San Diego History – Henry Harrison Jones – San Diego Consolodated Gas & Electric Co. 1910 (Uncategorized)

HENRY H. JONES is president and manager of the San Diego Consolidated
Gas & Electric Company, is a civil, construction and electrical
engineer of broad and successful experience, and has been active in the
various lines of his profession for a quarter of a century. He came
to San Diego in the responsibilities of his present office in 1910.

Henry Harrison Jones was born at Reading, Pennsylvania, March
31, 1874, son of Richard Hall and Ellen (Hughes) Jones. After graduating
from the high school of his native city in 1890 he was for a year
a bookkeeper in the Second National Bank, and then entered Lehigh
University to pursue a technical course. He graduated with the degree
Civil Engineer in 1897, following which for a year he was draftsman
and assistant engineer for the Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis Railroad
Company at Springfield, Illinois, then was a member of a general engineering
staff of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Philadelphia until 1899,
in which year he again went West and until 1903 was in Chicago as
an assistant engineer of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad.

Fdr the past seventeen years his work has been chiefly confined
to traction and electric power engineering. He was general superintendent
for the Springfield Railway & Light Company at Springfield,
Illinois, until 1909, and before coming to San Diego was manager of
the Northern Idaho & Montana Power Company. In 1910 he accepted
the post of vice president and manager of the San Diego Consolidated Gas
& Electric Company, and has done much to extend and improve the
facilities of that corporation and at the same time has exerted himself
with a liberal degree of public spirit in the affairs of the community in
general.

There are some interesting figures that may be noted to indicate
the remarkable expansion of the service of the San Diego Consolidated
Gas and Electric Company in the last ten years incidentally reflecting
upon the good management and enterprise of Mr. Jones, as well as upon
the general progress of San Diego and environment. The company now
furnishes gas and electric service to San Diego city and forty adjacent
towns and districts as far north as San Juan Capistrano in Orange
County, and south to the Mexican border. The service in these developments
has proved a remarkable boon to the ranching and rural communities
adjacent to San Diego, where the homes have all the advantages
of lighting and power available to city communities. When Mr. Jones
took the management of the company in 1910 it had less than six thousand
electric customers and less than nine thousand gas customers,
while the number of customers in each branch in 1920 numbered nearly
twenty-seven thousand. The quantity measure of service increased in
proportion, necessitating the investment of millions of dollars in -new
equipment and distribution systems. The company in 1920 had five
hundred and thirty miles of gas main and over seven hundred miles of
electric pole lines.

Mr. Jones served as a director and member of the executive committee
during the California-Panama Exposition. He was associated
with many of the local organizations to promote the objects of the World
war, and he had some active military experience during the Spanish-
American war as a member of the Fourth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry,
participating in the Porto Rican campaign. He is a member of
the United Spanish War Veterans, the Loyal Legion, is a Mason, Elk
and a member of the Cuyamaca Club, San Diego Country Club, University
Club of San Diego, San Diego Rowing Club, Cabrillo Club, Los
Angeles Country Club, University Club of Chicago, and Masonic Club
of San Francisco.

February 27, 1901, at Springfield, Illinois, Mr. Jones married Miss
Ellen May Van Duyn, daughter of Gilbert Allen and Catherine Louise
Van Duyn. They are the parents of four children, Ellen Louise, Catherine
Elizabeth, Gilbert Van Duyn and Harriet Hughes.

Marcia Cross Field is the granddaughter, born August 19, 1934. Kyle Thomas is the great grandson, born March 13, 1934. Tracy Larkin is the great granddaughter, Born July 31, 1961.