Los Angeles County
Biographies
JAMES WILLIAM JAMESON
JAMESON, JAMES WILLIAM, Capitalist, Los Angeles, California, was born in Humboldt County, California, June 9, 1862, the son of Benjamin T. Jameson and Martha J. (McDaniel) Jameson. He married Ida M. Smith at Oakland, California, December 9, 1900. He is descended from one of the Southern families whose original members came over from Scotland.
Mr. Jameson, who is known to fame chiefly as the discoverer of the famous Midway Oil fields in California, has had an active and varied career. He attended the public schools of his native county until 1879, but his father, having died a short time prior to this, he gave up his studies to attend to the management of the Jameson farm. He was thus occupied until 1882, when he received appointment as a school teacher and for the next three years he taught in the schools of Humboldt County.
In 1885 Mr. Jameson left the school room and went to work for the Calico Mining & Reduction Company at Daggett, California, as a bookkeeper, but only remained there about a year, resigning in 1886 to conduct the Pahrump Ranch in Nye County, Nevada, in which he had purchased an interest. At the end of another twelvemonth he sold this property and moved to Tehachapi, Kern County, California, where he was engaged in the real estate business for a year and a half.
The teacher instinct was strong in him, however, and in the fall of 1888 he went to San Francisco, there to accept a position as professor of bookkeeping and commercial law in the San Francisco Business College. At the end of six months he resigned and went to Salt Lake City, Utah, where, in company with N. B. Johnson, he established the Salt Lake Business College. They conducted this enterprise jointly for about six years, Mr. Jameson disposing of his interest to his partner in 1895.
During his spare time in Salt Lake Mr. Jameson had taken up the study of law and in 1892 he was admitted to practice before the State Supreme Court of Utah. He left Salt Lake shortly after that, although he still retained his interest in the business college, and again located in Tehachapi, Kern County, and was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court of California. For the first year he was in partnership with Judge T. H. Wells, formerly of Nevada, but they separated at the end of that period and for the next four years Mr. Jameson practiced alone. Owing to the droughts of 1893 to 1897, and the consequent disaster which overcame many of his clients, who were farmers, Mr. Jameson closed his offices, intending to resume practice when conditions became better
He never has, however, for in seeking another line of operation he experienced so much good fortune he has been engaged since that time in looking after his interests. He began looking over mining properties in the West in 1897 and in this way became interested in the contracting business in the desert mining country of California. From this he drifted in 1899, into the mining brokerage business, and it was while thus engaged that he became interested in oil. He went into Kern County, California, as a prospector and locator, with T. J. Wrampelmeier as his partner, and discovered what is now known to the world as the Midway District, judged by experts and shown by facts to be one of the greatest oil producing sections in the world.
In 1900 they made a forty-year lease to a syndicate of veteran Los Angeles oil operators, Messrs. Chanslor, Doheny and Canfield, who were in a position to handle the project property. The tract, which embraced eight thousand acres of what was believed to be very rich oil land, has since become a part of the industrial history of California. The lessees formed a company to drill for oil in various parts of the land and later the Santa Fe Railroad, which had done a great deal towards having oil adopted as a fuel, bought the company’s rights. The railroad company has operated the property since that time.
Mr. Jameson still retains an interest in this property and other oil property, being Vice President and Director of the Mount Diablo Oil Mining & Development Company and a Director in the Ruby Oil Company, but he is equally prominent in other lines, particularly the production of lime. He became interested in lime in Tehachapi and organized the Jameson Lime Company, of which he is still President, General Manager and controlling stockholder. This company owns and operates what is stated to be the largest lime deposits on the Pacific Coast. This property, which is thirty-five hundred acres in extent, also contains valuable fruit lands, and was opened by Mr. Jameson.
Mr. Jameson laid out the original townsites of Taft and Fellows, California, which have since become important towns from a business standpoint. He still owns and leases those original sites.
Mr. Jameson has attained a position among the most substantial business men of Southern California and is today one of the largest operators in that section, having, in addition to his offices in Los Angeles, offices in Tehachapi, Fellows and Taft in Kern County, among which he divides his time.
Besides the actual work he has done in the development of California resources, Mr. Jameson has been a contributor to various mechanical and scientific publications on oil and lime subject, in both of which lines he is regarded as an authority, and these have aided largely in advertising to the world at large the advantages of the State.
Mr. Jameson is one of those men who devote the greater part of their spare time to their homes, and his only outside social affiliation is the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Transcribed 2-24-10
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 377, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
© 2010 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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