Merced County Biographies

J. W. RIGGINS

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        Located three miles east of Merced on Bear Creek is the twenty�four-acre 
fruit and almond ranch owned by J. W. Riggins, who purchased the land in 1908 
and since that date has been developing the property, and since 1921 has lived 
on it. A native of Tennessee, he was born in Normandy, Bedford County, on April 
26, 1867, a son of the late W. L. Riggins, a railroad man. During the Civil War 
he had charge of building bridges. He died in 1873, after which his widow 
married M. P. Huffman. She died in Tennessee in 1907 at the age of seventy-seven 
years.
        J. W. Riggins attended the schools in the South and at an early age 
began to learn telegraphy at Estel Springs, Tenn., on the N. C. & St. L. Ry. He 
has worked in many places since mastering the key, among which are Coahoma, 
Miss., for fifteen months as an operator; eighteen months at Dundee, Miss., as 
operator and station agent and one year at Lake Cormorant. In 1901 he went to 
work for the St. L. I. M. & S., as relief man; later went to Varner, Ark., where 
a Captain Rice owned the town and county seat, there being two courthouses in 
the county where court was held alternately. In the spring of 1902 he went to 
Michigan in the employ of the Wabash Railway; in December of that year he went 
to Kansas and was working for the M. K. & T. Railway at Bayard at the time of 
the strike of the Order of Railway Telegraphers in 1904. Mr. Riggins left the 
railroad service to take up picket work for the Railroad Telegraphers at 
Parsons, Kans., and was one of the ten members of the initial board under H. B. 
Perham, president of the Railroad Telegraphers Union of America, serving from 
1904 to 1908. In 1907 he went to the Pacific Coast from Salt Lake. Incidentally 
he visited Merced County that same year and made some investments in property, 
but continued with his organization work over the western roads. He has worked 
in every state of the Union except Idaho, Oregon and Washington in the interests 
of the railroad telegraphers. He quit in 1909 and entered the employ of the 
Yosemite Valley Railroad as its agent at Merced Falls, continuing active until 
1921, when he left the railroad employ to give his entire time and attention to 
his ranch interests.
        Mr. Riggins is a member of Hornitos Lodge No. 98, F. & A. M., in which 
he is a Past Master; he is a Past Grand of Willow Lodge No. 121, I. O. O. F., in 
Snelling; a member and Past Chief Patriarch of Snelling Encampment No. 86, I. O. 
O. F.; and Past District Deputy Grand Patriarch of the 49th District of 
California; he is also a member of the Navarro Lodge of Rebekahs at Snelling and 
of the Eastern Star Chapter in Merced. Mr. Riggins is very much interested in 
irrigation movements and was secretary of the committee of the Crocker-Huffman 
Contract Holders Association, whose affairs were settled amicably, so that it is 
now a part of the Merced Irrigation District.
 
History of Merced County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 781-782