Los Angeles-San Joaquin County CA Archives Biographies.....Phillips, Lee Allen August 24, 1871 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com July 11, 2010, 7:44 pm Source: California and Californians, Vol. IV, Published 1932, Pages 58 - 59 Author: The Lewis Publishing Company LEE ALLEN PHILLIPS, executive vice president of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company of California, is a lawyer-financier, whose achievements are notable because they have been in the truest sense constructive, measured and represented in several towering buildings at Los Angeles and in a vast acreage of land once worthless and reclaimed to intensive cultivation and the production of some of California's finest crops. Mr. Phillips was born at Ashton, Illinois, August 24, 1871, son of Milton Eaves and Magdelina Phillips. His father was a school man in the middle west and also became well known in Los Angeles, where for four years he was dean of the University of Southern California. He died in 1909 while pastor of the Congregational Church at New Haven, Connecticut. Lee A. Phillips received his higher education in the University of Kansas, and from there entered DePauw University at Greencastle,Indiana, where he graduated A. B. in 1892 and in 1894 received the degree LL. B. and A. M. A few weeks after taking his law degree be arrived at Los Angeles and in October began the practice of law in the office of Cochran & Williams, with which he continued until 1902. In 1907 he became associate counsel for the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, in 1912 was chosen third vice president in charge of the investments of the company, and in 1919 succeeded the late Gail Borden Johnson in the office of vice president and treasurer. He has served the Pacific Mutual and many other interests as a masterful and skillful financier. However, the phase of his career which furnishes him the most satisfaction was his part in the constructive development of his home state, through the reclamation of swamp and overflow lands in the San Joaquin Valley. From 1902 to 1907, in order to give his personal supervision to these interests, Mr. Phillips made his home at Stockton. Between the years of 1902 and 1912 he organized, for the purpose of reclaiming tracts of land in the delta of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, a number of corporations, both holding and construction companies, through which under Mr. Phillips' direct supervision and management, more than one hundred thousand acres were reclaimed. This land, largely held by small home owners and farmers, has produced an enormous volume of vegetable, grain and other specialized crops. It is said that two thirds of all the potatoes grown in the State of California during the last twenty years have been raised on these properties. Mr. Phillips became president or held other executive offices in the larger of the companies which handled the reclamation projects. Before his undertaking in the San Joaquin delta he had organized and carried out a development project on the old Cienega Swamps adjoining Los Angeles, changing the swamp to one broad field for the production of fresh vegetables. He was also the chief executive in carrying out a project for the reclamation of desert lands amounting to several thousand acres in the Pecos Valley of New Mexico. Since the close of the World War his constructive enterprise has been chiefly reflected in the city of Los Angeles, where the twelve story Pacific Mutual Building and the twelve story Pacific Finance Building on West Sixth Street and the new Biltmore Hotel are recognized as monuments to his genius as an organizer and financier. He was the man who conceived the idea and was generally responsible for financing the cost of construction and equipment of the Biltmore Hotel at a cost of over ten million dollars. He is president of the Central Investment Corporation, which built and owns the Biltmore. During the World war Mr. Phillips served as chairman of exemption board No. 9, for the City of Los Angeles. He was a member of the Los Angeles Library Board from 1900 to 1902, and of the State Normal School Board for the same period. He is a Republican in politics, is a member of the college fraternity Phi Gamma Delta and Delta Chi, and his clubs are the California, Bohemian of San Francisco, Yosemite, of Stockton, Los Angeles Athletic, Los Angeles Country, Midwick Country, Brentwood Country, and Los Angeles Press. He is a member of the Congregational Church. Mr. Phillips married Miss Catherine Louise Coffin, at Winfield, Kansas, December 19, 1895. She is a daughter of Tristram Sanborn and Susan Winkler Coffin. They are the parents of two daughters, Lucile Gertrude, who married Dr. Wayland A. Morrison, and Catherine Louise. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/losangeles/bios/phillips1024gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 5.2 Kb