Surnames: LANDEN, HENDY
LEWIS
LARSON.—Prominent among the leaders in the prune and apricot growing
industry in Santa Clara County is Lewis Larson, the thoroughly
progressive, if wisely conservative rancher of Sunnyvale, where he owns
ten acres within the town site. He was born near Victoria, Knox County,
Ill., on August 29, 1870, the son of Halvor Larson, who was born in
Sweden, married there, in 1867, and in that year came to America,
accompanied by his good wife. They settled in Knox County, Ill., where
Mr. Larson followed farming for ten years. Then he and his family
removed to Stromsburg, Polk County, Nebr., and there Lewis grew to be
sixteen years of age. His father bought eighty acres of railway land;
but selling out in 1887, he came to California and pitched his tent for
a while at San Pedro. He soon moved to Selma, Fresno County, but at the
end of one and a half years, he shifted again to the vicinity of Paso
de Robles, in San Luis Obispo County. Later, they moved to San Miguel
and farmed there. Four children honored Mr. and Mrs. Larson: Lewis is
the eldest; Ida, now the wife of August Landen, resides on Murphy
Avenue, Sunnyvale; Amanda lives at home and presides over Mr. Larson's
household; Jennie died at Selma when she was nine years old. Both
parents died at Sunnyvale.
Lewis
Larson attended school at Stromburg, Nebr., and when he struck out for
himself, he rented a grain ranch at San Miguel, which he operated for
seven years. The long droughts were so severe, however, that the seed
grain did not sprout, and he had three crop failures in seven years. In
the meanwhile his father had come over to this same place, and he
bought the ten acres during the winter of 1897-98, when he started
planting prunes, peaches and apricots, with which he has been very
successful. Mr. Larson is a member of the Prune and Apricot
Association, and he did very active and effective work as the chairman
of the drive which resulted in getting many signers in Sunnyvale,
Burley and Jefferson districts. He has served repeatedly on the board
of trustees and on the jury. In 1915 he was elected to the board of
trustees of Sunnyvale, and he was chairman of the board just before
John Hendy became chairman, and he was
reelected a trustee.
Transcribed by Joseph Kral from Eugene T. Sawyers' History
of Santa Clara
County,California, published by Historic Record Co. , 1922.
page 821