San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MICHAEL S. ARNDT
Among the pioneer clothing merchants
of Stockton is Michael S. Arndt, who recently celebrated the forty-third
anniversary of his business, which has grown from a small beginning to its present
prosperity. A native Californian, he was
born in Stockton, California, on January 31, 1862, a son of Solomon and Ella (Heilborn) Arndt, both natives of Germany. His father settled in Stockton in about 1853,
via Panama, and founded the clothing business of Arndt & Gumpertz, who
originally occupied a small store on North El Dorado Street between Main and
Weber. Both parents have passed away.
Michael S. was educated in the
Stockton grammar and high schools and supplemented it with a course in the Stockton
business college; at the age of seventeen he entered his father’s clothing
store and soon afterwards acquired an interest in the business. His father passed away in about 1885 and the
business was continued under the same firm name, when Mr. Arndt bought the
interest of Mr. Gumpertz and became the sole owner, after which the business
was conducted by M. S. Arndt. The
business was removed to the corner of Main and San Joaquin streets occupying
the present site of the Stockton Savings & Loan Society and still later he
moved to his present location at 313 East Main Street, known as the Wilhoit
Building, adjoining his former location, and here with large quarters and ample
room he has built up the largest, as it is also the oldest and most successful
clothing and men’s furnishing business in Stock. Some twenty-five years ago he purchased
seventy-five feet front on the east side of California Street, between Main and
Weber, and erected a business block, known as the Arndt Block, which cost
$27,000 and which is now valued at $150,000, showing the advance in real estate
in that section of the city.
The marriage of Mr. Arndt united him
with Miss Rose Louis, a native of Boston, Massachusetts, and they have two
children, Stanley M. and Janet; the latter is the wife of Aaron L. Sapiro, a prominent attorney of San Francisco. He serves as counsel for twenty-two
co-operative marketing associations in California and many of the big marketing
associations throughout the east and south, and is an expert on the subject of
co-operative marketing, and has addressed mass meetings in different parts of
the United States on this subject; in the southern state he organized the
cotton, tobacco and peanut associations.
He also organized the maple sugar association of the east and in other
sections of the country, speaking on the crops pertaining to their districts.
Stanley M. Arndt was born in
Stockton on January 27, 1894, and was educated in the grammar and high schools
of that city, graduating from the Stockton high school with the class of 1911;
in 1915 graduated from the University of California. He had entered the University of California
law school but the World War interrupted his course and he enlisted in the
first officers’ training camp, Presidio, San Francisco, in April of 1917, and
on August 15 of the same year received his commission of lieutenant, being
stationed at the Presidio and Camp Lewis, serving as first lieutenant of the
First U. S. Infantry until January 25, 1919.
He then resumed his studies at the law school and graduated in December
of 1919. He practiced law in San
Francisco until April, 1920, when he established his law office in Stockton and
has attracted nation-wide attention by a number of special articles written by
him and which have been published in the California Law Review, articles
treating on the law of California relative to co-operative marketing
associations. This was the first time
this subject had ever been discussed from a legal viewpoint and many letters
have been received from different parts of the country asking for a copy of the
Review. An article treating on “Liquidated
Damages” in California appeared in the Review of December, 1921. He is a member of San Joaquin Lodge No. 19,
F. & A. M., and all the bodies of the Scottish Rite in Stockton and San
Francisco Consistory No. 1, as well as Aahmes Temple A. A. O. N. M. S.,
Oakland, Stockton Parlor No. 7, N. S. G. W., of the “B’nai Brith,” and he is
the commander of Karl Ross Post of the American Legion. We find him too a member of Stockton Lodge of
Odd Fellows and the Rebekahs.
Sidney G. Gumpertz, a nephew of Mr.
Arndt, was born in Stockton and is now a resident of New York, a writer of
note, contributing special articles to magazines and newspapers throughout the
United States. He is a World War hero,
being one of five New York men among forty-one soldiers to win the
Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award in the gift of the nation. Charging through a dense smoke screen and a
barrage of artillery and machine gun fire, he captured single-handed a machine
gun nest with its crew of nineteen Germans; a few days later he duplicated this
feat by a capture of eleven more prisoners.
M. S. Arndt was the founder and
organizer of the Water Consumers’ League of Stockton, which had for its purpose
the municipal ownership of water; the league is also active in reducing the
rates of gas and electricity.
Fraternally he is a member of the San Joaquin Lodge No. 19, F. & A.
M., and all branches up to and including San Francisco Consistory No. 1,
Scottish Rite, Islam Temple A. A. O. N. M. S., and the
Stockton Sciots No 5. He belongs to
Stockton Parlor No. 7, N. S. G. W.
Mr. Arndt owns a beautiful home in Bours Park. Here he
sunk a well 212 feet deep, giving him an abundance of water, the purest water
that can be obtained anywhere, because the analysis shows it is 100 per cent
pure. He has installed his own
waterworks, the Stirling Automatic Pressure System,
giving him ample water for domestic use as well as for irrigating the gardens
and lawns. The grounds are attractively
laid out and beautified by a large variety of shrubs, suitable to the soil of
California, considered be experts from the University of California to be the
finest collection in the county.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
596-599. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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