San Bernardino County CA Archives Biographies.....Holcomb, Grant October 8, 1888 - 
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Author: The Lewis Publishing Company

California and Californians, Pages 27-29

	GRANT HOLCOMB has exceptional basis for his loyalty to and 
appreciation of San Bernardino County, for he is not only a native son of a 
native son of this county but also is a scion of the third generation of the 
Holcomb family is this county, where his grandfather, William F. Holcomb, 
gained pioneers honors and much of prominence and influence, this sterling 
pioneer having come to California in the historic year that marked the 
discovery of gold in the state.  Grant Holcomb, who is now one of the 
representative younger members of the bar of his native county and who has 
high standing as a liberal and progressive citizen, was born in his present 
home City of San Bernardino, on the 8th of October,  1888, and is the only 
child of William Winfield Holcomb and Isabella (Grant) Holcomb, both likewise 
born in San Bernardino County, the latter a daughter of John and Margaret 
(Nish) Grant, her father having long been one of the substantial exponents of 
agricultural and live stock industry in San Luis Obispo County.
	William Winfield Holcomb, who was born at Holcomb Valley in the San 
Bernardino Mountains and attended the public schools of San Bernardino and the 
old Sturges Academy, is a son of the late William F. and Nancy (Stewart) 
Holcomb, whose marriage was solemnized at San Bernardino, Mrs. Holcomb and her 
parents having crossed the plains with team and wagon when they made their 
pioneer journey from Utah to California.
	William F. Holcomb, discoverer of Holcomb Valley, one of the 
picturesquely beautiful valleys of the San Bernardino Mountains, made the 
journey across the plains to California in 1849, and was of the vanguard of 
the great army of gold-seekers who initiated in that year the great stampede 
to the newly discovered gold fields of this state.  Of the activities of this 
fine old pioneer of San Bernardino County an appreciative estimate has 
previously been published, and from the same, with minor changes, are drawn 
the following extracts:
	“William F. Holcomb was a fine type of frontiersmen, one accustomed to 
the hardships of lonely mountains and deserts in pursuing fortune for the sake 
of adventure rather than mere material gain.  When he uncovered the placer 
gold deposits in the valley that now bears his name he did a work that more 
than any other agency served to attract people to San Bernardino County.  
Within six months after his discovery there were fully 2,000 men in the 
valley, which lies in the mountains and is just to the north of Bear Valley, 
which latter is now one of the famed summer-resort regions of Southern 
California.  In his adventures as a hunter and miner William F. Holcomb 
prospected over nearly all the country from Vancouver, British Columbia, to 
Arizona.  He was one of the discoverers of the famous Vulture mine in Arizona, 
a mine from which was taken gold to the value of more than $8,000,000.  He 
sold a third interest in this property for the sum of $1,000, and afterward, 
in telling of this experience, he referred with quiet humor, rather than with 
any semblance of bitterness, to the fact that he was cheated out of half the 
amount he was supposed to receive.  His partner at the time was Dick Gird, 
discoverer of the mines at Tombstone, Arizona, who likewise sold his share for 
$1,000 but was a better collector.  After his discovery of gold in Holcomb 
Valley William F. Holcomb was there successfully engaged in mining operations 
during a course of several years.  He was then called upon to serve in the 
triune office of clerk, treasurer and assessor of San Bernardino County, an 
office in which he was retained several years.  He was the first Republican to 
be elected to public office in San Bernardino County.  He proved an official 
who refused to be hampered by traditions or precedents and was actuated first 
of all by a loyal desire to do the service officially assigned to him.  Among 
other duties he had to levy and collect the personal taxes.  He levied a tax 
on the personal property of the Santa Fe Railroad, and when the railroad 
corporation refused to pay, this man of action provided some logging chains 
and, accompanied by a number of deputy sheriffs, went to the Santa Fe depot 
and proceeded to make the attachment of property.  The most available property 
was a locomotive standing on the main track, in front of the depot, and with 
the assistance of his companions this determined and doughty county official 
chained and padlocked the wheels of this locomotive, which he left in charge 
of the deputy sheriffs until such time as the railroad company should see fit 
to meet the tax obligation.  This summary action naturally caused excitement 
among railroad officials and there was a tremendous buzzing of telegraph wires 
until there came the official order to pay the tax.  This incident was in a 
way characteristic of the West, and specially testified to the upright and 
