San Diego County Biographies
 
HENRY C. LANGREHR

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


is a native of Goodyear's Bar, California, and was born March 7, 1856. His 
father, Diedrich Langrehr, a native of Holstein, Germany, was born February 1, 
1830, and came to America in 1848. He arrived in Philadelphia and came to San 
Francisco in the fall of 1848, while the place was little better than a barren 
desert, where he engaged in the mercantile business for a while. He then became 
a miner near Sacramento and Feather river, and returned to San Francisco, where 
he started a restaurant on the southwest corner of Montgomery and Sutter 
streets, near where the Russ house now stands, and owned a private residence 
east of the present Dashaway hall, on Post street. He became interested in mines 
of great value, and was lawed out of his complete property. He then became a 
boarding-house keeper until 1884, when he died and was buried with great honor 
by the pioneers of San Francisco. Mr. H. C. Langrehr's mother, Matilda M. W. M. 
(Schmidt)
Langrehr, was born in the city of Hamburg, May 9, 1840. Her father was a 
carriage-maker in that city. They had a family of six children, but two of whom 
survive�Mr. Henry C. Langrehr, who now resides in San Diego, and the subject of 
this sketch. His young life was spent part of the time in the city of Hamburg, 
Germany, and in the cities of Edinburg, London and Paris. He was also in New 
York, Boston and Chicago, and finished his education in San Francisco.
        In 1870 he learned the metallic life-boat building business, which he 
soon mastered, and became a geometrical iron cutter. He took the money he earned 
in this way and invested it in night schools. He attended Commercial College and 
then went to a branch institute of the Chicago, Illinois, Civil Engineering and 
Surveying School, where he improved himself in higher mathematics and in civil 
engineering generally. He then invented many useful articles and the celebrated 
Mining, Marine and Irrigating Pump which has received so much consideration in 
the United States. He also invented a signal horn for marine purposes, and a 
bicarbureted hydrogen car motor. He has received several medals as rewards, and 
holds several certificates of merit for his inventions.
        He helped to organize the Native Sons of the Golden West, in 1876, in 
the city of San Francisco. The main cause for starting the society was to 
improve the morals and manners of the native sons of California. The society 
started with eighteen members, of which he was one, and now numbers 20,000. He 
is an Odd Fellow and a Mason. He had the honor of being the first Native Son of 
the Golden West who took the thirty-second degree in Masonry. In 1884 he was 
nominated on the taxpayer's ticket for County Surveyor of city and county of San 
Francisco in opposition to bossism.
        In 1884 he removed to San Diego, at which place and Los Angeles he 
practiced his profession. He became interested in the Working�men's party of San 
Diego, and being a mechanic himself, he became a Knight of Labor, and was judge 
and assistant master workman of the assembly. In 1887 he was nominated by the 
Workingmen's party of San Diego as a member of the Board of Education, but was 
defeated by the small majority of less than forty votes. The same year he was 
appointed chief engineer by the Coronado Beach corporation, and located and 
surveyed the immense concrete foundations which has in its foundations every 
line of geometry, which he did in accordance with the plans of the architect of 
the celebrated the Hotel del Coronado. He was appointed by the same company to 
go to San Francisco to get information in regard to the dry docks and marine 
railways. The plans he reported were adopted and the railway is constructed in 
accordance with his recommendations on the north peninsula of Coronado. He was 
next engaged in surveying the sewer system of Coronado Beach, under the 
instruction of Henry Schusler, civil engineer of the celebrated Spring Valley 
Company, of San Francisco. He then located the wharves and railroad of the 
Coronado Beach Company. After this he resigned his position with the company and 
became one of the assistant engineers of Colonel Waring, civil engineer, of 
Boston, and ran the lines of fourteen miles for the Waring system of sewers for 
the city of San Diego. He then laid out the Otay dam water system; assisted in 
the construction of the Coronado Belt Railroad line; became an assistant of the 
city corps of engineers, and while in that position he was elected on the 
Republican ticket for surveyor of the county of San Diego, by an overwhelming 
majority of 2,000. He has recently been appointed by the grand jury as an expert 
to examine the public buildings, bridges, roads, etc., in process of 
construction, and report upon their strength and durability.
        In June, 1889, he invented a device, as life�saving guards, for cable 
cars, and was engineer for the great bridge across the San Gabriel river in Los 
Angeles, and his plans were adopted; cost of the bridge, $5,000. In July, same 
year, he was appointed engineer for the Carriso Land and Water Company, and to 
explore the great Colorado desert of San Diego County, with reference to the 
irrigation. September 4, same year, he was appointed by the San Diego County 
Supervisors to wait upon the Senatorial Committee of the United States, at the 
rooms of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, to assist in giving them valuable 
information on desert lands and water supplies. November 29, same year, he was 
appointed by Governor Waterman as Notary Public for the city of San Diego.
        January 31, 1890, he was admitted to the Junior Bar Association, and was 
elected chairman of a committee and as legal adviser. April 5, same year, he 
invented and suggested the system known as the Relief Line Iron Mile-Posts 
across the desert of Colorado in San Diego County, life-saving, to aid 
travelers, and also established the pioneer patent office of the city of San 
Diego. In May, 1890, he was appointed as United States Deputy Mineral and Land 
Surveyor by the United States Surveyor General, W. H. Pratt, of California. Not 
many young men can present a better record for his age than this brilliant young 
man.
        November 10, 1881, Mr. Langrehr was married to Miss Frances K. Simon, 
who had been his schoolmate, and was born in San Francisco, November 10, 1858, 
the daughter of Benjamin Simon, a pioneer who came to California in 1849, and 
was in the grocery trade until 1875, when he retired from business. Mr. and Mrs. 
Langrehr have a daughter, born in San Francisco, October 1, 1882.
 
SOURCE:  An Illustrated History of Southern California:  Embracing the Counties 
of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California� Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.  p.-  192-194