Tulare County Biographies

NATHAN M. BALL

Transcribed by Jeannie Miyama

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

 
Among the street and highway building contractors who in recent years have done 
much toward the improvement of the great system of highways which adds so 
greatly to the pleasure of travel throughout this section of California, it is 
believed there is none who has contributed more largely to that desirable end 
than has Nathan M. Ball, the well known cement contractor in Porterville and an 
acknowledged expert of long experience in his line.  Mr. Ball has been in the 
cement business in this state for years and is thoroughly conversant with local 
conditions and needs.  During the period of his activities in Tulare county he 
has constructed no fewer than fifty miles of cement highway in this county, 
besides doing much similar contract work in Stanislaus and Fresno counties and 
street work in various of the cities hereabout besides Porterville, so that he 
has come to be one of the best known cement contractors in this section of the 
state.  He formerly and for years had wide experience in Riverside and is thus 
quite as familiar with conditions in that section of the state.  He has 
thoroughly up-to-date equipment for his work and is thus able to carry out his 
contracts in a workmanlike manner and with a minimum of delay.
 
Nathan M. Ball was born on a farm in Piatt county, in the western part of 
Illinois, July 19, 1868, and is a son of Dennis and Annie (Lowe) Ball, both now 
deceased, whose last days were spent in Illinois.  Dennis Ball was a resident of 
California during the hectic days of the mining camps in the late �50s and was 
here during the period of the Civil war, driving wagon trains between Sacramento 
and Virginia City.  He returned east and after his marriage settled down on a 
farm in Piatt county, not far from the Mississippi river on the western border 
of Illinois.  He lived to be seventy-seven years of age, his death and that of 
his wife occurring with but nine days intervening.
 
Reared on the home farm in Illinois, Nathan M. Ball acquired his early education 
in the little district school three miles from his home, walking this distance 
during the four months of the year then devoted to school purposes in that 
community.  He remained on the home farm until he had attained his majority and 
then, with a desire to extend his scholastic attainments, he took a course in 
the college at Valparaiso, Indiana.  When twenty-five years of age, in 1893, Mr. 
Ball came to California and in Riverside was associated with the operations of 
the Gage Canal Company, contractors in repair work.  While in Riverside he 
became prominently connected with cement construction work, a large stockholder 
in the Concrete Pipe & Cement Company, which had a plant in Riverside and one in 
Porterville.  In 1908 Mr. Ball became personally and actively connected with the 
operations of the Porterville plant of this company and when in 1920 this 
concern�s affairs were liquidated he bought the company�s interests centering in 
the Porterville section, discontinued there the manufacture of cement pipe, and 
has since been giving his whole attention to cement construction work, with 
particular reference to street and highway construction, and has done very well; 
 as noted above, having done a large percentage of the public work in this line 
carried out here within recent years.  Mr. Ball is an active and influential 
member of the Porterville Chamber of Commerce and takes a good citizen�s 
interest in the general affairs of the community.  He has well appointed offices 
in the Masonic building.
 
In 1895, in Bement, Illinois, Mr. Ball was united in marriage to Miss Clara A. 
Finnegan of Chicago, Illinois, and they have seven children:  Irvin, Ruth, 
Stanley, Gordon, Blanche, Vernon and Mildred.  During the time of this country�s 
participation in the World war Irvin Ball rendered service in the quartermaster 
department of the United States navy.  The Balls are republicans and Mr. Ball is 
a member of the fraternal order of the Knights of Pythias and of the Benevolent 
Protective Order of Elks.
 
History of Tulare County and Kings County, California � Kathleen Edwards Small & 
J. Larry Smith, Vol. I, Chicago, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1926, Page 
349