William C. Dohrmann, engaged in the general real-estate business in Oakland, with offices at 706-7 First National Bank building, is the general agent of the East Shore Park Tract at Stege. His parents were H. G. F. and Mary E. Dohrmann, and his paternal grandfather was one of the pioneers in California, coming to Alameda county in 1849. He acquired land which is now the business center of Oakland and sold for nine hundred dollars what is now the corner of Ninth and Broadway. It was at that time covered with oak trees. The mother of the subject of this review died in San Francisco when he was but two years of age, but the father, who reached the ripe old age of eighty in June, 1914, survives and is living retired. There were five children in their family. William C. Dohrmann acquired his education by attendance at the public schools until fourteen years of age, and subsequently entered the employ of Lebenbaum Brothers, grocers of San Francisco, driving a team for two years. On the expiration of that period he went to Pinole, Contra Costa county, California, and there worked for one year as a box maker with the California Powder Company. He next spent three months in San Francisco taking care of a soda fountain for N. M. Benjamin & Company and afterward worked for three years in the service of the Underwriters Fire Patrol in the capacity of patrolman under Captain J. F. O. Comstock. Returning to Pinole, he there remained in the employ of the California Powder Company until 1898 and then went back to San Francisco, engaging with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company as storekeeper on one of their vessels, while subsequently he acted as assistant purser for eight years. At the end of that time he resigned and removed to Richmond, Contra Costa county, where he was employed by the Standard Oil Company as timekeeper for two months and later as paymaster for three months. Afterward he again returned to San Francisco and had charge of the vessels of the Barneson-Hibbard Navigation Company for two years.
He then resigned and came to Oakland, here embarking in the real-estate business, which he has since carried on with gratifying success. He acts as manager of the East Shore Park Tract in Stege, which comprises thirty acres and was formerly owned by his grandfather, Richard Stege, and was known as the Stege ranch. Lots sell for two hundred and fifty dollars and upwards. Sixty steam trains a day, forty on the Southern Pacific and twenty on the Santa Fe, pass through Stege, affording splendid service. There are also one hundred and eighty-five electric cars which reach Pullman through Stege's East Shore Park Tract. The depot is but fifty minutes' ride from San Francisco, forty-five minutes from Broadway and three minutes to Pullman, where the Pullman Company is erecting an extensive plant at a cost of two million dollars, and employ one thousand men. Stege is a well settled community, promising the best of social life and community interests. There are factories there, fine schools, one of them the grammar school and another the fine Union high school, the latter costing eighty-five thousand dollars. It is close to the water front, and its pier reaches deep water and serves the factories already established. Stege is in Contra Costa county, which means "over against the coast," and is a pleasant land of hill and dale bordering on the western shore of the great northern arm of the bay of San Francisco and the southern bank of the great Sacramento river. The climate of Stege is exceptional, a mingling of that belonging to the sea and that of the land. Mr. Dohrmann is successfully handling property there and is widely recognized as one of the representative and leading real-estate men of Oakland.
He belongs to the Oakland Real Estate Association and is likewise a member of the Chamber of Commerce. Fraternally he is identified with the Masons, being connected with
the organization as a member of California Lodge, A. F. & A. M., of San Francisco. He also belongs to the Sequoia Club in Richmond, and the Oakland Commercial Club.
Past and Present of Alameda County California, Vol. II
Published in Chicago by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1914
Pages 162-166
Transcribed by Linda Jackson 6/01/2008,
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