Santa
Clara County
Biographies
GEORGE T. DUNLAP
The active life of this enterprising man has
been connected with the most important period in the development of Gilroy, and
is linked with the organization and promotion of the most important of those
public works which stimulate for growth and are the basis of commercial
supremacy. Among the various enterprises prominently identified with the
prosperity of the community with which Mr. Dunlap is closely connected, may be
mentioned the Dunlap Realty & Produce Company, of which he is president;
the South Santa Clara Fruit Drying & Packing Company, of which he is also
president and manager, it being the largest commercial institution and
furnishing more employment than any other concern in the southern end of Santa
Clara county. He is also one of the owners of the Coyote Cattle Company, which
operates a very extensive property, embracing nearly twenty thousand acres of
land just east of the city of Gilroy.
The career of Mr. Dunlap is happily
traced from a home of Christian and refining atmosphere. A native son of
California, he was born September 20, 1859 in Yolo county, where his father
Rev. R. R. Dunlap, was one of the pioneer Methodist Episcopal ministers. Rev.
Mr. Dunlap is one of the earnest and consecrated men whose efforts must forever
be enrolled with the early religious development of California. Born in
Pennsylvania, he removed to St. Louis at the age of sixteen, and there received
the impetus to ally his fortunes with the far west. Having qualified as a minister
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, his course was well defined, and after
crossing the plains with an ox team he assumed charge of a church in Los
Angeles, where he assisted in the organization of the first Methodist Episcopal
Conference in the state of California. While in Los Angeles, he established a
home of his own, marrying Harriet Maddux, a native of Illinois, who had also
crossed the plains. For a time Rev. Mr. Dunlap had charge of the Folsom Street
Church in San Francisco which he built, and the congregation of which greatly
increased during his administration. His way led to the heart of pioneer things
in the west, for he traveled to the mining camps of Tuolumne county, where he
built a church, and from there he went to Yreka, Downieville,
and other centers of fortune acquiring renown. About 1860 he located in
Sacramento, remained there two years, and was forced by the flood to seek other
quarters. Returning to San Francisco, he had charge of the Howard Street
Church, afterward of a church in San Jose, and still later a church at Half
Moon Bay. In 1868 he traveled to Santa Barbara county in an ox wagon, and in a
comparative wilderness started the church which grew and prospered during his
seven years of service in its behalf. He became identified with Yolo county
again in 1875, preaching at Woodland and other centers of activity, and in 1876
engaged in the redwood timber business, in Mendocino county taking up land, and
with the aid of his sons converting its native products into railway and other
materials. His entrance into business circles by no means intimated a departure
from his humanitarian work, for he continued to preach with the same enthusiasm
and good results as before. In time he removed to near Spokane, Wash., where he
also took up land, and combined general farming with preaching. In the early
‘90s Mr. Dunlap went to Portland, Ore., near which city he has since lived a
retired life. He belongs to a class of men as rare as they are noble and
self-sacrificing, an as touchingly different from the majority who came to the
coast in the days of old as the most fervid imagination could conceive of.
Versatile beyond the average, he was able at a later stage of his life to
supply those comforts and luxuries which are desired by the broad and liberal
Christians of to-day, and which never came his way through his ministerial
work. He had seven sons, all grown to manhood, to all of whom he gave the most
liberal and practical education permitted by his limited resources.
The fourth in his father’s family,
George T. Dunlap was educated primarily in the public schools of Yolo and other
counties and in the fall of 1879 entered the University of the Pacific,
graduating at the end of three years in the Latin and scientific course. In the
spring of 1882 prospects opened up before him through his appointment to the
construction department of the state commission, then building extensive roads
in the valley. In the fall of 1882, Mr. Dunlap came to Gilroy, where, soon
afterward he married Emma M. Ellis, third daughter of the late J. H. Ellis, a
California pioneer, and one of the earliest settlers of Santa Clara county, whose long and industrious life brought liberal
reward.
Mr. Dunlap began his business career
in Gilroy, as the proprietor of a small grocery store, which later he disposed
of, then becoming interested in the study of law, and real estate and insurance
business, in which he has since been both successful and prominent. The
outgrowth of this success was the Dunlap Realty & Produce Company, one of
the largest and best known concerns of the kind in Santa Clara county. The
political tendencies of Mr. Dunlap have not included office holding, although
he has naturally been drawn into active participation in local Republican
affairs. He has been a delegate to various county and state conventions, and
has served several times on the city council, and was elected mayor of Gilroy
May 2, 1904. His fraternal associations are with the Blue Lodge, F. & A.
M., of Gilroy, the Chapter of Hollister, and the B. O. E., of San Jose. Mr.
Dunlap’s characteristics are firmness, force of character, indomitable energy
and executive ability, potent agencies for advancement of men to important
stations in life. He is leaving the impress of his ability on the industries and
commerce of his adopted city, and the nobility of his
character is reflected in the esteem and appreciation of a host of friends and
prominent business associates.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast
Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1381-1382. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.