Los Angeles County
Biographies
WILLIAM H. O’BRYAN
O’BRYAN, WILLIAM H., Land Investments, Los Angeles, Cal., was born in Oakfield, Wis., April 25, 1868, the son of William O’Bryan and Elizabeth (Putnam) O’Bryan. He married Lilore Keese at Santa Rosa, Cal., in 1895.
He was educated in the common schools of Minnesota up to the age of 17. Afterwards he became a school teacher and taught intermittently in Minnesota and South Dakota until the age of 21. In 1890 he went to Lead, S. D., and was associated with the Homestake Co., one of the most famous of the world’s mining companies. During the years 1892 and 1893 he was engaged in newspaper work in Deadwood, S. D. After four years in the gold district of the Black Hills he went to California, arriving at Santa Rosa in 1894, where he was engaged in several industrial enterprises until the year 1900, when he located in Los Angeles. Since arriving there he has been chiefly interested in the development of agricultural communities, having first taken an active part in the colonization of the Imperial Valley in California, and later taking up the development and colonization of large tracts of land in the San Joaquin Valley, notably on the great Kern River Delta, comprising something more than 100,000 acres, nearly every acre of which has passed under his hands, the two most noted colonies placed thereon being the white colony at Alpaugh and the exclusive colored colony at Allensworth.
He is now arranging to extend his operations to Central and South American countries, which afford much greater opportunities for successful development and ultimate colonization. He is the controlling factor in several development companies.
He is a member of the Union League Club of San Francisco.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 521,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2010 Joyce
Rugeroni.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPIES