Tulare County Biographies

ELMER L. KITCHEL

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
In settling in a new country, the measure of one's success is not so much what 
one brings in as what one acquires. The man who comes with capital does not 
always keep it, and the man who comes empty-handed may live to fill his coffers. 
The citizen of Tulare county whose name is above, arrived with thirty cents cash 
in hand. How he has prospered it is the task of the writer here to narrate. Mr. 
Kitchel was born in Warren county, Iowa, May 6, 1870, a son of James and 
Aleysana (Webster) Kitchel, the former born in Illinois, the latter in Indiana. 
The family came to California in 1887 and lived at Antioch, Contra Costa county, 
and from there eventually came on to Tulare county.
Elmer L. Kitchel made his appearance in the county with the small sum mentioned, 
but he had more and something better�he had work in him, work that was for sale 
because he needed cash, work that was wanted because it was honest and thorough 
and effective. For two years after his arrival he was a wage earner, then he 
rented the Johnson & Levison ranch near Visalia, which embraced forty acres, 
devoted chiefly to fruit. After operating it three years he was able to come to 
the ranch which he still leases and which has come to be known as his home. It 
is the old Patterson ranch, northeast of Visalia, which includes ninety-five 
acres of cultivated land and one hundred and fifteen acres of pasture. There he 
has lived since 1906. When he came to the place it was badly run down. He got 
busy, cleaning up, cutting down sixty acres of dead fruit trees, converting the 
trees into four hundred and fifty-eight cords of wood. Ever since he has been 
improving the property, on which there are now twenty acres of flourishing prune 
trees which produced nine tons of dried fruit in 1911, which tested fifty-two 
and sold at six cents a pound. There is also a young orchard of thirteen acres 
of French prunes which came into bearing in 1912. In 1909 Mr. Kitchel had 
forty-five acres of Egyptian corn, which on threshing yielded ten hundred and 
seventy-five sacks, which he regarded as a very favorable showing. In 1911 he 
had fifteen acres of corn. Sixty acres of the ranch is devoted to alfalfa, which 
in 1912 yielded over eight tons to the acre for five cuttings. Ten acres of this 
was sown in December, 1910, forty-five in October, 1909. A feature is a dairy of 
twenty-five cows all young stock, and there are on the place five Percheron 
mares from which Mr. Kitchel raises fine draft colts. The mares weigh 
respectively from fourteen hundred and fifty to seventeen hundred pounds. In 
1912 Mr. Kitchel became a stockholder in the Visalia Co-operative creamery, and 
also owns stock in a Percheron stallion.
Socially, Mr. Kitchel is an Odd Fellow, affiliating with Four Creek Lodge No. 
94. In 1896 he married Minnie E. Hummel, daughter of Thomas and Florence A. 
(Hill) Hummel, both residents of Tulare county for the past forty years. She was 
born in Tulare county in that part now in Kings. Mr. and Mrs. Kitchel have four 
children : Ralph, George, Elmer W. and Hattie.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 795-796