Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • Page 54

54-A Oiklind Tribsas, Sunday, May 18, 1952 A --x. Oakland Cast Breadbn: Water Got It Back industrial activities have been 1910; Chevrolet Motor Company, division of General Motors, 1916; This is the third of three articles outlining the development of industry in Oakland from its earliest days to the tery Company, 1875; W. P. Fuller Planing mill operated bj Johnson Brothers Co at Seoond Company. 1875; California Cot ton Mni, 1883, now a division of National Automotive Fibers Paraffine Company, Inc, 1884; California Packing Corporation, 1890; California Ink Company, 1890.

It is impossible to list all the new companies since the be-ginning of the. century. A few includes Cutter Laboratories, 1902; Empire Foundry Company, 1906; Oliver United Filter Company, 1906; Standard Brass Foundary, 1906; Byron Jackson Pump Manufacturing Company, 1906, Cardinet Candy Company, 1909; Hall-Scott Motor Company, 1910; Marchant Calculating Ma chine Company, 1913; Henry J. Kaiser Company, 1921; L. A.

Young Spring Wire Corporation, 1925; Pacific Tank and Pipe Company, 1924; Merco Nordstrom Valve Company, 1927. NATIONAL CORPORATIONS National and International corporations with plants here include Oakland Lamp Works division of General Electric, 1903; Moore Business Forms, 1905; Western Electric Company, 1907; Caterpiller Tractor Company, Samm's flouring mill First fci mamWM-mmmmimuMmim The present day Industrial position of Oakland and the East bay got its (tart with; the great San Francisco earthquake and fire in April, 1908. The Eastbay cities were relatively undamaged. It is estimated Oakland sheltered between 100.000 and 150,000 people during the week of the disaster and that at least 63,000 of them remained. This sudden impetus demanded new facilities.

The expansion is still going on. EXPANSION CONTDJUES According to this year's survey by the Alameda County New Industries Committee of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce there were 200 new industries or expansions of old industries in the county in 1951, representing an investment of $41,063,800 and 6768 new jobs with an increased payroll of $79,503,000. During the last seven years, from 1949 through 1 1951, there were 1086 new industries or expansions of older ones, representing an investment of and 28,133 new Job with an expanded payroll of $79,505,000. During this seven-year period there was an average of 13 new projects per month. Average investment per project was and average investment per month was $2,488,825.

The average number of Jobs created per prospect was 26 and average number of jobs created per month 833. Average increase of payroll per month was $946,488. MANY Many early Oakland industrial companies outlived their usefulness and died; some; continue to this day and enjoy growth commensurate with the, city. Hundreds of new companies sprang up and grew during this first half of the. new century i many expanding to a national scale.

And nationally known industries have been attracted to Oakland. Surviving the pioneer days and growing steadily arejpuch firms as the California Wire Cloth Company, 1857; California Pot TALE lOF I poration, a parts warehouse of the Cadillac Motor Car division. regional and zone offices and passenger car and truck assembly plants of Chevrolet, factory branch of the Electro-Motive division, branch of the Frigidaire Sales Corporation zone office of GMC Truck and Coach division. zone 'office of the New Departure division, regional and zone offices of the United, Motors Service and a branch of the Yellow Man-; ufacturing Acceptance Corpora tion. Te Chrysler Corporation opened a parts department in Oakland on Davis Street in 1939 designed to serve six Western States, the Hawaiian Islands and pah of Montana.

The General ElectricjCompany expanded its 1914 Lamp Works plant at 1648 Sixteenth Street in 1917 and by 1919 was producing all of the company's lamp pro duction for the West. In 1922 they built a plant at 5441 East Four teenth Street to manufacture electric motors and transformers and how have a third enterprise, the General Electric Supply Cor poration at Ninth and Jackson Streets to serve as a distributing center for appliances. Westinghouse Electric and Man ufacturing Company came to -4 i ttsfmimmfmtmivtm EASTBAY AREA THE TILL i The Thick and Thin of Early Day Pursestring Holders fit i Money Men in Pioneer Days Played It Close to the Vest horse-, power. I In addition to tHe vast supply from i California fields, 600 million cubic feet of natural gas are available daily from outside the State through a system of new pipelines from Texas. Fuel oils are plentiful and coal is available from Colorado and Utah.

