During a residence of thirty-four years in California Walter Emerson Dennison has closely identified himself with many representative business interests in different sections of the state and his successful career has had an important effect upon the later advancement of the commonwealth. The projects with which his name has been associated have all been progressive and useful ones, varied in kind and in purpose but all alike in this, that their successful completion has constituted an element in the general growth and development. As president and managing director of the Steiger Terra Cotta & Pottery Works he today holds an enviable position in business circles of San Francisco, where his name has come to be regarded as a synonym for business integrity and enterprise and for progressive citizenship.
Mr. Dennison was born near Kankakee, Illinois, August 17, 1856, and is a son of Walter Horace and Nancy Jane (Ransom) Dennison, both natives of Indiana. The family is of old New England origin, the paternal grandfather, Timothy Dennison, having been born in Freeport, Maine, and having in 1818 emigrated to Indiana, where he settled in Ripley county. Mr. Dennison's mother is a daughter of Stillman and Eleanor Cole (Parsons) Ransom, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of Maryland.
In the acquirement of an education Walter E. Dennison attended public school in his native community and later entered the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, graduating from that institution in 1877 after completing the full classical course. Almost immediately afterward he turned his attention to teaching in the high school of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and after one year was made superintendent of schools in that city. He resigned this office at the end of twelve months in order to enter the Cincinnati Law School, but he did not pursue the study of this profession, abandoning it in 1880, when he came to California, settling in Los Angeles, where he opened an agency for the Continental Oil & Transportation Company. After one year he was transferred to Stockton and in recognition of his former able and competent work was given charge of the Stockton and Sacramento agencies, winning advancement in 1882 to the position of general superintendent of all agencies, with headquarters at San Francisco. Being a man of initiative, enterprise and constructive ability, he proved eminently well qualified for this difficult and responsible position which he held until 1884, when he resigned, accepting the appointment of guardian of the Yosemite valley for the state of California. This position he resigned in 1887 to take charge of the Southern California agency for the Electric Development Company at Los Angeles, but in 1888 he severed this connection, turning his attention to mining, in which he engaged successfully until 1891. In that year he came again to San Francisco and aided in the organization of the City Street Improvement Company, occupying the position of secretary until 1902, when he resigned this office, but remained as a director of the concern until the fall of 1912. While actively connected with the management of the City Street Improvement Company he took personal charge of the construction of the Humboldt Bay Jetty system, for which the national government appropriated one million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This work covered the period between 1894 and 1899 and was very successful both from a financial and an engineering standpoint. In 1898 the Steiger Terra Cotta & Pottery Works were founded in San Francisco, and Mr. Dennison was made president and managing director. These positions he is now capably filling, evidencing in his discharge of the innumerable duties which fall to his lot as president of a great corporation an initiative spirit, a reorganizing power and a well-timed aggressiveness which have enabled him to make the business expand and grow until it is today one of the largest and best managed of its kind in the city.
Mr. Dennison married Miss Isabella Baxter Richardson, a daughter of Israel J. and Estelle T. (Pettibone) Richardson, natives of Delaware, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Dennison have become the parents of four children: Isabel, aged thirty-one; Leonidas, twenty-nine; Margaret, twenty-one; and Walter Emerson, Jr., eighteen.
Mr. Dennison is well and prominently known in club circles of San Francisco, holding membership in the Pacific Union, the Bohemian and the Commercial clubs, in Beta Theta Pi and in the Sons of the American Revolution. He is in addition a member of the Merchants Exchange Club and the Commonwealth Club, and in the spring of 1907 was appointed a member of the board of state harbor commissioners, winning his reappointment in 1909. Along lines of his business he is second vice president of the National Terra Cotta Society. No progressive public movement, no project instituted for the benefit or welfare of the city lacks his cooperation and hearty support, his influence being always on the side of right, reform and progress. He uses the wealth which he has acquired by his own efforts in a capable and conscientious manner, not only supporting public institutions, but also giving a great deal to private charity, his hand being always outstretched to help the needy and afflicted. His friends in San Francisco are numerous and come from all ranks of life, the poor and lowly, who know his charity, esteeming him even more highly than his business associates, who respect his integrity and honor.
Past and Present of Alameda County California, Vol. II
Published in Chicago by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1914
Transcribed by Linda Jackson 7/01/2008, Pages 378-380
Alameda County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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