Johnson, Aubrey R.

Born near Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1878, A. R. Johnson worked in farming and lumbering before emigrating to California in 1902. Settling in Fresno County, he worked four years as foreman of the Consolidated Water Company’s plant at Coalinga, followed by a year of oil well drilling for the United Oil Company and work as an automobile machinist in Tulare. In 1913, he acquired 45 acres of land at Tranquillity, which he leveled, checked, and planted to alfalfa before selling the property at a profit in August 1919.

Capitalizing on the regional demand for irrigation, Johnson partnered with J. F. Nisewanger to operate a hydraulic rotary rig, successfully drilling thirty deep artesian wells across the area. Married in Nova Scotia in 1901 to Maggie M. Corbett, with whom he had two children, Margaret Eilein and Fred Lawrence, Johnson was a member of the Foresters and the Methodist Episcopal Church at Pacific Grove, earning recognition as a progressive developer of Fresno County’s water infrastructure.