Here is the obit you requested for the following person: COMBS ENNIS U born: 07/13/1861 M IOWA mother: WILSON father: COMBS died: KERN 08/07/1940 age: 79 yrs Requested by: [email protected] The Bakersfield Californian, Thursday, August 8, 1940 Pgs. 11 & 15 Ranching Leader Ennis Combs Taken by Death _____________ Ennis U. Combs, pioneer sugar beet grower and processor, died last night in a local hospital. following a recent illness. Mr. Combs was known locally as one of Kern County's outstanding agriculturists. He was well known among the older businessmen and civic leaders in Bakersfield. He was a native of Agency City, Iowa, where he was born July 13, 1860, in the little frontier town. His career developed rapidly from cowboy to homesteader to merchant. As a retail merchant in Centralia, Kan., he married Lora E. Jackson on November 10, 1892, and shortly afterward organized a wholesale grocery firm in Kansas City, Mo. He organized the Midland Grocery Company in Denver Colo., in January 1903, and two years later consolidated with the Spratlin & Anderson Grocery Company to form one of the largest wholesale inter-mountain grocery firms. Upon his retirement from this business in 1910, he took up study of beet culture and sugar manufacturing from the growers' viewpoint and soon was recognized as an outstanding authority in this field. COMES TO SAN JOAQUIN In 1913 he was delegated by Pat Calhoun, motor railroad magnate of San Francisco to colonize a large area in the Solano region for the culture of sugar beets, but upon the death of Calhoun joined the San Joaquin Sugar Company, as superintendent of its operations in central California. Removing to Kern in 1915 he became one of the original owners of farm property in the Shafter colony and in company with George Peters, president of the Kern County Chamber of Commerce, produced the first commercial crop of potatoes. Years later, his prediction that the Shafter-Wasco area would one day become the greatest potato poducing area in the nation was recalled in widespread press comments. In 1917 he was called to the management of the great Pingree Sugar Company, operating in the Bakersfield and Visalia areas. DEVELOP BEET LANDS Lands developed for beet culture included heavy acreages in the Kern Lake, Old River, Panama and Buttonwillow areas as well as extensive operations in the territory surrounding the Corcoran and Visalia sugar factories, which he continued to manage. Mr. Combs joined the Nickerson and Gould interests in 1922 as superintendent in charge of operations in the development of sugar beet acreage in Idaho. The sugar factories at Corcoran and Visalia were moved to the new field under his supervision. From 1927 until he was stricken in November 1938, he has been interested in oil and mining development, frequently heading groups of leading Bakersfield businessmen. He is survived by three daughters, Mrs. Eduardo Colombo of Chicago; Mrs. Herman Peters of Los Angeles, and Mrs. Pat Commagere of Hollyood; three brothers, L. L. Combs of McFarland, E. E. Combs of Bakersfield, and J. H. Combs of Denver, Col., as well as many nephews and nieces residing in the Bakersfield area. The funeral is being arranged by the Hopson Mortuary with crematory services to be arranged in San Francisco. Sharon Kern Co Volunteer