Merced-Kern County CA Archives Biographies.....O'Donnel, Charles Wilson 1876 - 
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Author: John Outcalt (1925)

CHARLES WILSON O'DONNEL

   It is a significant tribute to the merits of Merced County, that a man of
such wide experience as Charles W. O'Donnel should choose to settle here and
invest his money. He is a citizen of whom any community might well be proud and
the people of Merced County have accorded him a place in the foremost ranks of
its representative citizens and business men. His material worth is represented
by two fine ranches, one of sixty-five acres near Arena devoted to alfalfa,
dairying and fruit; another of forty acres in the Jordan-Atwater section, in
which there are ten acres of Thompson Seedless grapes, twelve acres of Malagas,
fourteen acres of Elberta peaches, and four acres of alfalfa. He has concrete
pipes for irrigating and an abundance of pure water from his own wells for
domestic, stock and irrigating purposes which are operated by means of two
Fairbanks-Morse gasoline pumping engines. The two farms are very fertile and
valuable.

   Mr. O'Donnel was born at Parker's Landing, in Butler County, Pa., on November
6, 1876. His father, L. D. O'Donnel, was born in 1847 and married to Edith Black
in Venango County; he was well known as one of the first contract-drillers in
the Venango County oil fields of Pennsylvania and was in the oil game until his
retirement, in 1896, to his farm in Venango County. He drilled the first oil
well that was drilled by contract in the United States, it being the discovery
well at Scrub Grass, Pa., and drilled on what is now the right-of-way of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, now known as the Allegheny Valley Railroad, between Oil
City and Pittsburgh. Mr. O'Donnel is still living in Pennsylvania. His wife died
there in 1914 at the age of fifty-nine. There were three children, the others
being Edward, of Sharon, Pa., an inspector of the Carnegie Steel Works at
Farrell, Pa.; and Daisy, Mrs. J. C. Reynolds, whose husband is a concrete
contractor at Franklin, Pa.

   The second child, Charles Wilson O'Donnel grew up in Pennsylvania. His
education, begun in the common schools, was topped off by a commercial course
after which, at the age of sixteen, he started in business with his father; and
when his father retired, he took possession of the five strings of tools in the
Rosenburg field in Pennsylvania. He has drilled in nearly every oil State of the
Union. He came to California in 1910 and drilled at Taft for the K. T. & O. Co.,
which is subsidiary to the Southern Pacific Railway. In 1913 he left California
and went to Electra, Texas, where he brought in thirty wells. When he left
Breckenridge, Texas, in 1910, and came to California Mr. O'Donnel purchased his
first ranch in the Jordan-Atwater tract in Merced County, but continued drilling
until 1918. He standardized and brought in the first oil well at Burnett, Texas,
where he kept six strings of tools at work.

   Mr. O'Donnel was married in Franklin, Pa., in 1908, to Miss Edna Levier, born
in Venango County, Pa., the eleventh child of the twelve born to John Levier and
his wife. Mrs. O'Donnel died in 1918.

   On December 15, 1924, Charles L. O'Donnel, who is the oldest son of Edward
O'Donnel, of Sharon, Pa., purchased an undivided half interest in the 105 acres
of land owned by our subject at Arena and will give his time and best efforts to
developing the property into fruits, and to the development of a market from
Arena to Sharon, Pa., for California fruits. Charles L. O'Donnel was born at
Pittsburgh, Pa., on June 27, 1897, and for ten years was connected with the
Carnegie Steel Company, at Sharon. He was also for two years with the
Pennsylvania Railway Company. His wife, whose maiden name was Margaret
Moriarity, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, is a proficient stenographer, was
secretary to the secretary of the Sharon, Pa., Chamber of Commerce, and like her
husband, has a wide acquaintance and is well posted as to the market conditions
and requirements for fruit of the people in the Pittsburgh section of
Pennsylvania. 400 carloads of California grapes and other green fruits were
marketed at Sharon during 1924. Mr. and Mrs. C. L. O'Donnel have one son. Their
advent in Arena is very welcome, particularly as it initiates a new era for
Arena as a fruit shipping center.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF
MERCED COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
WITH A
Biographical Review
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
JOHN OUTCALT

ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1925


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