Kings County Biographies


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



 
DAVID GAMBLE
 
Formerly a trustee of the City of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., and member of its 
board of education, David Gamble is at the same time one of the leading 
contractors and builders of Central California, a man of enterprise and public 
spirit who would be a credit to the citizenship of any municipality. Mr. Gamble 
was born in Chester county, Pa., September 15, 1852, and grew to manhood in 
Philadelphia, where he gained a practical knowledge of contracting and building. 
When he decided to come west he planned the structure of his future success as 
carefully as he would plan a building of today. As the foundation must be first 
in the building, so the location must be first in his business career. He 
prospected, with eyes and ears both alert, through Nevada, New Mexico and 
Arizona and then into California.
In 1878 Mr. Gamble arrived in Hanford. He found employment at his trade and 
worked at it diligently, saving his money, until in 1886, when he became the 
pioneer contractor and builder in this city. Many of the buildings erected by 
him in the years immediately following have been destroyed. Among the blocks of 
his erecting in the central part of the city which are standing today are the 
Baker, Malone and Manasse buildings, the court house of which he did the 
woodwork, the Hill and Robinson buildings, the offices of the Hanford Water 
Works Company, the Bernstein block and the high school building. One of his 
larger buildings is the hotel at Trayer. The following residences in Hanford are 
monuments to his artistic skill and business enterprise: Goldberg's, Daniel 
Finn's, Kuntz's, F. A. Dodge's, Bernstein's, Wesebaum's, Kilpatrick's. Among 
those he has built in the country round about Hanford are D. Bassett's, H. E. 
Wright's, S. L. Brown's and the Ralestock home.
For twelve years Mr. Gamble has been a member of the board of education of 
Hanford and in 1908 he was elected city trustee. Fraternally he affiliates with 
the Woodmen of the World and the Knights of Pythias. He married, in 1886, Miss 
Margaret A. Raisch, a native of Kansas, and they have four children: Katherine, 
a teacher in the Hanford grammar school; Edith; Florence, a student at Stanford 
University ; and Raymond.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
pp.  770-771
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler