San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CHARLES L. NEUMILLER
A very popular member of the
California Bar distinguished for his legal knowledge and highly esteemed for
his unswerving integrity, is Charles L. Neumiller, the senior member of the law
firm of Neumiller & Ditz, occupying a spacious suite of well-appointed
offices in the Commercial and Savings Bank Building, Stockton. He is the younger son of the late Christian
and Marie (Mey) Neumiller,
natives respectively of Rhenish Bavaria and Alsace, whose interesting
life-stories are given elsewhere in this historical work, and he was born, a
native son proud of his association with the great Golden State, at Stockton on
October 21, 1873. He was reared and
educated in Stockton, attending the public schools there, and was graduated
from the Stockton high school with the class of ’92.
While yet a boy, he began to cherish
the ambition to become a lawyer; and this ambition he stuck to despite the fact
that his father, as a hard-working man, had not the means of putting his son
through college, and particularly of affording him training in the law. Young Neumiller, therefore, was confronted
with the problem of making his own way and at the same time of saving enough to
take him through the law school of the University. Upon his graduation from the high school, he
entered the employ of the Farmers Union and Milling Company, of Stockton,
filling the position of office boy, and by attending closely to the details of
the work he was expected to do, he was soon advanced to the position of
shipping clerk, both of the mill and the seven establishments called the Eureka
Warehouses. In 1893, the Sperry Flour
Company acquired the mill and the mill warehouses, but Mr. Neumiller was
retained and made superintendent of the grain storage warehouses. In this capacity, he had an abundant
opportunity of becoming acquainted with the leading farmers and grain men of
San Joaquin County, and some of these associations bore good fruit years later.
The year 1898 was a very disastrous
one for the warehouse business—first, because of the great fire, which
completely destroyed warehouses No. 5 and No. 6, and secondly because the
severe drought caused a crop failure, so that there was no immediate need of
rebuilding the structures destroyed by fire.
Mr. Neumiller, however, turned this misfortune to good account; he
resolved to complete his education and to fit himself for the legal
profession. In August, therefore, he
matriculated at the Hastings Law School and began to pursue the regular law
studies, at the same time taking work in the University of California; and each
summer he returned to Stockton, where his former employers gave him work, and
in that way he managed to pay his way through college. Applying himself assiduously to his studies,
he graduated in 1901, both from the University of California and from the
Hastings Law School, which conferred upon him the degree of L.L.B. with the
authority of the University, with which the Law School was affiliated.
Being thus duly admitted to the Bar
of California, he was retained by his employers to close out their interests
and large land holdings in Tulare, Kings, Fresno and Kern counties; and in this
he succeeded very well, although the varied work required nearly a year. On June 1, 1902, he returned to Stockton and
on July 1, 1902, he entered the district attorney’s office, under Arthur H.
Ashley, of Stockton, then district attorney of San Joaquin County. On January 1, 1903, the law firm of Ashley
& Neumiller was organized, with offices in the Salz
Building, for the general practice of law.
This firm built up a good practice, but in 1910 the partnership was
dissolved and each partner resumed practices for himself, Mr. Neumiller retaining
the offices in the Hale Building on Main Street where the firm of Ashley &
Neumiller removed in 1906.
In 1914, George A. Ditz, a graduate
of Stanford University and the Harvard Law School, came as a young lawyer into
Mr. Neumiller’s office, and two years later he became
a partner in the law firm of Messrs. Neumiller & Ditz, now enjoying a large
practice, making a specialty of corporation work. They are the attorneys for The Holt
Manufacturing Company, the Sperry Flour Company, the Samson Tractor Company,
the Wagner Leather Company, the Monarch Foundry Company, the Western Union
Telegraph Company, the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, the Western Pacific
Railroad Company, the Tidewater & Southern Railroad Company, the Rindge
Land & Navigation Company, and many other well-known concerns.
Mr. Neumiller is a member of the
Masons, Elks, Odd Fellows and Native Sons, and also of Stockton Commandery, No.
8, K. T. In politics, he is a strong
Progressive Republican, a warm admirer of the late Theodore Roosevelt, and
always has been a close and personal friend of Senator Hiram W. Johnson. Since 1912, he has been a member of the State
Board of Prison Directors of the State of California and since 1915 he has
served as the president thereof, which speaks for itself, for there, as
everywhere else, he has discharged his trust conscientiously and efficiently.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
892-895. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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