Los Angeles County
Biographies
KARL KEENER KENNEDY
KENNEDY, KARL KEENER, Secretary, Pierce-Kennedy Brokerage Company, Los Angeles, California, was born in Des Moines, Iowa, January 1, 1876. He is the son of Josiah Forest Kennedy and Mary Catherine (Reigart) Kennedy, descended of Scotch and Irish stock which traces back for more than three hundred years. His great-great-granduncle was Lord North, Prime Minister of England during the reign of King George III, upon whose shoulders much of the responsibility for the Revolutionary War was placed. Lord North’s sister was married to William Kennedy, great-great-grandfather of Mr. Kennedy, a notable Scotchman of the times. An earlier member of the Kennedy family is believed to have been James Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrews during the reign of King James II.
Mr. Kennedy attended the grammar and high schools of Des Moines, graduating from the latter in the class in 1895. He then spent three years in the University of Tennessee. Leaving college in 1898, Mr. Kennedy was appointed Assistant Secretary of the State Board of Medical Examiners, of which his father was Secretary and served in that capacity for about a year and a half.
Resigning his position with the State Board in 1900, Mr. Kennedy went to Phoenix, Arizona, where he engaged in the banking business for a short time in the employ of the Valley Bank of that city.
In 1901 Mr. Kennedy visited Los Angeles for a short time, then returned to his home in Des Moines, where he became interested in the insurance business. He was thus engaged for the next two years, his travels taking him to many parts of the West, including Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. He made his headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
Mr. Kennedy organized the Occidental Oyster Company at Bay Center, Washington, in 1903, and this has since come to be one of the important enterprises of that section. For some time he took an active part in the management of the company, but other duties caused him to give up the work, although he still retains an interest in the concern.
Leaving the Northwest in 1906, Mr. Kennedy went to Los Angeles and there started the formation of the Occidental Life Insurance Company. This corporation, which is now one of the firmly established insurance enterprises of California, had a somewhat precarious beginning, due to the San Francisco disaster. Mr. Kennedy, who had entire charge of the sale of stock for the company, had disposed of all but $15,000 worth of the issue, and a meeting had been called for April 19, 1906, to consider the disposal of this balance. On April 18, San Francisco was visited by fire and earthquake, thus upsetting financial conditions throughout the Pacific Coast country.
When the company finally was organized, Mr. Kennedy was chosen Secretary, Director and Superintendent of Agents. He also had the honor of nominating Honorable Edwin H. Conger, former American Minister to China, the man who was the official representative of this country during the Boxer uprising, for first President of the Company. Although he had worked hard for the organization of the Company, Mr. Kennedy remained with it less than a year, resigning his offices in 1907, to go into the brokerage business. He made a specialty of Mexican lands and his investigations took him frequently into the wild regions of the West Coast of Mexico. On one of his trips through the Tepic district, before the Southern Pacific Railroad had been built into the country, Mr. Kennedy had an encounter that nearly cost him his life.
Owing to the intense heat he, like many others, traveled by horseback at night. He was making his way through the mountains on one of these trips when he was suddenly held up by bandits. He resisted the demands of the robbers and finally, after a struggle, escaped them. This was an incident characteristic of the West Coast at that time, when Yaqui Indians and native bandits were continually on the lookout for travelers.
Returning to the United Stated in 1908, Mr. Kennedy organized the Walker-Heck Oil Company and engaged in oil operation in California, also going in for mining at Goldfield, Nevada, where he worked the Commonwealth property for some time.
He remained in these lines less than three years, however, giving up both in 1911, to assist in the organization of the Pyramid Investment Company, of which he is a Director.
This company, which is made up of Los Angeles business men, was organized for the purpose of building and selling homes, a field of operation unique in Los Angeles and one which has resulted in greatly increasing the population of the city. Mr. Kennedy was an active factor in launching the company and later, in the same year, upon the organization of the Pierce-Kennedy Brokerage Company, in which his brother, W. H. Kennedy, is one of the principal figures, Mr. Kennedy became associated with the company as Secretary and Director. In addition to these, he is a Director of the Lancaster Land and Loan Company.
Mr. Kennedy, aside from his business activities, is prominent in fraternal circles, being a Thirty-second Degree Mason. He also holds membership in the Metropolitan Club of Los Angeles.
Transcribed
11-14-10 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 550, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
© 2010 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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