Kings County
Biographies
In Dallas county, Mo., Alexander Wellington Bass was born, October 30, 1861. It was in that county that he was reared and gained much of his education in the public school. When he was eighteen years old he accompanied his father to Boise City, Idaho, where he attended school two years longer. He early gained a knowledge of farming and at Boise City learned the carpenter’s trade. Eventually he returned to Missouri and started back to Idaho by way of the coast in order to see California. He stopped off at Hanford March 9, 1888, and liking the town and the country round about obtained employment on a farm, where he worked several months. Then, locating in Hanford, he took up carpentering and after three years became a contractor and builder. Three years later he added house-moving to his business and that part of his work became so important that it gradually commanded all his time and attention. As a contractor he had for a partner J. D. Ellis, and they confined their operations mostly to building residences, of which they built as many in their period of activity as any concern in this part of the state. As a house-mover his operations have extended throughout the San Joaquin valley from Bakersfield to Stockton and he was once awarded a four-month contract as far away as Santa Rosa.
As a Democrat Mr. Bass has been active in local and state politics for ten years. In 1909 he was elected to serve four years as a member of the board of trustees of Hanford. Fraternally he affiliates with Tent No. 40, K. O. T. M., the Foresters of America, and the Woodmen of the World. He was long a member of the old Chamber of Commerce and has for twenty-one years been identified with the volunteer fire department of Hanford. For twelve years he has served without pay as a trustee of the Hanford Cemetery Association. When he was elected there was no fund even to pay the sexton, but because of his good management the association now has a surplus of $11,000 to $12,000 at interest, a fund for the up-keep of the cemetery.
September 6, 1888, Mr. Bass married Alice Howard, daughter of John A. and Mary Howard and a native of Clarke county, Mo. They have had six children: Earnest, born May 20, 1891; Ethel, July 9, 1897; Edna, August 16, 1900; Anita, April 12, 1902; Clarence, who died in 1906, aged seventeen years; Avis, who died at the age of ten months. Earnest is at home, Ethel, Edna and Anita are attending school.
SOURCE: History of
Tulare and Kings Counties,
California
with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles,
Calif.,
Historic Record Company, 1913
Pp 505, 506
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn
HERRIN, DANIEL M.
Incidental to our economic development of the last half century has been the evolution of the modern creamery, a corporate agency which has come to do the work of a large number of individuals, and to do it better and to give results of a more uniform quality than was possible under the old order of things. Creameries are located here and there throughout the county, none of them are very large or conspicuous, and none of them attracts attention by such loud and discordant noises as emanate from industrial plants of various other kinds. But the products of creameries are used everywhere by everybody, in such an immense volume that the statistics of the industry are almost staggering. However, it was not to comment at length on this subject that this article was begun, and what little has been said concerning it has been set down by way of showing how important a work has engaged the talents of Daniel M. Herrin for some time past.
Mr. Herrin was born in Marion county, Ind., July 2, 1862, and attended the public schools until he was nineteen years old. In 1891 he engaged in stock-raising and farming and gradually concerned himself in the creamery business. His interests in that way, small at first, increased until he was called to the management of the Tulare Creamery Company of Corcoran. He continued as the manager of the Corcoran plant of the Tulare Co-operative Creamery Company until March, 1912, when he resigned his position. He then organized the Lake View Creamery Company June 1, 1912, and began running regularly November 1 of that year.
This is a stock company incorporated under the laws of the State of California with a capital stock of $50,000.00 of which Mr. Niss Hanson is president, F. A. Cleveland of Corcoran, secretary and treasurer, and Daniel M. Herrin is manager. They have installed a car lot service and are now shipping and selling direct to the wholesale trade of Los Angeles their choice milk and cream products. A three-ton automobile truck transports their product from the plant, which is substantially constructed and built of concrete and equipped with the best of machinery and located six miles southwest of Corcoran, to the Santa Fe railway station. Thus expeditiously handled the said products net their patrons about four cents per pound of butter fat more than can be realized if sold to the creameries.
Mr. Herrin has been a citizen of Kings county since December, 1910, and since that time has never failed to respond liberally to any demand upon his public spirit. He is a Mason and socially he is a favorite with all who know him. His business methods are such as to appeal strongly to the farming community, and the institution of which he is the head is one of the most popular in this part of the state and is patronized more and more liberally with each passing year.
SOURCE: History of
Tulare and Kings Counties,
California
with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles,
Calif.,
Historic Record Company, 1913
Pp 506, 507
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn