San
Joaquin County
Biographies
THOMAS H. LUKE
A wide-awake businessman, noted for
both his initiative and his executive ability, is Thomas H. Luke, the efficient
and popular director of sales of the Holt Manufacturing Company at
Stockton. He was born in Gear’s Valley,
Nevada County, California, August 29, 1869, the son of a well-known pioneer who
came out to the Golden State in 1851, by way of the Isthmus, and on reaching
Gear’s Valley and Virginia City, Nevada, went in for mining. He built the first brick structure there, a
hotel, and conducted it for a number of years; and the evidence of his thorough
way of doing things, even in those primitive days of building, is the fact that
the house is still standing, an interesting landmark.
Thomas Luke went to school in
Virginia City and Grass Valley, and ranched for five years in Nevada
County. He came to Stockton in 1891 as a
wheelwright, with the Holt Bros. Company, and he has been continuously in the
employ of the Holt’s ever since. He
holds the record there of the longest term of continuous employment of any man
in their employ, thirty-two years, and during that time he never lost a day’s
pay. He has worked in every department,
and was the first man to travel on the road for the company. He was clerk in the Holt office, and later in
charge of sales, and since 1911 he has been director of sales, in full charge
of the selling of all the Holt products.
He has traveled all over the Pacific Coast, and personally knows every
customer in every town and city. He
started selling harvesters; then he went to steam tractors; and since 1909 he
has made it easier for the inquiring public to learn the advantage of the
“Caterpillar” tractor.
In addition to his responsibilities
in the matter of making more sales for the Holt products than any other
competing house may boast of, Mr. Luke is president of the People’s Finance
& Thrift Company, which was organized to combat the loan shark. In a most complimentary notice published in
the Stockton Record at the time the project was launched, that
highly-representative newspaper said, under the caption, “New Bank Organized in
Stockton to Extend Loans to Wage Earners,” that the object of the incorporators
was to lend money at a reasonable, and not an exorbitant rate of interest, and
that the stockholders had selected the following directors: Thomas H. Luke, Joseph Solari,
F. H. Clark, P. Pezzi, George L. Meissner, Albert B. Wimsett, Leroy S. Atwood, Ralph Vignolo
and E. V. Burke. The officers chosen at
a subsequent meeting of the board of directors were: Thomas H. Luke, President; F. H. Clark, First
vice-president; P. Pezzi, Second vice-president; Earl
D. Pillsbury, Secretary; and C. W. Humphreys, Treasurer. The introduction of the People’s Finance and
Thrift Company into this community sounds the death-knell of the loan sharks,
and others who have been charging exorbitant and usurious rates of interest for
small and much-needed loans. It has been
thoroughly demonstrated by these institutions that character plus earning
ability is a proper basis of credit, and the lines carried out by President
Luke’s company will be similar to those followed in other parts of the United
States where these institutions are in successful operation.
In the year 1891 Mr. Luke was married
to Miss Ida Balch, a native of Grass Valley, and their union has been blessed
with the birth of three daughters:
Florence, Lorain and Alice. Mr.
Luke belongs to Stockton Parlor No. 7 of the Native Sons of the Golden West, to
Lodge No. 218 of the Stockton Elks, and to San Joaquin Lodge No. 19 of the
Masons; and he is also a member of the Yosemite Club.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1415. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County Genealogy
Databases