Q: Whatever happened to Colonel Hollister?
Q: Whatever happened to Colonel Hollister?
A: William Welles Hollister, the rancher for whom the city of Hollister was named, was a truly colorful character of the Old West. (The title “Colonel” was ceremonial as he never served in any official military capacity.)
He was born on an Ohio farm on Jan. 12, 1818. At the age of 15, he started attending Kenyon College, a seminary school in Gambier, Ohio, and stayed at the private institution for several years.
After his father died, Hollister left college without graduating and returned to the family farm, which he ran until 1852. He sold it that year and used the proceeds to buy about 300 head of cattle which he brought across the American plains to California to feed gold miners. He sold his cattle stock for a large profit and returned to Ohio.
With funds made from the first drive, Hollister bought about 10,000 merino sheep along with 200 head of cattle. He, along with his brother Joe Hollister and their sister Lucy Brown, formed a wagon train made up of 50 men, four women, and eleven wagons.
The settlers and their livestock left the town of Hanover, in Licking County, Ohio, for their long journey to California on or around May 1, 1853. They took 15 months to reach Monterey. Only 1,000 sheep survived the arduous journey, but these provided Hollister with enough animals to start a sheep ranch in what is now San Benito County. Over time, he became California’s largest wool grower.
Hollister married Annie Hannah James on June 18, 1862, in San Francisco. The marriage ceremony was performed by the Rev. Thomas Starr King, a famous Unitarian minister who considerably influenced California politics during the American Civil War. The couple would have six children.
The Hollisters built a mansion near what is now the site of the former Fremont Elementary School along the base of a hill around which the town of Hollister would grow.
In 1868, Hollister sold his 20,773 acre South Valley ranch for $370,000 and moved south with his family to raise sheep in the Santa Barbara region of California. He had already purchased a ranch there in 1866 in partnership with Thomas and Albert Dibblee.
As a resident of the Santa Barbara area, Hollister made significant contributions to the Spanish mission community. He helped to develop the Santa Barbara College, and was an original owner of the Arlington Hotel and the Lobero Theater. He also established a local newspaper in Santa Barbara, and financed the construction of the city’s Steams Wharf. This wharf played an important role in building commerce for the coastal community by trading supplies and shipping of locally produced goods such as sheep wool.
After Colonel Hollister died in 1886, one of his sons took over management of his father’s vast estate and business holdings.
Q: Who was the “Wheeler” that Gilroy’s Wheeler Manor was named after?
A: Linwood Wheeler was a local Gilroy philanthropist who in the late 1920s donated more than three acres of land to the city for the construction of a modern hospital facility. The site was at 650 Fifth St. between Carmel and Princevalle streets.
He was born in New York and moved to the Midwest at an early age. Near Chicago, he learned how to run a seed business and came out to California in 1907 to start a Gilroy seed company with John W. Pieters. The company prospered with a variety of different seeds (especially lettuce) sold to the region’s farmers.
Wheeler Hospital was designed in a Spanish revival style by William H. Weeks and built in 1929. (Weeks also designed the Gilroy Carnegie Library – now the city’s history museum.) The hospital had 35 beds and served Gilroy residents until a new Wheeler Hospital building was constructed adjacent to it in 1962.
Wheeler himself stayed active in the South Valley community for many years. He served as a president of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce and also helped found the city’s Elks Lodge. He provided money from his own funds to buy fire equipment for the city and also to build the city a fine community auditorium named after him at Six and Church streets.
In 1944, Wheeler and his wife died in a car accident. Their deaths were greatly mourned by the local citizens, many of whom remember Linwood’s secret generosity to them during the financial struggles of the Great Depression years.
In 1990, Wheeler Hospital became Wheeler Manor Senior Apartments.
Q: Would a big earthquake crack Anderson Dam and flood Morgan Hill?
A: If Mother Nature produced an earthquake with strength enough to severely damage Anderson Dam, the resulting flood would be the least of anyone’s worries. Although the main part of the Calavaras Fault runs through the east side of Anderson Reservoir, it’s highly unlikely that this geological fault line would produce an earthquake on a scale causing a collapse of the dam, according to the U.S. Geologic Survey in Menlo Park.
Anderson Dam and its accompanying reservoir was named after Leroy Anderson, a founder and the first president of the Santa Clara Valley Water Conservation District (which eventually became the Santa Clara Valley Water District). In 1949, county voters passed a $3 million bond act to build Santa Clara County’s largest reservoir and that same year California Gov. Earl Warren signed official papers to begin the building of the dam. No federal or state funds were used in the construction process.
What was once a dairy and cattle ranch owned by John Cochran was purchased using the money and construction of the dam soon began. The work was completed in 1950. At 89,000 acre-feet, Anderson Reservoir had, at the time of the dam’s completion, the capacity to hold more water than all of Santa Clara County’s other district reservoirs combined.
On April 24, 1984, the Calavaras Fault ruptured southeast of San Jose, causing a magnitude 6.1 earthquake. Although there was an “exceptionally large horizontal acceleration” at the site of Anderson Dam, it successfully withstood the seismological forces, according to the U.S.G.S.
