Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Alfred, J. H. 1879 - 
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Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com January 20, 2011, 12:52 am

Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 722 - 723
Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     J. H. ALFRED.  The largest motor sales organization in Portland is the 
Alfred-Billingsley Motor Company, at Broadway and Davis streets, which has had 
a most successful record and is accounted one of Portland's solid and 
substantial business concerns. J. H. Alfred, president of this company, was 
born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1879, and is a son of Martin and Mary Alfred, both 
of whom are deceased. His father was for many years in the employ of the 
Standard Oil Company.

     Mr. Alfred attended the public schools of Cleveland, graduating from the 
West high school, and then entered the Cleveland Law School, from which he was 
graduated in 1897. However, instead of practicing law, he entered the employ 
of the New York Central Railroad, with which he remained nine years, rising 
from a clerkship to special representative in the eastern territory. On 
quitting his railroad work, Mr. Alfred established himself as a public 
accountant, to which line he devoted his attention for two and a half years. 
About that time the tremendous development of the automobile business 
attracted him and he became connected with the Willys-Overland Motor Company, 
at Toledo, Ohio, as a traveling auditor. Subsequently he was made chief 
traveling auditor, later assistant comptroller and finally assistant sales 
manager of the company. In 1923 Mr. Alfred came to Portland as manager for the 
company in this city. So pronounced was his success that in 1925 he was made 
manager for Oregon, Washington and Idaho. In 1927 Mr. Alfred organized the 
Alfred-Billingsley Motor Company, of which he is president; W. P. Blake, vice 
president; and L. Y. Billingsley, secretary and treasurer. The company handles 
the Whippet, Willys-Knight and Stearns-Knight cars in Oregon and the Columbia 
river counties of Washington, and in June, 1928, it did nine and eight-tenths 
per cent of the automobile business in Portland, as regards the number of cars 
sold. During that month the company received seventy-three carloads of 
automobiles, comprising three hundred and twenty cars. The company occupies a 
splendid three-story building at Broadway and Davis streets, comprising thirty-
six thousand square feet of space, which is devoted to office, salesroom, 
repair and parts departments. It also has a warehouse, with twenty thousand 
square feet of floor space, at Union and Madison streets. The company 
maintains a completely equipped service department, and its assets inventory 
approximately two hundred and forty thousand dollars. The firm employs ninety 
people in Portland and has fifty dealers throughout its territory.

     Politically Mr. Alfred is a stanch republican and socially is a member of 
the Multnomah Athletic Club, the Rosarians, the Kiwanis Club, and the Chamber 
of Commerce, in which he is serving on the trade and commerce and the outdoor 
recreation committees. He also belongs to the Earlington Golf Club and the 
Arctic Club, both of Seattle, Washington. He is a man of sound business 
judgment and great energy, has achieved a notable success in his present 
business and all who have had dealings with him hold him in high esteem, for 
he adheres to the highest commercial ideals and is fair and square in all of 
his business relations.

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