R. E. Houghton, engaged in the legal
profession at San Francisco, is a native of the State of Maine, born in 1840,
and received his education in New England.
Upon reaching manhood he enlisted after the breaking out of the
rebellion, and served in the Army of the Potomac. Then he accepted a position in a department
at Washington, studied law and was admitted to the bar. He came to California in 1866, and since
then, for the past twenty-five years, has been engaged in general civil practice. For some years he has devoted his whole
attention to law pertaining to water rights, and has an extensive practice
throughout the State, particularly in Southern California. He had the management, for Messrs. Miller and
Lux, of the noted case of Miller & Lux vs. Haggin, involving vast
interests, which settled the important question of riparian rights in
California, and requiring his attention for ten years. He is counsel in all water-right questions
connected with the vast landed interests of Miller & Lux. For years he has been counsel for Riverside
Colony and Water Company, and also for the Bear Valley Land and Water Company
of Redlands, a company possessing the largest reservoir and most valuable water
right in the State, and he is also counsel for the Bear Valley and Alessandro
Development Company, a company known from the Pacific to the Atlantic, it
having established the most extensive and successful colony for citrus fruits
ever established in California.
Transcribed by Donna L. Becker
Source: "The
© 2005 Donna L.
Becker.