Blake, Anson Stiles, 1870-1959

Blake was a businessman and partner in Calif. quarrying companies and the son of gold rush pioneer Charles T. Blake. In 1899, he became president of his father's company, Oakland Paving Company. Blake and Bilger was a quarrying company which grew out of the Oakland Paving Company; it later became Blake Brothers Company as a result of a buyout and merger by the Blake family in 1914. San Pablo Quarry Company was the first holding company for Blake Brothers Company.

Anson Stiles Blake was a graduate of the University of California in 1891. He joined the University YMCA as a freshman and served as Chairman for 50 years. His grandmother, Mrs. Anson Gale Stiles, gave the University its first Stiles Hall.

Businessman, of Oakland, Calif.

Anson Stiles Blake was the son of the Calif. pioneer gold miner, Charles Thompson Blake, and a San Francisco businessman in the asphalt, concrete, and paving businesses.

Biography

Anson Stiles Blake was born in San Francisco on August 6, 1870. He was the son of Harriet Stiles Blake and Charles Thompson Blake. His father, C.T. Blake was an early pioneer to San Francisco, arriving in 1849 from New Haven, Connecticut after a difficult voyage through Central America. Anson Blake attended Lincoln Grammar School and Boy's High School in San Francisco before moving with his family to Berkeley where he attended the University. Upon graduation in 1891 Blake went to work for the Bay Rock Company in Oakland, moving two years later to the Oakland Paving Company a macadamizing outfit run by his father and his father's associate C.T.H. Palmer. In 1899 he became president of that company. In 1894 he married Anita Day Symmes, a recent U.C. graduate.

Blake's interest in such businesses arose from his father's and grandfather's own mining and mine-equipment backgrounds. (His grandfather patented the Blake Rock Crusher in 1858.) In 1904 he helped to form the San Pablo Quarry Company which supplied materials to the city of San Francisco for its rebuilding after the earthquake. In 1914 the company, which later became Blake Brother's in Richmond, was created and this business was in Blake's control until 1954. Rock from this company helped to keep islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin from flooding in addition to supplying the bayside rock edges of Treasure Island for the 1939 Fair there.

Throughout his life, however, Blake's interests diversified far beyond those of the quarrying concern. He took an interest while still at Berkeley in the University YMCA - Stiles Hall - (donated by his grandmother,) and helped to support it throughout his life. He was a member of many clubs including the Berkeley City Club, the Claremont Country Club the Athenian Club and others. He wrote prolifically on a wide variety of subjects and was a frequent speech-giver. Speech topics covered such subjects as, Racial Contrasts on the Southwestern Frontier, to the effects of Prohibition on California grape growers. Usually, though, they dealt with history. He was president of both the Society of Calif. Pioneers and the Calif. Historical Society, the latter from 1945-48. He was on the Board of Trustees of CHS from 1924-1959 and was made a fellow in 1958. He did extensive research on his father, concentrating on the years Charles Blake spent mining in the Sierras during the Gold Rush. Among Anson Blake's papers are letters written by his father's traveling and business partners describing their trip to California and the Gold Rush.

In 1953 the California State Legislature bestowed upon him the title of Grand Old Man of Stiles Hall in honor of his 50 years of service. In 1958 he was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by the University. He died on August 17, 1959, eleven days after his 89th birthday.

Biography

Blake was a businessman and partner in California quarrying companies and the son of gold rush pioneer Charles T. Blake. In 1899, he became president of his father's company, Oakland Paving Company. Blake and Bilger was a quarrying company which grew out of the Oakland Paving Company; it later became Blake Brothers Company as a result of a buyout and merger by the Blake family in 1914. San Pablo Quarry Company was the first holding company for Blake Brothers Company.