Three major railroads provide mainline service to the Oakland area. A great, network of air passenger and freight lines is served by the Oakland Municipal Airport! The $300,000,000 Port of Oakland operated by the Oakland Board of Port Commissioners provides complete deepwater port, cargo handling, transshipment! and warehouse facilities. SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY Oakland is especially noted of its shipbuilding industry; One of the oldest and best-known is the Moore Dry Dock Company founded in 1905 as the Moore and Scott! Iron Works. This firm's war-years record is outstanding. Peak employment was in 1943 when 37,000 were on the payroll Today 1800 workers are employed there.

A newcomer, to the shipbuild ing industry kt the start oi World War II but the Nation's largest when the war was over, the Henry i J. Kaliser-managed yards at Richmond operated 58 ship- ways 1 at the peak of the recent conflict and employed I 93,000 workers to.produce $4,000,000,000 worth of ships. In 'many ways the Henry J. Kaiser Company is phenominal. Its forerunner was the modest Kaiser Paving Company; which opened a two-room office in what is now the Broadway Building in May, 1921L Henry J.

Kaiser, a young building contractor, had driven here from Seattle with two associates after successfully bidding on road job in California. FAR FLUNG ACTIVITIES Foreseeing additional road- building jobs; in the mushrooming state and noting Oakland cen- tral location, Kaiser decided to remain here. All of his far-flung AND Will C. Wood, former state superintendent of! banks; F. A.

Fer-roggiaro, no1 senior vice chairman of the board of directors; the late P. jD. Richardson; and Lloyd Mazzera, now vice-president of the San Francisco Bank of America headquarters. Julian R. Davis is present manager of the Oakland! main office.

The Crocker First National Bank of San Francisco merged with the Farmers and Merchants Bank, one of Oakland's pioneer banking institutions, in March, 1947. The Fanners, and Merchants Bank was incorporated November 12, 1892J with an authorized capital- of $500,000. It opened its doors on April 11, 1893, with a paid-in capital of $69,500. Its first officers were Edson F. Adams, president, and one of the founders of Oakland; Charles E.

Palmer, vice president; James C. McKee, secretary and cashier; and Adams, jR, S. Farrelly, John Charles Adams, H. H. Pitcher, Samuel Bellj McKee, W.

H. Taylor, H. F. Gordon, F. S.

Osgood, Charles E. Pilmer, A. W. Schaf er, and W. H.

Bailey, directors. In September, 1950, the Oakland headquarters of the Crocker bank, was moved to a temporary location at 360 14th Street. Shortly afterward the old Farm ers and Merchants building at 13th and Franklin Streets was razeq and started on construction work a new permanent building for the Oakland head- quarters of the Crocker bank. The bank expects to occupy! the building in June of this year. George W.

Hall, who was born in Alameda and has been a lifelong civic leader in the Eastbay, is vice-president in charge. The First! National Bank of Oakland was the outgrowth of the Alameda County Savings and Load Society, which began business Under a state charter August 1, 1874 with capital of $100,000. Its foundingj officers were B. W. Ferriss, Mayor of Oakland in 1865 land several times member of the City Council president; A.

Everhardt, vice president; G. M. Fisher, cashier; and A. D. Thompson, secretary and accountant.

