Yolo County
Biographies
William E. M. BEARDSLEE
One of the most interesting as well as one of the most important phases of the development of our western country relates to the reclamation of the arid lands and the saving of other lands subject to overflow. Few are more closely associated with the progress of this important work in California than is Mr. Beardslee, trustee of the Yolo basin drainage district, which was organized by state enactment to investigate the practicability of reclaiming the lands lying in the Yolo, Solano and Colusa basins on the Sacramento river.
A native of New England, in whose make-up are combined all of the conscientious principles and determination characteristic of his ancestors, William E. M. Beardslee was born August 15, 1865, in Fall River, Mass. His early boyhood, however, was passed in Boston, where he attended the public school, and there also he later attended an academy. He was the son of Edgar A. Beardslee, who first came to California in 1879 alone, but a few months later he returned east for his family, coming back to the west the following year by way of Panama. For the past fifty-two years he has followed telegraphy. For seventeen years he was assistant superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Company at Sacramento, and is now a resident of Los Angeles, still in the service of the Western Union.
It was in 1880 that the family located in Sacramento and in that city William E. M. Beardslee completed his schooling by attending the high school for one year. He then began to learn telegraphy under his father in the Western Union telegraph office, and for ten years afterward was employed by the same company, two years of this time as cashier of the Los Angeles office. In 1890 he became associated with his brother-in-law, T. B. Lovdal, in fruit and hop raising in Yolo county, the ranch lying in the rich bottom lands which Mr. Beardsleee has done so much to reclaim. The ranch consists of two hundred and sixteen acres, of which twenty are in Bartlett pears, prunes and plums, sixty in hops (which in 1911 ran one ton to the acre) and the remainder in alfalfa, which yields about six crops annually without irrigation.
Since coming to California Mr. Beardslee has been intensely interested in reclamation measures and has been very active in securing legislative assistance therefore. For eighteen years he served as secretary of reclamation district No.537, which reclaimed three thousand acres north of Sacramento, this locality being the first to make use of the famous “Yolo” dredge, which was designed and built by this district. Mr. Beardslee was a member of the Sacramento drainage district commission, which secured for congress and the state information relative to the conditions existing in the delta sections, also suggesting methods of relief. Through the efforts of the board congress appropriated $400,000, a like amount being given by the state, for improving the navigability of the Sacramento river and to investigate flood control. That the funds were wisely expended is unnecessary to state in noting the conditions of these lands today. Lands once submerged are now in a high state of cultivation and are surrounded by fifteen miles of dredge-built levees constructed at a cost of from $10,000 to $15,000 per mile.
At the age of twenty-two years Mr. Beardslee was united in marriage with Miss Emma T. Lovdal, whose father, O. O. Lovdal, was one of the pioneer hop raisers of the Sacramento valley. They have two children, Beatrice and William E. L.
Transcribed by Bea Barton
Source: “History of Yolo County, California” by Tom Gregory. Published by the Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1913, pages 885 – 886.
Robert A. MEIER
An experience with conditions in different parts of our own country and in the territory of Alaska gives to Mr. Meier a comprehensive knowledge of climates, soils, business opportunities and practical advantages of various localities. The opinion formed through this experience leads him to favor Woodland and Yolo county as offering an excellent opening to young men in the line of both agriculture and business. Since coming to this city he has acted as manager of the Woodland Alfalfa Products Company, also as selling agent for the alfalfa mill at Orland and in addition as Yolo county agent for the Ford automobile, these diversified lines of business activity bringing him to prestige and prominence. The plant of which he is manager has a capacity of twenty-five tons per day and is operated by electricity. This being the only mill of the kind in the county, there naturally exists a wide demand for its products and we find that there is a steady sale here and in every part of the coast region. Under the able supervision of the manager the plant turns out a satisfactory product that finds approving buyers throughout this part of the state.
Born in Minneapolis, Minn., March 13, 1884, Robert A. Meier is the younger son of the late August and Wilhelmina (Heimerdinger) Meier, both of whom died in Minneapolis. The father had lived in Illinois as a boy and young man and there enlisted in an Illinois regiment during the Civil war, serving at the front until the expiration of his period of enlistment. Later he became an early settler in Minnesota, and there met and married Miss Heimerdinger, whose parents had been pioneers of the northwest and had been established in Minnesota prior to the famous Indian massacre in that state during the Civil war. The parental family comprised two sons and one daughter. The elder son, Fred, is now the manager of the beet sugar plant at Visalia.
Upon the completion of the studies of the Minneapolis grammar and high schools, Robert A. Meier entered the Pillsbury Military Academy at Owatonna, Minn., and continued his studies there for several terms. Later he spent a year in the University of Minnesota. Upon starting out to make his own way in the world he went to Washington and engaged in mining for two years with more or less luck. Next he sailed for Alaska with the intention of prospecting and mining in the Klondike region. Making his headquarters at Nome, he traveled through various parts of the mining district, prospected here and there, took up some claims and met with his share of prosperity and adversity while endeavoring to find gold. Five summer and four winters were spent in the far north. During one of these winter he was stormbound on Candle creek, two hundred miles above Nome, where often the thermometer registered as low as seventy below. In spite of the rigors of the environment he found much to interest him in the isolated northern country and regards his experiences there as profitable if not always pleasant. Upon his return to the United States he settled in California and engaged in well-drilling at Porterville, where he operated two steam rigs. During July of 1912 he came from Porterville to Woodland and entered upon the duties of manager of the Woodland Alfalfa Products Company, besides which he later took up the agency for the Ford automobile in this county. Accompanying him to this city were his wife and daughter, Bernice, the former having been Miss Gertrude Cunningham, a native of Pike City, Sierra county, this state, and a resident of Fresno at the time of her marriage.
Transcribed by Bea Barton
Source: “History of Yolo County, California” by Tom Gregory. Published by the Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1913, pages 886 – 888.