San Francisco
County
Biographies
SAMUEL ORAMEL JOHNSON
JOHNSON,
SAMUEL ORAMEL, President of the S.S. Johnson Company, San Francisco, Cal., was
born at Howard City, Mich., March 9, 1881, the son of Samuel S. and Emma
(Gibbs) Johnson. His father, a well
known lumberman from the County Glengarry, Canada, acquired large timer
interests in the middle West, and subsequently in Oregon and California, and
evidently transmitted to his son that love for the forest which he himself had
brought from his own native country. On
Dec. 5, 1906, he was married in the College Chapel at Fairbault,
Minn., to Miss Katharine Horrigan, and the surviving
children of this marriage are Katharine and Samuel S. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson attended the public school at
Barnum, Minn., but in the fall of 1894 entered the Shattuck School at Fairbault, from which he was graduated in 1898. During the winters of 1902-3 and 1903-4 he
took a special course in law and mechanical engineering at the University of
Minnesota. While at school at Barnum he
spent his vacations in the sawmills and logging camps,
and subsequently when he was a student at Fairbault
he was again adding to his experience in the same mills and yards. Immediately upon his graduation from Shattuck
he started out with his pack on his back to cruise timber in northern
Minnesota. He spent two winters in the
woods, scaling logs the first and in charge of a logging camp the second. In the summer he worked in all the different
departments of the business, and became thoroughly familiar therewith. From
1900 to 1904 he was in charge of the mill and yards at Cloquet,
where he ran successfully the first large sawmill that was ever operated during
the extremely cold Minnesota winter. In
April, 1904, he left the University of Minnesota to join his father, who had
gone to California in January of that year.
The first seven months after his arrival Mr. Johnson passed in the
forests of northern California and eastern Oregon. Here he bought thousands of acres of pine
timber.
In December, 1905, on the death of his
father, he took charge of the McCloud River Lumber Co., of which the latter had
been president and a large owner. He
left this in 1908 to go to San Francisco, where he has since been chiefly
engaged in managing his own affairs, consisting mainly of his lumber interests
and the Klamath Falls townsite property.
In July, 1909, Mr. Johnson became president
of the Klamath Development Co., of Klamath Falls, Ore., and devotes much of his
energy to these interests. Mr. Johnson
regards as the most worthy action of his life his presentation, in 1908, in the
name of the S.S. Johnson Co., of the Shattuck Armory to the Shattuck Military
School, as a memorial to his father.
Besides his presidency of the S.S. Johnson
Co., and the Klamath Development Co., he is president of the Hot Springs Co.,
Des Chutes Lumber Co., Des Chutes Booming Co. and Big Basin Lumber Co.; vice
president Weed Lumber Co., Willamette Railroad Co., the Wendling-Johnson
Lumber Co., and the First National Bank of Weed, Cal., and a director of the
Pacific Coast Redwood Co. He is also
secretary and treasurer of the Klamath Investment Co. and owner of valuable
properties in Klamath Falls, including the magnificent White Pelican
Hotel. This last is a monument to
southern Oregon as well as to the untiring energy of Mr. Johnson, the moving
spirit in its erection. It is second to
none on the coast and unique in that it utilizes hot water from its famous hot
springs for its Hammam Baths, as well for heating the
building throughout.
His clubs are: The Pacific Union, Claremont Country,
Bohemian, Family, Commonwealth and Klamath Country. He is also a Master and Royal Arch Mason and
a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon College Fraternity.
Transcribed by Suzanne Wood.
Source:
Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 507,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2007 Suzanne Wood.