YUBA COUNTY Biographies

GEORGE M. BAUMGARDNER

An experienced and very successful general contractor, who has contributed something definite toward advancing the status of Sutter County in the industrial world, is George M. Baumgardner, of Yuba City. He was born in Chicago, on June 13, 1889, and was brought out to the Golden State when a baby boy. He is a son of Harvey and Ida (Lathrop) Baumgardner, natives respectively of Illinois and Michigan, the father coming to California when twenty-three years of age, while Ida Lathrop was brought hither when a child by her parents, who were pioneer farmers in Sutter County. Grandfather Baumgardner was a veteran of the Civil War, and afterwards came to California and here spent his last days. After Harvey Baumgardner’s marriage, he returned to Illinois, being employed with the Armour Meat Company. However, he had a longing for the Golden West; so in 1890 he brought his family to California and located in Yuba City. His death occurred in Redding, May 7, 1918, and the mother passed away in Sutter County, May 20, 1920.

George M. Baumgardner is the oldest son and the third in order of birth in a family of eight children; and he began to help support the family by his own work at the age of ten. He commenced in the pottery at Lincoln, in Placer County, some twenty-three years ago, and after that he found employment in various places in Marysville, Ukiah, Willits, Mendocino, Healdsburg, Chico, and other localities in Northern California. Twelve years ago, he learned the trade of the cement worker, starting at Chico, and then came to Marysville and worked for William Bowen and later for Henry Clymer. For several years past, he has been in business for himself as a general contractor; and he has become known for his dependable and up-to-date workmanship. He has done the cement work, for example, in all the best buildings erected in Marysville and Yuba City, and also in Gridley and Colusa. So prosperous has he been that he has come to own thirty-six and one-half choice acres of peach orchard and vineyard in Sutter County, situated about two and one-half miles from Yuba City, on which he has made all of the improvements. He is a member of the Yuba-Sutter Builders’ Exchange.

Mr. Baumgardner was married in 1910, at Yuba City, to Miss Mata Neilson, of Petaluma. She was the daughter of Paul and Pauline (Hansen) Neilson, natives of Denmark, and early settlers of Petaluma. Mr. and Mrs. Baumgardner’s union has been blessed with the birth of four children: Bernice; Paul; Alvin, who died at three months; and Elwyn, who died at two and one-half years.