The Fielding J. Stilson Co.

The Fielding J. Stilson Co. (c. – 1913) was a real estate developer founded and led by Fielding Johnson Stilson (1877 – 1953), a native of Topeka, Kansas, with his younger brother Carroll Archibald Stilson (1885 – 1948) also being a prominent figure in the company. Stilson and his family moved to California in his childhood, and he attended school in Los Angeles. He attended various times Occidental College, the University of Southern California, and the University of California, Los Angeles. After graduating and working briefly as a clerk at a bank, Stilson set up his own real estate firm in 1900, which went public in 1903. He quickly achieved financial success by developing the Angelino Heights neighborhood and became a leading civic figure in Los Angeles, actively participating in civic and elite social clubs. He was elected a member of the L.A. County Board of Education in 1906 and 1909, was a Member of the Republican Party’s Los Angeles City Central Committee, and was a member of the L.A. Art Commission at its inception in 1903.

Aside from his own company, Stilson served as President of the Los Angeles Realty Co. and Vice-President and Manager of the Oleum Development Co. In addition to some health issues, these multiple titles eventually led Stilson to his downfall through some apparently shady business dealings, in which the Fielding J. Stilson Co. lent considerable sums to the Oleum Development Co., which could not pay them back. When the former company could not pay its creditors on account of its own losses as a result of the latter company, tortuous legal proceedings ensued, reaching all the way to the California Supreme Court.

By 1912, discussions were underway to place the assets of the Fielding J. Stilson Co. in a trust to repay creditors,. In 1913, the company declared bankruptcy. Stilson’s subsequent business activities, if any, are unclear; he lived in Los Angeles the rest of his life and remained active in the city’s art scene and civic life, occasionally writing letters to the editor of the Los Angeles Times.