Tulare County Biographies

CHARLES H. BUTTON

Transcribed by Jeannie Miyama

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


Charles H. Button, secretary, treasurer and manager of the Lindsay Home 
Telephone and Telegraph Company, was born at Manistique, Michigan, April 19, 
1884.  He is a son of Charles M. and Emma (Miller) Button, the father being 
engaged in the insurance business at Manistique.  After receiving a high school 
education, Charles went to work for the Manistique Telephone Company, beginning 
at the bottom of the ladder.  Later he was in the employ of the telephone 
company at Alpena, Michigan.
 
In 1906 he went to La Grande, Oregon, and entered the employ of the local 
telephone company, in which he later acquired a financial interest.  From La 
Grande he went to Lebanon, Oregon, where he became a stockholder in the Lebanon 
Mutual Telephone Company, remaining with that concern from 1913 to 1917.  In the 
latter year he came to Lindsay and bought a controlling interest in the Lindsay 
Home Telephone and Telegraph Company, which had been organized some years before 
by G. B. Reed, Lawton Thomas and G. C. Harris.  This is one of the few 
independent telephone companies left in California.  It has eight hundred 
patrons, employs ten people and has been under the management of Mr. Button 
since he came into the company in 1917.
 
Besides his telephone interests, Mr. Button is a director and one of the 
liquidating committee of the First National Bank, and is a member of the 
advisory board of the Lindsay branch of the Pacific Southwest Trust and Savings 
Bank.  He is a Knight Templar Mason and a member of the Tulare County Golf and 
Country Club.  In 1912 he married Miss Gertrude Barry, of Massillon, Ohio, and 
they became the parents of two children:  Robert and Priscilla.  Mrs. Button 
passed away August 24, 1925.
 
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 
465