History of Fresno County, Vol. 5 - Paul E. Vandor

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In some of these' places he conducted drug-stores of his own. He was thus pleasantly situated at Tonopah, where he had made heavy investments, when, by reason of the panic of 1907 the boom broke and he suffered severe losses. He has always been able to maintain a good credit, and is enjoying the inevitable reward of playing the game right and keeping wide awake.

      At Manhattan, N. Y., in April, 1906, Mr. McLeod was married to Mrs. Anetta Finking, nee Attinger, formerly of San Francisco; and they have one child, Louise, a general favorite. Mrs. McLeod shares the popularity and good-will enjoyed by her husband.

      To know Mr. McLeod is to like him. His advent to Kingsburg brought the town a progressive citizen, a good booster, and a man who, with his charming family, adds much to the community's status and social life.

      WILLIAM ARTHUR TROUT.

      A young man of much native ability, an excellent workman who thoroughly understands his business, and an exceptionally progressive young man distinguished as the prime mover in club and other social affairs, and in forwarding all that makes for the general uplift of the community, is William Arthur Trout, who was born in The Dalles, Ore., on April 8, 1885. His grandfather, J. H. Trout, was born in Kentucky and settled in Oregon; while E. W. Trout, the father of our subject, was a native of Maitland, Mo. In that state he was married to Miss Laura Gordon, of Maitland, and in time they came to what was then called The Dalles, Ore., where Mr. Trout worked at farming. In 1897, the family moved to Salinas, Monterey County, Cal., and there Mr. Trout was favorably known as an able carpenter and builder. In Salinas he died, in 1916, following to the grave his wife, who had passed away seventeen years before. Five children had been given these devoted parents — all sons, and each in his way promising — and three of these are still living; and among them, the subject of this instructive sketch was the second youngest. H. G. is a bookkeeper with the Shell Company at Oilfields; H. E. died at Salinas in 1902, when he was nineteen years old, and E. L. also passed away at the same place in 1904 and at the same age; and O. C. Trout is serving his country valiantly in the United States Navy.

      Reared on an Oregon farm until he was twelve years old, William was educated in the public schools and in 1902 went to San Francisco where, at the age of past sixteen, he was apprenticed as a sheet-metal worker in John H. Blakeway's works. At the end of two years he entered the service of the Pacific Blower and Heating Company and in two years was made superintendent of their plant. Immediately after the great fire and earthquake, he opened business on his own account at the corner of Eighth and Folsom Streets. San Francisco, and for a year did sheet metal work of all kinds; but in 1908 he quit, lured by the greater attractions of Oilfields.

      In April of that year he entered the employ of the California Oilfields. Ltd., as foreman of the tank department, and built and started their shop. In August, 1913, when the Shell Company took over the property, he not only continued with them in the same capacity, but he enlarged their department through his valuable practical experience. Now it includes all sheet-metal work, the plumbing and the operation of the three distilled water-plants. It is indeed a big, busy department; and Mr. Trout is the foreman of all that goes on there.

      While in San Francisco, Mr. Trout was married to Miss Ann Irwin, who was born at Waco, Texas, but reared at Coalinga, where her father was one of the noted pioneers. One child has blessed this union — Doris, the charm of the household.

      For five years Mr. Trout was a trustee and clerk of the Oil King school district, and he was one of the organizers of the Oilfields Club, and the only charter member now left. He was treasurer from the start, with its sixty-five members; it is now a large club of nearly 500 members, having some $12,000 of assets and handling about $17,600 yearly. He is supervisor of the social department, which conducts the dances, lectures, etc., of the club, generally held in the lecture hall in the winter, and the moving pictures, which are given in the air-dome outside in the summer. There are pool and billiard parlors, and cigar stands, a place where ice cream and confectionery are sold, a swimming pool and a circulating library, a branch of the county library; and provision for base and foot-ball. University Extension courses and private classes for men have been arranged by Mr. Trout and his committee, each member of which is keenly alive to whatever may prove of social and intellectual advantage to the workmen and their families.

