Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Becktell, W. C. 1885 - 
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Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com May 12, 2010, 6:55 pm

Source: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
Author: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Page 282

    W. C. BECKTELL holds a place in the front rank of the successful and 
prominent real estate men of Portland, where his operations have been on a 
large scale and in which he has met with success. Mr. Becktell was born in 
Stafford county, Kansas, in 1885 and is a son of Marcus and Amanda (Heiner) 
Becktell, the former of whom is engaged in the real estate business in that 
state. In 1900, when fifteen years old, W. C. Becktell went to Seattle, 
Washington, in which city he completed his public school education and also 
attended business college. In 1902 he came to Portland, after having worked 
his own way through school, and here was employed as a bellhop in the 
Merchants Hotel. He was not satisfied with that line of work, however, and 
three weeks later he entered the employ of Crane & Company, with which concern 
he remained for five years. In 1907 he embarked in the real estate business 
and for ten or twelve years devoted his attention mainly to the handling of 
farm lands throughout the state. Since 1920 he has confined his operations to 
city real estate, specializing in business properties, and he has met with 
distinctive success. He sold the Blake-McPhall building, and sold the Oregon 
building in 1924 and again in 1925, besides which he has handled a large 
number of apartment houses. He also bought the Failing building, the name of 
which he changed to the Postal building, and later sold it at a handsome 
profit. In 1927 Mr. Becktell built the La Grande Hotel, at La Grande, 
Washington, which contains one hundred and twenty rooms, sixty of which have 
baths and twenty-eight have showers. This is a fine buliding, of steel and 
concrete construction, and he still owns it. Much of his time is employed in 
the management of his own properties, which include a farm of four hundred and 
sixty acres in Linn county, on which he has a fine herd of pure bred Hampshire 
sheep; a good farm of four hundred acres near Creswell, Oregon; and five 
hundred and eighty acres near Lisle, Oregon. In the operation of his farms he 
has followed modern methods and was the first to introduce the International 
combined harvester into the Willamette valley. He is a man of great energy and 
enterprise, is clear headed in his judgment and possesses an accurate 
knowledge of property values, through which he is enabled to give valuable 
advice to his clients.

    In 1904 Mr. Becktell was united in marriage to Miss Alice E. Rawleigh, of 
Seattle, Washington. He is a member of the Portland Realty Board and, 
politically, is aligned with the democratic party. His religious connection is 
with the Roseport Community Presbyterian church and he is serving as one of 
its trustees. He has been straightforward and honorable in all of his dealings 
and all who have come into contact with him, in either a business or social 
way, hold him in high regard.

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