LEONIDES R. DENNISON

 

                  South San Francisco is destined to become one of the great industrial centers of the west.  In its massive plants thousands of workmen whose paychecks are the barometer of the city’s prosperity, are turning out materials and articles of a quality that is distinctive to South San Francisco, and are making its products of world-wide fame.

             For this high standard of quality, credit is due those efficient men who direct this army of toilers.  One of them is Leonides R. Dennison who is superintendent of the great plant of the Steiger Terra Cotta and Pottery Works.  Mr. Dennison has been with this firm for thirteen years, and superintendent of its plant for 10 years.  During this time its output has increased many fold and it has grown from a small factory to one of the largest and most important industrial plants in the west.

             Mr. Dennison who is also a stockholder in the company, is enthusiastic over South San Francisco as an industrial center.

             “I am sure that we could not get the same results out of the men any place else,” said Mr. Dennison.  “Besides the transportation facilities and countless other advantages.  South San Francisco has the ideal climate for the workmen, as the heat is never oppressive in the daytime and the tired toiler can go home and sleep through a cool night any time of the year.”

             Mr. Dennison has been a resident of South San Francisco for the last eighteen years.  He was born in the Yosemite Valley on February 3, 1885.  He is a member of the Francis Drake lodge 376, F. & A.M., the Charles Frederick Crocker Chapter, No. 106 of the Masons and the Knight Templars.

 

Transcribed by Betty Wilson

GEORGE W. DICKIE

 

                  One of the San Mateo County’s most distinguished citizens is George W. Dickie of San Mateo, marine architect and naval designer who drew the plans for the famous old battleship Oregon and a score of other vessels of the United States Navy.

             Mr. Dickie is known the world over as a designer of fighting craft.  Perhaps his most famous work was the Oregon, “the bulldog of the American navy,” which at the time it was commissioned, was the most notable warship afloat.  Other vessels that were designed by Mr. Dickie are the battleships Wisconsin and Ohio, the armored cruisers Colorado, South Dakota and San Diego, the cruisers Olympia which was Admiral Dewey’s flag ship in the battle of Manila Bay, Charleston, Milwaukee and the destroyers Paul Jones, Preble and Perry and the gunboat Wheeling.  Mr. Dickie also drew the plans for many of the large freighters and passenger boats on the Pacific among which is the Congress.

             Another important work undertaken by Mr. Dickie was the designing of the machinery for the Comstock mine.

             George William Dickie was born in Scotland on July 17, 1844.  He studied engineering in his father’s shipyard.  In 1869 he came to the United States making his home on the Pacific coast shortly after his arrival.  He has been a resident of San Mateo for twenty years.  Many honors have come to Mr. Dickie because of his notable engineering achievements.  He was recently elected a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Mr. Dickie is vice president of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.

             Mr. Dickie is the author of several books on marine engineering and articles by him have appeared in all the leading engineering journals.

 

Transcribed by Betty Wilson

JOHN V. DOHERTY

 

                  One of the livest insurance brokers on the peninsula is John V. Doherty, city treasurer of Burlingame and one of the Queen City’s leading boosters.

             Doherty is primarily a Burlingame booster and the only time he is not talking about Burlingame is when he is talking insurance.  No man can boast of having more data, figures and statistics on Burlingame’s growth at his tongue’s end than John V. Doherty.  He is an authority on increase in realty values, public improvements, population increase, health and climate statistics in so far as they concern Burlingame.

             Mr. Doherty has lived in Burlingame for eight years and its steady rapid growth in that time has given him such faith in the city that he believes the rest of the world should know the same things about the town that he does.

             Since coming city treasurer, Mr. Doherty has been an important factor in the administration of the city affairs.  He has not confined his efforts to his official duties but every city officer has found a willing helper in him when anything for Burlingame’s interest was undertaken.

             Besides being a hustling insurance broker, Mr. Doherty has real estate and other business interests in Burlingame.

             Mr. Doherty is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Young Men’s Institute, the Hibernians and the Burlingame Commercial Club.

 

Transcribed by Betty Wilson

MRS. WILLIAM DOUGLAS

 

             Of the few surviving women who lived through the infancy of San Mateo County, Mrs. William Douglas of San Mateo is one of the best known.  Mrs. Douglas has lived in the county for fifty years in which time she has seen a few scattered settlements develop to the present peninsula cities.

             Mrs. Douglas’ career has been most interesting.  While in her teens she came around the Horn in a sailing vessel which took eight months to make the trip.  She arrived in San Francisco in 1850 and a year later she was married.

             She then spent a few years in Placer County.  Her husband moved his family to San Mateo in the late fifties.  Here he built up a profitable abstract and real estate business.

             Mrs. Douglas is the mother of ten children.  This remarkable woman survives her husband by fifteen years and has survived all of her children with the exception of two, Robert Lee Douglas and Mrs. Dr. Sanderson, both of San Mateo.

             Mrs. Douglas tells most interesting tales of the early days of San Mateo.  She describes the business district, containing a few buildings and restricted to less than the size of a block.  She remembers of the planting of the long rows of gum trees that have become peninsula land marks and the years that there was only a morning and afternoon train down the peninsula.

             Pieces of property which Mrs. Douglas now owns were purchased for a song in the early days but even at that time Mrs. Douglas anticipated the growth that was coming to San Mateo and vicinity and stubbornly held on to her land until she now finds her fond dream of a large city fully realized.

 

Transcribed by Betty Wilson