Daniel C. Jackling

He was widely known as "Colonel Jackling", having gained this rank in the Utah National Guard. Jackling was an orphan at the age of two. Raised for a while by an aunt, Jackling eventually had to pass from family to family but finished eighth grade by the age of sixteen and then enrolled in the Normal School at Warrensburg, Missouri.

Starting in 1889, Daniel Jackling was educated in the mining and metallurgy disciplines at the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla, Missouri, now known as Missouri University of Science and Technology, eventually earning a BS degree. From 1891 until 1893 he taught chemistry and metallurgy as an assistant professor.

Personal life

Jackling's first wife, a schoolteacher, died in 1914. He married his second wife, Virginia Jolliffe, on April 5, 1915 His obituary in the New York Times noted that she survived him.

Jackling was a high spender and traveled widely in his private railroad car and in his steam yacht Cyprus. When he retired in 1942, he moved his headquarters from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, where he had the whole penthouse floor of the St. Francis Hotel remodeled for his use He was a member of the city's Pacific Union, Bohemian, and Press Clubs, and owned an estate on the San Francisco peninsula at Woodside, where he died in 1956. Jackling received the Distinguished Service Medal from President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 for directing the U.S. government explosives plants, like the one at Nitro, West Virginia, during World War I.

He was given honorary degrees by the Universities of California, Southern California, and Utah.

A statue of Jackling was placed in the rotunda of the Utah State Capitol in 1954. An original Jackling Field hosted football games elsewhere on the campus from 1915 to 1966; Jackling contributed $5000 for its construction.

The Jackling House

The Jackling House at Woodside, California, was built for Jackling in 1925, designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival Style by the architect George Washington Smith.

The architectural-historical preservationists group Uphold Our Heritage challenged the town council's approval though it was upheld by a San Mateo County Superior Court judge in March 2010. On April 29, 2010, Uphold Our Heritage appealed the county judge's ruling. The town manager and the preservation group's attorney differed over whether the appeal put an "automatic stay" on the issuance of a demolition permit.

The house was demolished in February 2011.