-GOLD BANK In May; 875, 4he bank was reorganized junder a special act of Congress as the First National Gold! Bank of Oakland, one of 13 hi the entire Nation. When the government resumed specie payments in 1879, restoring greenbacks to a Rarity with gold, the usefulness of the gold banks was at an end. An article in The Tribune for (March 14, 1880 an nounced that "The First National Bank of Oakland has dropped the word "Gold and is now the First National Bank. It is a solid capacity -of 4,094,850 CENTENNIAL conducted from Oakland since. Kaiser activities today extend into 22 states and foreign countries, include 36 divisions, corporations and subsidiaries with assets of more than $600,000,000 and annual sales of more than a half -billion dollars.

center of this vast net-. work is the 11-story Kaiser Build ing at 1924 Broadway and five other buildings amounting i to 200,000 square feet of floor space in Oakland, i accommodating a staff of 1400 with an annual payroll of approximately $7,000,000. The company's nine position telephone switchboard is large enough to accommodate a city the size of Palo Alto and its private teletype system has 18,000 miles of wires connecting 47 offices throughout the Nation. $3,000,000 EXPANSION Another man to put Oakland on the Nation's shipbuilding map was Charles M. Schwab.

He was owner of the Union Iron Works in San Francisoo. In 1916 he towed his drydock cie Bay and anchored off the Southern shore of Oakland Harbor near the United Engineering Works. He bought United and expanded it at a cost of to wind up with a plant capable of building four ocean liners simultaneously. This became the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Ltd. The plant is inactive today but maintained for emergency.

Oakland industries stretch along its shores from the Emeryville line to the outskirts of San Leandro an almost unbroken line of factories, mills, canneries, food processing plants and packing house's, One of the' largest of these is the Albers Brothers Milling Company whose millionjdollar factory is at the foot of Seventh Street The plant: was built in 1916 and almost totally destroyed by fire in 1943. It was: rebuilt into a more modern mill at a cost of more than $4,000,000 and pro duces flour, cereals! feed and processed grains. Shortly before the Albers com- BANKERS institution, popular." well managed and During this period some changes had taken place in the official staff. V. D.

Moody became president in 1876, and in 1891 he was succeeded by A. D. Thompson. In 1893 control of the bank passed to G.W. McNear and P.

E. Bowles, who became president and" vice-president, respectively. Three years jlater, however, the two swapped positions. In 1899 McNear was succeeded by L. C.

Morehouse, In 1908 the bank built an eight- story building at Broadway and iin direec in tne same year ine First Trust and Savings Bank, capitalized from the' surplus of the saving bank, put up a build ing at 16th Street and San Pablo Avenue. STAFF CHANGES' In the fall of 1915; L. G. Bur pee, who for more than 25 years had! served as assistant cashier, cashier and vice-president, died. On January 1, 1916, P.

E. Bowles retired from active official connection, after serving as presi dent for more than 20 years. He was succeeded by Russell Lowry, then deputy governo? of the San Francisco Reserve Bank. The official staff then was made up of Lowry, president; A. Heron, vice-president; S.

H. Kitto, cash-ier; Charles N. Walter and N. Campbell, assistant cashiers. The following year Lowry went to the American National Bank in San Francisco as vice-president, and Bowles again became presi dent --v-r On December 31, 1926, the American I Trust Company, an outgrowth of a number of earlier banks, was merged with the uaxiand Jirst National Bank.

Today the American Trust Com pany is one of the largest of the Nation's 15,000 banks, with re sources of more than $1,000,000, 000. Under presidency of James K. Lochead, it maintains a system of 83. banking offices, II of which serve the Metropolitan Oakland area. CENTRAL BANK Central Bank, which last year celebrated its 60th year in the Oakland banking Community, opened on October 15, 1891 as the Home Savings Bank with a capital of $500,000.

W. G. Pal-manteer headed- the group Of founders, which included Victor H. Metcalf, one-time United States secretary of the Navy. Its first president was 1 Volney D.

Moody; Palmanteer I was vice-president: and O. F. Sites, cashier. The bank's first home' was a small storeroom on the east side of Broadway, north of 10th Street. It soon outgrew the original quriers and moved to a location just behind the Taggart Drug Store at Broadway and San Pablo Avenue.

