Weitz, George H.

George H. Weitz was born in Edgerton, Williams County, Ohio, on April 17, 1853, to Adam Weitz and Elizabeth Yeager. Reared on an Ohio farm, he later worked in Knox County, Illinois, and conducted a mercantile business in Elk Creek, Nebraska, before moving to California in 1882 to manage the Olive Mills in Orange. In 1893, he became the first settler in Empire Colony in Fresno County, where he served for fifteen years as colonization agent for the Bank of California, overseeing 32,000 acres and laying out the Empire, Vinland, and Barstow colonies.

On his sixty-acre ranch in Empire Colony, George successfully cultivated olive trees and Thompson Seedless vines, eventually designing an artistic bungalow on the property in 1917. He was married in Olive, California, to Mary R. Dillin, daughter of Captain Thomas Dillin, and they had two daughters, Mabel Edna and Fern Eva. As a prominent Republican and community builder, he helped organize the Empire and Vinland school districts, served thirteen years as a school trustee, and earned widespread respect as a pioneer of Fresno County.