hubert howe bancroft - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History ...

BUILDING. 753
974 costing $6,700,000 in 1888. Among those completed
or in course of completion were the First
National bank, the Rosenthal building, the Huntington-Hopkins
company's building, the Chronicle
building, the Catholic cathedral, the Odd Fellows'
hall, the Academy of Sciences, the Lick free baths,
the Old People's home, the Concordia club, the
Cooper Medical college, the Hibernia bank, and the
Superior court building. 18 For the site of a new post-
19 For others see S. F. Chronicle, Dec. 29, 1889.
One of the largest land-owners on this coast is Dr E. B. Perrin, who came
to this state in 1868 with a view to practise medicine. Visiting the Alabama
settlement in Fresno co., he became interested in the irrigation question, and
soon afterward, with the aid of the bank of Cal., began the construction of
the upper San Joaquin canal, acquiring other valuable water rights, including
those of the Fresno canal co. In conjunction with others he also acquired
large tracts of land in various portions of the state and in southern Arizona.
Among them is the Mammoth ranch of 60,000 acres in Fresno co., all of it
suitable for vineyards.
Another successful real estate operator is Mark Sheldon, a native of N. Y.
state, where he was born on what was known as the Dry Hill farm, near
Watertown, Nov. 21, 1829. Coming to this state in 1851, after the usual
mining experience, he established himself in business, first in Plumas co. and
then in 8. F. In the summer of 1861 he went to Virginia City, where his
mining ventures were remarkably successful. After passing a few years in
the eastern states, he returned to this coast and engaged largely in real estate
operations, making such costly improvements as the well-known Sheldon
block, on Market and First streets, one of the most commodious and substantial
in the city.
A prominent real estate owner of Los Angeles, and in business matters
one of the most successful, is Mark G. Jones, a native of San Francisco,
where he was born in 1858, removing with hia family to Los Angeles when
twelve or thirteen years of age. The estate intrusted to him by his father
he has largely increased by investments in city property, building recently
on Main street a five-story edifice with 500 rooms.
Amoog those to whom is largely due the prosperity of southern Cal. was
Phineas Banning, born near Wilmington, Del., Aug. 19, 1830, and who came
to this state in 1852. A few years afterward he founded the town of Wilmington,
Cal., erected warehouses, opened a lumber-yard, and built lighters
and steamboats to facilitate its commerce, later establishing a stage line between
that town, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino. In 1865 he was elected
state senator, and through his exertions the city and co. of Los Angeles were
authorized to vote $225,000 for a railroad from that city to Wilmington. He
was an able and progressive man.
Another prominent citizen of southern Cal. is Henry Harrison Markham, a
native of Essex co., N. H., where he was born Nov. 14, 1840. After serving
with distinction almost throughout the civil war, at the close of which he
held the rank of colonel, aud then becoming prominent as an admiralty lawyer
in Milwaukee and other cities, he came to Cal. for his health in 1879,
settling himself at Pasadena. The fortune which he brought with him to this
state be increased largely by mining and real estate investments. He became
a director of the Los Angeles National bank, and was one of those who organized
the Los Angeles Furniture co. In 1884 he was elected congressman
on the republican ticket, and largely through his effortB liberal appropriations
were secured for the harbors of the Pacific coast.
HIST. CAL., VOL. VIL 48