San
Joaquin County
Biographies
FRED C. MAIER
A successful contractor of Lodi who
has prospered ever since locating here in 1908, is Fred C. Maier, a native of
Russia, born in that far-off land December 31, 1869. When he was fifteen years old he came to the
United States, locating in South Dakota, where for the next ten years he worked
out on farms. He then filed on a
homestead claim of 160 acres near Eureka, South Dakota, farming this for seven
years before he sold it, and then bought another 160 acres nearby for which he
paid $925. After farming this place for
four years he disposed of the land for $3,200 and the farm buildings and
equipment for $2,400, a very profitable transaction.
Mr. Maier then located at Ashley,
South Dakota, where he took up the trade of carpenter, remaining there until
1908 when he came to Lodi, and he has been busily engaged since that time as a
building contractor. He has done some
fine work in this vicinity, erecting houses costing from $5,000 to $20,000,
among them the ranch residences of John V. Bare, Mrs. Phillips, Ed Pope and the
Woock Brothers, the homes of G. Krowell,
John Powers, Fred Frey, Gottlieb Mettler, D. D. Mettler, John Bender, and Mr. Peete in Lodi, the Pioneer Fuel and Feed Company building
and the packing house for the Farmers’ Fruit Exchange in Lodi, besides a number
of other fruit packing houses. His gross
business in 1920 was about $100,000, leading all other contractors in Lodi in
building operations for that period. On
coming to Lodi he bought a two-acre tract and erected a house on it which he
later sold for $3,100; the family now make their home
in an attractive residence at 533 East Walnut Street.
Mr. Maier’s marriage in 1902 united
him with Miss Katie Presler, like himself a native of
Russia, and they have a daughter, Bertha, the wife of Theodore Eichler of Lodi. The
family are members of the German Baptist Church and
Mr. Maier contributed generously to the building fund for the erection of their
new church edifice.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1606. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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