JOSEPH FREDERICK MAIER

Los Angeles County

Biographies

JOSEPH FREDERICK MAIER

MAIER, JOSEPH FREDERICK (deceased), former President Maier Brewing Co., Los Angeles, Cal., was born in Los Angeles, June 21, 1876, the son of Joseph Maier and Mary (Schmidt) Maier. He died April 11, 1909, at Los Angeles.

Mr. Maier attended the public schools of Los Angeles and its High School, where he graduated.

His professional training began while he was still attending school and college. He worked in the various departments of the brewery, of which his father was president, and won considerable practical experience.

After finishing his course in the Los Angeles High School, he entered the Wahl & Henius Brewery Academy of Chicago, where he received a thorough training in the science and practice of brewing, as carried on in this country and Germany. He was prepared in every way to undertake the management of the great business of his father.

Although he died at the early age of thirty-three, Fred Maier had already succeeded in making himself one of the most prominent and best liked business men in the city of Los Angeles. He fell heir to the control of the business of his father, Joseph Maier, on the latter’s death in 1905. The business was of great magnitude, but he pushed in forward on an even larger scale. He became known for his exceptional generosity, both in public and in private life, and he gave a hearing to every worthy cause. He felt a strong civic pride and interested himself in everything that meant the advance of his city.

When he took hold, as president, in 1905, the concern was already the most important brewery in Los Angeles, and one of the largest on the Pacific Coast. His father had practically created the great business, transforming it from the little Philadelphia brewery with its single building to an institution employing hundreds of men and covering acres of ground. He took control so thoroughly and with such tact that the transition was scarcely felt, and then by his liberal business policy he developed an even greater volume of business.

In 1909, when his last illness seized him prematurely, the Maier Brewery consisted of a dozen buildings, two to six stories high. It had clarifying cellars, bottling plant, stables, garage, stock houses, blacksmith shops, paint shops, malt houses, laboratories, pharmaceutical department, malt kilns, mill house, brew house, malt elevators, refrigerating cellars and all the other essentials of a great modern brewery. The business was conducted in a manner to win the respect and good will of all business connections. The estimated value of the plant was nearly $2,000.000.

He interested himself in sports, and especially baseball, and was one of the chief men in the Vernon Athletic Association, and was its president. This association organized the Vernon Baseball Club, one of the baseball teams of the Pacific Coast League. He furnished the bulk of the capital necessary to finance the team, and supported it for the amusement of the city of Los Angeles even in the days long before it got on a paying basis.

He was president, also succeeding his father, of the L. A. County Improvement Co., which owned Chutes Park, one of the most important places of amusement in Los Angeles. Chutes Park occupies a valuable tract of land near the heart of the city.

The estate, which with his brother, who was secretary and treasurer of the Maier Brewing Co., he administered, owned considerable property in the downtown and suburban districts of Los Angeles, and this also he administered so that it gained in value.

One of his chief accomplishments while in control of the brewery was the extension of its markets. He established branch houses in nearly every important town in Southern California, in Nevada, and in Arizona. He stated dozens of thriving agencies in places not large enough to support branch houses. The installation of the branch houses in itself represented a heavy outlay in capital.

He was a popular club man, and was asked to join nearly every club of social importance in Los Angeles. He belonged to Los Angeles Lodge No. 42, F.&.A.M., and in 1902 he was elected Master of the Lodge, an unusual honor for one so young. He belonged to the Consistory, Knights Templar, Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., and other secret societies. He was a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He was an active member also of the Jonathan Club, the Recreation Gun Club, and the Chico Gun Club, exclusive social organizations of Los Angeles.

His interest in public affairs was always lively. He was a member of a number of the public improvement clubs, and his support could always be depended upon.

Transcribed 11-16-11 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 855, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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