Alameda County Biographies

CHARLES JURGENS

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 

	Charles Jurgens, who is one of the oldest business men still active in the commercial 
life of Oakland, was born in Waldeck, Germany, January 3, 1844. In that country he was educated, 
pursuing his studies to the age of sixteen years, when, in 1860, he sailed for America. Landing 
in New York, he made his way to Michigan and remained in that state for three years, at the end 
of which time he started for California by way of the Isthmus route. Crossing the bay from San 
Francisco on the steamer Clinton, which then made daily trips between the two places, he settled 
in Oakland when the city consisted of but four business blocks and the streets were of deep sand.  
He engaged as a clerk in a grocery house in what was then called San Antonio and in 1868 embarked 
in business on his own account as proprietor of a grocery store in Temescal, now known as North 
Oakland. After conducting the business for several years he sold out in 1876 and built the St. 
Johns House, the first brick business block on Twelfth street, having a plate-glass front and a 
basement. The people generally considered the innovation foolish. He then built the present Globe 
Hotel, at Thirteenth and Broadway, conducting it until recently, when he leased it.
	In 1905 he bought out the W. M. Watson Company and called it the Winedale Company, of 
which he is the president. He is a director in many large banks and business establishments, has 
dealt extensively in real estate and is one of the very wealthy men of Alameda county. He is 
regarded as a very active, energetic business man, wide-awake to the conditions of trade and at 
all times alert and enterprising. Fraternally Mr. Jurgens is a member of the Independent Order of 
Odd Fellows and is popular in that organization. In 1870 he was united in marriage to Miss 
Catherine Springer, who passed away in 1913, leaving two sons and two daughters. Mr. Jurgens has 
witnessed and helped in the growth of Oakland and he marks as epochs in the city's development: 
1863, when the Southern Pacific built the Seventh street line; 1868, when the Overland Railroad 
was completed; 1876, Centennial year, when the city had a rapid and unusual growth; and 1906, when 
the city really awoke from a village to realize its true destiny.

Past & Present of Alameda County, California � Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914, p. 417