Tulare County
Biographies
JOSEPH R. BARBONI
Joseph R. Barboni was born in San Jose, California, September 6, 1894, a son of Joseph C. and Josephine C. (Yocco) Barboni. The father came to California in 1879 and was for years the chef at the old Hotel Vendome in San Jose. He has passed away. The mother is a native of California and is now a resident of Visalia.
Joseph Barboni was educated in the public schools, graduating from the San Jose high school as a member of the class of 1911. His first position in Visalia was with H. H. Holley in the insurance business, as stenographer and bookkeeper. After a year with Mr. Holley, he accepted a position with the First National Bank of Fresno, where he remained for about a year. He then came to Visalia as bookkeeper for the bank with which he is still connected, and in 1920 was elected to the position of cashier.
On February 12, 1916, Mr. Barboni was married to Miss Ora Barr of Visalia, and they have one daughter: Betty Jane. They are members of the Episcopal church. Mr. Barboni takes a commendable interest in the welfare of Visalia and Tulare county and is president of the Rotary Club. He is a Royal Arch Mason, a past exalted ruler of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, and belongs to the Order of Sciots. Politically he is a republican and is now (1925) serving his first term as mayor of Visalia. He is a great lover of baseball and rarely misses an opportunity to attend a game.
History of Tulare County and Kings County, California – Kathleen Edwards Small & J. Larry Smith, Vol. I, Chicago, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1926, Page 344
Transcribed by Jeannie Miyama
EMERY BARRIS
When one views the many substantial evidences of the modern development of the material interests of that favored region centering at Dinuba it is difficult to realize that men still active in business were among the pioneers in that development, for it is well nigh incomprehensible that all this should have been accomplished within so comparatively recent a period. In the progress of civilization a quarter of a century or a half century is not a long time, but in the opening to the uses of civilization of a new district, much may be accomplished within such a period. For over forty years Emery Barris, builder, promoter and capitalist at Dinuba, has been a resident of Tulare county and for some twenty-five years a resident of Dinuba. When he came here in 1885 the northern section of Tulare county was either wholly undeveloped or given over to the operations of large grain ranchers, controlling individual tracts of thousands of acres, and the houses thus were few and far between and of roads there were none that properly might be so designated, most of the lines of travel being mere trails. Much has been done since then and in this development there are few men who have had a more active and influential part than Mr. Barris, one of the honored pioneers of northern Tulare county.
Emery Barris is a native of the old Empire state but ever since he attained his majority his operations have been connected with the west and the middle west and for almost fifty years he has been a resident of California. Mr. Barris was born on a farm in Chautauqua county in the state of New York in the year 1847 and was there reared, becoming a practical and experienced carpenter. In 1869, during that period immediately following the Civil war when Kansas was making such amazing strides in the way of material development he cast his lot with that of the people of the Sunflower state and there took part in the building operations then going on at Wyandotte and at Great Bend. Four years later, in 1873, he came to California, arriving here on August 18 of that year, and became employed as a carpenter at San Jose. While thus employed in that city he took advantage of the opportunity to further his schooling and took a course in the University of the Pacific at that place. For three years Mr. Barris remained at San Jose and then he “back-tracked”, going to Laporte in Hubbard county in the beautiful lake region of Minnesota, where he became engaged in building operations and where he remained until 1884, when he returned to California, in which state he ever since has been quite content to make his home.
Upon his return to California in 1884 Mr. Barris was for a while engaged working at his trade as a builder at Los Angeles and then in the next year (1885) came to Tulare county, where he ever since has resided, a period of forty years. Mr. Barris’ first contract job in this county was the erection of a hotel building at Traver, a building that still is standing. He then became the local agent for this district for the San Joaquin Lumber Company and three years later bought that company’s lumber yard and became engaged in business on his own account, thus carrying on a general lumber and builders supplies trade in addition to his activities as a building contractor. As a contractor Mr. Barris not only built many of the most substantial buildings erected in this section of the county during that period but he also had an active hand in construction work in the setting up of the local irrigation systems. He built the timber work of the Tulare river irrigation project in 1893 and later constructed the concrete head gate for the Alta irrigation project. He established branch lumber yards at Reedley and at Sultana and was thus able to extend his operations in more directions than one, becoming a very important personal factor in the building operations then going on at the time this region was making such a brave state along the path of modern development. In 1900 Mr. Barris moved his chief lumber plant to Dinuba and has since been a resident of that place. In 1903 he sold his lumber yard and thereafter gave his whole attention to his operations as a building contractor and to the development of such other interests as naturally accumulated in his hands.
It was in 1900, the year in which Mr. Barris took up his residence at Dinuba, that the telephone also reached that place and he recalls with interest that he was one of the original subscribers (only ten in number) whose enterprise brought about the establishment of the local telephone exchange. In other ways he also was a leader. When in 1902 the First National Bank of Dinuba was organized he became one of the chief stockholders in that pioneer financial institution, was elected a member of the board of directors and has ever since been retained on that board. He was one of the first to recognize the possibilities of citrus fruit culture of this district. He bought a tract of eighty acres of raw land east of Dinuba, planted it to oranges and cultivated it until it was a profitable bearing grove, making a beauty spot out of the place. That grove he retained until in the fall of 1923, when he traded it for an apartment house at the corner of Catalina and Fourth streets in Los Angeles. He also for some time owned a sixty-acre ranch west of Dinuba, but some time ago sold it.
It will be interesting to the present generation to know that Mr. Barris’ pioneer lumberyard at Dinuba was located at what is now the corner of L and Tulare streets, one of the most advantageous business sites in the city, now occupied by one of the city’s leading drug stores. He bought that lot, one hundred feet facing on L street and one hundred feet facing on Tulare street, for four hundred dollars, and the owner of the townsite was quite content with the price. Among the buildings erected at Dinuba by Mr. Barris may be mentioned the Lucy Stone school building, the United States National Bank building, the Central block, the Hotel Albany building and others of that class besides any number of residences in that city and at Reedley and other neighboring places, for at the height of his operations here he was one of the leading building contractors in this section of the state.
Emery Barris was united in marriage to Miss Emma Green, who was born in Iowa and who passed away at her home in Dinuba on the day before Christmas in 1905. Although now living practically retired from the more active of the operations which for so long occupied his time, Mr. Barris retains considerable interests of a substantial character in and about Dinuba and continues to take a warm interest in general communal affairs. He is a Mason of many years’ standing and has also been an Odd Fellow for many years, in the latter order having attained to both the canton and the encampment. He likewise is a member of the local organizations of the Order of the Eastern Star and of the Daughters of Rebekah.
History of Tulare County and Kings County, California – Kathleen Edwards Small & J. Larry Smith, Vol. I, Chicago, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1926, Page 412
Transcribed by Jeannie Miyama