Kings County Biographies


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




S. C. KIMBALL
 
A successful merchant and financier of Hanford who is well known here for his 
exceptional business ability and honorable methods is S. C. Kimball, who was 
born in Barton, Vt., March 24, 1859. He was educated in the public schools and 
at the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Meantime he early entered 
business life, and from the time he was seventeen until he was twenty-one years 
old he traveled through the New England states, buying wool in carload lots and 
establishing agencies for fertilizers. In this period he opened a general 
merchandise store at Albany, Vt., where he gained his first experience as a 
merchant. In 1889 he went to Puyallup, Wash., and there sold dry-goods for six 
years, then returned to Vermont for the benefit of his health. He opened a 
dry-goods store at Barton Landing and incidentally engaged in the flour, feed 
and grain trade to a large extent, having six agencies with one to five carloads 
of feed and grain on the track all the time during the shipping season. 
Meanwhile he bought and conducted his grandparents' old farm. Though he was 
doing well, he was longing for the west and he sold out his interests in Vermont 
and came to California, and by advice of wholesalers of his acquaintance, 
located, in 1903, in Hanford. Here he opened a dry-goods store on the site of 
the present city market, taking over the old Hutchins stock. His small initial 
business was the forerunner of greater things and in a year and a half he moved 
to his present site at the corner of Seventh and Douty streets, moving into the 
ground-floor story of the building he now occupies. His store space was 125x35 
feet; later he leased an adjoining building, acquiring an additional space of 
25x100 feet, and not long afterward added to his establishment the second floor 
of the original building. In October, 1911, he opened two branch stores, one at 
Lemoore, the other at Exeter. In the first he sells dry-goods and shoes, in the 
other dry-goods only. His sons, Raymond C., Hugh A. and H. C. Kimball, are 
associated with him in business. H. C. Kimball is secretary of the New York 
department store and manager of the Lemoore branch store. The stocks of the 
three stores embrace general dry-goods, cloaks, suits, carpets, shoes and men's 
furnishings, tinware, glassware, agateware and stationery.
In addition to his large department store, Mr. Kimball is becoming largely 
interested in banking throughout Tulare and Fresno counties. In the spring of 
1910, associated with Chester Dowell, he organized the Lindsay National bank, of 
Lindsay, Cal., of which he was made the first president, and in February, 1911, 
he  bought the First National bank of Exeter and was made president of that 
also. His sons are married and settled in Kings county, their financial interest 
in his business dating from June, 1911. Mr. Kimball is president of the First 
National bank of Exeter and the National bank of Orosi, the latter being 
capitalized at $25,000 and opening its doors in February, 1913. He is a director 
of the Fowler National bank at Fowler, Cal., capitalized at $50,000 which 
started its business also in February, 1913. He is largely interested in the 
Golden State's Security Co., Inc., of Exeter, capitalized at $50,000, their 
holdings being practically all orange lands. This company has a bright future 
and handles twenty and forty acre tracts, and as director of this corporation 
Mr. Kimball is an active element.
In 1908 Mr. Kimball bought the Dr. Holmes fruit ranch, a mile west of Hanford, 
which he has converted into a fine estate. Besides this twenty acres he bought 
twenty-five acres near the city limits, all in orchard and vineyard. In 1912, 
with A. W. Quinn and two others, he bought nine hundred acres of orange land in 
the orange belt, four miles from Exeter, which they intend to improve.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
pp.  789-790
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler