Plumas
County
Biographies
L. H. THAYER
L. H. Thayer, superintendent of the
Quincy Railroad Company, is one of Quincy’s leading citizens, having taken a
deep personal interest in the progress of the community and the welfare of its
people. He was born at Burke, Franklin
County, New York, on the 17th of September, 1889, and is a son of
Leonard K. and Effie Marie (Hammond) Thayer.
His father, who was a successful merchant, having conducted a large
general store at Burke, has been dead for thirty-eight years, passing away when
his son L. H. was but four years of age.
The mother died in 1918. L. H.
Thayer, the youngest of three sons who were born to their parents, is the only
member of the family to come to California.
He has one brother living, William S. Thayer, who is a store manager for
the Snodgrass Fruit Company at Colorado Springs, Colorado. L. H. Thayer lived with his mother in New
York State until seven years of age, when the family moved to Colorado, and he
was reared in Denver. He attended the
public schools, graduating from the Denver high school, after which he accepted
a position with the Colorado Midland Railroad.
There he became a proficient telegraph operator and after working for
the Colorado Midland for several years he went to the Denver & Rio Grande
as a telegraph operator. He remained
with that company until 1910, when he went to Nevada and was with the Western
Pacific Railroad in Nevada and California for twelve years, serving
successively as telegraph operator, station agent and car distributor. In 1923 he came to Quincy as superintendent
of the Quincy Railroad Company while it was owned by the Murphy Lumber Company,
and has been retained in that position to the present time, the road being now
a subsidiary of the Quincy Lumber Company.
He has proved a capable executive, directing the operation of the road
in a manner that has secured a maximum of results at a minimum of expense and
effort.
The Quincy Railroad was originally
built in the interest of the Quincy Lumber Company, as a means of transporting
logs to the mill at Quincy and to provide an outlet for the manufactured
lumber. The road runs from Quincy to
Quincy Junction, on the main line of the Western Pacific Railroad, a distance
of five and a half miles. The road is
well equipped for both freight and passenger traffic and runs two passenger
trains each way daily, making connection at Quincy Junction with regular trains
on the through line. The officers of the
road are as follows: W. P. Weber, Lake
Charles, Louisiana, president; J. C. Saner, Dallas, Texas, vice president; G.
M. King, Lake Charles, Louisiana, treasurer; M. J. Ragley, Quincy, California,
secretary and manager; and L. H. Thayer, of Quincy, superintendent. The road was incorporated under the laws of
California, with a capital stock of thirty thousand dollars, and has a
valuation of one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars. Seventy-five per cent of its stock is owned
by the Quincy Lumber Company, the remainder being owned by outside
stockholders. It is amenable to the
state railway commission and to the United States interstate commerce laws,
being a common carrier, and during the years of its operation has proved an
important factor in the development of the community which it serves.
On September 5, 1917, in Stockton,
California, Mr. Thayer was united in marriage to Miss Ella M. Harris, of Eagle,
Colorado, who is a graduate of the West Denver high school and the Colorado
State Normal School at Greeley. Mr. and
Mrs. Thayer are the parents of two children, Ellwyn A. and Lomard
L. Mr. Thayer is a member of Plumas
Lodge, No. 60, F. & A. M., of which he is master. This lodge celebrated its seventy-fifth
anniversary in August, 1930. Mr. Thayer
gives his political support to the Democratic Party and he and his wife are
members of the Community Church at Quincy, of which he is a trustee. He possesses to a marked degree those
personal qualities which commend a man to the good opinion of his fellowmen and
throughout the community in which he lives he is held in the highest regard.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 321-323. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.