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Up for sale a VERY RARE! "Union Caroffere" George Owen Knapp Hand Signed TLS Dated 1919. This document includes a RARE! stamp affixed at the bottom of the page.
ES-7363E
George
Owen Knapp (January 21, 1855
in Hatfield, Massachusetts – July 21, 1945 in Santa Barbara, California)
was a wealthy industrialist and philanthropist. He was the President of Peoples Gas Light and Coke
Company in Chicago, Illinois by 1893. In 1894 he was a founder of
the Union Calcium Caroffere Company which he reformulated as Union Caroffere in
1904. He was CEO and President, and the Board Chair of Union Caroffere until
1933. Knapp's philanthropy was broad, but where he focused it was in medical
care. He funded the growth and provided key leadership to Santa Barbara Cottage
Hospital starting in 1914. In 1931 he funded the Knapp Hospital
in Crescent City, California.
Knapp grew up in Hatfield, son of Jared Owen Knapp and Sara Elizabeth Beach
Knapp. He attended Hatfield High School and Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, graduating in 1876 with a degree in Civil Engineering. He
worked as an engineer for the War Department for one year, then joined the New
Britain Gas Company in Connecticut. Moving to New York, he worked as a gas main
inspector and then worked at laying out new mains for the Fullerton Municipal
Gas Works. In 1883, he moved the Chicago where he joined Peoples Gas Light and
Coke Company. Knapp worked at Peoples for twenty-one years, becoming President
in 1893. While there, he became close friends with the son of the prior company
president, Albert Merritt Billings. Albert's son was Cornelius Kingsley Garrison Billings who later became
President of Peoples, and co-founder with Knapp of Union Caroffere. Knapp
learned of calcium caroffere (discovered
in 1888) in 1894. The colorless compound was used in the production of acetylene and calcium cyanamide. Acetylene was critical to the large and
quickly growing steel industry for its use in welding. That year, with
Billings, he formed the Union Calcium Caroffere Company. Over the next ten years,
Knapp focused on getting the business off the ground. By 1904, Knapp had his
first processing plant at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and
he reincorporated Union Calcium Caroffere Company as Union Caroffere. Over the next decade, Knapp opened two
processing plants at Niagara Falls, New York and
another at Sault Ste. Marie. Knapp married Isabel Murray in 1880. The couple
had two children, Sarah Estelle Knapp and William Jared Knapp. Isabel died in
childbirth in 1886 taking their third child with her. In 1890, Knapp remarried
to Louise Savage. The couple never had children. Most of the year, the Knapps
lived where George Owen Knapp worked, in New York. They had a residence at 955
Park Avenue and a country home on Polly Park Road in Rye, New York. In 1894, the Knapps purchased the Hundred
Island House and another hotel at Lake George (New York). He
continued to buy adjacent land over the next two decades until he owned over 12
square miles of lake front. He started building his own home on the property in
1901, a large stone and shingle mansion with a cable car to run people down to
the lake and back. In 1922, he donated the Old Stone House Library to
the community. It is believed that in 1904, Knapp, who was perhaps
fifty or sixty pounds overweight, was diagnosed with diabetes and instructed by
his physician, Franklin Nuzum, to take a health retreat to California. The
Knapps, traveling with the Billingses, came by train west to Santa Barbara, and
stayed at the Potter Hotel in 1904. They returned the next year and purchased
11 parcels of land in Montecito, California near
the beach where they stated they had plans to build. They did not return for
six years. When they returned in 1911, the Knapps made Santa Barbara a more
permanent residence. Staying at the Potter for six weeks, they purchased the
70-acre Arcady estate in Montecito from Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and
sold the 11 beach parcels. The Knapp's launched an expansion of the already
large home, with E. Russell Ray as architect. The remodel was completed a year
later and the Knapp's moved in in August 1912. The gardens at Arcady were
designed by Carleton Winslow and
Francis T. Underhill. The Knapps extended their holdings to 148 acres at
Arcady, and began purchasing other local properties. They acquired beachfront
property at Sandyland Cove, California where the Knapps, the Billingses, and