In 1893 it put up its permanent home, a five-story a it it American; Can Company, 1917; Colgate-Palmolive Peet Company 1917; H. J. Heinz Company, 1924; Richfield Oil Company, 1924; Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, 1924; Chrysler- Dodge Corporation, 192 8: International Harvester Company of America, 1928; Libby, McNeil and Libhy Company, 1929; Continental Can Company, 1929; Goebels Brewing Company of California, 1950. There are many reasons for this enormous Industrial expan sion here. The 11 Western States served by the Oakland area cover nearly one-third of Continental United States and account lor 19 million of the nation's population.

Oakland plants are within overnight or first-day delivery distance via highway transport to all California markets; within second-day delivery distance to 18 'of the West's 22; metropolitan county areas, and within third-day delivery to the remaining tour. TRANSMISSION LINE A 1 network of transmission lines connect Oakland with the total system resources of Pacific Gas and Electric Company which is supplied by 75 hydroelectric and steam generating plants with cmdJ day Streets, In 1880. story building constructed. Two additional stories were later added and additional land acquired to increase the size of the lot from 50 by 75 feet to 100 by 150 feet In 1927 the 17-story bank and office tower building now occupied by the Oakland main office of the Bank of America was erected. WORLD'S LARGEST The Bank of America, National Trust and Savings Association, founded as the Bank of Italy in San Francisco by A.

P. Giannini on October 17, 1904, and in 1951, with resources of $7,531,296,927 and deposits of $6,815,866,795, the world's largest privately owned bank, entered the Oakland banking field in 1929 with the acquisition of the Oakland Bank. In addition to ihe 12th and Broadway bank, headquarters for -the Bank of America's1 entire. East-bay operations, it has 20 branches within the city limits of Oakland. The Oakland Bank of Savings, and after it the Oakland Bank and now the Baik of -America, grew along with the expanding Oakland almost since the town's founding, and and their directors, present, have early-day played important roles in the city's growth, jj Some of the Oakland Bank officials who were prominent in the development of the Eastbay were Isaac Requa, president, and i one-time Nevada miner; James Moffitt, a director until 1929 and now chairman of the executive committee of the Crocker First National Bank; James P.

Bioff, pioneer Eastbay resident; W. W. Garthwaite, cashier until 1880, and later president and, director; Arthur H. Breed, for many years ja director of the Oakland Bank and how a member of the advisory board of the Bank of and Samuel Merritt, one of the original di rectors of the Bank of Savings, tor whom Lake Merritt and Mer ritt Hospital were named. Some of men who have headed the main office in Oak land of the Bank' of America are 5 i 1 la lha aarry lSSO'sw BANKS STORY I I and Brush Streets.

In 1887 Oakland from San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. An office was set up at Thirteenth and Broadway but a short time later the warehouse and repair shops were moved to "Emeryville. They are now at Powell and Peladeau Streets. i In 1942 the plant was expanded into a manufacturing and repair division and now has 264,000 square feet of floorspace. The company's national wholesale outlet is in Oakland and the Westinghouse Sturtevant division, manufacturing air condi tional and air handling equip ment has a plant in Berkeley.

Standard Oil Company of Cali fornia now operates in Richmond but it had its beginning in the Pacific Coast Oil Company which opened a refinery on Alameda Point in 1879. The early plant had a capacity of 600 barrels Of crude oil daily-1-enough to run i the present Eastbay plant several minutes. Standard's Richmond plant now sprawls over 1900 acres and provides a livelihood for approximately 3600 employees whose daily pay is more than $50,000 Seyeral other major oil companies operate extensive plants here and in Contra Costa County. J.M. BechteL George E.

Borrmann, Charles Gompertz, Gerald H. Hagar, Forest C. Kracaw, S. Putnam and E. I.

Veitch. The bank purchased the building in which it began, and which it still occupies, and bought additional ground on 16th Street, Broadway after aarthquake where it has plans for a three-story Present officers include Albert Weaver, president; James L. Watters, Robert H. Bolmanand Carrel Weaver, vice-presidents; James A. Wainwright, vice-president and director of public relations; Fred H.

