San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MORRIS DAVIDSON
The Engineering and Foundry Company
of Stockton, now one of the fast growing and steadily developing industrial
enterprises of central California, was organized in 1915 by Morris Davidson and
S. G. Mix, well-known foundry specialists familiar with all methods of casting,
business men thoroughly alive to the iron trade. Morris Davidson, the president of this
company, was born in Russia on May 15, 1876 and there received his
education. At the age of twenty he set
out for the New World, arriving in America in 1896, and immediately came to
Stockton, California. He tried working
on ranches, but after a few months decided to enter industrial life, and opened
a small store on Weber Avenue, dealing in furniture, scrap iron and metals;
later, as his business grew, he removed to Park Street and a few years ago
bought land on North East Street, where he has the largest wholesale iron and
metal business in northern California.
Mr. Davidson’s advancement has been continuous and commendable, and
today he is recognized as one of the leader’s in his business in the great
State of California. The plant of the
Engineering and Foundry Company is located in the heart of the industrial
district of Stockton; the buildings are modern and the equipment of the highest
mechanical order. Doing
a general foundry business, this company deals extensively in semi-steel and
gray iron castings, the real quality products of the industry. Huge melting furnaces with capacity to
produce the largest sizes of castings, or the smallest, meet all requirements
of high-class production. The mechanical
department is equipped with the most approved machinery and superior workmanship
is the motto of this steadily growing establishment. Orders come from many of the larger
industrial plants of Stockton and from the cities and towns surrounding, and
because of the facilities of the plant, all work is given the quick attention
that makes friends and establishes confidence.
With the building of new roads in this section of central California,
and the proposed construction of the great Stockton harbor project, which means
an expenditure of some $4,000,000, and the establishing of wonderful harbor
facilities for the city, the building of more boats and launches, and the
increasing of business by the more important institutions of Stockton, the
Engineering and Foundry Company finds it necessary to keep abreast of the
times.
Mr. Davidson is the owner of the
Branch Sporting Goods Company of Stockton; secretary and treasurer and holder
of a controlling interest in the A. H. Patterson Company, agents for the Hudson
and Essex automobiles; president of the Stockton Glass Company; director in the
Turlock Oil and Gas Company, and is one of the directors of Everybody’s
Investment Company. The latter company
erected a garage on Aurora Street and has other valuable real estate holdings
throughout the city.
Mr. Davidson is married and the
father of two children, Marian and Stanley.
During the World War Mr. Davidson was active in all the Liberty Loan
drives and had charge of the salvage department of the Red Cross for which he
devoted an entire building free of charge for their use. At the election on May 2, 1922 Mr. Davidson
was one of the fifteen freeholders elected to draft a new charter for the City
of Stockton. In politics he is a
Republican.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1363. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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