Los Angeles County
Biographies
A. BLANCHARD
MILLER
MILLER, A. BLANCHARD, President of Fontana Development Company, Rialto, California, was born at Richlands, North Carolina, September 5, 1878, the son of Joseph Kempster Miller and Eliza (Blanchard) Miller. He is of distinguished ancestry, being descended on the maternal side from Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the Battle of Lake Erie, and Gordon Saltonstall, the Congregational minister who served as Colonial Governor of Connecticut and was instrumental in locating Yale University at new Haven.
Mr. Miller, who has won distinction as one of the successful young business men of the Southwest, spent his boyhood in Washington, D.C., and received his preliminary education in the public schools of that city. Upon locating in California, in 1893, he continued his studies in the High School of Riverside County and then spent a year in Pomona College at Claremont, California, preparing for a course at the University of California. He did not enter the latter, however, taking up business life instead.
Beginning his career in 1897, he began farming in the Perris Valley of Southern California, with approximately five hundred acres of land in cultivation, chiefly in grain. He was successful from the outset, and kept increasing his operations until, in 1901, at the end of his fourth year, he had more than five thousand acres in cultivation. Dry years and poor prices for his grain interfered with his operations later on, and so he embarked in the contracting business, in addition to farming, beginning by renting part of his live stock to the Grant Brothers’ Construction Co., then engaged in building the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad (Salt Lake Route) for the Clark interests.
In 1904 Mr. Miller turned his attention to the famous Imperial Valley of California, first as a contractor and later as a developer. He built a large portion of the canal system that waters what is known as “Section 8" of the Imperial Valley, and also graded much of the townsite of Brawley.
The next year (1905), in association with E. D. Roberts, H. E. Harris, E. J. Eisenmayer and other interests of San Bernardino, California; he leased from the Fontana Development Co., then controlled by the San Francisco Savings Union, eight thousand acres of that company’s land near Rialto, California. At the time of making this deal Mr. Miller also took an option on the land with the right to purchase it outright. After farming the land to grain for a year, Mr. Miller, with the interests named and another partner, Thomas F. Keefe, organized the Fontana Land & Water Co., which corporation immediately contracted to buy the San Francisco Savings Union’s interest in the Fontana Development Co., owning nineteen thousand acres of land in San Bernardino County, and more than seventy-five per cent of the flow of Lytle Creek. They thereupon began the development of the land through irrigation, making it one of the most valuable tracts in that country.
Although he was actively engaged with the Fontana Development project, Mr. Miller continued his contracting business and in 1906 built for the United States Government the first levees on the Yuma project, constructing them on the Colorado River for twelve miles below the town of Yuma, Arizona. Mr. Miller was accorded great credit for the solidity of this work, and before leaving Arizona entered into negotiations with J. G. White & Co., Engineers, of New York to take the building of the California side of the Yuma Dam off their hands. These negotiations went as far as the White Company signing the contracts, but his increasing responsibilities of the Fontana Company caused him to abandon his plan.
Early in the year 1907 Mr. Miller, acting alone, purchased the Lakeview Ranch in Riverside County, a property six thousand acres in extent. He farmed on the land for a season, but later in the same year organized the Nuevo Land Co. and sold the Lakeview property, together with his farming equipment, to that company. Prior to Mr. Miller’s purchase of the Lakeview property it had been greatly entangled, there being about a score of owners, but he cleared the title and turned the property over to his company without any entanglements.
Mr. Miller continued the operation of the Fontana Land & Water Co.’s lands for two years more, and then took over the interests of Messrs. Roberts, Harris and others in the property, becoming associated at that time with Messrs. James H. Adams, E. J. Marshall and J. S. Torrance, well-known bankers of Los Angeles, in the conduct of the property held by the company. They immediately began to develop more water, and to build an extensive irrigation system. The building of the canals was under the direct supervision of Mr. Miller, and claimed his time for more than two years.
Aside from the work of irrigating the lands of his company, Mr. Miller, as President and Manager, directs the planting and sale of lands to farmers, and during the year 1911 planted more than one thousand acres of orange and lemon trees, the largest acreage ever planted in citrus fruits by a single concern in one year up to that time.
Through his work in the development and handling of the Fontana Land & Water Co.’s project Mr. Miller has taken rank with those men who are credited with being the real developers of the resources of the Southwest, and is regarded as one of the potent factors for progress in that section of the country.
A reorganization of the Fontana projects under the name of the Fontana Company, with greatly enlarged capital, was begun in June, 1912, to take care of the business of both the Fontana Development Co. and the Fontana Land & Water Co. The completion of this reorganization plan, in which Mr. Miller is an important factor, will mean the dissolution of the two companies named.
In the meantime, in addition to the offices held by him in the Fontana Land & Water Co. Mr. Miller is one of the principals in several allied concerns, among them the Fontana Development Company, of which he is President and Manager; the Fontana Water Company, in which he is Vice President and Manager; the Rialto Domestic Water Company, in which he holds the position of Manager, and the Lytle Creek Water Company, of which he is President.
All of these companies are in active operation and Mr. Miller divides his time and energies between them. He is thoroughly interested in the upbuilding of the Imperial Valley and Southern California in general, and takes an active part in various civic movements, but has no time for politics.
He is a member of the Jonathan Club and South Coast Yacht Club, Los Angeles, and Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Riverside, Cal.
Transcribed 2-7-11 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 587,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2011 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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