Los Angeles County
Biographies
CHARLES FRANCIS O’BRIEN
O’BRIEN, CHARLES FRANCIS, Real Estate and Farming, Los Angeles, California, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Thomas J. O’Brien and Ellen F. (O’Callaghan) O’Brien. He married Catherine A. Hegarty at Los Angeles, October 13, 1909.
Mr. O’Brien received his education in the public schools of Worcester, Massachusetts, and soon after finishing his studies, moved west to Kansas City, Missouri. He located there in 1883 and went to work in a clothing store for $4 per week. His next position was with Bradstreet’s Mercantile Agency in which connection he remained for about a year and a half.
In 1885 Mr. O’Brien went into the real estate business in Kansas City and operated there for about three years, during the boom period which started Kansas City towards its present position among the large cities of the country. He cleared about $25,000 in this time, but lost it during the period of depression which began about 1888 and culminated in the financial panic of 1893.
Upon retiring from the real estate business in 1891 Mr. O’Brien took up newspaper work as a reported on the Kansas City Times. He continued in this until 1893, when he went to California for his health. He purchased a ranch in Beverly Hills, near Los Angeles, and remained there until 1896, when he returned to Kansas City and re-engaged in the newspaper business, becoming City Editor of the Kansas City Times.
Mr. O’Brien was holding down the City Editor’s desk at the outbreak of the Spanish-American war in 1898, and resigned his position to enlist in the Volunteer Army. He was made Captain of Company A, Fifth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and served until the close of hostilities. His regiment saw no actual service, however, being held in reserve with thousands of others at various camps in the United States. His command got no closer to Cuba than Chickamauga Park.
At the close of the war Mr. O’Brien went back to newspaper work as staff correspondent and political writer for the Kansas City times. At the end of two years, however, he resigned and went to San Francisco, where he became a real estate operator. He was there for about nine years and during the greater part of the time specialized in colonization work. He dealt largely in irrigated lands and having become a practical farmer during the three years he spent on his ranch near Los Angeles, he engaged in farming and fruit growing in the Sacramento Valley and elsewhere in California. In 1909 he left the northern part of the State for Los Angeles, where he has since been engaged in the real estate business under the name of the Charles F. O’Brien Company.
In addition to his realty holdings, Mr. O’Brien has extensive farming lands and is engaged actively in that field. He has also devoted considerable time to colonization work in Mexico.
As General Land Sales Agent of the Compania Constructora Richardson (Richardson Construction Company), an enterprise backed by wealthy Americans, one of whom is John Hays Hammond, Mr. O’Brien has had charge of the colonization of large tracts of irrigated lands in Mexico and is himself farming on an extensive scale in the Yaqui Valley, Sonora, Mexico, at the present time. The Richardson Company owns 750,000 acres of land in the Yaqui Valley and to Mr. O’Brien has been entrusted the work of procuring colonists for this property, one of the most important colonization campaigns in the history of the Mexican Republic.
Mr. O’Brien, since locating in Southern California, has become one of the leaders in realty work and has devoted himself so consistently to business that he has had no time for outside interests. His club is the Jonathan, Los Angeles.
Transcribed 5-1-09
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 258,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston,
Atlanta. 1913.
© 2009 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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