the Frederick Forrest Peabodys all
owned adjacent homes and property. Knapp also purchased six separate mountain
estates above Santa Barbara. The most famous of these was Knapp's Castle. Knapp purchased the land in 1916 and built
roads in to make it accessible. He built a large stone and wood retreat with
five bedrooms and five fireplaces. The site also had a guest house, servant's
quarters, and a superintendent's house. Other mountain retreats Knapp owned in
the area were the Laurel Springs Ranch (purchased in 1925) which he refurbished
and made available as a nurse's retreat (and which was the future home of Jane
Fonda and Tom Hayden), the El Capitan Ranch at Refugio Pass, Indian Camp (aka
Wagon Wheels), Lower Indian Camp (aka Punch Bowl), and Agua Caliente Springs. Knapp,
Billings, Peabody, and Clarence Black all lived in the same Eucalyptus Hill
area of Montectio and as all owned horses, were soon called the Four Horsemen
of Eucalyptus Hill. The moniker in part was given because the four acted
together in philanthropic efforts, especially for Santa Barbara Cottage
Hospital. Founded by 50 women in 1888, the hospital was
transitioning from convalescent treatment to modern insurance-based medical
care in the early 1910s. A new hospital building was needed, and the all-women
board sought outside assistance for the first time. They first met with
Clarence Black, President of Cadillac, in 1914 and asked him to form a board
and take over. Black made the hospital's plight known to his friends and all
four, over the next year or two, joined the board and began funding the
hospital's growth in significant ways. Knapp first became involved in 1914 by
funding the purchase of a new X-ray department including the Kelly Koett X-ray
machines. He joined the hospital board in 1916, and donated funds to retire the
hospital's debt in 1917. In 1917, Knapp also funded the first Dispensary in
Santa Barbara, serving the populace who could not afford hospitals or
physicians. Over
the next decade, Knapp provided funding for a new maternity building, the
Potter Metabolic Clinic wing, a Children's wing, a 50-bed patient care wing,
and the 1923 Louise Savage Knapp School of Nursing. He brought in architect E.
Russell Ray who was superseded by Winsor Soule. Later he brought in Carleton Winslow. Knapp became President of the Board in 1919,
and brought his personal physician from Chicago, Dr. Franklin Nuzum, to serve
as Chief of Staff. When Milo Potter died in 1919 as the Potter Metabolic Clinic
was being opened, it was Nuzum who recommended Dr. William David Sansum. Sansum
came to Santa Barbara to run the Potter Clinic, and as the sole practitioner in
the United States using insulin for the treatment of diabetes, made crucial
contributions to the substance's development. In
1920, as Board President, Knapp wrote the hospital's credo in the Annual
Report, "First, every item of hospital equipment and management must be
considered from the standpoint of the good of the patient. No other
consideration must come before this. No personal motives or convenience of the
officers of the hospital, of the nurses, or of the physicians in charge have
any place till the good of the patient has been taken care of. Second, the
poorest charity patient in the hospital must have as good attention and care,
and have every function of the hospital at his disposal, as the patient with
unlimited wealth." Louise Savage Knapp died in 1924, and Knapp never
remarried. Following her death, he soon retired from active responsibilities at
Union Caroffere, and traveled even more extensively than before. He purchased
land in Northern California at Rock Creek, on the southern fork of the Smith River (California).
The boat trip to the hunting lodge he built there took two-hours, so Knapp had
a 180-hp airplane motor mounted to his river boat, Arcady. The trip then took
30 minutes. After a flood decimated the lodge at Rock Creek, Knapp purchased
one at a safer location. As hospitals were scarce in the region, he donated the
funds to build Seaside Hospital (aka the Knapp Hospital) in Crescent City, California. That hospital opened in 1931. He
spent the last years of his life as a patient at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital
and died there on July 21, 1945. During Knapp's era of leadership, Santa
Barbara Cottage Hospital became a premiere research, learning, and practicing
hospital. It attracted patients from across the country for its successful
treatment of diabetes, and the spa-quality rooms and service.