San
Joaquin County
Biographies
DAVID SALFIELD
For a number of years David Salfield
has occupied a conspicuous place among the leading business men of San Joaquin
County, and as president of the El Dorado Land Company, owners of the
subdivision known as El Dorado Heights, he has been an important factor in the
prosperity and development of this section of the city. In 1893 an enterprising group of citizens
purchased 140 acres of land which at that time was a grain field and the
highest point of land in the city. The
El Dorado Land Company was formed, and in 1912 this tract of land was
subdivided and up to the present time there have been 120 residences built in
this subdivision costing $4,000 and up.
The company owns their own wells and pumping plant, all streets are
paved and sewers connected, and ornamental trees are being planted. Mr. Salfield donated a portion of the land on
which the North schoolhouse was built in 1916, a building of four rooms; and in
1923 additions were added to make it sixteen rooms, to take care of the growing
population. The El Dorado Land Company
has reserved thirty acres on the west on Alpine Street for extra fine
residences; this street leads into the grounds of the new College of the
Pacific. Mr. Salfield’s
activities in building and developing this tract of land have been of lasting
benefit to the city of Stockton.
Mr. Salfield was born in Keyesport, Illinois, April 25, 1861, and while still a
young child was taken by his parents to St. Louis, Missouri, where he remained
until he was six years old; then he was taken to Germany where he began his
education and where he took up the study of architecture in the best schools of
that country. In 1880 when he was nineteen
years old, he returned to America and came direct to San Francisco, where he
entered the employ of Wright & Saunders, pioneer architects of the Bay
City, as a draftsman. In 1886 the
supervisors of San Joaquin County advertised for plans for a new court house
and Mr. Salfield received $400 as the second prize. In 1889 Mr. Salfield submitted plans for the
new county jail, at the time Tom Cunningham was sheriff of the county, and they
were accepted and he was awarded the contract to erect the jail at a cost of
$65,000; later he submitted plans for the county hospital, again receiving the
second prize.
Mr. Salfield, realizing the great
future of the city of Stockton, removed there in 1915 and began his activity in
building and improving El Dorado Heights, which is the pride of the city. He is the owner of 118 lots opposite the San
Joaquin County Fairgrounds on Sharp Lane which will be improved with residences
when the car line is extended. Every
wise man has a hobby and Mr. Salfield’s is his
eighty-acre dairy ranch four miles southeast of Escalon in the South San
Joaquin Irrigation District, where he has one of the best herds of registered
Holstein-Friesian cattle in the state.
He has erected modern dairy barns and has forty registered cows, and he
is particularly proud of a young bull, whose dam produced thirty-three pounds
of butter in one week, or the equivalent of four and a half pounds daily.
The marriage of Mr. Salfield united
him with Miss Rose Hund, a native of San Francisco,
and they are the parents of two sons:
August and Carl D., both successful building contractors, under the firm
name of Salfield Bros., who own their own planing mill and who have erected the
residences in El Dorado Heights. Mr.
Salfield practiced his profession of architect in San Francisco for many years
and designed and erected three or four hundred buildings, including the Granada
Hotel and many other fine hotels and apartment houses. He was a member of the San Francisco
Association of Architects and was an architect of high standing in the
city. In 1906 he designed and built the
Elks’ building in Stockton, one of the best buildings in the city. The great state of California owes much of
its prosperity to such enterprising men as Mr. Salfield, whose reliability in
business, loyalty in citizenship and trustworthiness in private life have won
for him the confidence and respect of his community. Fraternally Mr. Salfield is affiliated with
the Masons.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1494-1495. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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