FRED ELLSWORTH AWALT

Sacramento County

Biographies

FRED ELLSWORTH AWALT

FRED ELLSWORTH AWALT--A civil engineer of exceptional experience and accomplishment is Fred Ellsworth Awalt, the general superintendent of field operations of the Natomas Company and Reclamation District No. 1000. He was born in Hanford, Kings County, September 10, 1885, the son of Frank Marion and Belle May (McCann) Awalt, the latter a native of San Francisco. Frank M. Awalt accompanied his parents across the great plains in an ox-team train, with covered wagons, in the early days, his folks locating near Hanford. He grew up there, a pioneer rancher in the sense that 640 acres were developed out of a wild and raw country; and he engaged in grain and stock-raising on an extensive scale. As such a pioneer, he could recall the Mussel Slough tragedy, so notable in early Hanford history, having known well the participants. The family moved to Santa Cruz, in 1888, to reside, but in the meantime the parents were identified as ranchers with Hanford and vicinity.

The second eldest in a family of four children, Fred Awalt attended and was graduated from the Santa Cruz high school, in 1902, and then he put in some time at Stanford, as an electrical engineer. Finishing his studies here, he left school, to hire out as an employee of the Sunset Telephone Company at Palo Alto, as an outside man on a construction crew; and he was an inspector for twelve months in Palo Alto. He became foreman of the maintenance department of the Sunset Telephone Company in the San Mateo-Burlingame district; and from 1906 to 1908 he was superintendent of construction of the present underground system at San Jose, having a crew of fifty men under his supervision. On the completion of this job, he was transferred to Contra Costa County as superintendent of construction of the telephone system at Port Richmond, and installed the Union Oil Company's telephone system at Oleum; and from 1909 to 1910 he was electrical engineer with the Portland Cement Company at Santa Cruz, in charge of construction. In 1911, he took up the superintendency of construction at Livermore for the Water & Power Company there, prior to the company's being acquired by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. From 1912 to 1914, Mr. Awalt was superintendent of the entire construction in reclamation of districts No. 900, 999, and 847, including over 11,000 acres, all rich delta in the Sacramento Valley.

In 1915, our subject came to the Natomas Reclamation Districts No. 1000 and 1001 as electrical engineer, and since 1917 he has been general superintendent of construction here, this time constructing and maintaining the engineering work on the 60,000 acres of District No. 1000. He has resided part of the time in Sacramento, and for the most part since 1921 in the district. He has recently become vice-president of the Sacramento Valley Construction Company, in partnership with R.G. Clifford, and they are doing contract irrigation development throughout northern California. He spent the early six months of 1903 in the Panama Canal zone, during the construction of the Mira Flores locks, and he has since then also twice visited the canal zone. He is a member of the American Association of Engineers, and also of the National Exchange Club of Sacramento, and is a Republican. He recalls some interesting experiences as a naval militia man at Santa Cruz.

On May 9, 1907, Mr. Awalt was married to Miss Olive M. Sanderson, the daughter of Captain Mathew Sanderson, a native of England. He was a sea captain, long in charge of merchant ships; and on retiring, he came out to America and California, and settled in Livermore, where he built the town hall and engaged in other building by contract. The Captain was the father of eight children, all born in Livermore. Mr. and Mrs. Awalt have a son, Francis Marion, born at Livermore, on February 16, 1908. On his father's side, Mr. Awalt's ancestry is German; on his mother's, Irish. Grandmother McCann Brown is still residing at Hanford, at the good old age of ninety-six.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 689-690. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.