San Francisco County
Biographies
LEROY HUBERT
BENNETT
Ranking among the leading business executives of San Francisco is LeRoy Hubert Bennett, president of the L. H. Bennett Company, Limited, distributors of the General Electric refrigerators in this district. He is a native of Topeka, Kansas, where his birth occurred May 8, 1886, and he is a son of the late Philander and Nellie M. (Reynolds) Bennett, and descendant of old American families in both the paternal and maternal lines. Philander Bennett was a pioneer employe of the Santa Fe Railroad Company.
LeRoy H. Bennett attended the grade schools and high school in Denver, Colorado, but completed his high school education in San Diego, graduating from Russ high school there in 1904. He then entered the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he engaged in the study of chemical technology and metallurgy, especially in iron and steel. Following this preparation, he was employed by the Studebaker Corporation in the state of Colorado for three years, while for a period of four years thereafter he was associated with the Ford Motor Company in New Mexico. Next, he came to California as sales manager for the Samson division of the General Motors Corporation, after which he was manager of trade promotion for the California Automotive Jobbers’ Association. In 1921, Mr. Bennett became sales manager of the Chancellor Lyon Company of San Francisco, and finally in 1927 he organized his own company for the purpose of distributing the General Electric refrigerators. In this occupation, he has met with outstanding success, and now has ten retail stores in the city and employs two hundred people. His offices and display rooms are situated in the Bennett building in San Francisco. He has kept pace with the tremendous growth in the use of electrical refrigeration, and has developed his own business most intelligently and skilfully. (sic)
On January 24, 1915, Mr. Bennett was united in marriage to Miss Bessie Irene Shamp, who is a native of Calistoga, California. Their residence is at 178 Hillcrest road in Berkeley.
Mr. Bennett’s political activities are in the interest of the republican party. He is a director of the local Sales Managers’ Association, and belongs to the Athens Athletic Club and the Oakland Yacht Club, both of the latter in Oakland, California. Yachting is his favorite recreation. Mr. Bennett has all of the virtues and sentiments of a good citizen, and has assumed a favorable attitude toward civic affairs of benefit to San Francisco and the bay district.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Byington, Lewis Francis, “History of
San Francisco 3 Vols”, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1931. Vol. 3 Pages 64-65.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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