Tulare County
Biographies
C. A. ELSTER
One of the most valued and industrious workers for the public welfare in Springville and one to whom is due much praise for his untiring efforts and generous aid in promoting the many enterprises with which he has been identified is C. A. Elster, who was born in Grass Valley, Nevada county, Cal., in 1862, and is now one of the leading business men and landowners in the community. He is a son of Alonzo Elster, who came to Nevada county in 1858 and became well-known through his activity in running a block mill at Grass Valley, which he built about 1861. He was born in New York and died in California in June, 1888. He had come to Tulare county in 1866 and engaged in freighting from Stockton and Banta to Visalia before the advent of the Southern Pacific Railroad. He hauled the first fire engine ever used in the city of Visalia and he also ran the Overland livery stable at Visalia in the early seventies.
When he was three years old, C. A. Elster's parents came to Tulare county, where he has since lived. He was educated here in the public schools and took fundamental lessons in ranching and in business under his father's instruction. He began to acquire land by buying a claim before he was twenty-one years old, and by later purchases he has brought his holdings up to about five hundred acres. For a while he operated a sawmill, but he later gave his attention to ranching and to stock-raising, and has from time to time been active in large enterprises for the general good. He is known as the father of the Tulare Electric, Water and Power Company, the history of which dates from 1908, and it was largely through his and the efforts of C. W. Hubbs and C. H. Hawley that valuable water rights were secured on the middle fork of the Tule river about two miles above Springville, which when developed will generate at its full capacity about twenty-seven hundred horse-power electric current. In this connection Mr. Elster has been one of Tulare county's most active promoters. Desiring a road to Springville, he associated with Messrs. Hubbs and Hawley and other Tulare county men and proposed an electric line which was duly incorporated under the name of the Tulare County Power Company, with capital stock of $1,000,000, which consisted of ten thousand shares at $100 each. It was proposed to operate this road by means of electric power and to run from Tulare to Lindsay, from there to Strathmore and from Strathmore to Springville. Mr. Elster supplied the necessary money for the preliminary survey, right of way, etc., and the Southern Pacific Railroad, observing their preparations, immediately built their branch line from Porterville to Springville, and thus Springville secured its railroad, and it has been entirely due to the work and enterprise of Mr. Elster that this has been accomplished.
Mr. Elster in 1912 completed a two-story brick building, 48x60 feet, the cost of which was $12,000. He owns a comfortable residence in Springville and has an olive nursery and orchard, and he is today one of the largest taxpayers in the city.
In 1887 Mr. Elster married Miss Eva Hubbs, who bore him a son, Irvy Elster, who is now a member of his father's household. Mrs. Elster died in 1890 and in 1895 Mr. Elster married Miss Minnie Hubbs, by whom he had a daughter, Lora, who died when she was thirteen years old.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
Pp 771-772
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
LOUIS BEQUETTE
In the state of Wisconsin occurred the birth of Louis Bequette, stockman and orange grower, one of the citizens of note in the vicinity of Lemon Cove, Tulare county, Cal. He was a child of three years when his parents came, with four teams, overland to California. The family located in Sierra county and remained there five years, the father working in the mines. Their next halt was one of two years in Yolo county, whence they moved to Tulare county, within the hospitable borders of which the immediate subject of this article has had a home ever since.
As a young man Mr. Bequette worked on ranches and helped herd cattle, and he has never been able to give up such employment in all the years that have ensued. In 1872 he married Miss Mary Eliza Davis, of Stanislaus county, Cal., whose father, Harvey Davis, was a pioneer of 1849. Their three children were Irving Bequette, who was born in Tulare county in 1874 and died in 1909, in his thirty-sixth year; C. L. Bequette died in 1911, leaving three children; Leonard Bequette, born in 1877, is married and is in the stock business in this county.
When Mr. Bequette took up the burden of life on his own account he ventured a little at first with stock. There came a time when his operations in that line were very considerable and made him widely known. His first tract of land was one of one hundred and sixty acres, and today he is the owner of twelve hundred acres, with fifteen acres in corn, five acres in oranges, and the remainder in crops, range and alfalfa. His home is one of the most comfortable in his neighborhood and his ranch is fitted up with every improvement and appliance necessary to its successful operation. He takes an intelligent and patriotic interest in the public affairs of the county, state and nation and responds readily and generously to all calls for aid in the advancement of his community.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
Pp 772-773
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler