Los Angeles County
Biographies
LLEWELYN ARTHUR NARES
NARES, LLEWELYN ARTHUR,
Capitalist, Fresno, California, was born in Haverford West, Pembrokeshire,
England, July 19, 1860, the son of Owen Alexander Nares
and Emily Margaret (Lewellin) Nares.
He married Kathryn Evans, at Los Angeles, California,
January 26, 1909. His family is one of prominence in England, his
uncle having been Admiral Sir George Strong Nares, K. C. B.
Admiral Nares was born in 1831, and entered the
British Navy when he was about 14 years of age. He was made a Vice Admiral in
1892, but as early as 1873 had command of the “Challenger Expedition.” During
the years 1875 and 1876 he achieved fame as commander of the British Government
Arctic Expedition, which made notable progress in the world’s search for the
North Pole. Later in life (1879-96) he served as Professional Adviser to the
British Board of Trade and also was Acting Conservator of the River Mersey.
Mr. Nares, who has attained
prominence in Canada and the United States as a financier and developer, spent
his boyhood in England, but the greater part of his life has been passed in
America. He received his preliminary education in the Haverford West Grammar
School and the Monmouth Grammar School, and concluded his studies at the
Godolphin School in London.
Finishing his educational work in 1876, Mr. Nares embarked upon his business career in the employ of
the National Provincial Bank at Haverford West, and filled this position for
about two years. In 1878 he went to London, and there entered the service of
the Delhi & London Bank. He remained in the metropolis during the years
1878 and 1879, leaving in the latter year for Montreal, Canada, where he became
connected with the Bank of British North America. In 1881, attracted by
prosperous reports from the Canadian Northwest, he went to Winnipeg and, after
survey work in the Canadian Rockies, entered the Merchants’ Bank of Canada,
with which he remained till 1884. In that year, it will be remembered, the
second rebellion by Louis Riel, the half-breed Indian who had led a revolt
against the constituted authorities in 1869-70, occurred, and Mr. Nares was one of the loyal Britishers
who volunteered their services at the closing engagements in suppressing the
rebels.
Following the rebellion, Mr. Nares
embarked in business for himself as the financial representative of English
capitalists seeking conservative investments in the Northwest Territory.
Because of his long experience in banking affairs and his intimate knowledge of
Canada and business conditions there, Mr. Nares
soon met with success in this field, and finally organized the firm of Nares, Robinson & Black, which still is in existence.
This firm conducted a tremendous amount of business, making large investments
in land and other enterprises for English capitalists.
In 1894, after approximately ten years of successful
operation in British America, Mr. Nares entered
the United States as the representative of his English clients, and made
various investments for them in California and elsewhere. He has been
identified with these interests ever since, and his operations now extend to
all parts of the Western and Southern United States, although the greater part
of them are in California. The interests represented by Mr. Nares had made their initial investment in California as
early as 1881, but they did not make much progress until Mr. Nares took hold of their projects. Since he took charge of
the investors’ enterprises they have acquired 95 per cent of all the
irrigation canals on the north side of the Kings River, and the area irrigated
has increased in this period from eighty thousand acres to more than four
hundred thousand acres.
Under the direction of Mr. Nares,
lands acquired by the companies about the time he entered the work have been
greatly developed and colonized. Subsequent land purchases by these and other interests
have been developed and form part of one of the most extensive and successful
colonization projects on the American Continent. The various colonization
enterprises extend for fifty miles along Kings River and a veritable garden of
good land, of which the Laguna De Tache grant,
comprising about sixty-eight thousand acres, was the first and principal part,
has been reclaimed and thrown open to settlement.
With Mr. Nares the perfection
of irrigation and the development of the lands so that they will yield the
greatest amount of good to mankind has become a life work.
The operations conducted under the supervision of
Mr. Nares have been among the most stupendous in
the history of Western development. Twenty miles of river channel have been cut
by dredgers, seventeen miles of railroad constructed, one hundred miles of
river levees erected and irrigation and drainage ditches, with the necessary
weirs, gates, flumes and drops put in. The irrigation system now has more than
five hundred miles of main canals, and there are in excess of four thousand
miles of laterals and farmers’ ditches. There still remain about two hundred
thousand acres, which, in the not distant future, Mr. Nares
hopes to develop and put to the highest beneficial use, making his ambition for
a perfect agricultural achievement an accomplished fact.
A summary of what has already been accomplished through
the management of Mr. Nares in land and water
development reviews a wonderful work in this line. While it has meant a notable
financial return to the interests he represents, it has also meant that the
great section of land in the “Kingdom of Kings River,” theretofore useless
because of lack of water, has been reclaimed and turned over to the farmer, at
a reasonable figure, for cultivation. It has brought thousands of people to
California and has been one of the chief units in the development of the “back
to nature” movement insofar as it applies to California.
Despite the fact that he has seen the virtual realization
of the vision he had many years ago, Mr. Nares
is not a dreamer. He is a practical business man and as such stands among the
most successful men in his part of the country, being an officer, stockholder
or Director in various important enterprises. He is President of the Fresno
Canal & Irrigation Company, the Consolidated Canal Company, Summit Lake
Investment Company, Kings River Reclamation Company and the Laton
& Western Railroad Company, and also holds office as Managing Director of
the Laguna Lands, Limited.
He is essentially a man of large financial and business
affairs, with no political affiliations. He is a member of the California Club,
Los Angeles; the Fresno Sequoia Club, and a Director of the Sunnyside Country
Club, Fresno.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
16 March 2011.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 625,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2011 Marie Hassard.
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