William Welles Hollister

William Welles Hollister (1818-1886) was a California rancher and entrepreneur.

Pioneering efforts

William Welles Hollister, was born Jan. 12, 1818. He went to Kenyon College when he was 15, remaining there 4 or 5 years, his health not permitting him to take a regular course. After his father died, William Welles Hollister, with his eyesight failing, left college without graduating, and went to farming and merchandising until 1852, when he sold his farm and stock of goods and bought two or three hundred head of cattle and started across the plains for California, where he sold his cattle and returned immediately to Ohio. The next year, he with his brother Joseph and his sister, Mrs. L. A. Brown bought eight or nine thousand sheep and about 200 head of cattle and started across the plains, on or about the first day of May, with eleven wagons and ten or twelve horses. There were fifty men in the train, and four ladies with Mrs. Brown. They were fifteen months on the way. Turning south at Salt Lake, they went down through New Mexico and Arizona and the southern part of California, and then to the coast of Monterey, where he bought his first ranch. The town Hollister in San Benito County was named after him.

In 1854 William Hollister led the first large trans-continental sheep drive, bringing 10,000 merino sheep from Hanover, Licking County, Ohio. The plan was to supply miners during the California Gold Rush with plentiful meat. Although only about a thousand sheep survived, Hollister was able to make a considerable fortune when wool prices spiked during the Civil War, and purchased Rancho San Justo in San Benito County, California, in an area now known as Hollister, California. He remained there 14 years before selling his part of the Rancho San Justo and moving his sheep south to Santa Barbara, California, settling at the Rancho Dos Pueblos, purchased from the estate of Nicholas Den in 1862, which became known as glen annie.

William never held office, being too busy, was known as the largest wool grower in the state and was also interested in fruit raising, having more than twenty thousand fruit trees of every variety adapted to the climate of California. He also gained considerable celebrity for his letters on cheap labor. He married Annie James in June, 1862, and they had six children.

Legacy

During the 1870s, William Hollister made many contributions to the Santa Barbara area including helping to finance and develop Santa Barbara College, the Arlington Hotel, the local newspaper, Stearns Wharf, and the Lobero Theater.

External links

* [http://www.sanbenitocountychamber.com/history_new.htm San Benito County Chamber of Commerce History]
* [http://www.sbchistoricalsociety.org/County_History.htm Brief History of San Benito County]