San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JAMES W. WAGERS
A realty operator with twenty-five
years of successful experience in this field in different parts of the west,
James W. Wagers is one of Lodi’s most enthusiastic boosters, having chosen this
for his permanent home after looking over many other districts in the
state. Mr. Wagers spent his early life
in Wisconsin, where he was born in Grant County, August 22, 1862, removing to
Holt County, Nebraska, when he was twenty years old. This part of Nebraska was just being
developed and for several years he followed well boring there, later being
engaged in the mercantile business for nine years in Page, Nebraska, and when
he had disposed of this he entered the real estate business at Page. He dealt in farm lands, making many large
sales, owning a number of places, and on one ten-acre tract he erected his
home, highly improving the property and thus adding to the city’s development.
In 1909 Mr. Wagers removed to
Eugene, Oregon, and for the next four years engaged in the real estate business
there, coming in 1913 to Lodi, after traveling over a good part of California
seeking a good location. Here he formed
a partnership with Dan W. Bird as Dan W. Bird & Company, three years later
trading his half interest for an eighty-acre town site thirteen miles from
Eugene, Oregon. Going north, Mr. Wagers
laid out the town, which he called Veneta, and sold
off the lots, and on his return to Lodi he and C. F. Stumpf organized the
realty firm of Stumpf & Wagers, continuing as partners until 1919, when Mr.
Wagers sold out his interest and formed the firm of J. W. Wagers & Company,
taking in his two sons as partners. With
many years of experience behind him in other fields, Mr. Wagers has been most
successful in his operations here, and has sold over 150 pieces of property,
among them the Max Leetzow ranch of 178 acres for
$30,000, the Cooper place of twenty acres at $20,000, a thirty-acre ranch south
of Lodi for $12,000, now worth $40,000, showing the rapid rise in values in
this favored district. He is the owner
of a ten-acre vineyard which he has improved, thus greatly increasing its
value. He has said that he never
expected to find so desirable a place to locate in as Lodi, and so expects to
make this his home permanently.
While a resident of Nebraska Mr.
Wagers was united in marriage with Miss Alta Mills, a native of Mt. Pleasant,
Iowa, and six children have been born to them, four of whom are living: Ernest I. and Gerald J. own a cattle ranch in
Siskiyou County; Lionel is associated with his father in business; Mary is Mrs.
Siegalkoff of Lodi.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1252. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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