California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


HARVEY G. ANDERSON.� Coming to California in the middle six- 
ties, Harvey G. Anderson has since then been modestly but steadily en- 
deavoring to make this world a better place to live in. 

Mr. Anderson was born at Dubuque, Iowa, on October 10, 1863, the son 
of William H. Anderson, a native of Iowa, and a grandson of William Ander- 
son, who was born in Alabama, and became a pioneer in Iowa. William H. 
Anderson grew up there a farmer, and was married in that state to Miss Jane 
McBride, the daughter of William McBride, who was born in Scotland, and 
also became a pioneer of Iowa. Mr. Anderson brought his wife and two chil- 
dren across the plains in 1865, by means of horses and wagons, a part of a 
large train of forty-seven vehicles, and they took all the summer to make the 
journey. He settled at Stockton and there engaged in farming, then he 
bought land near Waterloo, and he is still residing there, hale and hearty, 
daily superintending his ranch, although at the advanced age of eighty-two 
years. Mrs. Anderson died in 1880, the mother of two children, of whom our 
subject is the older. Alice is now Mrs. William Thrush and lives on the old 
home ranch. 

Harvey Anderson was brought up on a farm and educated at the public 
schools. From a young man, however, he was interested in oil, and he was 
impelled by a great desire to get to the oil-fields ; so, about 1880, when he was 
seventeen, he went to Pennsylvania, and at Bradford, an oil center, he learned 
the oil business. Then he went to Bowling Green, Ohio, and after four 
years returned to California when the development in oil was just beginning 
in the Los Angeles field. 

Reaching Santa Paula and finding that everything was quiet in the oil- 
fields, he turned to drilling water wells, and as a contractor he operated with 
great success in Kern, Tulare and Santa Barbara counties. He had a shop in 
Tulare where he manufactured stove-pipe casing used in casing the water- 
wells, and he met with such success that he made that town his headquarters 
for four years. He was ready, therefore, to take advantage of the opening of 
the Kern River oil-fields, and going in there early, contracted to drill. He 
was given an important contract by the 33 Oil Company, and drilled for them 
their second well in the Kern River field. 

After a year, Mr. Anderson joined others, bought 120 acres, and striking 
oil, they put down seven wells. He superintended these until the tract was 
sold, and in 1905 he came to Coalinga as superintendent of this same prop- 
erty, for the Esperanza Oil Company. At that time they had only three wells, 
but he continued to drill and he put down thirteen more. About 1913, the 
company was bought by the General Petroleum Company, and he continued 
as superintendent. The average depth of the wells is from 1,200 to 1,700 feet, 
and the lease is 170 acres. Aside from this responsibility, Mr. Anderson has 
another, that of the superintendency of the Ophir Oil Company, which has 
two producing wells; the superintendency of the Ozark Oil Company, which 
has five wells, and the superintendency of the Coalinga National Oil Com- 
pany and the Minora (or Minoru) Oil Company. Me was interested in and was one of the 
organizers of the Pilot Oil Company, in which he is a vice-president and a 
director. They have sixty acres in Sec. 12-20-14. where seven wells are 
producing. Mr. Anderson is a member of the Chamber of Mining and Oil in 
Los Angeles, and is a director in the First National Bank of Coalinga. He is 
an organizer and director in the Esmeralda Mining Company which owns 
and operates a quicksilver mine adjoining the New Idra. The company has 
a mountain of cinnabar ore and has a plant equipped with rock-crusher, retorts 
and condensers, with a capacity of 100 tons. 

On May 15, 1891, at Tulare, Mr. Anderson was married to Miss Inez 
Mull, a native of Arkansas, and they have had one child, Neal Anderson, who 
is a graduate of St. Mary's Academy, Oakland, and who then attended Santa 
Clara College, and afterwards learned the oil business under his father. He 
was in charge of the Information Bureau of the San Joaquin Valley exhibit, 
Panama Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, in 1915. He is now superintend- 
ent of the Petroleum Company at Fullerton. He is of a mechanical turn and 
is the inventor of a gasoline extractor of casing-head gas, which, after con- 
densing the gasoline, saves the remaining gas that formerly went to waste. 

Mrs. Anderson is the daughter of Martin and Cornelia (Galloway) Mull, 
natives of Tennessee and South Carolina, respectively. They removed to 
Jacksonport. Ark. Martin Mull served in the Civil War as captain of the 
Jackson Guards from Batesville. Ark., and after the war was engaged as a 
wholesale merchant until his death. His widow survived him two years. 
Mrs. Anderson was reared in a cultured environment and is greatly interested 
in civic and club work. In 1910 she organized the Women's Welcome Club 
of Coalinga (a Federation club), having been its president for five years. She 
is also an active member of the Coalinga Women's Club and as delegate at- 
tended the Biennial of the Federation of Women's Clubs in San Francisco in 
1911. Mrs. Anderson was also district chairman of Federation Extension of 
the San Joaquin Valley District for two years as well as state chairman of 
Federation Extension and Emblem for a period of two years. She is now 
state chairman of Emblem and second vice-president of the San Joaquin Val- 
ley District of the California Federation of Women's Clubs. She is also a 
member of Eschscholtzia Chapter, Order of Eastern Star, Coalinga. 

Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are both interested in the cause of education, 
each having served as trustee of Alpha school district. They have also been 
active in war relief work and the different war and allied drives. It is through 
her enthusiastic work in the Red Cross that Mrs. Anderson is best known, 
having given her entire time during the World War. She is chairman of the 
Military Relief of the Coalinga Chapter of American Red Cross, and has been 
since its organization, as well as a member of its executive board, and to this 
for months she gave all of her time. She also organized Community-Sings. 
where the people met and sang patriotic songs on the streets of Coalinga. 

Fraternally. Mr. Anderson is a member of the Tulare Lodge of I. O. O. 
F. He was made a Mason in Tulare Lodge, F. & A. M.. and is a member of 
Coalinga Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons, and also is a member of Bakers- 
field Lodge No. 266, B. P. O. Elks, as well as the Coalinga Growlers Club. 
Kind-hearted and generous. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are always ready to help 
others and take great pleasure in dispensing the old-time Californian hos- 
pitality.