Albert W. Harris and The Arabian Horses of Kemah

 

Southern California used to be a very horsey place. This fact is underscored by a brochure that a fellow vintage paper enthusiast recently gave me, called The Arabian Horses of Kemah. 

Wealthy Chicago financier Albert W. Harris owned a horse ranch called Kemah in Wisconsin. In 1927, Harris bought 170 acres in Chino Hills, California, and built his second Arabian horse ranch on the property.  Harris, along with cereal magnate W. K. Kellogg (who owned his own Arabian horse ranch a few miles from Harris' property), became a fixture in the Los Angeles area's horse community. Harris also served as president of the Arabian Horse Club of America, and wrote several books about Arabians.

Before Harris owned his property in Southern California, he had a booklet printed about his Arabian horses. Almost all the copies of The Arabian Horses of Kemah were put in storage after they were printed in 1922. They were given to the Arabian Horse Trust in 1979; the Trust then presented numbered copies to various people. The one in my possession once belonged to Robert Detterman, who had been a Board member of the Arabian Horse Association of the San Fernando Valley.

The information on the inside of the old brochure said that it is number 138 out of only 450 copies. 

I scanned all of the pages, and made a separate copy of each of Harris' Arabian horses in the photographs.

El Bulad, gray stallion, foaled 1903. 

Ramla, a bay mare foaled in 1908 at the Crabbet Arabian Stud in England.

Nejdran, Jr. was a chestnut stallion foaled in 1906, bred by Homer Davenport.

Kemah Prince was a half-Arabian owned by Harris. 

Saaida was a bay Arabian mare foaled in 1908, bred by Homer Davenport.

Kyrat was foaled in 1918. 

Gamelia was also foaled in 1918. 

Paul Spitzzeri has written a good, concise summary of the story of Albert W. Harris in Southern California for his excellent Homestead Museum blog:

https://homesteadmuseum.blog/2019/09/09/sharing-equestrian-history-in-chino-hills-albert-w-harris-and-his-arabian-horse-farm/  Equine historian Tobi Lopez Taylor pointed out to me that the horse identified in this article as Khaled (foaled 1895, *Nimr x Naomi), actually appears to be Khalil (foaled 1927, *Nuri Pasha x Ophir).

A shorter article on Harris by Spitzerri appears on the Chino newspapers website:

https://www.championnewspapers.com/opinion_and_commentary/history_of_the_hills/article_75a43c1e-eebf-11ea-b369-6780072a87e3.html

Here's an article on Harris from the April 1960 edition of Arab Horse Journal:  

https://www.arabianarchives.org/images/publications/periodicals/2019-2c-00007.pdf