Orange County
Biographies
GEORGE A. COOK,
the pioneer merchant of Lugonia and Redlands, also the first Postmaster there, has been a citizen of the Golden State since 1879. He came from the far East, being born in Litchfield County, Connecticut. His father died when he was a boy, and he had his own way to make in the world. He began as a clerk in a store, then as clerk on a steamer from New York to New Haven, and was subsequently agent for the New York & Boston Express Company.
He came to California for his health, and being pleased with the mild climate determined to make it his home. He bought ten acres of barren land in Lugonia and put half of it in oranges. His was the third house built in the place. Two years later he started the first store, which in a short time he moved to the corner of Terrace and Orange streets. This store-room was 10 x 10 feet, and he had to enlarge it three times in three years. Two years ago he sold the store and has since carried on the real-estate business. He lives in a beautiful residence on the Terrace, from which he has a most magnificent view of the whole valley. It is both interesting and amusing to hear Mr. Cook tell how the jack-rabbits used to destroy the young trees, and how they got up a bounty, and offered ten cents for every rabbit scalp; and how, after he had contributed liberally to the common fund, and had brought in a dozen or more scalps and claimed his ten cents bounty per scalp, it was not paid. He laughs and says, " It remains unpaid to this day."
SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California… Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 896-897
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
JOHN McCOLLOUGH.
One of the important interests of the great West has been that of stock-raising, and among its successful followers we would class Mr. John McCollough, who was born in Jackson County, Missouri, June 13, 1843, being the eldest in a family of five children and only son, and his sisters are still living. In 1845 his parents removed to Texas, and his father went into the stock business, and the son was brought up on the ranch. In 1858 his father started for California, John then being fifteen years of age. They joined a company from Dallas County; the company was composed of fifty-six wagons, and Mr. McCollough, Sr., with John Keener, drove across 2,300 head of cattle, losing about 400 head. They started February 7 and arrived at Tulare Lake, Tulare County, in November, where they turned their cattle loose to graze. Mr. McCollough then bought a ranch and began the raising and fattening of hogs, keeping about 1,000 head, closing out the cattle and hogs in 1861. John McCollough took a ranch near the old battleground on the Tulare river, and began the raising of horses, cattle and hogs, commencing in the fall of 1863, and continuing with good success until 1867, when he sold out and went to the Ash Springs, same county.
Mr. McCollough was married February 10, 1867, to Miss Mary E. Wilson, a native of Missouri. He continued in the raising of stock until 1871, when he sold out and went to Denton County, Texas, and there bought up droves of cattle and drove them to Baxter Springs, Kansas, the nearest shipping point. One year he drove up 100 head, another 1,200. In 1875 he returned with his wife and one child to Los Angeles County, and settled at Gospel Swamp, about ten miles south of Santa Ana, where he again carried on the business of raising and fattening hogs continuing until the fall of 1883, when he sold out and came to Oceanside, San Diego County, and there bought town property and erected the first hotel and stable in the city; he has also built two brick stores, and owns other improved property, all of which is well leased, and Mr. McCollough now resides on his ranch of 160 acres, near the town, where he carries on general farming.
SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California… Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 897-898
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
[These biographies are included in the section on Orange County in the book, but appear they belong in San Diego County instead.]