Los Angeles County
Biographies
HULETT CLINTON MERRITT
Hulett Clinton Merritt, financier, industrialist, and art connoisseur, was born in Duluth, Minnesota, August 17, 1872 (birth certificate No. 2). He is the son of Lewis J. (died in 1932) and Eunice Annette (Wood) (died in 1926) (marriage certificate No. 1). His grandfather, Lewis Howell Merritt, was a pioneer of Minnesota, 1854, homesteading on 160 acres upon which the City of Duluth stands today. He built the first sawmill, sailing freight schooner, hotel, church, jail, and the first frame residence as a home, in which Hulett was born. General Leonard Wood, General Wesley Merritt and General DeWitt Clinton, after which he is named, are members of his family.
Starting life as a poor boy, he graduated from high school at the age of twelve. Notwithstanding an injury to his hip in his fourteenth year and spending eight months in a plaster cast, he graduated at the head of a class of eight hundred from business college, and by his fifteenth year had started selling real estate “on the curb” at Duluth, Minnesota. At seventeen he had made a fortune in the development of Texas City, Texas. At eighteen he was a multimillionaire with a large interest in the Missabe (sic)Range iron mines and was a builder of the Duluth Missabe (sic) and Northern Railway. Before he was twenty-one necessary steps had been taken by his father on his seventeenth birthday to give him his legal majority, and on his twenty-first birthday, he became the youngest railroad president in the world; also was first in the world to lay 110-pound steel railroad rail, lay a mile of track in a day (being three times as much as laid by others), install the first airbrakes on freight cars, build steel cars to haul iron ore, and dispatch railroad trains by telephone.
Mr. Merritt became a director of Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines (Merritt-Rockefeller Syndicate). Later he sold his mining and railroad interests to United States Steel Corporation, becoming the largest stockholder, which he remains to this day.
In 1908 his parents moved to Pasadena, California, and he spent part of his time with them, moving there himself in 1904, and spending six years in constructing his mansion, in which he installed the first indirect electric lighting in the world.
In 1900 he acquired seventy per cent of the capital stock of United Electric, Gas and Power Company and installed the gas and electric systems in Monrovia, Sawtelle, West Los Angeles, and seventeen beach cities from Santa Barbara to San Diego; sold this corporation in 1903 to Southern California Edison Company. During his control of the United Company, Mr. Merritt began his long career of instigating movements and organizations of permanent good to Pasadena, and California.
As owner of the first domestic automobile (1900) in Pasadena, Mr. Merritt imported a special $30,000 Mercedes racing car. In order to facilitate moving of electric light poles and gas pipes along the beach from Ocean Park to Venice, he had paved a narrow strip of sand (now called the Speedway) and after trial runs on this paved strip, he defeated Barney Oldfield in a fifty-mile race (Mr. Oldfield's only defeat in his career). At this time he also organized the Pasadena Automobile Club, first on the Pacific Coast, and alternated as president for many years with Tracy C. Drake of Hotels Drake and Blackstone in Chicago; also instigated the “Good Roads” movement. In 1902, when there was not a mild of paved highway in all of Southern California, he paid the expenses of a drive that ultimately, through education and legislation, resulted in California's marvelous system of highways.
In 1903 he employed experts, in their fields, to plan Orange Grove Avenue as it exists today with its wide parkways and bronze posts for street lighting, widely known as the world's finest residential street.
Mr. Merritt's outstanding local contribution undoubtedly has been the part he played I revitalizing the institution which brings to this city between one and two million visitors each New Year's Day. Forty-one years ago, the merchants who heretofore had sponsored the Tournament of Roses decided to abandon it. When their decision was announced in mid-November, P. M. Green, president of the First National Bank, appealed to Mr. Merritt and William R. Staats to save for Pasadena what was destined to become the world's most beautiful tournament parade. Mr. Staats, because of his many business burdens, was unable to give his time but he lent two of his ablest men who with Mr. Merritt raised the $13,000 necessary to continue the Tournament, solely from the residents of South Orange Grove and Grand Avenues. This accomplishment speedily achieved, the committee of three then decided to do a sensational thing. With not enough time left for public subscription to the enterprise, Mr. Merritt underwrote the new idea of an East-West football game with more than $100,000 of his own, and Pasadenans and their guests witnessed the Michigan-Stanford game, New Year's Day of 1911, from their own 20-acre Tournament Park (since renamed in honor of the late great athlete, newspaperman and Marine World War II hero, (Major Charles W. Paddock.) (sic) Later, the field with its gridiron and grandstands was refinanced by public subscription and Mr. Merritt lost none of the private funds with which he had backed his judgment and daring idea that the Tournament of Roses, plus the Rose Bowl game, would profit Pasadena and its citizens by millions of dollars.
Mr. Merritt is Member No. 1 of the Annandale Golf Club and the Bolsa-Chica Gun Club. He is an honorary life member of the Army-Navy Club of Washington--a courtesy given the 100 American men who contributed most to the winning of World War I in the opinion of the president, his cabinet and the chiefs of staff--a life member of the Congressional Country Club of Washington, D.C.. and a member of the Breakfast and California Clubs, the Los Angeles Athletic Club and the Los Angeles, Catalina Island and Newport Harbor Yacht Clubs. He was chairman of the board of the First Methodist Church of Pasadena for fourteen years. He was among the 100 charter members of the Luther Burbank Society as selected by Andrew Carnegie.
Mr. Merritt's principal participations in public welfare follow: Founder--Birthplace and monument of Abraham Lincoln; founder—Home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; founder and regent—Sulgrave Manor, England, the birthplace of George Washington's father; life member—New England Historical and Geneological (sic)Society; vice president—Society for the Preservation of New England Homes and Antiques; colonel—on the Governor's Staff, State of Minnesota; National committeeman—Young Men's Republican Club; vice president—The American, English, French and Belgian Permanent Blind Relief War Fund (the official list of which embraces practically all kings, queens, presidents of republics, and the most prominent people in the world); national committeeman—American Defense Society; national councilman—representing the State of California in the National Economic League, whose operations are widespread and which counts among its distinguished members former President William Howard Taft, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes of the United States Supreme Court; council—Los Angeles Branch of the National Association of the Boy Scouts of America; national committeeman—Plymouth Ter-Centenary Committee; governor—American Civic Alliance, State of California; founder—Lincoln Farm Association; fellow—American Geographical Society; member-Committee of Patronage, a place reserved by the Board of Administration to personalities of rank, ability and distinction in the “Societe Belge D'Etudes Et D'Espansion,” one of the greatest possible compliments as the organization is for the reconstruction of Belgium, is headed by King Albert of that country and its American membership is limited to fifty of the leading captains of industry of this country; associate--”Asiatic Association,” headed by such men as Lloyd C. Griscom, Charles M. Schwab, John H. Rossiter and others; founder—Navy League of the United States; conference committeeman—National Preparedness; conference committeeman—League to Enforce Peace; member—National Defense League of California; member—American Academy of Political and Social Sciences; member—United Americans, State of New York; member—Better American Federation of California; member—Save the Redwoods League of California; life member—Federal Hall Memorial Hall Associates; member—American Immigration and Distribution League; member—National Aeroplane Defense Fund; and advisory director—California Liberty Fair Association.
He has exceeded all competition in the developing and mining of iron ore; charcoal burning; railroad building and contracting; dredging; operation of steam laundries; linen supply services; steamship lines; beet sugar factories; iron ore docks; chromium mines; general merchandise chains; ladies' ready-to-wear chains; and controlling interest in the rub mines of India. Also has owned the largest Great Lakes deep water fishing industries and been the principal dealer in pine and mineral lands in the world. In addition to the thirty-one lines where he has set world records, he has been the controlling owner of 107 other lines, including gold, silver and coal mining, fruit orchards, real estate, banking, insurance, investments, merchandising (wholesale and retail) and manufacturing in many branches; builder of thousands of miles of telephone lines and operator of many public utilities; lumber, logging, hotels, restaurants and amusement enterprises, cattle ranches, agriculture and horticulture in practically every field, daily newspapers and extensive building operations; builder of Wolvin Building, Duluth, Minnesota; Merritt Office Building in Los Angeles; large pulp and paper mill in Minnesota; 10,000-population water distilling and distributive piping facility; pioneered United States superheated steam power plant, art galleries, day-and-night safety deposit vaults; developed mile-and-one-half-street-frontage housing project in Pasadena. Executor of estate of Lewis J. Merritt; life trustee of estate of Annette W. Merritt, and trustee of R. C. Merritt Trust.
