San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLARD D. MOBLEY
A representative and successful
wheat grower of San Joaquin County is W. D. Mobley, who is one of the best
authorities on wheat and its production in the state of California. His home ranch is situated three miles
southwest of Farmington, and consists of 330 acres of rich grain land. His business career has been crowned with a
gratifying measure of success that has been honorably won, and because of his prominent
position in the agricultural community he certainly deserves mention in this
volume. He was born in Vernon County,
Missouri, February 19, 1873, a son of Thomas R. and Mary (Reese) Mobley, both
natives of Kentucky. Thomas R. Mobley,
with his wife and six children, left Missouri for California in 1875, arriving
in the Golden State the same year. They
settled near Milton, where the mother still resides, the father having passed
away in 1900. W. D. Mobley received a
good education in the schools of Calaveras County, supplementing with a year’s
course in the Linden high school.
Mr. Mobley has been closely
associated with his brother, William P. Mobley, a prominent mining man of
Calaveras County, where he has operated
for the past fifteen years, and the two brothers are still active in locating
and proving up on mines in California.
For ten years Mr. Mobley managed the large Mobley home ranch, consisting
of 1,400 acres, on which he raised large quantities of grain and stock. Mr. Mobley has always used the most modern
equipment for plowing, planting and harvesting his great crops of wheat; and
since he transferred his activities to his present ranch, he has employed the
same up-to-date methods of farming.
In 1911 at Farmington, California,
Mr. Mobley was united in marriage with Miss Minnie P. Drais,
a daughter of Edward M. and Rosa (Grann) Drais, prominent pioneers of San Joaquin and Stanislaus
counties. Edward M. Drais
was a man of influence in his locality and for a number of years served as
trustee of the Home Union School District, Stanislaus
County, in his neighborhood, and gave his aid in a most generous manner to all
public institutions and causes for the manifest good and advancement of the
community. Both are now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Mobley are the parents of one
son, Willie A.
Five years ago, Mr. Mobley acquired
his present ranch of 330 acres, which is a portion of the original homestead of
James Dunham. Mr. Mobley is an active
member of the local Farm Bureau; he is president of the Farmington Mutual Telephone
& Telegraph Association, and in 1922 served as chairman of the grain
committee of the San Joaquin County Fair Association. Mr. Mobley has exhibited and received blue
ribbons at the county fairs for his fine quality of wheat and oats. As a public-spirited citizen, a friend of
progress and promoter of general advancement he has long enjoyed the thorough
confidence of his fellow citizens.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
952. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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