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William H. Crocker


William Henry Crocker (13 January 1861 – 25 September 1937) was president of Crocker National Bank and was a prominent member of the Republican Party.

He was born on 19 January 1861 in Sacramento, California.

He attended Phillips Academy, Andover and Yale University, where he was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter). After the 1906 earthquake and fire had left the Crocker mansions in ruins, in 1907 he donated the Crocker family's 2.6-acre (11,000 m2) Nob Hill block for Grace Cathedral.

He was a member of the University of California Board of Regents for nearly thirty years and funded the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory's million-volt x-ray tube at the UC hospital and the "medical" Crocker cyclotron used for neutron therapy at the Berkeley.

Crocker also chaired the Panama-Pacific Exposition Committee and SE Community Chest, and was a key member of the committee that built the San Francisco Opera House and Veterans Building. Crocker was the founder of Crocker Middle School located in Hillsborough, California.

When much of the city of San Francisco was destroyed by the fire from the 1906 earthquake, William Crocker and his bank were major forces in financing reconstruction. His father, Charles Crocker (1822-1888), had been a builder of the Central Pacific Railroad.


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