Mr. Merritt has served as president or chairman of the Board of one hundred thirty-eight separate companies. As president: United Electric, Gas & Power Co.; Santa Barbara Consol. Ry.' Merritt Banking & Merc. Co.; Missabe (sic) Co.; Wolvin Building Co.; Spring St. Co.; San Pedro Terminal Gas, Electric & Power Co.; Long Beach, Alamitos Gas, Electric & Power Co.; Hill St. Co.; Merritt Bldg. Co.; Merritt Bond Syndicate; Tagus Ranch Co.; Tagus Ranch Boysenberry Products; Tagus Ranch Super Market; Pacific ?States Corp.; W. H. White Realty Co.; Catalfa Land Co.; Merritt Building Safe Deposit Co.; Alfalfa Growers of Calif.; Bungalow Construction Co..; Irwin Hotel Co.; Continental Co.; Compress Air Hose Cleaning Co.; Hulett C. Merritt & Co.; International Metal Co; (sic) Packwood Canal Co.; Grand Rapids & Northern R.F. Co.; Bueneman Lipsey Co.; Commercial Petroleum Corp.; Merritt Herrig Co.; Tagus Ranch Highway Market; Bliss Ranch Co.; The Arroya Co.; Clifton Hotel Co.; Little Rock Fruitland Co.; San Joaquin Valley Sugar Co.; Biwabik Iron Co.; Missabe (sic) Mountain Iron Co.; Pulverized Minerals Co.; Union Constrn Co.; Evans Ditch Co.; Tagus Farm & Dairy Co.; Consol. Petroleum Corp.; California Farm Lands Syndicate; Hawthorne Improvement Co.; Corcoran Sugar Co.; Superior Beet Sugar Corp.; Biwabik Fee Iron Co.; Missabe (sic) & Northern Townsite Co. As chairman of board of: Pacific Co.; Tagus Cotton Gins, Inc.; Pacific Securities Co.; Merritt Estates; Iron Range Electric Telephone Co.; Merritt Grant & Co.; Merritt Manor Co.; Merritt City Corp.; Mfrs. Finance corp.; Lawyers Finance Corp.; Merritt Syndicate; Merritt Farms Co.; Merritt Mfg. Co.; International Galleries; Merritt Orchards Co.; Wardrobe Linen Supply; Hulertt C. Merritt Syndicate; Merritt City Wholesale Cos.; Metropolitan Laundry; Merritt City; Vogue Co. of Los Angeles; Merritt Oil Corp.; U. S. Liquidation Corp.; Pleasant Valley Water Co.; Itasca Dry Goods Co.; Section 36 Iron Mine; Vogue Co. of Delaware; Petrolized Solvent Soap Co.; United Printing Co.; Leona Valley Ranches; Natural Flavors Laboratories; International Honey Producers; Itasca Pulp & Paper Co.; Merritt Inst.; Merritt Fruit & Preserving Co.; Germania Mortgage & Loan Co.; Pacific Linen Supply Co.; Wardrobe Laundry Co.; Hollywood Heights Co.; Marble Palace Co.; Coalinga Consol. Water Co.; Non-Metallic Minerals Corp.; Haupt Constrn. Co.; Anita Mining Co.; Asso. Industries Ins. Co.; Godfrey Restaurant Co.; Consol. Chromium Mines; Itasca Bazaar Co.; Wood & Co.; Mother's Cupboard Cos.; Planada Kadota Fig Orchards; Vogue Furs, Inc.; Haben Real Estate Corp.; Merritt Engring. Co.; Merritt City Companies, Hulett C. Merritt Foundation, Ins. Associates, Inc. As director of the North Star Iron Co.; Visalia Canning Co.; Mountain Iron Cos.; Shar Iron Mining Co.; Southwestern Nat. Bank; Duluth, Missabe & Northern Ry. Co.; Lone Jack Iron Mines; Biwabik Mountain Iron Co.; Iron Exchange Bank; and Ocean Park Bank.
He has received the congratulations of the directors and officials of many of the largest corporations in the United States as being the world's Number One business executive. In his sixty-seven years, devoted to business, he has done honorable and constructive work which has brought prosperity to hundreds of thousands of employees and investors.
Mr. Merritt was also active in real estate in the early days of his California residence, making extensive investments in Broadway, Hill and Spring Streets of Los Angeles, which has mostly been sold, with the exception of the northwest corner of Eighty and Broadway Streets, where the one hundred percent earthquake-proof white marble Merritt Building stands, which sixteen of the world-famous architects pronounce the finest building in the world. He still owns the one-hundred acre Merritt Park, finest and most valuable residential section of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills; was interested in many financial institutions on the Pacific Coast, and was co-associate with Henry E. Huntington in developing the 165-acre West Adams Heights sub-division, which was then the most exclusive residential section of Los Angeles.
On July 13, 1892, Mr. Merritt married Rosaline Calistine Ollivier, grand-daughter of de Mosthenes Ollivier, field marshal for Napoleon Bonaparte, and a niece of his son, Emile Ollivier, first prime minister of France. They had one son, Hulett Clinton Merritt, Jr., who entered business immediately upon his graduation from Pasadena High School and was conceded to be one of the world's great horticulturists. He devoted the last thirty years of his life to the development of the world-famous Tagus Ranch. With Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Merritt shared the distinction of being named an extra-plenipotentiary representative of this nation. He was sent by President Calvin Coolidge to settle some difficulties arising in Italy over the rise of Benito Mussolini. Mr. Merritt died July 11, 1945.
