Timeline
Stock market crash – The great depression started 1929
George Newhall Died – treasurer of the company.
He died just a few weeks after the crash of the stock market.
The stock market crash and George Newhall’s improper management of the finances of the company pushed the company to near bankruptcy.
William Mayo asks his son in law, Atholl McBean to help him determine the financial damage the company suffered at the hands of his brother George.
Mayo and Atholl discovered the company was almost bankrupt.
The Newhall’s and The Newhall Land and Farming Company was almost over $3 million dollars in debt through George’s living extravagance.
He also crushed his nephew Almer’s financial wellbeing because they were partners in many companies and investments.
Atholl McBean
The family wanted to sell out but Atholl McBean managed to bring the company back through smart investments and cost controls. He ran the company like a company and it began to prosper almost immediately. He borrowed $250,000 to keep the company afloat, discontinued ALL dividend payouts to the family, tightened the purse strings and moved his company into the future.
He was not a popular man with the families to say the least. Eventually he took on hero status for being able to salvage what was left and eventually turn a profit.
He received payment of $737,039 from Dam Disaster to bring liquidity to the struggling company. They also received the final payment from William Hearst for the land they sold him. Things were looking up financially.
Oil was struck by a lessee on NEWHALL RANCH, Barnsdall Oil Company. The major discovery was 44 producing wells which brought significant cash flow to the company.
NLF sold Rancho El Piojo and Rancho San Miguelito to the US War Department to create a troop training facility known as the Hunter Liggett Military Reservation.
California’s Tax Rate changed (temporarily as it turns out) but the NEWHALL RANCH was taxed at its “highest and best use” which was for residential instead of farming and cattle. That created the incentive for Newhall Land and Farm to go into the land development business to build houses.
Christmas lunch with Atholl McBean with 30 members of the Newhall family. He offered a toast to Fifth generation: the fifteen young Newhall’s ranging in age from three to seventeen. He inspired Ruth Waldo Newhall to write the History of the Newhall Family.