California Biographies, San Joaquin Valley

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


W. D. COATES, as manager of the Sperry Flour Company, is demonstrating his ability as a business man, 
his keen and far-sighted judgment resulting in a success for the company and a personal success, 
which places him among the representative men of this section. He was born at Peru, La Salle county, 
III, November 1, 1848, a son of John Coates, of Norristown, Montgomery county, Pa. The elder man, 
before the Black Hawk war, located in La Salle county, Ill., and engaged as a grain merchant, having a 
large warehouse located on the Illinois River. It was a receiving point for wheat up to the time of the 
railroads, and he carried on an extensive business for many years. His death, occurred in that location 
in 1863. He was prominent in all local affairs, taking part in all movements calculated to advance the 
general welfare. He served in the Black Hawk war, which occurred after his location in Illinois. His wife 
was a descendant of the Russell and Bull families of New England. Their only son was W. D. Coates, 
who, at the age of twelve years. enlisted in the navy and served under Commodore W. D. Porter on 
the gunboat Essex, being located for five months, in 1862, in the Mississippi River. He received his 
education in the high school at Peru, and on attaining manhood went south and assumed the 
managership of an ice company, with headquarters at Memphis, Tenn. He came to California in 1875 
and located in San Francisco, where he remained for fourteen years. He then came to Fresno and was 
identified with the Fresno Milling Company as bookkeeper, this company afterward being absorbed 
by the Sperry Flour Company. Mr. Coates became manager of the latter, and has since conducted its 
affairs with profit. The mill at Fresno is new and modern in every way, being the first mill in California 
operated by electricity ; it has a capacity of five hundred barrels per day, employs a large force and 
adds greatly to the industrial life of the community.  In Memphis, Tenn.. Mr. Coates was united in 
marriage with Kate Dixon, a native of Jackson, Miss., and they are the parents of four children, 
namely: Frank, a traveling salesman, located in Portland, Ore. ; Lee, associated with the Roeding Fig 
Company, of Fresno ; William D., Jr., attending the University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia ; and 
John, at home. The family are members of the Episcopal Church. Mr. Coates is a member of the 
Chamber of Commerce, and socially is identified with the Sequoia Club.