straightforward official policy of Mr. Holcomb.  This splendid old pioneer 
died about 1909, venerable in years and honored by the people of the county 
and state in which he had worthily lived and wrought.”
	William Winfield Holcomb received his early education through the 
medium of the San Bernardino schools, and as a young man he served as deputy 
county clerk under the administration of his father.  He later engaged in the 
lumber business and thereafter he was engaged many years in the feed and fuel 
business in San Bernardino, where likewise he served as deputy sheriff.  His 
wife, Isabella, departed this life in the year 1892.
	In the San Bernardino High School Grant Holcomb was graduated as a 
member of the class of 1907.  Thereafter he completed an academic course in 
Leland Stanford, Jr., University, from which he received in 1911 his degree of 
Bachelor of Arts, and in the law department of which he was graduated as a 
member of the class of 1913, his reception of the degree of Doctor of Laws 
having been followed by his admission to the bar of his native state and by 
his initiating the practice of his profession in his native city.  Here he has 
built up a substantial and important general law practice.  Mr. Holcomb in 
1926 served as president of the San Bernardino County Bar Association, and as 
a member of the California State Bar Association he was made a member of its 
advisory committee for the Judicial Council of the state.  His professional 
affiliations are extended also to the American Bar Association.
	In politics a staunch and well fortified Republican, Mr. Holcomb has 
served twelve years as a member of the county committee of the party in his 
native county; in 1915 he was manager of the anti-saloon campaign in the City 
of San Bernardino; in 1928 he was the county manager of the Republican 
campaign pertinent to the national election that resulted in the election of 
Herbert Hoover to the presidency of the United States.  Mr. Holcomb gave 
characteristically loyal and progressive administration as mayor of San 
Bernardino during the period of 1925-27, and in the World war interval he was 
active in the various patriotic movements in his county, with specially 
effective service as a four-minute man in the drives for sale of Government 
war bonds, etc.  Mr. Holcomb is a director of the local Rotary Club, of which 
he is a charter member, has served effectively as president of the San 
Bernardino Chamber of Commerce, is a director of the local Y.M.C.A., and is a 
member of the San Bernardino County Club.  He is affiliated with the Masonic 
fraternity, the Native Sons of the Golden West, the Benevolent and Protective 
Order of Elks, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Delta Chi college 
fraternity.  In his high-school days he gave three years of service in the 
California National Guard.  He is a member of Calvary Baptist Church in his 
home community, as was also his wife, now deceased.
	Mr. Holcomb formerly served as a director of the California State Bank 
of San Bernardino and in this city he was chairman of the advisory board of 
the local Bank of Italy, now merged with the Bank of America National Trust 
and Savings Association.  He is a director of the San Bernardino Building & 
Loan Association, is a director of the corporation of Reed, Sweeney & Company, 
engaged in land development and in sub-division exploitation in San 
Bernardino, and he is secretary of the Triangle Rock & Gravel Company of San 
Bernardino.
	In San Francisco, on the 15th of June, 1916, was solemnized the 
marriage of Mr. Holcomb to Miss Eleanor Frances Burkham, who likewise was born 
and reared in California.  She was a daughter of S. B. and Mary L. Burkham, 
both active participants in the stirring incidents that made Bodie, 
California, one of the famous towns of the great West.  In the pioneer days 
Mr. Burkham owned a general store at Bodie and he also owned and operated a 
stage-line between that place and Hawthorne, Nevada, also between Carson City, 
Tahoe and Reno.  Mrs. Holcomb, whose death occurred n 1926, was graduated in 
Leland Stanford, Jr., University, as a member of the class of 1913 and with 
the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and she became a gracious and popular figure 
in the church, social and cultural circles of San Bernardino, where she was a 
member of the Young Women’s Christian Association and a director of the 
Woman’s Club.  Mr. and Mrs. Holcomb became the parents of four children, all 
of whom survive the devoted mother, namely:  Grant, Jr., Kathryn Lee, William 
Robert and Theodore.


Additional Comments:
California and Californians, Volume IV, Edited by Rockwell D. Hunt, A.M., 
Ph.D., Assisted By An Advisory Board, The Spanish Period, By Nellie Van de 
Grift Sanchez, The American Period, By Rockwell D. Hunt, California Biography, 
By a Special Staff of Writers, Issued in Four Volumes, The Lewis Publishing 
Company, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, 1932.

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