Mr. and Mrs. Merritt's second child, and only daughter, Rosaline Eunice Haupt (died) 1938), also was educated in Pasadena, but in private schools. Later graduated from Ogontz School in Philadelphia. She was a talented linguist, a concert pianist, and at the age of twelve played a concert of a dozen compositions by as many different masters at the Chicago Opera House. Her son, Edward Paul Haupt, III, gave his life for his country in World War II. A Naval lieutenant, he went down with his ship, the world's largest submarine “Grampus,” on its next voyage following the tour in which it sank, in nine minutes, two large enemy troop ships, three destroyer escorts carrying 26,500 soldiers with not a single survivor. Lieutenant Haupt was decorated for this heroic deed.
The Merritt's four granddaughters are Antoinette Polk Merritt (Mrs. Charles Smith of Santa Barbara), Andriana Merritt Hope of Hollywood, and Marlo Merritt Erickson of San Francisco, all daughters of Mr. Merritt, Jr.; and Rosaline Evangeline Haupt (Mrs. John L. Christiansen of San Marino), daughter of Mrs. Haupt.
Mrs. Smith is a graduate of the Pasadena Community Playhouse, of which she was assistant manager one year. Her first engagement was as the star at the Nora Bayes Theatre, New York City. Her sister, Mrs. Hope, is the only woman television producer on the West Coast. She is the originator, producer and writer of the very popular radio programs “People Are Funny” and “What's Doing, Ladies.” She has been script writer for Red Skelton, Charlotte Greenwood, Herb Allen, Bing Crosby, Amos and Andy, William Demarest, Wally Brown, Allen Carney, Teddy Walters and many others. She was a producer and chief of staff of the script writers at the American Broadcasting Company when she left radio for television. She was the first producer of a television show in a theater. Mrs. Erickson, youngest of the trio of Merritt girls, is the wife of Lieutenant Harold Erickson of the Navy. An Annapolis graduate, he is in the Intelligence Corps and is on duty in San Francisco. Their cousin, Mrs. Christiansen, was educated in Pasadena City Schools, Flintridge School for Girls and the University of California at Los Angeles.
The Merritts' five great-grandchildren are, Barrett Merritt (age 11), Robert Clinton (age 7), sons of Mrs. Smith, and Karen (age 10, Linda (age 8) and John Paul (age 2), children of Mrs. Christiansen.
Homes: The 54-room “Villa Merritt-Ollivier,” Pasadena, California; and “The Oaks,” Tulare, California, a twenty-room Southern Colonial house setting in forty acres, which is known as the finest landscaped estate in California. In their homes are found many outstanding art treasures of the world, which they have been collecting since 1895, many given by Napoleon to Mrs. Merritt's grandfather. Near “The Oaks” is the world-famous 7000-acre Tagus Fruit and Berry Ranch, a 1903 investment of Mr. Merritt's, whose daily payroll has reached as high as $41,000. Sixty wells and pumps are used in irrigating crops, using four and one-half times as much water as the entire City of Pasadena. The Ranch accounts for several of thirty-one lines in which he is the largest operator in the world; also the world's leader in growing alfalfa, honey producing and raising of four lines of registered swine, three of cattle and three of draft horses.
Mr. Merritt's greatest achievements are building and operating the largest chain of country banks and department stores; the development of the United Electric Gas & Power Company, which now constitutes a large percentage of the territory covered by the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the Southern California Edison Company; the development of over a thousand acres, the highest grade residential subdivision in the City of Los Angeles; the development of the world's largest fruit and berry ranch (Tagus Ranch); opening and operating in eight large buildings the world's largest art (sales) galleries; the building of Merritt City located on the world famous Tagus Ranch; building and operating day and night Merritt Building Safe Deposit Company (never closed), with 36,000 box capacity; operating Vogue Company, which the National Retail Association defines as “America's finest store”; International Honey Producers, the world's largest producer of honey, owning 300,000 hives of bees; builder of the world's finest building, the Merritt Building; founder of the Hulett C. Merritt Foundation for helpless children; the last, and most important, the development with John D. rockefeller, of the world famous Missabe iron range in Minnesota, which produced two-thirds of the iron ore in the United States, together with the chain of railroads which transported the ore from the mines to the great ore docks at Duluth; and building of the great steamship lines to transport the ore to the Great Lakes ports; the building of ore docks at such ports, and the development of the railroad to transport the ore from the Great Lakes docks to the steel works at Pittsburgh, Pa., and Gary, Ind.; also, the development of the “Hulett Unloader,” which unloaded the large ore-carrying vessels at the lower Lake ports in four hours, in place of fifty-five and one-half hours before the development of this unloader. Without the development of the iron mines, railroads, steamship lines and the Hulett Unloader the United States could not have entered or won either World War I or II.
Offices: Merritt Building, Los Angeles, California.
Transcribed 10-20-2014 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Eminent
Californians 1953, by Lee E. Johnson & C. W. Taylor. Pages 14-20, C. W. Taylor
Publ., Palo Alto, California, 1953.
© 2014 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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