Fresno County, 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 A. P. CARLSON. � Described as being in truth "the salt of the earth," A. P. Carlson has become, with right-living and education as his ideals, a most successful ranchman and an exemplary citizen, who began, like most. of his countrymen, with nothing, and in thirty years has brought his forty acres, a mere field of wheat stubble when he came, up to a high state of cultivation. Strictly speaking, he is a resident of Tulare County, but his business center is Kingsburg, and he has hundreds of warm personal friends in Fresno County. He has not reached out for every dollar that he could grasp ; but has endeavored rather to lead an honorable life useful to others. If all men were of Mr. Carlson's type, this old, stumbling world would soon take a turn for the better. He was born in Sweden, on January 22, 1852, the second child in a family of six children, and his boyhood was passed there. His father was John M. Carlson, who married Annie Peterson ; and both parents came to America in 1865, when they met the soldiers coming from the Civil War. They stopped in Alton, Ill., for three years and rented a farm there ; and in 1868 they came to Iowa. At that time, the country was all prairie, and pioneer experiences were long to be remembered. In 1888, Mr. Carlson, accompanied by his wife and children � a son besides A. P. Carlson, for the only daughter died in Iowa � moved west to California and settled in Kingsburg, where the father died, at the age of eighty. Mrs. Carlson survived and reached her eighty-third year. Both were honored and esteemed by all who knew them. Fortified by the experience gained to some extent in Boone County, Iowa, A. P. Carlson, who now lives on California Avenue, one-half mile east of the Harrison school, cleared out the stubble on his forty-acre tract and the next spring planted muscats. He has also grubbed up an old peach orchard and planted it to vines and trees. On March 24, 1880, during his residence in Iowa, Mr. Carlson was mar- ried to Miss Kate Johnson, who was also born in Sweden, and by her he has had six children: Annie Ardina resides in Kingsburg, the wife of C. G. Lindquist, a rancher; John William is ranching; Ida C. is a trained nurse at Kingsburg ; Willie is also a rancher ; Emma is the wife of Percy Nord- strom, who rents a ranch near Kingsburg ; and Elmer C. is an attorney at law at Bishop, Inyo County. He graduated from the law school of the Uni- versity of Michigan, a member of the class of 1916, and formed a partner- ship as a member of the law firm of Heogan & Carlson, at Bishop. In 1894, Mrs. Carlson died; and on March 10, 1914, Mr. Carlson married Mrs. Hilma Strand, a widow of Los Angeles, and the mother of two children, Harold and Elmer Strand, both of whom live with her. Mr. Carlson is a steadfast Democrat and a loyal American citizen, and especially active for the advancement of Central California. This is well shown in the historic fact that he was the prime mover in establishing the Harrison School district, and in erecting the beautiful Harrison school- house which serves a district organized in 1900, partly in Tulare and partly in Fresno County. Mr. Carlson also helped organize the Kingsburg Union High School, which has one of the finest and most unique school structures irt the county. He was chairman of the first Board of Trustees, and having served as trustee for seven years, he resigned, reasonably proud of his rec- ord, all told, of thirty years on various school boards. In 1917, Mr. Carlson built a commodious country residence, equipped with modern conveniences, and here he and his family dwell, highly esteemed by all.