Helwick, cashier; William O. Sechser, controller; Charles P. Weigand, auditor; and Danier Read, trust officer. RESERVE BANKS RUN SAME AS rnppriRATinkic -S Each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks is technically a private corporation, although controlled by the Federal Reserve Board, a public' Each bank has nine directors six elected by the -member commercial banks and three1 named by the Federal Reserve Board. One of the latte is designated as chairman of the board and -Federal Reserve agent At present, Brayton Wilbur of San Francisco holds thai post One of the directors is Harry R.

Wellman of 61 Rock Lane, Berkeley. C. E. Earhart of 139 Waldo Avenue, Piedmont is serving as president of the San Francisco Federal- Reserve Bank. pany located here the Shredded Wheat Company built a half -million dollar plant at 1267 Four teenth Street.

Since this was taken over by National Biscuit Company the plant has been known as the National Biscuit Company Shredded Wheat Bak i Libby, McNeil and Libby es tablished a cannery on a four- acre waterfront site at the foot of Fourteenth Street in 1917. The company packs pineapple and other fruits and vegetables, salmon and dried fruits, California Packing Corpora tion, operating plants in! Emery ville, Berkeley and Alameda, also has two units within Oakland city limits. Scores of other such plants and canneries also operate here. The automobile industry discovered Oakland almost at the turn of I the century but it- was 1916 before Chevrolet Motor Car Company put up an assembly plant at Foothill Boulevard and Sixty-Ninth Avenue and became division of General Motors Cor' poration in 1918. In 1923 Fisher Body division of General Motors began operations here.

Also on the roster of GM divisional operations here is a branch "of the General Motors Acceptance Cor- IN THE 'building; at Broadway and 14th Streeti On June 13, 1892, the name was changed to Central Bank, with both savings and commercial departments. On' October 5 of that year Moody retired and was succeeded by J. C. Ains-worth, a director: Palmanteer continued as vice-president and Charles Yates became cashier. Upon the death of Ainsworth on February 7, 1894, John Crellin became president, holding office until he died on January 14, 1896, when it passed to his son; Thomas A.

Crellin. He continued as head of the bank until his death 13 years later. Palmanteer then be came president, but died a few months latr, on January 12, 1909. BANKS ABSORBED Joseph F. Carlston became president on May 5, 1909.

In August, 1912, the Bank; of Ger-. many was taken over and on May 12, 1919, the Telegraph Avenue Savings Bank was purchased. In November, 1914, came the absorbtion of one of the oldest financial institutions in Oakland, the historic Union Savings Bank, founded by A. C. Henry and associates on July 1869 a bank backed by such: men as Hiram Tubbs, John Hayes, H.

A. Palmer, Socrates Huff, W. W. Crane and Samuel Woods. 'j In the following year the Western Commercial and Savings Bank and the Bank of Commerce were absorbed.

On March 31, 19231 the State Savings Bank was acquired and on December 20 of the same year the bank opened its Fruitvale branch. In 1925 the old landmark of the Central Block was torn down and the present 15-story headquarters was built on the same site. Today the bank i has re sources of more than $146, 000 and operates 11 branches in the Bay area. A. X.

Mount held office as president from March 1933 through; November 1935; T. A. Crellin. I held the office from December, 1936 to October, 1937 when he was succeeded by Carl F. Wente, who served until January, 1943.

F. N. Belgrano Jr; became president on January 15, 1943 and served until June, 1947, when Dunlap C. Clark, the present head, huh. ANGLO NATIONAL 1 The Anglo California National Bank of San Francisco i came to Oakland on June 30, 1934 when acquired the business of the First National Bank in Oakland, which was founded in 1922 as the Commercial Trust and Savings Bank of Oakland.

The Oakland main branch, as is now called, moved from 1560 Broadway to its; present at 1450 Broadway on September 20, 1948. The new office is widely celebrated for its "above-the-street" i banking floor. The entrance is on the ground floor and the main bank ing jroom occupies the entire second floor, served by electric stairways, an elevator and a conventional stairway. Other departments are on the third floor, and (the safe deposit vaults are in the basement. George M.

