California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

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


W. L. DUNN. The claims of many students of biography and of economic conditions that 
technical training is not necessary for the development of successful men are based upon the 
fact that such a great number of the eminent men of the country have been essentially self-
taught, and trained only in the school of experience. It is true that men who have obtained their 
education through their own efforts, and while gaining their livelihood, are apt to appreciate its 
worth, and make, oftentimes, better use of the knowledge thus obtained, than are those to 
whom are open the doors of universities. California is the home of many institutions which owe 
their present prosperous condition to the sagacity, talent and judgment of men to whom an 
academic training was not given, but who have been graduated from the higher school of 
practical acquaintance with the matter at hand. In this connection mention is due W. L. Dunn, 
vice president and general manager of the Dunn Manufacturing Company, of Oxnard, who, 
starting in life handicapped by the lack of schooling, has won for himself honorable success and 
an established position in the business world.
Mr. Dunn was born at Tarentum, Pennsylvania, May 19, 1864, and is a son of Johnson N. and 
Jennie (Flemming) Dunn. The father was engaged in the oil business from its earliest history, 
having drilled one of the first oil wells in Oil Creek, Pennsylvania. Because of following the oil 
business he was unable to give his son the same educational advantages as other boys. During 
the greater part of his boyhood and youth W. L. Dunn suffered from poor health, and as a 
consequence of this also attended school but four months. At sixteen years, he left the parental 
roof and went to Warren, Pennsylvania, where he secured a position in the lumber yard of 
Rodger Brothers. He was soon transferred from the yard to the mill, having shown industry and 
ambition, and by the time he was nineteen years of age he was occupying the position of head 
setter. There, also, his genius for mechanics had a chance to develop. At twenty-one years of 
age Mr. Dunn resigned from his position and entered the oil fields. For the greater part, he was 
identified with the mechanical end of the business, and after he had spent one year in the 
Pennsylvania fields becoming familiar with the industry, moved on to Lima, Ohio, and there 
engaged in building oil well rigs for two years. From that employment it was but another step 
to become engaged in oil well drilling as a contractor, and in this business he continued for a 
long period, traveling extensively through the fields of Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, and 
maintaining his headquarters at Lima. In 1896 Mr. Dunn came to the West, locating at Los 
Angeles, California, where for three years he was engaged with M. Kellerman in drilling wells. 
Later he again went into business as a contractor in this line on his own account, and for four 
years was engaged in numerous contracts in Los Angeles County. Subsequently, he went to 
Santa Maria, as superintendent of the Western Union Coal Company, but after one year gave 
up this position to engage with Henry J. Crocker, of San Francisco, in drilling some oil wells near 
Santa Ynez. Two years of this business was followed by his resignation and his subsequent 
promotion of casing tongs for well drilling, an invention which he had patented. After having 
these articles manufactured unsuccessfully and unsatisfactorily at Santa Paula and San 
Francisco, he came to Oxnard, where he organized the Dunn Manufacturing Company, of which 
he has since been vice president and general manager. In addition to the casing tongs, this 
concern also manufactures a general line of oil well drilling specialties, and the business has 
developed to large proportions, its market being not alone the fields of California and other 
states in this country, but those of foreign lands as well. Many of the specialties manufactured 
by this firm, in fact nearly all of them, are Mr. Dunn's own inventions. In addition, the concern 
maintains a general repair shop and an automobile garage. It is one of Oxnard's fast-growing 
enterprises and has its established place among the thriving city's industrial houses.
Mr. Dunn is a republican, but politics have received but little of his attention. Fraternally, he 
belongs to the Elks, the Eagles and the Woodmen of the World.