Los Angeles County
Biographies
WALTER ROSS WHEAT
WHEAT, WALTER ROSS, Oil and Real Estate, Los Angeles, California, was born at Wheaton, Du Page County, Illinois, October 13, 1869. His father was Captain James L. Wheat and his mother Maria S. (Hart) Wheat. Mr. Wheat married at Los Angeles, June 14, 1909, Elizabeth Collins Crossley. They have one son, Gilbert Collins Wheat.
Mr. Wheat attended the schools of Joliet, Ill., and Racine, Wis., until 1887. He received his first business training in a severe twelve-hour-a-day school of a Boston wholesale produce house. Three years (1890-3) he devoted to the railroad business at Chicago in the auditor’s office of the Railway Switching Association at the Union Stock Yards, and with the General Manager’s Association. In December, 1893, he went to San Francisco, where he put in a year and a half in the wholesale meat business. In 1895 he moved to Los Angeles.
During the fifteen years spent in Los Angeles Mr. Wheat’s life has been a busy one, devoting his energies successively to the proprietorship of the Los Angeles Military Academy, secretaryship of the Abbot-Kinney Company during the building of Venice-of-California, and at banking, real estate and the oil business.
He drilled many oil wells in Los Angeles and kern Counties. He was one of the pioneers of the Sunset-Midway field and organized many of the successful operating companies.
He is vice president of the Bank of Venice and secretary of the following: Collins Oil Company, Thirty-two Oil Company Wilson Oil Company, Western Crude Oil Company and Westside Oil Company.
He is a member of the City Club, Chamber of Commerce, Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Municipal League, Military Order of Loyal Legion and the Automobile Club of California.
Transcribed 5-27-09
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 286, International
News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston,
Atlanta. 1913.
© 2009 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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