Yuba-Santa Cruz County CA Archives Biographies.....Wanzer, James Olin 1878 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 January 8, 2012, 6:09 pm

Source: See below
Author: Peter J. Delay

    JAMES OLIN WANZER. — A public official of exceptionally wide and valuable
experience is James Olin Wanzer, the efficient city manager of Marysville. He
was born at Santa Cruz, on June 21, 1878, the son of Horace and Elizabeth
(Wideman) Wanzer, the former a pioneer who had settled in California about 1874,
coming with his good wife from the State of New York. He was a civil engineer;
and in that much needed professional work he rendered to the young and
fast-developing commonwealth a valuable service. He passed away in 1904, mourned
by a large circle of friends and associates. Mrs. Wanzer is still living, at Los
Banos, surrounded by devoted friends. 

    James Olin Wanzer attended the public schools in Santa Cruz, and the high
school in Petersburg, Nebr., and then took various valuable courses in the
University of California; and after that he followed civil engineering, having
served an apprenticeship with his father and also studied along that line in the
university. In 1898 he enlisted for service in the Spanish-American War in
Company L,, 2nd Nebraska Volunteer Infantry, serving until the close of the war.
He was honorably discharged, and then enlisted in Company A, 35th U. S.
Volunteer Infantry, for putting down the Filipino Insurrection, and was sent
over seas. He served until the capture of Aguinaldo, taking part in six
different engagements, and received his honorable discharge in Manila in 1901.
He immediately entered the United States postal service in the city of Manila,
and served until 1913, when he resigned and went to China as a civil engineer
with the Canton & Hankow Railroad Company, continuing with them for two years.
When the work was completed, he returned to San Francisco. Next, he went to
Alaska as a civil engineer for the Alaska Central Railway for one year, after
which he returned to San Francisco, and served three years with the Southern
Pacific Railroad as construction engineer. In 1903 he went to South America as a
civil engineer with the Madeira-Mamore Railway of Brazil and Bolivia in the
upper Amazon Valley. On the completion of his work he traveled for a year in
Europe and northern Africa for pleasure and the study of European railroads. In
the fall of 1913 he returned from Europe and entered the employ of the
California State Highway Commission as engineer, and was actively employed with
them, with headquarters at Sacramento, until Congress declared war on Germany. 

    In May, 1917, Mr. Wanzer entered the first officers' training camp at the
Presidio and was commissioned a first lieutenant of the 47th U. S. Engineers. He
was sent over seas, and saw active service at the front until the armistice,
when he was commissioned a captain of engineers. He was then sent to Germany
with the Inter-allied Railroad Commission and served as chief railroad
transportation officer of the American Army of Occupation of Germany and
Luxemburg, and also as division adjutant of Transportation Corps troops of the
3rd Army. In August, 1919, he was ordered home; and on September 15, 1919, he
was honorably discharged at the Presidio. He is now a captain in the Engineer
Reserve Corps. U. S. A., serving as 9th Corps topographical officer. 

    In November, 1919, Captain Wanzer was one of the five engineer commissioners
recommended to the Negro Republic of Liberia, Africa, by the United States State
Department. After serving for one year as commissioner of interior tribes,
comprising a half million of natives, he returned home in November. 1920,
resuming his former work with the highway commission until July, 1922, when he
accepted the position of city manager of Marysville, a position to which he has
since given his undivided attention, and for which, through his varied
experience in technical and administrative capacities, in this country and in
foreign lands, he is peculiarly fitted. He belongs to the American Society of
Civil Engineers, the American Association of Engineers, and the Society of
American Military Engineers. He was one of the original organizers of the
Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

    Mr. Wanzer was married in Sacramento, December 18, 1915, to Miss Magdalene
Ferrier, a native of Canada and a graduate of the University of California. He
is a Mason, and is fond of outdoor recreation. His particular hobby is the
stud}- of birds: and he is a member of the Cooper Ornithological Society of
California. In politics he is a Pregressive Republican. 


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

HISTORY OF YUBA and SUTTER COUNTIES 
CALIFORNIA 
WITH 
Biographical Sketches OF 
The Leading Men and Women of the Counties Who Have Been Identified with Their
Growth and Development from the Early Days to the Present 

HISTORY BY 
PETER J. DELAY 

ILLUSTRATED 
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME 

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY 
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1924


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