Charles Henry King (1844–1910): Oakland Lumber Baron and Namesake of King City, California

Oakland Tribune image of Charles H. King

Millionaire's Row

Tucked away along Mountain View Cemetery’s “Millionaires’ Row” lies the King family plot — a peaceful cluster of gravemarkers without the grand family mausoleums that distinguish other prominent families such as the Crockers, Delgers, or Merritts.

Charles Henry King, the namesake of King City, California, was one of those rare 19th-century figures whose ambition spanned lumber camps, wheat fields, and city halls. Born on May 3, 1844, near Hemlock Lake in Ontario County, New York, King grew up in a rural family of modest means. His early life alternated between teaching and farming, but his restless energy soon drew him westward to California, where he became one of Oakland’s most prominent pioneers and later transformed a stretch of the Salinas Valley into what would become King City.

King Family Plot (photo Michael Colbruno)

After a brief sojourn teaching school in the Hawaiian Islands, King returned to California in the 1860s. He initially worked as a schoolmaster before realizing there was more opportunity in lumber. By the 1870s, he had become a formidable figure in the redwood timber industry, establishing mills, shipping operations, and railway connections. Known as one of the state’s earliest lumber dealers, King was among the first to recognize the commercial potential of California’s redwood forests. His holdings—eventually valued in the millions—helped supply the explosive urban growth of the Bay Area and beyond. At the height of his lumber career, he chaired the California Rivers and Harbors League and was a driving force behind Oakland’s waterfront development, promoting projects that would modernize the city’s port and infrastructure.

Charles H. King's modest gravemarker (photo Michael Colbruno)

 King’s wealth and vision found architectural expression in his Oakland mansion, built in 1884 at Sixth Avenue and East 11th Street. What began as a grand but moderate home grew “like Topsy,” as one of his descendants later said, expanding to 38 rooms and dominating the neighborhood. Its ornate façade, pictured in early photographs, symbolized both his success and his era’s exuberant confidence. The mansion became a local landmark, a gathering place for civic leaders and a point of fascination to later generations as it fell into genteel decay.

King home in Oakland (Oakland Tribune)

By the early 1880s, King had set his sights beyond the timber industry. In 1884, he purchased 13,000 acres of Rancho San Lorenzo in southern Monterey County—land that skeptics dismissed as too dry and sandy for farming. King saw potential where others saw barrenness. He planted 6,000 acres of wheat, proving that the soil and climate could sustain large-scale agriculture. His success drew the attention of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which extended a line to his ranch in 1886. Around the new rail stop, a settlement emerged that locals first called “King’s Station” and later King City. The town was officially incorporated in 1911, a year after his death, and its name remains his enduring memorial.

King’s personal life blended triumph with tragedy. He married Kate King, and together they had several children, though not all survived to adulthood. Two died young, and a daughter, Mildred, succumbed to illness in Arizona at just 22. Surviving children included Joseph, Pearl, and Charles Jr., who each carried aspects of their father’s ambition into new fields.

• Joseph H. King became a civic leader and businessman in Oakland, serving as president of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, the California Nile Club, and the Oakland Property Owners’ Association.

  

  Pearl King Tanner

  
  

• Pearl King Tanner, known professionally as Mother Sherwood, achieved national fame as one of radio’s first women personalities on KGO Radio in Oakland. Her broadcasts in the 1920s and ’30s made her a household name across the Pacific Coast.

• The King descendants continued to shape civic, cultural, and media life long after Charles King’s death, sustaining the family’s prominence for decades.

Despite his business success, King retained an educator’s curiosity and a reformer’s civic spirit. He championed Oakland’s urban beautification, promoted harbor improvements, and advocated for building a major hotel to attract visitors to the city. His peers described him as a man of foresight who “never made a mistake in his forecasts.” Even in his seventies, he remained energetic, visiting his offices daily and attending public meetings.

King’s sudden death on August 20, 1910, at his Oakland mansion, shocked the community. The Oakland Tribune reported that “all Oakland mourns,” noting that he had remained vigorous until his final hours despite months of declining health. His estate—built from timber, land, and grain—was estimated to be worth many millions, though he was remembered as much for his civic devotion as for his fortune.

Today, little remains of his once-grand Oakland home, which lingered into the mid-20th century before being demolished. Yet his impact endures tangibly in King City, a thriving agricultural hub that evolved from his early wheat fields, and symbolically in the legacy of public service, entrepreneurship, and cultural achievement carried on by his descendants.

Charles Henry King’s story embodies the restless ambition of 19th-century California: a schoolteacher turned timber baron, an Oakland visionary who carved prosperity from redwood forests and wheat fields, and a patriarch whose family helped shape both the physical and cultural landscape of the Golden State.

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Sources:
Oakland Tribune archives (“Memories Haunt Fading Mansion,” “Charles H. King Dies Suddenly of Apoplexy and All Oakland Mourns,” August 1910); Monterey County Historical Society, King City Historical Overview (mchsmuseum.com); City of King, History of King City; King City Rustler historical retrospectives; Find A Grave