San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JAMES M. BIGGER
After years of experience studying and
demonstrating soil possibilities and production in the famed Delta country of
central California, during which time he made numerous experiments in
agricultural operations that set new records, even in the wondrous Delta of the
Stockton country, James M. Bigger, formerly superintendent of the Drexler
tract, opened real estate offices in Stockton, with a branch in San Francisco
in 1918, and took in as a partner Jesse J. Inman, formerly of San Francisco,
and under the firm name of Bigger and Inman are doing an extensive
business. He was born and reared in the
farming districts of Ontario, Canada, and while still a young man removed to
New York and later spent some time in Pennsylvania. In 1884 he came to Santa Clara County and was
engaged in the dairy business for three years; then we find him in San Joaquin
County where he has since followed farming on a large scale and in the Delta
district; he also has farming land in Sutter County. On Rough and Ready and Roberts islands in the
Delta district he is extensively engaged in raising vegetables and grain and
has farmed as many as 3000 acres in the Delta; one season he had 500 acres in
celery and has also been a large grower of asparagus and other vegetables; in
Sutter County he farms from 500 to 1700 acres to fruit and grain; he built the
first silo in northern California and the second ever erected in this state;
this was on the Albert Lindley ranch on Rough and Ready Island; for a number of
years he conducted the largest dairy in the county.
The firm of Bigger
& Inman maintain offices at 307 East Weber Street, Stockton. A specialty is made of handling farm lands,
particularly in the Delta sections. City
property is another important department, and carefully arranged descriptive
lists of residence property are also shown to advantage. Estates are also managed, lands rented or
leased and crops handled to the best advantage possible for owners, and a fire
insurance department is maintained. Mr.
Bigger is, perhaps, one of the best-posted authorities on realty values in the state. For many years he was confidential appraiser
for several conservative firms, and vast sums of money have been invested in
the Delta on his judgment. He keeps in
intimate touch with the conditions of demand and supply, knows locations and
values as few men get to know them, and when he becomes the intermediary
between buyer and seller both sides get the benefit of his wide
experience. He was the first to
introduce corn production for commercial purposes in the Delta, and scored a record
yield of corn on the Drexler tract. He
was one of the first and most persistent boosters for the Borden Delta road and
highway across Union Island, has been an indefatigable worker for all
improvement.
Mr. Bigger is one of San Joaquin
County’s substantial citizens who has given much of
his valuable time without remuneration toward making the county fair a
success. As the vice-president, with the
fifteen directors of the fair, he has borne the burden of the big undertaking
purely out of a broad-minded desire to be of service to the community.
The marriage of Mr. Bigger united
him with Miss Anna E. Farrington, a native of New York state,
and they were the parents of six children, five of whom are living: Mrs. A. C. Parker, Olin M., Albert E., Lena E.,
and Alice I. Mr. Bigger was bereaved of
his faithful wife November 23, 1916.
Mr. Bigger has for many years been a
director of the Stockton Chamber of Commerce; a director in the San Joaquin
County Farm Bureau, representing San Joaquin County; he is a director and was
one of the organizers of the California Bean Growers’ Association; during the
late war he was food administrator for San Joaquin County and conducted this
office at his own expense; he was a member of the County Council of Defense,
and a member of the advisory board for the western part of San Joaquin County,
working with the board of supervisors.
He is on the Advisory Board of the Agricultural Department of the United
States Veterans Bureau Training School, known as the Trinese
School for Disabled Soldiers on Rough and Ready Island, which is in its
experimental stage being the first of the kind in the United States. It is men like James M. Bigger who have
looked into the future and given freely of their time and means that are
responsible for the growth of San Joaquin County and he is a real builder of
this section of the state. He is a
member and director of the Lions Club of Stockton.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
511. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County Genealogy
Databases