San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CALIFORNIA PLATING WORKS
(William A. Miller)
One of the steadily expanding
institutions of the Gateway City to the San Joaquin Valley is the California
Plating Works, located at 148 West Fremont Street, Stockton. This industry was established in 1910 by
William A. Miller, who came to Stockton after years of experience in the
plating trade throughout the United States, attracted by the many manufacturing
and industrial plants established in that city, which demonstrated that a substantial
field existed for wide-awake enterprises.
Today Mr. Miller has one of the most modernly-equipped plating works in
California.
Mr. Miller was born in Iowa on March
13, 1882, but was reared in Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents removed when he
was a young child, and in that city he received his education. Early in life he learned the trade of plater, then he was with the Darby Manufacturing Company in
Council Bluffs, Iowa; then was employed by the Solar Manufacturing Company of
Chicago, one of the largest plating plants in the United States and widely
known all over the country. He then came west and found employment with Z. O. Parmalee Company of Los Angeles and Sidney A. Clark of San
Francisco. He then became superintendent
of construction and installed the plating for the Salt Lake Electric
Company. Thus his years of experience
have made him an expert in his line of work.
When he established his plating shop in Stockton it was the only plant
of its kind in the San Joaquin Valley.
His business has steadily grown until he was obliged to erect a larger
plant at 148 West Fremont Street, which is strictly modern in every detail and
is the only plating plant between Sacramento and Fresno. His plant is fully equipped to do all kinds
of plating, silver, gold, bronze, steel, copper, and brass; also oxidized work
and all kinds of color work. He also
does jobbing work, such as automobile headlights, bumpers, reflectors; plates
the silverware for restaurants and does all the gold and silver plating and polishing
for the Stockton jewelers. He did the
interior work in the Commercial & Savings Bank and the Stockton City Bank
and the Oakdale Bank, and all the metal plating on the engines and tractors of
the Holt Manufacturing Company for their exhibit at the Panama-Pacific
Exposition at San Francisco. When he
started his business in Stockton plating was new to the people and the hardware
and plumbing companies carried no stock of nickel plated goods, most of the
fixtures being made of brass.
The marriage of Mr. Miller united
him with Miss Edna Erstad, a native of Ripon, and
they have one daughter, Mary Ann.
Fraternally Mr. Miller is a member of the Morning Star Blue Lodge of
Masons and the Stockton Rotary Club.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1585. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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