JOHN BARNES MILLER

Los Angeles County

Biographies

JOHN BARNES MILLER

MILLER, JOHN BARNES, President of the Southern California Edison Company, Los Angeles, California, was born at Port Huron, St. Clair county, Michigan, October 23, 1869. He is the son of John Edgar Miller and Sarah Amelia (Barnes) Miller. His ancestors were of that group of religious refugees from Germany—Mennonites—who settled in Pennsylvania on the invitation of William Penn. He married Carrie Borden Johnson of Yonkers, N. Y., on April 17, 1895. There are five children: Philadelphia Borden, John Borden, Edgar Gail, Morris Barnes and Carrie St. Clair Miller.

Mr. Miller attended public and private schools at Port Huron, Michigan, and graduated from the Ann Arbor School in 1888. He took a special literary course in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, 1888-89, and left college owing to the physical collapse of his father.

The next two years he managed the personal interests of his father and studied law in an office at Port Huron. He planned to take the bar examinations, but in 1892 became interested in a plantation near Delhi, Richmond Parish, Louisiana, and managed it for about two years.

Mr. Miller then returned to Michigan, where his father was again actively engaged in business. They became interested in the steamboat and fuel business, to which he devoted about three years.

In 1896 he disposed of his Eastern interests and moved to Los Angeles. After surveying the investment field for a considerable length of time, Mr. Miller was struck with the wonderful opportunities for development in electric lighting and the utilization of water power for long transmission, a method then little known. When he undertook the development of electric light and power the country around Los Angeles was dotted with numerous little plants, none of which was large enough to attract capital, and consequently not in a position to expand or to render the best service.

By amalgamating a number of these smaller companies—with consequent economies—modernizing plants and methods, and a highly organized management, and by obtaining extensive water power control, Mr. Miller and his associates laid the foundation of what today is one of the most important public utilities in the West. The organization of this company by Mr. Miller marked the beginning of electrical advancement in Southern California and the birth of an industry that has grown steadily.

Mr. Miller was elected president of the Edison Electric Company in 1901, and through various changes in the form of that corporation has been the directing spirit. When the company was reorganized several years ago under the name of the Southern California Edison Co. He continued as its executive head, and still retains that position. It is not stretching a point to say that Mr. Miller has been a dominating personality in the growth of the company, but his success in the upbuilding of it is due to his financial rather than to any technical ability.

He was one of the founders of the old Southwestern National Bank, later consolidated with the First National Bank, and of the Los Angeles Trust Company, now the Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank, in the former of which organizations he remains as director. In addition to those two, and the office of president of the Southern California Edison Company, Mr. Miller is a director and member of the executive committee of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, president of the Union Power Company, director of the Sinaloa Land and Water Company, director of the Santa Barbara Gas and Electric Company and a director of the Long Beach Consolidated Gas Company.

The Pacific Mutual is one of the leading life insurance companies on the Pacific Coast, and the other concerns mentioned, such as water, gas and power, are important public utilities in their respective localities, ably managed and modern in every detail. In all of these the progressive policies of Mr. Miller go far toward shaping their courses and expansion.

His clubs are: California, Jonathan, Los Angeles Country and Los Angeles Athletic Clubs, Country, Overland Clubs of Pasadena, Santa Barbara Country Club, University Club of Redlands, Pacific Union and Bohemian Clubs of San Francisco and the Automobile Club of America of New York.

He belongs to the Blue Lodge, Chapter, Commandery, and Shrine of Masonry. He was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon College Fraternity.

Transcribed 5-16-08 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 18, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.

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