PULASKI CO, AR - CULLEN A. MESSER - Bio ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: California and Californians, Vol. Three. Hunt, Rockwell D., ed. Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1932. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free Information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cullen A. Messer has been engaged in the real estate and brokerage business at San Bernardino since 1924, and his labors have been attended by a gratifying success. A wide experience, extending over many parts of the country in various lines, has enabled him to bring into his present work a broad understanding that has contributed largely to his success. He is another of the self-made men of this section, having made his own way in the world since he was thirteen years of age, and although he has engaged in many occupations he has been uniformly successful in all his undertakings. He has handled a large amount of property in the County of San Bernardino, specializing in citrus groves, and has obtained some of the highest prices ever paid, and in doing so has protected all the interests of the parties concerned and has built up a most representative clientele. Mr. Messer's spirit of fair dealing and his expert knowledge of land and land values have established such confidence in him that he is constantly sought by both buyers and sellers. In addition to citrus groves he has been the medium of transfers of San Bernardino business property. Cullen A. Messer was born near Buffalo, Dallas County, Missouri, December 25, 1884, and is a son of John Elijah and Callie Diana (Garner) Messer, both of whom are deceased, and a grandson of Elijah Messer, a native of Berlin, Germany, who came to the United States in young manhood, and spent the remainder of his life in the vicinity of Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was engaged in farming. John Elijah Messer was born at Knoxville, where he received a common school education, and in young manhood adopted farming as his life work and continued therein [p.167] all of his life, the latter years of which were spent in Missouri. He married Callie Diana Garner, who was born near Little Rock, Arkansas, of an old American family of Revolutionary stock and French descent. Her two brothers, Ike and Will Garner, enlisted in the Union army during the war between the states, in which they were taken prisoners and confined in the notorious Andersonville Prison, where both succumbed to disease and starvation. When Cullen A. Messer was thirteen years of age he started to work on a farm, at the wage of twenty-five cents per day, and by the time he had saved six dollars he bought his first hog. He bred this animal and at the end of six months sold her, with a litter of nine pigs, for the sum of forty-five dollars. His education was acquired in the public schools of Missouri, and for a time he was engaged in different lines of work, gradually drifting into the business of shipping cattle and hogs. This was early in the history of stock shipping and he made good from the start. After five years on the farm he embarked in the flour mill and grain business, becoming an apprentice miller, and continued in the same line of activity for fourteen years near Springfield, Missouri, buying, selling and shipping cattle and hogs as a side issue. In 1924 Mr. Messer came to San Bernardino and engaged in the real estate brokerage business, which he has since followed with the success already alluded to, his offices being located at 487 Fifth Street. Worthy of note is the price he obtained for an orange grove in the Highland district, this being $5,666 per acre, at that time the record figure. This grove produced in five years $118,600 worth of oranges. He has made many sales of orange groves in the Redlands and Riverside districts, as well as in and around San Bernardino, sold the northeast corner of Third and G streets business property at San Bernardino for $125,000, and still retains important property interests near Springfield, Missouri. Mr. Messer is a Republican in his political allegiance and was active in his party while residing in Missouri. He is one of the leading members of the San Bernardino Realty Board, of which body he has served at various times as president, vice president and director. He is at present vice president of the California Real Estate Association, in charge of the Fourteenth District of the association. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, his Blue Lodge, Chapter and Commandery being at Bolivar, Missouri; and likewise is a member of the Order of the Eastern Star. On January 2, 1905, Mr. Messer was united in marriage with Miss Stella Mildred Malott, a native of Missouri, who is a member of an old French family of American Revolutionary stock, dating well back into the early history of the country. She is a member of the Order of the Eastern Star and the Royal Neighbors of San Bernardino, and both she and Mr. Messer are consistent members of the Baptist Church, of which Mr. Messer has been a trustee. Mr. and Mrs. Messer have no children and reside at 781 Twenty-sixth Street.