate of speed. A line of high-speed ferries runs from San
Francisco to the pier station. His tendencies have always been commercial,
and these he has developed to the considerable gain of the East Side
cities.
Chief among the
activities with which Mr. Heron has become identified are the Realty Syndicate,
of which the (sic) was formerly vice president, and the First National Bank of Oakland,
wherein he is a director. He is also
chairman of the building committee of the Oakland Hotel, and vice president of
the Bay Cities Securities Company. He is
a member of the Oakland Chapter, No. 36, R. A. M. and of the Oakland Commandery, No. 11, K. T.
His clubs are the Athenian, the Claremont Country and the Home Club, of Oakland,
and the Bohemian of San Francisco.
Transcribed 6-1-08
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 48,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2008 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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