Thomas Thorkildsen

Last updated
Thomas Thorkildsen
Born1869
Died1950
OccupationBusinessman
SpouseDora Garinger

Thomas Thorkildsen (1869-1950) was an American businessman. He became known as the "Borax King" after his ownership of borax mines in California made him a millionaire. [1]

Contents

Biography

Early life

Thomas Thorkildsen was born in 1869 in Wisconsin. [1] His father was a lumberjack who had immigrated from Denmark. [1]

Career

He worked for the Pacific Coast Borax Company, owned by Francis Marion Smith, in Chicago and later at the Death Valley, where Stephen Mather was his boss. [1] He resigned in 1898 and purchased a borax mine in the Frazier Mountain, Ventura County. [1] With Mather, he founded the Thorkildsen-Mather Borax Company. [1] [2] In 1905, he purchased another borax mine in Tick Canyon, a canyon in the Santa Clarita Valley. [1] He became a millionnaire thanks to this second mine. [1] Additionally, he became known as the "Borax King." [1]

Personal life

He married Dora Garinger. [1] In 1912, they moved into a Craftsman-style estate at the top of Alpine Drive overlooking Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills, California. [3] It spanned seventeen acres. A year later, they purchased eleven more acres adjacent to it. [3] They sold it to Kirk B. Johnson, an oilman, in 1921. [3] The house was torn down and subdivided in the 1960s. [3] When he divorced, he moved into an estate in Los Feliz, Los Angeles called Briarcliff Manor, which became known for extravagant parties. [1] He died in 1950. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Cecilia Rasmussen, 'Borax King' Cleaned Up, but Died Washed Up, The Los Angeles Times , March 12, 2000
  2. Alan Pollack, Kim Stephens, E. J. Stephens, Legendary Locals of the Santa Clarita Valley, Arcadia Publishing, 2012, p. 39
  3. 1 2 3 4 Marc Wanamaker, Early Beverly Hills, Arcadia Publishing, 2005, p. 41