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



CHARLES E. BUTNER� Fresno has never wanted for professional 
men of high ideals and wide vision, to build wisely and well for the long, long 
future. Among such gifted men is Charles E. Butner, the well-known architect, 
who was born in North Carolina on July 31, 1888, the son of T. M. and Emily 
(Worth) Butner. He graduated in 1911 from the University of Pennsylvania. 

For a while Mr. Butner worked for the City of Philadelphia, replanning the 
new boulevard system, and then he went to New York to help work out the 
problems of the Russell Sage Foundation, the ten-million-dollar movement in- 
augurated by Mrs. Russell Sage, in 1907, who left that immense sum for "the 
improvement of social and living conditions in the United States of America." 
He worked on the Model Community at Forest Hills Gardens, Long Island, and 
both gave and received in the experience. After that, he spent a year and a half 
looking for an attractive location ; and having seen many of the finest neighbor- 
hoods in the country, he chose Fresno and its environs, taking up his new resi- 
dence in February, 1913. An influential Democrat, and always for Fresno and 
its best interests, Mr. Butner is secretary of the City Planning Commission. 

As one of the firm of Glass' & Butner, architects, Mr. Butner planned, among 
other edifices, the tentative public schools and the County Tubercular Hospital. 
He is also designing the new addition to the County Hospital. Besides, he has 
built many of the finest residences in the town. Among clubs with which he is 
affiliated may be mentioned the Architectural Society and the T-Square, both of 
Pennsylvania. Mr. Butner enlisted in July, 1917, in the air service as private, 
was commissioned lieutenant in December, 1917, and came out Captain, being 
honorably discharged at Montgomery, Ala., on March 10, 1919. 

Subscribing to Presbyterian creeds, Mr. Butner, who is unmarried, also 
belongs to the Sunnyside Country Club and the Sequoia Club, while he is also a 
member of the Board of Governors of the University Club � an honor he prizes 
highly.