Isaac Lankershim

Isaac Lankershim (1818–1882) was a German-born American landowner and pioneer in California.

Early life

He was born in Nuremberg, Kingdom of Bavaria on April 8, 1818. He emigrated to the United States in 1836, at eighteen years old.

Career

He settled in St. Louis, Missouri and worked in the grain and livestock shipping business.

In 1854, he moved west to the Napa Valley in California. A year later, in 1855, he sowed and harvested 1,000 acres of wheat in Solano County, California. Shortly after, he expanded to over 14,000 acres near Fresno, California. In 1868, he purchased a bigger ranch in San Diego, California and grew wheat. In 1860, the rest of his family moved from St. Louis to California, and he established an office in San Francisco, California.

In the late 1860s, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he became associated with a businessmen named Harris Newmark. In 1869, Isaac purchased 60,000 acres of the San Fernando Valley from Pio Picofor US$115,000 together with other businessmen from San Francisco, known as the San Fernando Valley Farm Homestead Association. These acres included what is now Woodland Hills, Tarzana, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys and North Hollywood. By 1873, they raised 40,000 sheep on the ranch. When wool prices fell, they grew wheat instead. To take the wheat from the valley to Santa Monica, California, he built a wagon path now known as Interstate 405. In 1876, he turned it into a toll road.

With his son-in-law, Isaac Newton Van Nuys (1836–1912), he started the Los Angeles Farming and Milling Co, and they took over full ownership of the San Fernando Valley Ranch Company. They also established the Lankershim Ranch Land & Water Co., a 12,000-acre real estate development in what is now known as North Hollywood, Los Angeles.

Personal life

He married Annis Lydia Moore (1818–1901), an English immigrant in 1842. He relinquished his Jewish faith and converted to the Baptist faith. They had a son, James Boon Lankershim (1850–1931), and a daughter, Susanna Lankershim, who married Isaac Newton Van Nuys (1836–1912). He died on April 10, 1882.

Legacy

Lankershim Boulevard in Los Angeles is named for the Lankershim family.