Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Wentworth, Charles W. 1896 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com July 4, 2010, 9:23 pm Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 497 - 498 Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company CHARLES W. WENTWORTH, manager of the Nash sales and service department of Wentworth & Irwin, Inc., of Portland, has shown high business qualifications and is an important factor in the success of this well known organization. He was born in Portland in 1896, and is a son of George G. and Anita (Bishop) Wentworth, both of whom were natives of San Francisco. His paternal grandfather, Jackson G. Wentworth, was one of the pioneers of San Francisco, having gone to California, by way of Cape Horn, in 1849. George G. Wentworth and his wife came to Portland in 1895, on their wedding trip, and Mr. Wentworth became identified with the Honeyman Hardware Company, with which he remained until 1903, when he formed a partnership with Charles G. Irwin, under the style of Wentworth & Irwin, Inc. Mr. Wentworth is president and Mr. Irwin, secretary and treasurer. They started as manufacturers of wagons and carriages, in which line they continued until 1911, when they took the agency for the General Motors line of trucks, and are today the oldest distributors of that line in the United States. In this agency they have enjoyed remarkable success, their volume of sales showing a steady increase year after year, and they have sub-agencies throughout Oregon. In 1922 they also acquired the agency for the Nash cars, in the sale of which they also have been very successful. The company maintains a large and well equipped body manufacturing plant at East Second and Oregon streets, and also a trailer factory, which was established in 1916, in which they make the widely known Wentwin trailers, which are sold extensively throughout the west. In the factory and truck department one hundred people are employed, while the Nash plant gives employment to sixty people. The store at Twenty-first and Washington streets, where the company maintains a splendid show and sales room, as well as offices, is two stories high and two hundred by seventy-five feet, affording seventy thousand square feet of floor space, and is exceptionally well arranged for the purpose which it serves. Here also complete service facilities are afforded, the repair department being well equipped as to machinery and tools; and all jobs are done efficiently and promptly, the company making it a rule that every customer must leave their place absolutely satisfied, as to both work and prices, fair dealing having been the basis on which the company's success has been builded. Charles W. Wentworth received his educational training in the public schools, and then entered his father's business, with which he has been connected to the present time. He now has complete charge of the Nash plant, in the management of which he has been more than ordinarily successful, having shown a continuous increase in sales. He gives his close attention to every detail of the business, possesses splendid executive ability and all who have dealt with him have found him an enterprising and honorable business man. In 1922 Mr. Wentworth was united in marriage to Miss Ann Dowd, of Portland, whose father, James Dowd, was one of the early settlers of this city. Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth have two children, Patricia Ann and Charles W., Jr. Mr. Wentworth is a member of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Columbus, the Ad Club, the Multnomah Athletic Club, the Alderwood Country Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Auto Dealers Association, of which he is a director. He is a veteran of the World war, having enlisted in the United States Navy in 1918, serving eighteen months, when he was honorably discharged. A brother, Jackson G. Wentworth, who was also identified with the Wentworth & Irwin organization for a number of years, passed away in 1925. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/multnomah/bios/wentwort1215gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/orfiles/ File size: 4.5 Kb