San Joaquin County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
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WILLIAM H. LORENZ.
 
        San Joaquin County will never forget the important and necessary part 
played by the far-sighted, experienced bankers in her development, through which 
she has come to take a front place among the counties of California, and 
prominent among the agencies that has done much for the progress in Central 
California the First National Bank of Lodi must be mentioned. Its success is 
undoubtedly due, to a great extent, to the personal attention to every detail of 
William H. Lorenz, the president of this thriving institution. He was born in 
Crawsfordsville, Ind., on April 9, 1863, and there was reared and educated. In 
1885 he came West to Walla Walla, Wash., and engaged in farming pursuits for two 
years at the end of which time he removed to Stockton and was employed by P. A. 
Buell & Company; later he entered the Stockton State Hospital and soon afterward 
assumed the supervision of that institution, where he remained for fifteen 
years. During the year of 1905 he settled in Lodi and helped to organize the 
First National Bank and became its cashier, which position he held until 
recently when he was elected president. The other officers are as follows: H. C. 
Beckman, E. E. Morse and S. H. Zimmerman, vice-presidents; Lloyd Mazzera, 
cashier; P. A. Ritchie, H. F. Lightfoot, D. H. Groff and C. D. Tappan, assistant 
cashiers. The present board of directors are: George F. McNoble, chairman, and 
W. H. Lorenz, president; H. C. Beckman, E. E. Morse, and S. H. Zimmerman, 
vice-presidents; George W. Le Moin, E. A. Covell, John C. Bewley, Otto Spenker 
and W. G. Micke. The First National Bank was organized with a capital of 
$25,000; and now with the Central Savings Bank, under the same management, has a 
combined capital of $300,000 with a surplus of $150,000 and resources of over 
$3,500,000.
        Mr. Lorenz is the secretary and treasurer of the Lodi Investment Company 
which built and own the beautiful Lodi Hotel and the Lodi theater. In 1913 he 
purchased an eighty-acre vineyard near Youngstown, which he has brought to a 
high state of cultivation; an arch at the entrance to the property reads "Vista 
Del Monte Vineyard." In partnership with John C. Bewley, he recently subdivided 
a forty-acre tract south of Lodi into one-acre lots. Mr. Lorenz has been city 
treasurer of Lodi since its incorporation in 1906. Fraternally he is a member of 
Lodi Lodge No. 256 F. & A. M. Masons; and belongs to all branches of that order 
in Stockton, and to the San Francisco Consistory and Shrine; he has passed 
through all the chairs of the Lodi Lodge of Odd Fellows.
        Mr. Lorenz's marriage united him with Hedwig Ruhl, a native daughter of 
California born in Stockton; she is the daughter of the late Fred Ruhl, a 
Stockton pioneer, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. Mr. and Mrs. 
Lorenz are the parents of one daughter, Bernice, a graduate of the University of 
California in 1921. She married P. A. Ritchie of Lodi and they have a little 
daughter. A man of fine character, a clear thinker, broad-minded and 
progressive, Mr. Lorenz has a keen desire for the community's betterment, 
morally, educationally and commercially.
 
History of San Joaquin County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 
1923
p     499
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.