Tulare County Biographies

WILLIAM E. DUNLAP

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        Among those who have witnessed the progress of development of the 
thriving little city of Tulare during the past twenty years and more there are 
few who have been more active participants in that development than William E. 
Dunlap, vice president and manager of the First National Bank of Tulare and long 
recognized as one of the leaders in the general commercial life of the 
community. Mr. Dunlap has been connected with the affairs of that bank for 
almost twenty years and has thus been a factor in its expansion almost from the 
time this now substantial financial institution was established. This is the 
pioneer bank in Tulare, set up for local banking accommodation on August 2, 
1902. It was on January 16, 1906, that Mr. Dunlap came into the bank with some 
bookkeeping experience behind him, being there employed as bookkeeper, teller 
and general utility man, he and H. M. Shreve, now president of the bank, 
constituting the banking staff, Mr. Shreve taking care of the duties of cashier 
and general manager. On April 1, 1907, this bank, which had been carrying on as 
a private bank, secured a charter as a national bank and has since been doing 
business as the First National Bank of Tulare, one of the solidest financial 
institutions in this section of the state, with a substantial and well equipped 
banking house on the corner of K and Kern streets, and resources in excess of a 
million and quarter dollars. As the pioneer bank's business expanded with the 
gradual development and expansion of the trade area comprised within the sphere 
of its activities, Mr. Dunlap's duties also expanded and two years after he 
entered the bank he was made assistant cashier. In 1912 he was advanced to the 
position of cashier and in 1920 was elected vice president and was made general 
manager, a position he since has occupied. H. M. Shreve is president of the bank 
and A. C. Rosenthal is the cashier. When Mr. Dunlap began his labors there he 
did all the bookkeeping necessary to be carried on in the bank. The bank staff 
now numbers eleven, five of whom are bookkeepers, with all the mechanical aids 
to efficiency and expedition that modern computing machines and the like can 
provide, a visible evidence of the expansion of the bank's resources and 
facilities as convincing as a long row of figures carrying a formal statement of 
the condition of the bank, and by reason of his long and continuous connection 
with the affairs of this institution Mr. Dunlap is entitled to indulge in a bit 
of quite pardonable pride in the part he has taken in bringing about this 
expansion.
        `William E. Dunlap is a native son of California and has been a resident 
of this state all his life. He was born on a farm in Colusa county, February 6, 
1882, and was but a babe when in 1883, his parents, John W. and Lilly (Green) 
Dunlap, closed out their holdings in that county and came to Tulare county, 
establishing their home on a ranch in the vicinity of Tulare. There John W. 
Dunlap carried on his farming opera�tions for nearly forty years, or until his 
death in July, 1922, one of the best known citizens in this section of the 
county. He was a native of Hannibal, Missouri, and had been a resident of 
California since 1869. His widow, who was born in California, is still living, 
now making her home in Tulare.
        Reared on the home farm, William E. Dunlap supplemented the education he 
received in the rural schools in the vicinity of his home by a year of high 
school work in Tulare and by a year of work in the business college at Stockton 
and then started out as a bookkeeper, presently taking employment in the office 
of the Hanford Lumber Company in Hanford, and was thus employed until 1906 when, 
as noted above, he began his connection with the bank in Tulare, then and for 
years afterward the only bank in town. Mr. Dunlap then was twenty-four years of 
age and the youthful enthusiasm which he injected into his labors in behalf of 
the bank has never abated, for the interests of this institution have ever since 
been uppermost in his thoughts. Since becoming administrative head of the bank 
Mr. Dunlap has done much to further the interests of the institution with which 
he for so many years has been connected and he has long been regarded as one of 
the leaders in local financial circles as well as one of the veteran bankers of 
this section of the state.
        On August 1, 1923, in Tulare, Mr. Dunlap was united in marriage to Miss 
Pauline Meyers, who was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, a daughter of G. W. 
Meyers. Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap have a pleasant home in Tulare. They take a proper 
interest in the general social and cultural activities of the community and are 
helpful in local good works. They are republicans and give proper attention to 
local civic affairs, ever interested in promoting such movements as have to do 
with the advancement of the common welfare hereabout. Mr. Dunlap is a member of 
the Masonic order and is affiliated with the locally influential Rotary Club in 
Tulare.
 
Source:  History of Tulare County and Kings County, California � Kathleen 
Edwards Small & J. Larry Smith, Vol. II, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1926., p. 372