GUSTAVUS A. KINDBLOM

Sacramento County

Biographies

GUSTAVUS A. KINDBLOM

GUSTAVUS A. KINDBLOM--One of the successful business men of Sacramento, and for many years a resident of the capital city, Gustavus A. Kindblom is a native of Sweden, born January 20, 1865, and reared on a farm in that country. When a youth of eighteen years he came to the United States, arriving in Chicago, in 1883, with two dollars in his pocket to face the new world with. His first work was with the Peterson Nursery, outside of this windy city, and he stayed with this employer one and one-half years, and his wages were $150 per year. He took up elm trees and transplanted them in the city, and he helped to plant the large elm trees now in Lincoln Park, and in front of the Palmer House, in Chicago. The young adventurer’s next move was to Milwaukee, Wis., and there he worked as a section hand on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, with wages at ninety cents a day; from there to Sibley, Iowa, working on a ranch for twenty dollars a month. A short stay in Omaha, Nebr., found him with a crew cleaning snow from the railway tracks; then to Kansas on a ranch, at first working for his board and later receiving in addition fifty cents per day. In Kansas City he found evening work cleaning cars for the Chicago & Alton Railway, and during the day worked for a stone mason. Here he decided that the far West might prove more advantageous, and 1887 found him in Los Angeles with the Santa Fe Railway, for which company he put in one year doing construction work; then he journeyed to Seattle, Wash., and worked as cook in the lumber woods, wages fifty dollars per month; then a winter in a restaurant in Portland, Ore., after which for a time he worked on the sand barges on the Columbia River, and later in a sawmill on Snake River.

All these ventures were of short duration, seeing the country and learning its ways being the main object. On his first visit to Sacramento the young man stayed but a short time, when he worked for the Cummings ranch for twenty-five dollars per month; he still had the traveling fever, however, and next went to Salt Lake City and there worked in a smelter, and later as store room boy in the Morgan Hotel in that city, finally becoming steward in charge. Cripple Creek, Colo., and Butte City, Mont., were next visited in turn. Of all cities he visited, however, Sacramento impressed Mr. Kindblom as most promising, and in 1894 he returned here to take up his permanent residence, and for the next fifteen years he was employed driving a laundry wagon, first for the Mason Laundry and later for the Cascade Laundry. For the past twelve years he has been engaged in the rooming house business, owning and managing the Shasta, Davidson, Coulson, Singleton and the Golden West, and found himself particularly adapted to this line of endeavor, as it has proved very successful, so much so, in fact, that he is soon to retire from active business.

It would be hard to find a more striking example of a self-made man than in the life here recorded; if the hardest kind of hard work, and self-denial, count for anything, assuredly the final success rewarding his efforts has been fully earned by Mr. Kindblom. He has found time, too, to take part in church and social affairs and has been a member of the English Lutheran Church for many years, formerly serving as trustee of that body. Mr. Kindblom has one daughter, by his first marriage, Mrs. Florence M. Richardson, the mother of a son, Winnick Kindblom, five years old.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 929-930. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.