Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

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

 

JOHN CASPAR AVAKIAN, Los Angeles

Born Harpoot, Armenia, Mar. 1, 1875; his father, for forty-three years Dean Faculty of Euphrates 
Coll., that city. Early education in that institution; came to U. S., 1888; completed preparatory 
courses in Troy (N. Y.) public school and Cook Academy, Montour Falls (N. Y.), and finished 
freshman year at Colgate University. Lectured, 1895-7, in Canada and the eastern U. S. in behalf 
of persecuted Christians in Ottoman Empire; commercial traveler in New England States, 1897-8; 
student Rensselaer Poly. Ins., 1898-1902 (grad. with degree C. E.). From graduation to Apr., 1903, 
asst. eng. Lehigh Valley R. R. and locating eng. Buffalo, Dunkirk & Western R. R. Moved to Los Angeles; 
asst. eng. (U. S. Reclamation Service) on Yuma project, Ariz., and Klamath project, Ore., 1903-6; June, 
1906, opened office in Los Angeles; Oct., 1908, organized Riverside Groves & Water Co. 
(capital, $1,000,000), of which he is Pres., Gen'l Mang'r and Chief Engineer. Assoc. mem. A. S. C. E.


SOURCE: Greater Los Angeles & Southern California Portraits & Personal Memoranda, Lewis Publishing 
Company, 1910, P.123