San Francisco County
Biographies
WILHELM KARL WINTERHALTER
WINTERHALTER, WILHELM KARL, Consulting Agriculturist, San
Francisco and Los Angeles, was born in Munich,
Bavaria, Germany,
February 12, 1868. His father was
Leopold Winterhalter, M. D. and his mother Minna (Fischborn) Winterhalter. He
came to America in 1893 and was
married to Nellie Humphreys in San Francisco,
October 19, 1898. They have one child, Eleanore Gwendolyn, born in San
Francisco. Mr. Winterhalter comes from an old family of physicians dating
back to 1721. His ancestors were mostly
court physicians to the Grand Dukes and Kings of Bavaria up to 1850, and also
numbered among them were painters of reputation, soldiers and merchants.
Mr. Winterhalter
was educated in Munich and Traunstein,
graduating from the Real Gymnasium in 1885; then went for ten months to the
Chateau De Gourchevaux, near Morat, Switzerland,
to perfect himself in the French Language.
He
then went as apprentice for one year to Hanover on a
large Rittergut near Wunstorf,
in order to become acquainted with practical agriculture, before entering the
Agricultural Academy Weihenstephan, near Munich,
Bavaria, from which he was graduated with
highest honors in 1889. He then accepted
a position as agricultural manager of a large domain at Remstaedt,
near Gotha, Thuringen,
Germany, which position
he held until October, 1901. In order to
broaden his knowledge in agriculture and forestry he accepted a position as
field superintendent and forester at the Royal Domain, Sarvar, Hungary.
In
May, 1893, he came to the United States
on a leave of absence to visit the Chicago World’s Fair and California. Being charmed with California,
he decided not to return to Europe, but owing to the hard times of 1893, the
seeming impossibility of business to his liking, a trip to Alaska,
late in September, 1893, was undertaken.
Severe hardships were encountered on this trip, which finally ended on Wood
Island, but after a couple of
months of employment at the trading station of the North American Commercial
Company he proceeded on a hunting expedition with a
few natives southward to Unalaska. From
there by steamer to St. Michaels, then up the Yukon for 600 miles and back to
St. Michaels, and as far north as Point Barrow.
Returning in August, 1894, on a coaling vessel to San
Francisco, he shortly afterward joined the experimental station of
the Kern County Land Company at Bakersfield. After its discontinuance he took up the study
of practical irrigation.
In
the fall of 1895 he went to the University of California as post graduate
student, and in January, 1896, he was appointed secretary to Professor Hilgard until January, 1897, when he went to the Sacramento
Valley to engage in the dairy business to obtain practical experience in that
line. He returned to Berkeley
to the office of Professor Hilgard in August of the
same year for five months, and then accepted the superintendency
of the Spreckels ranch of 12,000 acres at King
City until October. After his marriage and a short vacation he
was engaged by the American Beet Sugar Company as agriculturist at their Oxnard
factory, having had thorough experience in this branch at Hanover,
Thuringen and Hungary.
In
January, 1900, he went for them to the Arkansas Valley, Colorado, and took
charge of the agricultural work in that State and in Kansas
and New Mexico, introducing beet
culture in those states. He remained at Rockyford, where the first factory had been constructed,
until November, 1904, when he was appointed manager of the second sugar factory
in the Arkansas Valley,
at Lamar, which was built in 1905. He
remained in charge of that factory and of the development of 10,000 acres of
land and of the Lamar Canal, which had been purchased, until March, 1907, when
he was sent by the president of the company to Europe for the purpose of
studying the agricultural situation in the leading beet sugar countries, with
instructions to go over the ground thoroughly and without time limit. He traveled and visited sixty-seven sugar
factories, and the largest seed-breeding establishments in Germany,
Holland, Belgium,
France, Italy,
Hungary, Austria,
Poland and Bohemia,
and returned to the United States
in 1908.
He
was then appointed to the position of consulting agriculturist for the
company’s six factories, in California, Colorado
and Nebraska, which place he filled until January, 1911,
when he removed to California,
having resigned his position after twelve years’ service and established
himself as consulting agriculturist in the purchase of land, establishment and
operation of ranches, under irrigation or without. However, he continued to make beet culture
and its many branches a specialty.
Mr.
Winterhalter makes his principal headquarters in San
Francisco, California, with
offices in the Humboldt Savings Bank Building on Market
street.
Transcribed by Betty Vickroy.
Source: Press Reference
Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page
500, International News
Service, New
York,
Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2007 Betty Vickroy.
California Biography Project
San Francisco County
California Statewide
Golden Nugget Library