Tulare County Biographies

ALEXANDER W. WHEELER

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
Sons of Illinois, a field of enterprise and of patriotism, have with few 
exceptions done well in California. In La Salle county, in the Prairie State, 
Alexander W. Wheeler was born October 7, 1859, a son of William and Elizabeth 
(Brown) Wheeler. His parents were natives of England and his father was a 
graduate of Oriel College at Oxford.
In public schools near his boyhood home, under his father's able direction, 
Alexander W. Wheeler obtained a practical education. In 1880 he came to 
California and was employed for a time in a fruit orchard at San Leandro, 
Alameda county. Later he was in the service of the Baker & Hamilton Company at 
Benicia. He came to Tulare City with his brother February 1, 1882, and bought a 
carriage and blacksmith shop which was doing business in the town, his brother 
having been his partner in the enterprise. Later they sold the plant and 
Alexander W. Wheeler went to a point near Tipton, on the plains south of Tulare 
City, and devoted nine years to grain farming. Returning to the town he was in 
the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company until, in 1893, he bought a 
furniture business in Tulare, which he has conducted with increasing success 
till the present time. He has recently erected a fine business building, after 
his own designs, on North K street. The structure occupies a ground space of 
fifty by one hundred and twenty-five feet, and his store room is eighteen feet 
from floor to ceiling without any obstructing posts. The building is thoroughly 
modern, with attractive plate glass show windows. He carries an extensive line 
of fine furniture, and sells not only to people of Tulare but to hundreds of 
families in all the country round about who come to him confidently for good 
goods at fair prices.
In his fraternal relations Mr. Wheeler affiliates with the Masons and the Odd 
Fellows and has passed nearly all the chairs in Olive Branch Lodge No. 269, F. & 
A. M., and Tulare City Lodge No. 306, 1. O. O. F. He has from time to time been 
brought to general notice through participation in public affairs, notably as a 
juryman at the trial of the Dalton brothers, train wreckers, some twenty years 
ago. In 1883 he married Miss Mattie B. Holcombe, a native of Ohio. Her father, 
who came to Tulare county in the early '70s, was a pioneer merchant at Tulare 
City and was for a time identified with the interests of the Southern Pacific 
railroad. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler have a daughter, Claire J.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, pp. 646-647