Charles C. Wainwright, M D., Coroner of San Bernardino County and City Health Officer, was born in Ohio, in 1851, and educated in Cincinnati.
He came to California first in 1870, and spent about three years in teaching school, after which he went back East and completed his course in medicine, graduating at Cincinnati Medical College, May 9, 1876. He returned to California the same year and has practiced his profession in the State ever since.
He settled in San Bernardino in 1882, and in 1884 was elected coroner on the Republican ticket; was re-elected in 1886, and again in 1888 a most satisfactory endorsement of his efficiency as a public officer. During the five years of his official service as coroner, Dr. Wainwright has held inquests over a number of notable cases, of which the most celebrated and sensational, perhaps, ever occurring in San Bernardino, was that of Katie Handorff Springer, a bride of one week, who was murdered in a hotel at Colton in January, 1887, by her husband. Springer first struck her in the eye with a hammer, and then cut her throat with a pocketknife! Subsequent investigation developed the fact that he had purchased the hammer at a hardware store in Los Angeles, and had sawed off the handle, so be could carry it unobserved in his short-overcoat pocket.
He was a saloonkeeper in Lodi, California. Miss Handorff was an estimable young lady, highly respected in the community where she resided. They had been married a week and from outward indications seemed happy. They came down from San Francisco by the way of San Pedro and Los Angeles to Colton the day before the homicide occurred. After killing his wife he placed some articles of her wearing apparel in the middle of the room and attempted to set the building on fire, but failed for some cause. He left the hotel at eleven o’clock that night and visited a Chinese place, where he washed and combed his hair, using a hand glass to arrange his toilet. He was seen and identified next morning at the Santa Fe depot about four o’clock, after which no further trace or clue could be obtained of him. The details of the horrible crime were published throughout the country; large rewards were offered for his apprehension and arrest and a very vigilant search was made, but every effort proved futile, though several persons were arrested in various parts of the country, but all turned out to be cases of mistaken identity. Thus the case remained wrapped in unfathomable mystery. On the day President Harrison was elected, in November 1888. Coroner Wainwright was notified that the remains of a dead man had been found in a canon on Little Mountain about two miles north of San Bernardino, by two citizens while out hunting. The next day Dr. Wainwright summoned a jury and the necessary assistants, and proceeding to the place found the remains as retorted. The body had wasted away, but the clothing was intact and well preserved. A pistol lay by the side of the skeleton; the rings worn on his fingers were unmolested, as was the watch he carried, and the hand glass. With much labor and care the history of these articles was traced one by one the clothing was identified and other facts developed, resulting in the positive identification of the dead man as the wife-slayer Springer, who had committed suicide by shooting himself through the brain in that lonely and unfrequented canon twenty-two months before.
In addition to his official duties and a prosperous private medical practice, Dr. Wainwright has devoted considerable attention to mining matters; owns an interest in mines at Twenty-nine Palms, and also has a fourth interest in a gold mine of high-grade ore in Santa Clara County, California.
He married Miss Galleron, a native of California, of French parentage. They reside in their pretty home on the corner of Seventh and D Streets.
