San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM H. LORENZ
San Joaquin County will never forget
the important and necessary part played by far-sighted, experienced bankers in
her development, through which she has come to take a front place among the
counties of California, and prominent among the agencies that have done much
for the progress in central California the First National Bank of Lodi must be
mentioned. Its success is undoubtedly
due, to a great extent, to the personal attention to every detail of William H.
Lorenz, the president of his thriving institution. He was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, on
April 9, 1863, and there was reared and educated. In 1885 he came west to Walla Walla, Washington, and engaged in farming pursuits for two
years at the end of which time he removed to Stockton and was employed by P. A.
Buell & Company; later he entered the Stockton State Hospital and soon
afterward assumed the supervision of that institution, where he remained for
fifteen years. During the year of 1905
he settled in Lodi and helped to organize the First National Bank and became
its cashier, which position he held until recently when he was elected
president. The other offices are as
follows: H. C. Beckman, E. E. Morse and
S. H. Zimmerman, vice-presidents; Lloyd Mazzera,
cashier; P. A. Ritchie, H. F. Lightfoot, D. H. Groff and C. D. Tappan,
assistant cashiers. The present board of
directors is: George F. McNoble, chairman, and W. H. Lorenz, president; H. C.
Beckman, E. E. Morse, and S. H. Zimmerman, vice-presidents; George W. Le Moin, E. A. Covell, John C. Bewley, Otto Spenker and W. G. Micke. The First
National Bank was organized with a capital of $25,000; and now with the Central
Savings Bank under the same management, has a combined capital of $300,000 with
a surplus of $150,000 and resources of over $3,500,000.
Mr. Lorenz is the secretary and
treasurer of the Lodi Investment Company which built and owns the beautiful
Lodi Hotel and the Lodi Theater. In 1913
he purchased an eighty-acre vineyard near Youngstown, which he has brought to a
high state of cultivation; an arch at the entrance to the property reads “Vista
Del Monte Vineyard.” In partnership with
John C. Bewley, he recently subdivided a forty-acre
tract south of Lodi into one-acre lots.
Mr. Lorenz has been city treasurer of Lodi since its incorporation in
1906. Fraternally he is a member of Lodi
Lodge No. 256 F. & A. M. Masons; and belongs to all branches of that order
in Stockton, and to the San Francisco Consistory and Shrine; he has passed
through all the chairs of the Lodi Lodge of Odd Fellows.
Mr. Lorenz’s marriage united him
with Hedwig Ruhl, a native daughter of California
born in Stockton; she is the daughter of the late Fred Ruhl,
a Stockton pioneer, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. Mr. and Mrs. Lorenz are the parents of one
daughter, Bernice, a graduate of the University of California in 1921. She married P. A. Ritchie of Lodi and they
have a little daughter. A man of fine
character, a clear thinker, broad-minded and progressive, Mr. Lorenz has a keen
desire for the community’s betterment, morally, educationally and commercially.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
499-500. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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