Santa Barbara County Biographies

DORMER & CHALLENOR, Max. C. Dormer and John Challenor

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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

DORMER & CHALLENOR, whose beautiful ranch of 160 acres lies south of Ballard's,
in the Alamo Pintado Valley, are of English birth, and were educated at Jesus 
College, at Cambridge, England. 

Max. C. Dormer studied engineering with Professor Stuart, at Cambridge, and later 
with the Crewe Locomotive Works at Crewe, England. In 1887 he came to the 
United States, and direct to California, to visit his old friend D'Urbim, who then 
owned the ranch, which was later purchased by Mr. Dormer, and where he now resides. 

John Challenor studied for the army, entering in 1885 the Fourth Battalion of tiie 
South Staft'oi'dshire Regiment, serving three years, until he acquired the Captaincy, 
and then, not caring to go into active service, lie resigned and turned over his 
commission. He then came to the United States, and to California to visit his friend, 
Mr. Dormer, and soon after the above partnership was formed. In 1889 they set out 
2,000 peach trees, and in the spring of 1890, 4,000 more peach and 4,000 prunes, 
covering about 100 acres. The land was wild bottom land when they took it, but has 
since been converted into a veritable garden, by their system of thorough cultivation. 
The old adobe ranch house is one of the landmarks of the valley, nestling as it does 
beneath the shade of the majestic live-oaks, and the conveniences of windmill and 
out-buildings which have since been added, making of the ranch an ideal home. 

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.