San
Joaquin County
Biographies
DUDLEY I. WALTZ
The great cattle-barons of
California have always occupied an heroic position in the intensely interesting
history of the Golden State, exponents of that courage, foresight, optimism and
progressive enterprise which have marked the leaders of the Pacific
commonwealth as among the most progressive of all highly successful Americans;
and it is natural, therefore, that such men of large affairs as Dudley I.
Waltz, the stockman, should be accorded an enviable eminence among men of wide
influence, and should preeminently enjoy the esteem and confidence of their
fellows. Mr. Waltz was born in Monroe
County, Missouri, May 3, 1861, first seeing the light on a comfortable home
farm; but in 1877, when only sixteen years of age, he came out to California,
in company with a boy friend. His first
employment was on a farm at Wheatland, where he pitched hay for $1.25 per day,
and after working as a farm hand for some three years, he bought 320 acres of land
in Sutter County which he farmed to wheat and barley. At the end of two years, he sold this ranch
at a profit, and he then bought 800 acres of land in Placer County, which he
farmed for another two years, and then sold at a profit. He next bought a small band of sheep, this
being his start in handling sheep and cattle, and from that time on he has
steadily advanced, until now he is one of the largest sheep-owners in
California, having about 30,000 head.
In 1896, he bought of General
Bidwell, of Chico, some 7,000 head of sheep, and leased all of Bidwell’s
pasture land up to the time of his death.
The same year, he bought 10,000 sheep from the Joe Cone estate at Red
Bluff. In 1898, he brought from Tom Haw,
a Chinaman, some 10,000 head at Dillon, Montana, and the next year he opened a
butcher shop on Second Street, Chico, which he operated for a couple of
years. In 1900 he bought a train load of
cattle in Old Mexico; and this was the first load of cattle that crossed the
quarantine line into the state. They
were unloaded at Bakersfield, where they were disinfected and examined by a
state veterinary. For two years he
conducted a ranch in Merced County, removing to Stockton in 1902. Now thousands of his sheep and cattle range
on a thousand hills in California, and his holdings include the Stanford Ranch
of 9,000 acres in Tehama and Butte counties, once a part of the famous Leland
Stanford estate, known as the Vina ranch.
He also owns 9,000 acres of land in Merced County, and leases 20,000
more in Mariposa and Merced counties; and he leases 50,000 acres of land in
Butte and Tehama counties, directing the whole with the assistance of his two
sons, Edward P. and Arthur W. Waltz, who are associated with him in his
livestock enterprises. Mr. Waltz is a
member of the advisory board of the Imperial Cattle Loan Company of Los
Angeles, and he is ex-president of the San Joaquin County Cattlemen’s
Association. He help to organize, and is
the president of the Central California Wool Growers’ Association, and is also
director of the State Wool Growers’ Association; and in 1911, he helped to
organize the California State Life Insurance Company of Sacramento, and is
official appraiser and director of the same, and in 1922 was elected its
vice-present. This company has been very
successful, and has made the best showing of any company in the United States
in the past ten years.
When Mr. Waltz married September 2,
1889, at Auburn, California, he chose for his bride Miss Martha H. Brock, a
native of Sutter County; and their union has been blessed with the birth of
five children: Edward P., who married
Miss Dorothy Boone of Red Bluff, is associated with our subject and his
brother, Arthur B., in the sheep and cattle business, under the firm name of D.
I. Waltz & Sons with principal offices at Stockton; Arthur B. was in the
Aviation service and put in eighteen months overseas; Dorothy is the wife of
Ralph Jeanelle of Stockton, and Minnie and Grace are
the youngest in the family. San Joaquin
County is justly proud of such an eminently progressive captain of industry as
Mr. Waltz, one of the greatest patrons of husbandry in the Golden State.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
661-662. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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