San Francisco County
FRANK
HENRY BUCK
Buck, Frank Henry, Fruit Grower, Oil Operator and Capitalist, San Francisco and Vacaville, California, was born in Cortland County, New York, June 8, 1859, the son of Leonard William Buck and Anna Maria (Bellows) Buck. He married Miss Anna Elizabeth Stevenson at Vacaville, California, on April 29, 1886, and to them there have been born two sons, Frank Henry, Jr., and Leonard William Buck. He comes from clean, wholesome stock, English on the paternal side and Irish on the maternal, inheriting from both, characteristics which have aided him achieving his success.
Mr. Buck’s education, so far as actual schooling is concerned, was limited to the public school of Clinton, Iowa, and to the high school of the same place, from which latter he was graduated when he was only fourteen years of age. Two years later, in 1875, he removed with his father to California and with him entered the fruit-growing business, specializing in deciduous fruits. That was the beginning of his career, his operations having expanded with the years to the point where he is interested in several different lines of activity and an important factor in the development and success of a score of substantial corporations.
For the first few years after his arrival in California, Mr. Buck confined himself to fruit growing, making a special study of the business, with the result that he built up a reputation that has redounded alike to the credit of Vacaville, Solano County, the State of California, and himself. He operates his fruit business under the name of the Frank H. Buck Fruit & Shipping Company, and to all who are familiar with his work for the fruit industry, covering a period of more than thirty-five years, his name is synonymous with the growth of this, one of California’s largest and most important branches of commerce. He is President of the company named, and also of the California Fruit Distributors, of Sacramento.
Aside from his fruit business, Mr. Buck has other extensive interests and since 1898 has been one of the leading oil producers of California. He first became interested in oil in 1898 and the following year yielded to the excitement growing out of the discovery of the celebrated Kern County fields of California, investing heavily in oil lands and companies at the outset. With characteristic energy he soon took a leading part in the development of the then new industry and was one of the organizers of the Associated Oil Company, now ranked among the largest and most profitable concerns operating in the California fields. He also was a stockholder and Director in the Chicago Crude Oil Company, the Toltec and the Astec Oil Companies. These companies, with several others, were merged into the Associated Oil Company and he has continued a member of the Board of Directors of the larger concern, being on the Executive Committee.
Mr. Buck is interested in various other oil corporations, including the Amalgamated Oil Company, an allied corporation of the Associated Oil Company; the West Coast Oil Company, the Sterling Oil & Development Company, the Associated Pipe Line, the Transportation Company and the Belridge Oil Company, in all of which he holds office as a Director. The last named company has holdings in the Lost Hills District aggregating thirty-one thousand acres of land in process of development.
Mr. Buck is interested as a stockholder and Director in the Rodeo Land & Water Co., of Los Angeles, which owns 3100 acres of land near Los Angeles. The townsite of Beverly stands on part of this land
Mr. Buck is President of the Booth-Kelly Lumber Company, of Eugene, Oregon, and has heavy timber holdings in that section of the Northwest. He also is a Director of the Bakersfield Iron Works.
Despite the diversity of his interests, Mr. Buck has taken a keen interest in public affairs in his home town and the State at large for more than a quarter of a century. He was Vice President of the California State Board of Horticulture and for twelve years was President of the Board of Town Trustees of Vacaville (Incorporated), in which position he took a prominent part in the government of the town.
Mr. Buck is a prominent Mason, a Knight Templar and Odd Fellow, and a member of various clubs, including the Bohemian, of San Francisco; the Pacific-Union of the same city, the San Francisco Gold and Country Club, the Claremont Country Club, of Oakland, California, and the Sutter Club, of Sacramento, California.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press Reference Library, Western
Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 28, International News Service, New
York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2007 Joyce Rugeroni.