San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOSEPH M. CHIRHART
Among
the leading contractors of San Joaquin County may be found Joseph M. Chirhart,
and he is credited with many of the best buildings in the city and county. Born on a farm in St. Joseph County, Indiana,
October 5, 1874, he attended the district schools and was later sent to Notre
Dame College in South Bend, where he remained until eighteen years of age. He then took up the trade of carpenter with
Barney Hertzel, a building contractor of South Bend; later a partnership was
formed with Louis Hickey, and for one year they did a general contracting
business; the partnership was then dissolved and Mr. Chirhart continued alone
for three years. He then entered the
employ of Herring & Son, contractors, and served as foreman of construction
on many of the largest buildings in South Bend, remaining with them until 1906
when he was employed by the Santa Fe Railroad Company to construct and install
their block signal system along their line through Kansas, Colorado and New
Mexico. The following year he started
for California and upon arriving in Stockton was obliged to transfer from the
Santa Fe to the Southern Pacific in order to complete his journey to San
Francisco on account of the floods in the San Joaquin Valley. His arrival in San Francisco was timely, for
that city had been laid waste by the disastrous earthquake and fire of
1906. His first work was on a hotel at
the corner of Turk and Taylor streets, next on St. Mark’s Hotel in Oakland, for
Lundgreen & Hicks, and then he went to Agnew as
foreman of carpenter work on the rebuilding of the state hospital, which had
been completely wrecked by the earthquake of 1906; two years later he was
employed on the new receiving building at the state hospital in Stockton.
About this time a partnership was
formed in Stockton with C. J. Nystedt, under the firm
name of Chirhart and Nystedt,
and among the more outstanding buildings of their construction are the
following: the Aetna Apartments, the Embery Flats, the Watercure
Building at Clark’s Sanitarium, the Bennett Flats at Sutter and Poplar streets,
the Catholic Church at Lodi, the Science Building of the Stockton high school,
completion of work on the Jefferson school building, remodeling the Lincoln
school, erection of two buildings for the Standard Oil Company, and the
concrete work on the City Bank Building.
During 1916, the partnership was dissolved and Mr. Chirhart continued
his contracting business alone. He did
the carpenter work on the Georges Building, erected the new Stockton Mineral
Baths, a fine piece of concrete work, built the high
schools at Hughson and at Denair, Stanislaus County, and the grammar school at
Woodbridge. In the spring of 1922 Mr.
Chirhart removed with his family to Lodi, and since then has built the St.
Ann’s Academy, Lodi; remodeled the Franklin school at Franklin, as well as
erecting buildings at Isleton, Sacramento County.
The marriage of Mr. Chirhart united
him with Miss Mabel Holeman, born at Wallace,
Calaveras County, California, and they are the parents of two daughters,
Frances Leverne and Vivian Josephine. Mr. Chirhart is a member of the Knights of
Columbus at Stockton.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1395-1396. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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