Patterson Ranch Company signed by Robert Oxnard - Oxnard, California 1916

Beautiful RARE certificate from the Patterson Ranch Company issued in 1916. This historic document has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company name. This item has the signatures of the Company’s President, Robert Oxnard and Secretary, and is over 94 years old.


Certificate Vignette



The noted Patterson ranch was formerly owned by J. D. Patterson, from whom it derived its name. The ranch was bought by the Patterson Ranch Company, and that company has employed Mr. John Ruopp as its manager. During this time the ranch has always paid a large income on the investment and its crops of sugar beets, lima beans and fruits have long been an item in the commercial output of Ventura County. The ranch is a proven proposition, agriculturally speaking, and when a few years ago the estate was subdivided into small tracts of from thirty to fifty acres each, investors eagerly sought this opportunity to acquire small farm homes of their own. A considerable part of the original ranch is now sold and has passed under the control of these individual owners.

The Patterson ranch adjoined the City of Oxnard on the west, and extends from there to the Pacific Ocean, on which it has a frontage of over three miles. The Ventura County Railway Company traverses the land, and there are several stations from which the products of the ranch are sent to market. Its lands are in close proximity to the great sugar factory at Oxnard, and nearby is the port town of Hueneme, and another feature of its situation is the beautiful home and grounds of the late Senator Bard, Rerylwood, located just to the south.

The Patterson Ranch Company also owned and Mr. Ruopp was the manager for it of the Tapo ranch, containing over 12,000 acres, while the Patterson ranch has about 5,800 acres. The Tapo ranch is also situated in Ventura County, is nine miles from the city limits of Los Angeles and thirty-eight miles from the heart of that metropolis. Both of these ranches are supplied with an unfailing supply of water for irrigation purposes, furnished by a number of flowing artesian wells. Portions of the Tapo ranch have also been subdivided and offered for sale, and these subdivisions are developed before sale as plantations of apricot, walnut, lemon and orange trees. Mr. Ruopp was one of the directors and organizers of the Petrol Oil Company, which developed the first oil on the Tapo ranch, and which was sold on Friday, October 6, 1916, to Mr. Doheny, one of the largest oil operators in the country.

Robert Oxnard.

It is a tribute to the individualistic spirit of America that the enterprise of a single family becomes so closely identi- fied with a great creative industry and source of wealth that the name is practically synonymous with a business and product vitally associated with the daily welfare of the entire people. Several obvious examples of this will at once occur, but in California in particular there is no more striking illustration of the fact than the close association of the name Oxnard with the beet sugar industry. Only a few years ago the press of the country contained almost daily references to the Oxnards as "beet sugar kings." While the Oxnards still contribute the dominating influence to the beet sugar industry of America, the business has for a number of years in the West been carried on under the title of the American Beet Sugar Company, while the city which is the chief headquarters of the industry carries the family name.

The father of the Oxnard brothers who brought so much wealth to Southern California in the development of the beet sugar industry was Thomas Oxnard, member of a distinguished American family in the early part of our national era. Thomas Oxnard was bom at Marseilles, France, July 4, 181 1. At that time his father was American consul. Thomas Oxnard was educated in France, but at an early age returned to the United States and settled in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, where he was owner of a sugar plantation. He sold his interests in Louisiana in 1859 and then lived with his family in Europe until 1862.

Returning to the United States, he engaged in the sugar refining busi- ness at Boston, and later transferred his operations to Brooklyn, New York. Thomas Oxnard married Adeline Brown. When he retired from business in 1882 Thomas Oxnard was succeeded by his four sons, Henry T., Robert, Benjamin A. and James G.

In 1887 these sons consolidated their interests with other sugar refineries under the corporation now known as the American Sugar Refining Co.

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Henry T. Oxnard, former president of the American Beet Sugar Company, was born at Marseilles, France, June 23, 1861, during the resi- dence of his parents abroad, already noted. In 1889 Henry T. Oxnard and his associates established a sugar refinery at Grand Island, Nebraska. This was conducted under the name of the Oxnard Beet Sugar Company, of which he was president. The following year he and his associates erected the factory at Chino, California. In 1897 they established the plant in Ventura County known at first as the Pacific Beet Sugar Com- pany and on th^ present site of the City of Oxnard. At that time the site was an open bean field, with only two or three farm houses, and the entire development of that magic city of the West has taken place within less than twenty years and almost entirely as the result of the operations of the American Beet Sugar Company. Henry T. Oxnard became the first president of the American Beet Sugar Company which is the result of a consolidation of the various Oxnard and allied interests in beet sugar companies. The company now has six refineries.

In 1906 Henry T. Oxnard retired from the arduous duties of the office of president in favor of his brother Robert, who himself resigned that position in 1910. The president of the company now is Col. H. R. Duval of New York City ; Henry T. and Robert Oxnard, vice presidents, the former now a resident of New York City and the latter of San Francisco; J. E. Tucker of New York, secretary and treasurer; E. C. Howe of Denver, general manager; and Maj. J. A. Drifiill of Oxnard, local manager. In the development of the industry other men who were actively associated were W. Bayard Cutting of New York, R. Fulton Cutting of New York, James G. Hamilton of New York, C. Kennedy Hamilton of New York, and James G. Oxnard of New York.

Robert Oxnard, vice president of the American Beet Sugar Company, was born in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, in October, 1853. He was educated in Boston and in young manhood went to Cuba to learn the sugar business in all its details. He remained on that island until 1876, and then joined his father at Brooklyn in the sugar refining industry. As already stated he and his four brothers succeeded their father in 1882 and continued the business as Oxnard Brothers until 1887. In that year Robert Oxnard came out to San Francisco and became identified with sugar refining.

Some items concerning the great plant of this company at Oxnard should be mentioned in connection with this article. The plant repre- sents an investment of over $4,000,000. Many improvements have been introduced since the plant was started in 1898 and it now has a capacity of over 3,000 tons of beets per day. The busy season runs from July until the end of November, and during that season the payroll amounts to over $75,000 a month, while the rest of the year the average salaries paid are $20,000 a month. In 1916 the factory paid over $2,000,000 to the growers of sugar beets, sliced a total of 320,000 tons, and produced nearly 58,000 tons of refined sugar. In a single year about 10,000 carloads.

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura Volumes I & II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917