Sacramento Valley Biographies

SARDIS D. WILCOX

Transcribed by Sally Kaleta, May 2009.

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

           Owing to conditions of soil and climate a portion of Tehama
county is peculiarly adapted to the sheep industry, furnishing the pasturage
on which this breed of stock flourish with especial vigor. While still a
mere youth Mr. Wilcox became cognizant of the advantages offered to
sheep-raisers in this locality and, grasping the opportunity, he thus in
early manhood laid the foundation of his present gratifying success and his
standing among the leading sheep raisers of the county. The sagacious
judgment which led him into this industry has enabled him to surmount
obstacles and overcome hard-ships, and, while he has had some reverses, to a
large degree his career has been one of success and prosperity.

          The record of the Wilcox family will be found elsewhere in this
volume, in the sketch of G. B. Wilcox, who is a brother of Sardis D. Wilcox,
their father being Abel M., well known among the pioneers of the early '60's
in Tulare county. Born in Stillwater, Minn., February 16,1851, Sardis D.
Wilcox was a child of nine years when he accompanied his parents across the
plains and at the expiration of a long and tedious but uneventful journey
settled four miles east of Portersville, Tulare county. From there, after a
little less than five years, he came to Red Bluff at the age of fourteen
years, in July of 1865. At an early age he began to be self-supporting and
when eighteen years old he turned his attention to the occupation of
sheep-shearing. Carefully hoarding his earnings, he was able to lay aside
$1,000 by the time he had attained the age of twenty-one years. With this as
an encouraging start he embarked in the cattle business, but in 1882 turned
his attention to the raising of sheep, which has been his principal
occupation throughout life. The first land which he secured was taken up
from the government and has been added to from time to time, until now he
has twenty thousand acres in Tehama, Shasta, Modoc and Lassen counties, a
part of which is tillable land, although the larger part is for pasturage
only. On his home ranch, situated four miles north of Red Bluff, he now has
about eleven thousand head of sheep, and in their care employs a large
number of hands during the busy seasons.

           The marriage of Mr. Wilcox occurred in Watkins, N. Y., July 15,
1895, and united him with Miss Cora May Close, who was born in Pennsylvania
and died in California January 20, 1897, at the age of thirty years. The
only child of their union is a daughter, Imogene, who is now a student in
the Red Bluff schools. Among the people in his part of Tehama county, Mr.
Wilcox is known as an enterprising ranchman and capable stock-raiser, one
who works syste-matically and with method, keen to see an opportunity to
increase his successes and prompt in decision and action. To one so devoted
to personal affairs as he, the activity of a politician presents no
fascinations and public life makes no appeals of impelling influence. Nor do
fraternal matters engross his attention to the detriment of home duties, for
he has no identification with such other than his membership in Lodge No.
76, I. O. O. F., at Red Bluff. Though displaying neither fraternal nor
political activity, he is a man of friendly disposition, warm-hearted and
genial, ever ready to aid worthy men and worthy movements, and thus gives to
his community a citizenship of the highest order.

"History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the
Sacramento Valley, Cal.," J. M. Guinn, The Chapman Publishing Company,
Chicago, 1906, Page 469.