      Mr. Trout is a member of the Red Men in Coalinga, and a charter member of the Netana Tribe, No. 242, Coalinga, in which he is a past officer and a trustee. He is a Progressive Republican in politics, and a member of the Coalinga Chamber of Commerce, serving it also as a director.

      VITAL BANGS FINCHER.

      It is refreshing to read the story of Vital Bangs Fincher, or Tallie Fincher, as he is familiarly called in the wide circle of his friends. A wide-awake citizen, inheriting foresight and force, he is making a wonderful success of his enterprise, assisted by his able wife, and that despite certain handicaps such as would discourage and defeat many. He is a native son, having been born near Riverbank, in Stanislaus County, on January 19, 1873. His father, Levi Nelson Fincher, was a sturdy North Carolinian, who, after pioneer experience as a boy in Missouri, crossed the great plains when a young man, in 1850, to search for gold. Two years later he returned East, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and while again in Missouri was married, that same year, to Miss Paulina Moore, a native of Tennessee, who came to Missouri with her parents. As a pioneer farmer, Levi Fincher moved with his wife to Kansas; and when, in 1862, his health was very poor, he resolved to try the Pacific Coast. It was necessary for him to cross the continent in bed, in a wagon; but the trip helped him, and in time he was able to drive his team of oxen. He arrived in Sacramento, and near there opened a store as a merchant. Afterwards he moved to Stanislaus County, and near Riverbank, at a place then called Burneyville, took up 160 acres and bought 160 more, and was in time very successful at farming. In 1885 he brought his family to Fresno and bought 800 acres nine miles northeast of the town, where he located. At first he engaged in grain-raising, and then he set out sixty acres in vines, but soon pulled out forty acres, because there was no sale for the grape product. Fie raised alfalfa and grain, and after years of toil, retired. He built a home on Calaveras Avenue, Fresno. After a most creditable record for accomplishment, on August 18, 1909, he passed to his eternal reward, dying in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His wife had passed away in November, 1907, five years after they had celebrated their fiftieth anniversary.

      Eleven children were born to this worthy couple. The first-born became Mrs. C. P. Evans, of National City, Cal.; the second became Mrs. G. D. Wootten, of Santa Cruz; the third is Robert Fincher of Hanford; the fourth is J. M. Fincher, who resides at Fresno; the fifth is Mrs. J. B. High, of Madera; the sixth is J. P. Fincher, who ranches on a part of the old farm; the seventh is Miss Letitia Fincher, of Fresno; the eighth is Frank W. Fincher, of the same place; the ninth, Miss Elizabeth Fincher, also of Fresno; the tenth is the subject of our sketch; and the eleventh is Miss Matilda Fincher, of Fresno.

      Tallie Fincher spent his boyhood, until he was twelve years of age, near old Burneyville, attending the public school and doing a boy's chores about the home, and then he came to the present home farm, continuing his schooling in the Jefferson district. Later he went to the Stockton Business College, and then to the Fresno High School, from which he graduated in 1893, after which he engaged in the teaching of school. He believed in the old maxim that if you would learn a subject yourself you should try to impart it to others. For a term he had charge of a school in Madera County, and then he taught at Davis Creek, in Modoc County, at the same time serving as justice of the peace. When he quit teaching, he took up shorthand under Musselman at the Fresno Business College, and only gave up that line when he felt the call "Back to the land."

      For twelve years Mr. Fincher operated the home farm, leasing it, and raised grain and stock. When the 700 acres were subdivided, he came into possession of fifty acres and bought fifty acres adjoining, together with ninety acres toward the east. This last acreage was subdivided and sold at a profit in lots of ten, thirty and forty acres. Now he devotes all his land to the raising of vines and alfalfa, having ninety acres of table and raisin grapes, twenty acres in Malagas, and the balance in muscatels. He has ten acres of alfalfa. Having built a fine residence and spacious barns,

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