Plant, Forrest A.

Biography

Biographical Narrative

Forrest A. Plant, Sr. (1889-1933) was a member of a pioneering Davisville (later Davis), California family. His grandfather was Louis Jefferson Plant (1835-1898), and his father was Albert June Plant (1859-1911). L.J. Plant came from Alabama to settle in Davisville and is thought to have worked at the Davisville depot after it was established in 1868. He married Sarah Elizabeth Lanham (1835-1929). The couple had five children. Their only son was Albert June. A.J. Plant attended school in Sacramento and business college in San Francisco. In 1886, he returned to Davisville to become a bookkeeper for Liggett and Drummond's General Store. Circa 1905, he founded the Plant Grain and Warehouse business. He was secretary of both the first Davisville Chamber of Commerce and the local committee that promoted Davisville as the site for the University State Farm. He served as a Justice of the Peace in Davisville from 1907 to 1908. A.J. Plant married Mary Ellen Borchers in 1888. They had four children including their eldest son Forrest Albert.

After his father's death in 1911, Forrest Albert Plant (1889-1933) interrupted his college studies in order to assume responsibility for the Plant warehouse operations. F.A. Plant was admitted to the California Bar in 1913 and then established a private law practice in Davisville. He married Helen Ayer in 1913. She died in 1918 in the influenza epidemic. The couple had one daughter. In 1921, Plant married Marie Phleger. They had two sons Forrest A., Jr. and Marshall.

F.A. Plant, Sr. played a major role in community development by preparing the Articles of Incorporation for the City of Davis in 1917. Citizens of Davisville had been subject to a county-administered form of judicial township government for the first fifty years of the town's existence. A 1916 fire that destroyed much of downtown Davisville and demonstrated the need for better firefighting equipment, swayed public opinion in favor of municipal government. In March 1917, Davisville was incorporated as the City of Davis. The officers of the newly formed city included J.B. Anderson (President of the Board); S.H. Beckett, C.A. Covell, E.S. McBride, and B.T. Brewster (Board of Trustees); F.P. Wray (City Treasurer); and F.A. Plant, Sr. (City Clerk). As City Clerk and City Attorney, Plant drew up the first Ordinances implementing the new local government, and he continued to serve Davis in these two capacities until 1932 when he was elected Superior Court Judge of Yolo County. F.A. Plant, Sr. died in 1933 at the height of a promising career.

Forrest A. Plant, Jr. graduated from the University of California Berkeley, School of Law, Boalt Hall and was admitted to the California Bar in 1950. He eventually became a named partner in one of Sacramento's oldest and largest law firms Diepenbrock, Wulff, Plant & Hannegan. Over the course of his career, which spanned more than fifty years, F.A. Plant, Jr. was involved with numerous professional and community related organizations. His son, Forrest A. Plant, III, also practices law in Sacramento. He graduated from the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific and was admitted to the California Bar in 1976.

Source: Larkey, Joann L. Davisville '68: The History and Heritage of The City of Davis, Yolo County California . Davis, Calif.: The Davis Historical and Landmarks Commission, 1969.

From the guide to the Forrest A. Plant, Sr. Papers, 1907-1932, (bulk 1916-1923), (University of California, Davis. General Library. Dept. of Special Collections.)