 Archibald Douglass was born in Fort Madison, Iowa,
April 28, 1859, the son of John H. Douglass, of Fort Madison, himself
the son of Joseph Stevens and Almeda Ann Knapp, and Caroline A. Durfee,
daughter of Joseph and Margaret Moore, of Tiverton, R. I. , and Athens
Co. , Ohio. John was born in Fort Madison, June 20, 1836. Caroline was
born in Marion, Ohio, January 10, 1838; died in St. Louis, Mo., May 21,
1892.
In 1872, his parents, John and Caroline, moved to St.
Louis, Missouri, where his father was employed as a lumber merchant.
In 1896, Archibald Douglass arrived in Los Angeles and became
president and treasurer of the Los Angeles Stoneware and Sewer Pipe
Company, which had established a stoneware and sewer pipe manufacturing
plant in 1891, until 1905.
By 1906, Douglass had taken over the
company through stock acquisitions and he decided to reorganize it under
a new company which he called the
Douglass Clay
Product Company. The new company was incorporated on December 18,
1907, with a capital stock of $250,000. The directors were Archibald
Douglass, Benjamin Douglass, C.R. Manbert, Norman A. Bailie, and
Benjamin Kirby, all of Los Angeles. Officers included Archibald Douglass
as president and treasurer, Donald Barker as vice-president, and Edwin
Bird as secretary. The office was at the Pacific Electric Building at
604 South Main Street in Los Angeles. F.A. Mann was the sales manager.
The purpose was to manufacture all kinds of clay products, including
sewer pipe, firebrick, pottery, glazed brick, terra cotta, stoneware,
and glassware. The focus here will be on the bricks manufactured at this
plant.
In 1910, the Pacific Sewer Pipe Company purchased the
Douglass plant as part of their plan to consolidate several sewer pipe
manufacturing plants in Southern California. This became Plant Number 4
of the Pacific Sewer Pipe Company, which continued to manufacture
bricks, but under the PSP brand.
Archibald Douglass held the
secretary position in the Pacific Sewer Pipe Company and its successor
Pacific Clay Products Company until 1923. He also was vice-president of
the Alsop Engineering and Construction Company and president of the
Duryea-White Machinery Company in Los Angeles.
On April 26, 1883
in St. Louis, Mo., he married Frances Kaime, also of St. Louis, daughter
of David Francis and Isabella Eaton and they raised two sons and a
daughter all born in St. Louis, Mo.:
•Benjamin Kaime Douglas, born
April 14, 1886.
•Francis Archibald Douglass, born August 7, 1887.
•Margaret Leigh Douglass, born July 20, 1889.
Archibald Douglass
died in 1949 at the age of 90.
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