Ventura
County
Biographies
LEO BORCHARD
Leo Borchard, a lifelong resident of
Southern California, is a prominent and prosperous rancher who makes his home
in Santa Ana. He was born on a ranch two
and one-half miles northeast of what is now Oxnard, Ventura County, California,
December 16, 1879, being the eldest son of a family of five sons and three
daughters whose parents were Casper and Theresa (Moring) Borchard. The mother died when her son Leo was
seventeen years of age. Casper Borchard,
a native of Germany, immigrated to Southern California in an early day and
became a successful stockman and farmer, owing four thousand acres of land in
Ventura County and twenty-seven hundred acres in Orange County. He made settlement on raw land, cleared the
brush and plowed it for cultivation. He
was the first man to turn the soil south of the Santa Clara River in Ventura
County and one of the first cattle and grain ranchers in that section of the
state. In 1913 he formed the Borchard Land
Company and some years later the children divided the property and he
maintained his home on Conejo, California, with his
daughter Mary T. Borchard. His death
occurred on the 12th of December, 1920.
Leo Borchard was reared on the home
farm in Oxnard and attended the public schools in the acquirement of an
education. In 1900 when in his
twenty-first year, he came to the vicinity of Santa Ana, and what was called
Gospel Swamp, and here he was given the job of running the excavator or
ditch-digging machine owned by his father, W. T. Newland and W. D. Lamb. He was thus employed until two large and
important ditches were completed, aiding very materially in the reclamation of
the swamp land. Under his father he also
assisted in the construction of the Talbert Road, and cleared many acres of the
swamp land, which was developed into one of the most valuable and productive
ranches in Orange County. Here he and
his brother, Frank P., owned nine hundred acres, which they farmed together
very profitably until a greater part of the property was sold. They also owned the following well improved
ranches: three hundred sixteen acres and
one hundred sixty acres on the west side of Santa Ana; two hundred acres south
of Huntington Beach; one hundred eighteen acres on the Mesa; two hundred
fifty-two acres in the bottom, and sixty-six acres at Fairview. Leo Borchard also owned jointly with his four
brothers a twenty-acre tract at Garden Grove, Orange County, and a half
interest with W. T. Newland, Sr., in sixty acres southeast of the Newland ranch
in the Huntington Beach district. In
1920 Leo and Frank P. Borchard sold eight hundred acres of their land for three
hundred thirty-five thousand dollars.
During those years Mr. Borchard and his brothers also became widely known
for their success as breeders and raisers of Norman-Percheron horses as well as
high grade mules. They brought here some
of the best Percheron stallions ever imported into Orange County and raised
many draft horses weighing eighteen hundred to two thousand pounds. They also owned the celebrated jack “Burr
Oak,” which cost them three thousand dollars.
Leo Borchard was one of the first in Orange County to use tractors in farming
operations, owning three Holt caterpillars, and did a vast amount of drainage
and road building work. He sold a number
of his ranches some years ago but is still the owner of valuable citrus land in
Orange County, growing both lemons and oranges.
His holdings also include one hundred three acres in Arizona, fifty-five
miles east of Phoenix; forty acres at Hemet, Riverside County, California, and
a tract of land near Tampico, Texas. He
was a stockholder in the First National Bank of Santa Ana and has long been
numbered among the representative citizens and leading ranchers of this part of
the state.
In 1904 Mr. Borchard was united in
marriage to Miss Marie E. Hauptman, a native of Collinsville, Illinois, who at
the age of sixteen years was brought to California by her parents, Henry J. and
Margaret Marie Hauptman. Mr. and Mrs.
Borchard reside in their beautiful home at 1617 East Fourth Street, Santa
Ana. Mr. Borchard is a Republican in
politics and fraternally is identified with Santa Ana Council of the Knights of
Columbus; Santa Ana Lodge, No. 794, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of
which he is a life member; and Santa Ana Parlor, N. S. G. W.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 231-233, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S VENTURA
BIOGRAPHIES