Keffer, vice-presi- Oakland Bank of Savings; 12th dent and manager, heads the executive personnel. Other officers are Elvyn C. Evers, vice- president; Ernest I Jager, Bey-J nold W. Jope and A. E.

Little, assis ant vice-president; Joseph S. Kirby Jr, R. L. Prinoe, Charles F. Quigg and R.

B. Warner, assistant managers; and Adrian Van Brunt, assistant cashier. The Anglo Bank system com- prises 81 banking offices in 16 Northern and Central California communities, and has assets of Pmore than $700,000,000. The Sari Francisco Bank opened a branch in Oakland at 417 14th Street in March, 1950. Founded in 1868 with a capital of $200,000, it now operates eight branch offices, has assets of more than $321,000,000, and is said to be the largest exclusively savings bank west of Philadelphia.

Norman Ogilvie is vice-president and manager of the Oakland branch. The Oakland Bank of Commerce was organized in 1937, opening for business on October 7 inja leased building at 16th Street and San Pablo Avenue formerly occupied by the First Savings Bank. On December '1 of that year the new bank reported total deposits, of $1,025,104.43, and capital, surplus and undivided profits of $397,812.42. A. J.

Mount was chairman of the original board of directors; A. S. Weaver president; and other; board members were EL E. Tribune Financial Editor building at Broadway and Ninth Street on August 13, 1867, it had a tidy capital stock of $150,000, which was increased to $300,000 in 1869 and to $1,000,000 in 1871. In contrast, the first savings bank in San Francisco opened in 1858 with total resources of individual deposits of outstanding loans of $17,000, and no capital surplus.

The Oakland Bank of Savings moved to a three-story brick building on the northeast corner of Broadway and 12th Street in 1876. In 1905 it broke out of the narrow limits of a purely savings bank when the stockholders formed the Bankers Trust Com pany with a capital of $300,000. In 1910 the trust company was taken over by the parent bank, which opened its own trust department to take care of the business. Reflecting the increas ing growth of Oakland as a com merdal city and the consequent development of the bank's com mercial development, the Oak land Bank of Savings was named the Oakland Bank in 1923. MORATORIUM DECLARED The building at 12th and Broad way was badly damaged by the earthquake of 1906 and had to be heavily braced to prevent its collapse.

A moratorium on all obligations was declared immediately after the earthquake, when the downtown business section of Oakland was put under martial law. The banks taff was divided into four six-hour shifts during the moratorium as a safeguard. A wooden-frame structure was built inside the banking room and business was carried on as usual while the old building was being wrecked and a new six- et Tcslh end Broadway Cheats By JOHN MARTIN, The history of banking in Oakland is, on the whole, as prim and conservative and reassuring as the marble and metal interior of its modern bank I buildings. None of the flamboyant shoestring adventures that characterized banking in the early days of San Francisco, when as one historian observes, the chief requirements for opening a bank was possession of jitout safe and access to a strong building, seems to have filtered across to the east side of the Bay. When, in Match, 1905, a run started on the old Oakland Bank of Savings, a handful of solid businessmen moved among the panicked depositors queued up before the doors, off ered to buy their deposits, and quickly dis sipated the scare, i When a' similar run developed in June, 1849 on the San Fran cisco private banking firm of Burgoyne and Company, an offi cial sought out from among the clamoring mass of depositors and hangers-on outside its door a friend with a small bg of gold, and induced him to brave the mob and deposit i his hoard.

Presently a ir depositer turned up with a bag of gold, and another and another. The clamor soon died down and presently the mob dispersed. The trick had been turned with a single bag of which had been hustled by confederates out of, the back door and into the front over and over again. BANK OF SAVINGS' The Oakland Bank of Savings was the first bank in the town, and, indeed, in Alameda County, and it was the third savings bank outside of San Francisco to be incorporated in lithe state. When it opened in a small brick i i i First NcttLonol EszJk locctad i iU I ,4.