Tulare County Biographies

EUGENE A. LUCE

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
The population of California is made up very largely of men from other states of 
the Union and presents more distinct elements than almost any other state. Yet 
it is a melting-pot in which all immigrants are converted into out-and-out 
Californians. In local industries; from the railroad builder to the bank 
president, the citizen of New York birth has shown excellent qualities. One such 
is Eugene A. Luce, formerly a plumber at Visalia, now a rancher on the Exeter 
road, east of that city, a self-made man, who has won high repute in the 
community for all those qualities of mind and heart which make for good 
citizenship. Mr. Luce was born in Buffalo, N. Y., January 19, 1845, and when he 
was two years old his father died. He was reared and educated in his native 
state, and in the spring of 1870 came to California and opened a plumber's and 
tinsmith shop in Visalia. After a successful business there of twenty years' 
duration, he sold out his plant and bought a ranch of eighty acres near that 
city. It was set out to fruit trees which he dug up to convert the place into a 
dairy ranch of fifty acres of alfalfa and thirty acres of wild feed. He is able 
to gather six crops of alfalfa each year without irrigation. A dairy of thirty 
cows is a feature of his enterprise and he keeps fifty hogs.
In 1907 Mr. Luce married Mrs. Metcalf, a native of Iowa, who has two children: 
Herman and Odell Metcalf. Mary E. Luce is a child by a former wife. Mr. Luce 
affiliates with the Visalia Grange and is a man of liberal public spirit.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 792-793