San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN R. LUBECK
A man who has had much to do with
the building up of the city of Tracy is John R. Lubeck, for a number of years
chief engineer of the pumping plant of the West Side Irrigation District, with
headquarters near Bethany, California.
He was born in Smoland, Sweden, on June 24,
1868, and received a good elementary education in the schools of his native
land. His father, Adolph F. Lubeck, was
a prominent and well-known manufacturer of Fredericksfors,
Sweden, where he owned and operated huge smelters in that district. Serious financial reverses suffered by his
father in 1874 made it imperative that John R. find work; this was the
beginning of his self-support and his first position was an apprentice to the
machinist trade, which occupied him for four years. He was nineteen when he went to sea on the S.
S. Romio; in 1889 he was transferred to an English
ship and sailed the seven seas, stopping at various ports of interest, and also
being privileged to visit the interior of the different countries. When he was twenty-two years old, he received
a second chief engineer’s license with an unlimited license on merchant
vessels. In 1890 Mr. Lubeck stopped off
at New York and went to Hartford, Connecticut, where he remained for seven
years as engineer for the transportation corps for the Hartford and New Haven
Transportation Company; in 1898 he became an employee of the Standard Oil
Company, serving as chief engineer on different oil tankers on the Atlantic seaboard;
then in 1902 he became chief engineer on Walter Jennings’ private yacht,
“Tuscarora,” making a world cruise covering a period of three years. Upon his return to the United States he took
a cruise on the yacht “Clapsico” of the West Indies,
which was both interesting and instructive.
Desiring to come to California, he brought the Standard Oil Tanker
“Maverick,” with Borer No. 91 in tow all the way (13,842 miles) from New York
City to San Francisco, California, through the Straits of Magellan, eighty-two
days on the trip, landing at San Francisco January 2, 1907. Coming to Tracy he secured a position as
chief engineer at the Standard Oil pumping station near Tracy, remaining in
that position until 1917, when he enlisted for service in the U. S. Navy and
served throughout the duration of the war as a lieutenant. After his discharge from the Navy, Mr. Lubeck
returned to Tracy where his services were required by the West Side Irrigation
District, which had just been completed and where he was put in charge of the
pumping plant and by new and economical methods, many of which have been
adopted by the district, the plant at Bethany has been of great benefit to the
farmers of that section.
Mr. Lubeck’s
marriage united him with Miss Elizabeth Widerquist, a
native of Sweden who was reared in Brooklyn, New York, and who came west in 1907, and they are the parents of two children: John R., Jr., and Florence. Mr. Lubeck is a member of the Masonic Lodge
of Richmond, California, No. 347. He is
a heavy stockholder in the manufacture of the Lambert Solid Tires and has done
much in the way of introducing them in central California. He has never had occasion to regret his
determination to come to the west and, utilizing the opportunities here
offered, has made a name and place for himself.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1212. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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