YUBA COUNTY Biographies
RALPH H. DURST
Among the men who have been connected with the hop-growing industry at Wheatland from the time of its inception, is Ralph H. Durst, a native of Austin, Nev., born March 28, 1865, but a resident of Wheatland since he was eighteen months old. His father, the late Dr. D. P. Hurst, was born near Greenville, Mercer County, Pa. He was a graduate M. D. from a medical college in Philadelphia and practiced his profession in Mercer County until he decided to come to California in 1853. He came around Cape Horn in a sailing vessel as ship doctor and, on landing in San Francisco, made his way to the mines, spending the first winter at St. Louis, near La Porte, where he practiced medicine, and with several partners was also interested in mining. Dr. Durst then came down into the Valley and practiced medicine at Colusa. During these years he put in several crops of grain, but two dry years, 1864 and 1865, resulted in a complete failure of crops and he then removed to Nevada City, Cal., where he followed his profession until 1867, when he located at Wheatland. Purchasing thirty-five acres just south of the town, adjoining the railroad, he built his residence. He is well remembered as the pioneer physician, practicing over a wide area in southern Yuba and Sutter Counties, and in Placer County. Dr. Durst planted the first alfalfa grown at Wheatland. He naturally had a great desire to follow agriculture, and in 1876 he bought the Riley ranch of 500 acres, west of Wheatland. In 1883 he planted the first hops on Bear River; that fall he added to his holdings by purchasing the Russian Ranch just southeast of Wheatland and extending back to Bear River, and on these rich bottom lands he raised hops, increasing the acreage devoted to that industry until he had 670 acres. He was active in reclamation work and in the building of levees, and he stood with the ranchers in the anti-debris fight. He retired from practice in 1885, on account of his health requiring an out-door life. He passed away in 1911, aged eighty-one years, and in his death the county lost one of its most enterprising men. Dr. D. P. Durst was married in Colusa, being united with Rose Frances Haines, a native of Pekin, Ill., a daughter of Jonathan Haines, a manufacturer in that city on the Illinois River. He invented and made the first header, and also invented and built the Buckeye mower. His implements were also shipped to the Pacific Coast, and he made several trips to California. The daughter, Rose F., was born August 18, 1836. She came to California and was engaged in teaching in Colusa, where she met and married Dr. Durst, the ceremony being performed in 1858. She was a cultured and refined woman, of pleasing personality, and was a splendid helpmate to her husband, lending her hearty encouragement to him to gain his ambition. She survived her husband until August 4, 1917, when she passed on, leaving a void not easily filled. Four children were born to this pioneer couple: John died at the age of forty-three; Murray passed away at fifty-two years; Ralph H. is the subject of this review; and Jonathan, a partner of Ralph H., lives in Oakland.
Ralph H. Durst was reared on the home ranch and was educated in the public schools. From a lad he assisted his father on the ranch and when he was eighteen years old his father set out the first hops grown on Bear River, so it was natural that he in turn became active in the growing and care of the hops from the beginning, and he has followed it and general agriculture ever since. After his father’s death he and his brother Jonathan took over the ranches and have since operated them as Durst Brothers. In the spring of 1923, Mr. Durst individually purchased a 260-acre ranch on the south side of Bear River, across from the old Durst ranch, where he engaged in horticulture, having already set out an orchard of eighty-five acres to cling peaches. Politically he is a staunch Republican. Fraternally he is a member of Sutter Lodge No. 100, I.O.O.F., Wheatland, in which he is a Past Grand, and he is also a member of the Rebekah Lodge.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1187-1188
NORMAN DUNNING RIDEOUT
One of the most distinguished pioneer residents of Marysville, who left a deep impress on the business, social, and economic conditions of the city, was the late Norman Dunning Rideout, well known financier, banker and capitalist. Mr. Rideout was a native of Maine, born in 1832. He came to Yuba County in 1851 and conducted a store at Galena Hill, then a lively mining camp in the upper end of the county. He prospered, and later he was interested in a banking business at Camptonville, where he dealt heavily in gold dust. His ability as a financier was in evidence then, as it was throughout his entire career, for he built up a considerable fortune. In 1861 Mr. Rideout came to Marysville, bought out the firm of Law Brothers, and formed a partnership with their bookkeeper, William Smith. The two established the banking house of Rideout & Smith, by which name it was known a great many years, the name being changed to the Rideout Bank when the institution was incorporated on November 1, 1890. Later Mr. Rideout extended his operations in the world of finance; and at the time of his death he was largely interested in the following institutions: The Rideout Bank, Marysville; the Northern California Bank of Savings, in the same city; the Rideout Bank, Gridley; Bank of Rideout, Smith & Company, Oroville; Bank of Butte County, Chico; Placer County Bank, Auburn; and the Mercantile Trust Company, of San Francisco. He was president of all these banks, and was vice-president of the Sperry Flour Company and a director of the Yosemite Railway Company, besides having numerous other interests throughout the State. The White House ranch, near Chandler Station, Sutter County, was one of these. Mr. Rideout always took an active interest in banking and financial affairs, regularly attended the meetings of the California Bankers’ Association, and served as president of that association one year with good credit.
Mr. Rideout’s business policy was conservative. His judgment was correct, and he always dealt fairly. Evidence of this is found in the host of friends he made in every community that was the scene of his business activities. He interested himself only in legitimate business enterprises, never engaging in speculative undertakings. His conservatism was therefore along lines of safety, not inactivity. To his unsurpassed executive ability, further testimony is given, besides the extensive interests left by him, in the extension of the Northern California Railroad from Marysville to Knights Landing, built by him and A. J. Binney in 1888; the organization by him of the California State Bank of Sacramento, and the Bank of Willows at Willows, his interests in which he afterwards sold; and the line of steamers from San Francisco to Marysville, owned by him, William T. Ellis, Sr., D. E. Knight, and numerous ranchers, and run by him at different times. At the great San Francisco fire in 1906, his position as president of the Mercantile Trust Company of San Francisco made him a prominent figure in the trying times before the banks reopened for business, as well as the strenuous efforts that characterized the rebuilding of the stricken city. Those associated with him in the work know how he engaged in it with the zeal and enthusiasm of a man forty years younger, and recall the pride he took in that work.
Always a stanch believer in Marysville’s commercial importance, Mr. Rideout predicted for the city a great future. He was mayor of Marysville in 1878-1879; was supervisor of Yuba County, in the first district, in 1868-1869-1870; and was councilman form the third ward in Marysville in 1862-1863. Prominent in the ranks of the Republican party, he served as a member of the State Central Committee. In 1878 he was a delegate to the national Republican convention held in Cincinnati that nominated Rutherford B. Hayes for president; in 1892 he was a delegate to the national convention at Minneapolis, Minn., when Benjamin Harrison was nominated president; and in 1900 he was again a delegate at Philadelphia, when McKinley and Roosevelt were the nominees. He was a member of the Pacific Union Club, of San Francisco, and of the Sutter Club, of Sacramento, and was a Knight Templar Mason. On July 2, 1907, at his home in San Francisco, Mr. Rideout passed on; and in his death, not only Marysville, but the State of California as a whole, lost both a distinguished citizen and a fine and loyal friend. His widow, formerly Phoebe Abbott, survives him, and resides in San Francisco.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1188-1189
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