Tulare County
Biographies
ALBERT KNIERR
Born in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1868, Albert Knierr came to the United States when he was sixteen years old and made his way to Burlington, Iowa, where he was employed a year as a butcher. During the next four years he traveled quite extensively in Illinois, Kansas and Colorado, stopping from time to time in one town after another to work at his trade. Eventually he came to California, arriving in San Francisco in 1889. For a time he worked there at his trade; then, with a Mr. Allan as his partner, he started a small slaughter house, killing one or two cows a day. Their business began to grow and at length advanced almost by leaps and bounds, and at this time they have one of the largest and best appointed slaughter houses on the Pacific coast and carry on a very heavy wholesale business. Their sanitary cold storage plant at Fifth and Railroad avenues, San Francisco, cost $50,000; they kill eight hundred cattle monthly and one hundred and fifty sheep daily. In 1909 Mr. Pyle became a member of the firm and its style was changed to Knierr, Allan & Pyle. Mr. Knierr has always attended to the outside work of the concern, traveling in its interest and buying cattle wherever he could do so to the best advantage. He has bought many in Tulare county in the last twelve years, and in 1909 he established his home in Visalia, at No. 415 South Court street. He has large personal interests in the county, owning three thousand acres of cattle-grazing land between Tipton and Angiola and leasing six thousand acres near that tract and five thousand acres near Cross creek. On these large ranges he constantly keeps fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred head of cattle. At Visalia he is known, as lie has long been known in San Francisco, as a man of great public spirit, who is alive to the best interests of the community. In the world of commerce he is rated as one of the best informed butchers in the country. His success in life has been won fairly and in the open, and those who know him best realize that it is richly deserved.
By his marriage to Miss Marcella Rowan, Mr. Knierr had four children, Byron, Marcella, Alberta and Francisco. Byron is deceased. Mrs. Knierr died in 1910 and in 1911 he married her sister, Miss Annie Rowan.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
pp. 694-695
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
R. L. BERRY
Among these public-spirited citizens of Tulare county who have put forth their efforts toward promoting better conditions, is R. L. Berry, who was born May 6, 1860, in Tuolumne county, Cal., a son of John M. Berry, a native of Missouri. The latter in 1857 came across the plains with ox-teams to California, and his widow, a native of Virginia, is surviving him at the advanced age of eighty-seven years.
When R. L. Berry was ten years old he was taken by his parents to Tulare county and the family settled on the site of Lindsay when their house was one of two within the present limits of the city. The boy was given some opportunities for schooling but was early called upon to take the place of a hand at herding sheep and made familiar with the details of dry farming as it was practiced in the district at that time. Most of the land for many miles round about was government land subject to entry. Some years after his arrival there he entered three quarter-sections, but eventually went to Kern county and abandoned all claim to them. Returning later he took up farming and buying and selling land and has since handled or operated tracts aggregating a considerable acreage.
In 1879 Mr. Berry married Miss Ella Berry, a native of San Joaquin county, and she has borne him a daughter, Ethel May, who is the wife of F. G. Hamilton, superintendent of the Mount Whitney Power company of Visalia, Cal. In his political affiliations Mr. Berry is a Socialist. Fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World and the Women of Woodcraft of Lindsay, Mrs. Berry being also a member of the order last mentioned. He is a friend of public education and an ardent promoter of good roads. In fact, no demand made upon him on behalf of the community fails to receive his ready and helpful response.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
pp. 695-696
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler