REPETTO AND THE LAWYERS
1885-1887
Ten or twelve months after the starting of the first cable railway
here, Los Angeles, in 1885, resumed the march of progress, this time
with an electric street car line. Poles--with huge arms stretching out
into the middle of the street and often spoken of derisively as
gallows-poles--and wires were strung along Los Angeles and San Pedro
streets, down Maple Avenue to Pico Street and thence westward to what
was known as the Electric Homestead Tract, just outside of the city
limits. A company owned much land not likely to be sold in a hurry,
and to exploit the same rapidly, the owners built the road. F. H.
Howland, who introduced the electric light here, was a prime mover in
this project, but ill fortune attended his efforts and he died a poor
man.
On January 11th, my wife and I left for a trip to the City of Mexico,
where we spent four or five days and were pleasantly entertained,
before going to the New Orleans Exposition, by our old friend, Judge
Ygnácio Sepúlveda and his wife. Previous to crossing the border, we
stored our trunks in El Paso and received them upon our return,
strapped as before. Some valuables, however, which I had hidden away
in the linen were missing when I reopened the trunk, and have never
been recovered. Among other companions on this outing were Fred, son
of J. M. Griffith, and James S., son of Jonathan S. Slauson. By the
bye, James himself has had an honorable public career, having served
in one of his activities as President of the Chamber of Commerce.
Early in March, I believe, sewing was first introduced into the public
schools of Los Angeles, the Board of Education consenting to it only
as an experiment.
Two celebrities divided the honors in the spring and summer in local
circles: United States Senator John Sherman, who visited Los Angeles
on May 8th, 1885, and Sir Arthur Sullivan, the distinguished English
composer, of _Pinafore_ and _Mikado_ fame, who tarried near the ocean
in the hot days of August.
About 1885, a Dr. Sketchley, who enjoyed some reputation for his work
in the natural history field and had been a traveler through many
remote countries, brought to Los Angeles quite a collection of
ostriches and opened, about where Tropico lies, an amusement resort
known as "The Ostrich Farm." Having provided a coach to connect with
the end of the Temple Street cable cars and advertised the strange
peculiarities of his finely-feathered animals, the Doctor soon did a
thriving business, notwithstanding the task of caring for the birds in
their new environment. Later, Sketchley removed from Los Angeles to
Red Bluff; but there he failed and lost all that he had.
Soon after Dr. Sketchley arrived here with his ostriches and three or
four men and one woman from Madras, Edwin Cawston, an Englishman now
retired and living in Surrey, happening (while on a tour through
America) to glance at an article in _Harper's Magazine_ pointing out
the possibilities of successfully raising ostriches, returned to
London, secured the necessary capital and in 1887 began shipping these
camel-birds from South Africa to Los Angeles. Many of the
easily-affected creatures died at sea; yet forty, as good luck would
have it, survived, and with them Cawston and a partner named Fox
opened a second "ostrich farm" at Washington Gardens. In time, Cawston
transferred his establishment to La Habra, associating with himself E.
H. Rydall as publicity agent; and in 1908 the Cawston Ostrich Farm,
between Los Angeles and Pasadena, was incorporated.
Quite naturally with the advent of the settler from the East and the
Middle West, the _zanjas_, in early years so serviceable both for
domestic and irrigation purposes and, therefore, more or less
venerable, came to be looked upon as mere surface-conveyers and public
nuisances; a sign, in 1883, at the corner of Sixth and Olive streets
warning teamsters against crossing the ditch. By 1885, such opposition
had developed that most of the _zanjas_ were condemned, the one
extending from Requena Street to Adams _via_ Figueroa being, if I am
right, one of the last that was buried from view.
For some time, East Los Angeles maintained its character as a village
or small town, and in 1885 the _East Side Champion_, started and
edited by Edward A. Weed, voiced the community's interests.
This year was marked by the demise of a number of well-known
Angeleños. On the second of March, John Schumacher, a man esteemed and
beloved by many, died here of apoplexy, in the seventieth year of his
age. Six days later, General Phineas Banning, who had been sick for
several months, expired at San Francisco, his wife and daughters being
with him; and on March 12th, he was buried in Rosedale Cemetery. In
his declining years, illness often compelled General Banning to remain
at home in Wilmington; and when needing the services of his physician,
Dr. Joseph Kurtz, he would send a locomotive to fetch him. On June
5th, Dr. Vincent Gelcich, the pioneer surgeon, died here at the age of
fifty-six years.
In 1885, the first medical school in Los Angeles was founded in the
house once occupied by Vaché Frères, the wine-makers, on Aliso Street
between Lyons and Center. For years the school was conducted as a part
of the University of Southern California, and Dr. J. P. Widney was
Dean.
In the fall of 1885 Dr. M. Dorothea Lummis, a graduate in medicine of
the Boston University, settled in Los Angeles and in time became
President of the Los Angeles County Homeopathic Medical Society.
Distinguished in her profession, Dr. Lummis became a leader in humane
endeavor, reorganizing here the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals and founding the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children.
The first train of the Santa Fé Railroad to enter the city of Los
Angeles ran from Colton over the rails of the Southern Pacific, on
November 29th, the two corporations having come to an agreement to use
the one set of tracks until the spring of 1887, when the Santa Fé
finished building from San Bernardino to its junction with the Los
Angeles & San Gabriel Valley Railroad. The locomotive bore the name,
_L. Severy_--a prominent director in the Company, and the father of
the well-known resident of Pasadena--and the number 354.
After twenty years' association with the wholesale grocery business, I
withdrew, on December 5th, 1885, from H. Newmark & Company, and on
that day the business was absorbed by M. A. Newmark, M. H. Newmark,
Max Cohn and Carl Seligman, and continued as M. A. Newmark & Company.
This gave me the opportunity of renewing my association with one of my
earliest partners, Kaspare Cohn, the new firm becoming K. Cohn &
Company; and the change in my activities found me once again shipping
hides and wool.
Looking through the haze of years, many are the recollections--often
vague, it is true--of those with whom I had business relations. In the
picturesque adobe days, the majority of my customers were
simple-mannered natives such as Manuel Carizosa, on South Alameda
Street; José María Dávila, in Sonora Town next door to José María
Fuentes, his competitor; and M. G. Santa Cruz, in the same district.
Jordan Brothers, Americans, kept store on Aliso Street opposite the
Aliso Mill, and G. Ginnochio, father-in-law of James Castruccio, on
Macy Street, near the river; while Bernardino Guirado, Mrs. John G.
Downey's brother, and Max Schwed supplied the wants of Los Nietos. J.
B. Savarots, who went to South America when he sold out to J.
Salaberri & Company--a firm composed of two Basques, Juan Salaberri
and Domingo Oyharzabel--was in general merchandise in San Juan
Capistrano. Hippolyte Cahen (whose widow is a member of the Lazarus
Stationery Company,) had an up-to-date general store at Anaheim; and
Simon Cahen, son-in-law of Bernard Cohn, was similarly occupied in the
Azusa district. Others of about the same period, were Dominico Rivara,
who established himself on Main Street near Commercial, shortly to be
succeeded by Vignolo & Sanguinetti, in whose store--known as La
Esperanza and near Castruccio Brothers' La Mariposa--Jim Moiso bought
an interest. Two more Main Street merchants were A. C. Chauvin, who
conducted his El Dorado Store in the Lanfranco Building, and his
neighbor, Joe Lazarowich. And near them Francisco Vassallo had his
little fruit stand. The erratic Lucas Sciscisch, who terminated his
life as a suicide, attended diligently to business on First Street,
near Los Angeles; and not so very far away Thomas Strohm was laying
the foundation, in his grocery trade, for that popularity which caused
him, in the eighties, to be chosen Chief of the Fire Department.
António Valle, who built on the northeast corner of First and Los
Angeles streets (calling the block in honor of his five sons, the Five
Brothers), for a number of years had a grocery store on Main Street
near Requena and not far from the butcher shop of Vickery & Hinds.
In view of the ravages of time among the ranks of these old-timers, it
is a satisfaction to observe that at least some of those who were
active before I retired are still in the trade. The first-comer was
George A. Ralphs, who, reaching Los Angeles as a boy, learned
brick-masonry and was known as the Champion Bricklayer of California
until, while on a hunting expedition, he lost an arm.[38] With a man
named Francis, he started, in 1877, the Ralphs & Francis Grocery, on
the old Georgetown corner. This was the beginning of the Ralphs
Grocery Company. In February, 1882, Hans Jevne, a Norwegian by birth,
who had been associated with his brother in Chicago, came to Los
Angeles, and a few months later he opened a small grocery store in the
Strelitz Block at 38 and 40 North Spring Street. In less than no time,
so to speak, the good housewives of the town were able to secure the
rarest tidbits from all the markets of the world; and not only that,
but Jevne, since his advent here, has been identified with most
important steps in the evolution of the city. W. F. Ball for thirty
years or more has been a tobacconist, and for thirty years, or
somewhat less, has occupied the same premises on Spring Street, north
of First. The Williams family came from England in 1882, and George
soon established his grocery business out in what was then known as
the University district, where he bought a block of land. George has
given of his time for the public weal, having been for several terms a
City Councilman. Another Los Angeles merchant who has attained success
is Albert Cohn; and while his start in life, in an independent career,
began a couple of years after my retirement, he had been in my employ
as a clerk almost from the time of his arrival, in 1882. Marius Bellue
has been located on South Alameda Street so long that it seems as
though he must have arrived here in the Year One.
So much for the merchants of the city; among such tradesmen in the
districts outside of Los Angeles, I can recall but three active in my
day and still active in this. Alphonse Weil, a native of the sunny
slopes of France, has grown up with the town of Bakersfield. John R.
Newberry opened his doors in 1882, and, after moving to Los Angeles in
1893, commenced that meteoric career, during which he established
stores throughout Los Angeles and its suburbs. George A. Edgar, about
thirty-one years ago, brought a stock of groceries and crockery to
Santa Ana and deposited the contents of his cases in the same
location, and on the same shelves, from which he still caters to his
neighbors.
The great flood of 1886 reached its first serious state on January
19th. All of Los Angeles between Wilmington Street and the hills on
the east side was inundated; levees were carried off as if they were
so much loose sand and stubble; and for two or three weeks railway
communication with the outside world was impossible.
During this inundation on January 19th, Martin G. Aguirre, who was a
deputy under Sheriff George E. Gard, gave an exhibition of great
courage. So rapidly had the waters risen that many persons were
marooned; and it was only by throwing himself on the back of his
favorite horse that Aguirre, at very great risk, rescued twenty or
more people from drowning, the number including many children. In the
last attempt, Aguirre nearly lost his own life. Somewhat of a hero, in
November, 1888, he was elected Sheriff, defeating Tom Rowan for that
office.
Rebecca Lee Dorsey, another of the early women practitioners of
medicine, came to Los Angeles in January, 1886, a graduate both of
Eastern colleges and of a leading Vienna hospital. Peddling vegetables
as a child, later working as a servant and hiring out as a nurse while
finishing her course in Europe, Dr. Dorsey was of a type frequently
found among the early builders of the Southwest.
Largely to a board of Commissioners, consisting of Mayor E. F. Spence,
H. Sinsabaugh and the ever-ready Jake Kuhrts, appointed in 1886 when
provision was made for a paid fire department, is due the honor of
having successfully arranged the present excellent system in Los
Angeles.
It was in 1886 that we bought the Repetto _rancho_, under
circumstances of such interest that it may be well to tell something
about the owner and his connections. Alessandro Repetto was an Italian
of such immense size that he was compelled, when standing, to shift
the weight of his body from one leg to the other. He was miserly in
the extreme, but this was compensated for by his honesty and
uprightness of character. He was also far from being neat, and I
remember the way in which he dispensed hospitality when I visited his
ranch to buy wool. He would bring out some very ordinary wine and,
before serving it, would rinse out the glasses with his fat fingers;
and it was courtesy alone that prompted me to partake of what he
offered. He lived on his ranch, but when attacked by his last illness,
he took a room at the New Arlington Hotel, formerly the White House,
on the southeast corner of Commercial and Los Angeles streets.
There, finding him alone and neglected, I advised him to go to the
Sisters' Hospital on Ann Street; but the change did not save him and
after a few days he died. A fellow Italian named Scotti, a knave of a
chap who was with him in his last moments, knowing that I was
Repetto's executor, soon brought to my house a lot of papers which he
had taken from the dead man's pockets.
Repetto being a recluse somewhat on the misanthropic order, I had
difficulty in getting pallbearers for his funeral, one of my
applications being to James Castruccio, President of the Italian
Benevolent Society and then Italian Consul, who said that Repetto had
never helped anyone, but that if I would give, in his name, five
hundred dollars to charity, the attendants would be supplied. To this
I demurred, because Repetto had made no such provision in his will;
and Castruccio giving me no satisfaction, I went to Father Peter,
explained to him that Repetto had bequeathed six thousand dollars to
the Church, and stated my needs; whereupon Father Peter arranged for
the bearers. All the provisions for the funeral having been settled, I
cabled to his brother and heir, then living in the mountains near
Genoa, whose address I had obtained from Castruccio. Repetto had
really hated this brother and, in consequence, he had very unwillingly
bequeathed him his large estate.
In due season, the brother, a hunchback, appeared on deck as an
intimate with Scotti, and I found him to be an uncouth, ignorant
fellow and a man who had probably never handled a ten-dollar gold
piece or its equivalent in his life. He had on shoes that an elephant
might have worn, a common, corduroy suit, a battered hat and plenty of
dirt. Wishing to take him to Stephen M. White, my lawyer, I advised
the purchase of new clothes; but in this, as in other matters, I
appealed in vain. So miserly was he indeed, that one day, having
purchased a five-cent loaf of bread in Sonora Town, he was seen to
hide himself behind a building while he ate it, doubtless fearful lest
someone might ask him for a bite.
Alessandro Repetto had lived with an Indian woman by whom he had a
son; and a Los Angeles attorney soon had himself appointed guardian,
declaring that the property belonged, not to the brother, but to the
boy. This, because the woman had never left her husband, was
blackmail, pure and simple; besides Repetto had willed the lad some
property in San Gabriel. Stephen M. White was the attorney for the
estate; but when this lawsuit started, Scotti advised the
unsophisticated brother to take other lawyers. Two men, accordingly,
one named Robarts and the other Jim Howard, suddenly appeared at the
trial; and when I asked why they were there, they replied that they
had been engaged by Repetto's brother. Four hundred and seventy-five
dollars settled this extortion, the lawyers taking all but twenty-five
dollars, which was paid to the mother of the boy.
Early in the morning, a few days later--either on Christmas or New
Year's--there was a knock at my door; and when the girl answered the
call, the Sheriff was found there with the interesting news that
Repetto had been arrested and that he wished me to bail him out! I
learned that Robarts and Howard had presented him with a bill for
three thousand five hundred dollars, for services; and that, since the
money was not immediately forthcoming, they had trumped up some sort
of a charge and had had the foreigner incarcerated. White advised a
settlement, and after much difficulty we succeeded in having their
bill reduced to three thousand dollars, which we paid.
Repetto's troubles now seemed at an end; but just as he was ready to
leave for Italy, Scotti put in an appearance with a claim for benefits
bestowed, which the much-fleeced Italian refused to pay. Scotti,
knowing along which road the unfortunate man would travel, was early
at San Gabriel with the Sheriff, to intercept Repetto and return him
to limbo; and the Genoese being brought back, he again appealed to me.
It was now my turn, as executor, to have an interesting inning with
Scotti. While I was settling the estate, I was made aware that Repetto
had loaned another Italian named G. Bernero, on his note, some three
thousand dollars; but this document I missed, and it was only by
accident that I traced it to Scotti. He had abstracted it from the
papers found in Repetto's pocket, carried it to the borrower, and sold
it back to him, for four hundred dollars! I recovered this note and
collected the balance due; nevertheless, when Scotti had Repetto
arrested, I threatened the former with prosecution on the charge of
stealing and selling the note, with the result that Scotti did not
press his suit and Repetto was released.
In connection with this move by Scotti, Robarts and Howard reappeared
to defend Repetto, notwithstanding his previous announcement that he
would have nothing more to do with them; and to bolster up their
claim, they drew forth a paper certifying that Repetto had engaged
them to attend to any law business he might have while he was in this
country! Repetto, now really alarmed, once more quickly settled; but
the crafty Robarts and Howard had another bill up their sleeves, this
time for three or four thousand dollars, and poor Repetto was obliged
to pay that, too!
Kaspare Cohn, J. D. Bicknell, I. W. Hellman and S. M. White, in
conjunction with myself, bought the Repetto Ranch from the brother,
before he left for Italy, for sixty thousand dollars. All in all, the
heir, who survived the date of his windfall but a few years, carried
away with him the snug sum of one hundred thousand dollars.
This fine domain, lying between Whittier and Los Angeles, was
apportioned long before 1899, among the five purchasers. In that year,
Kaspare Cohn and I, on the advice of William Mulholland, developed
water on our undivided share, meeting with as great a success as has
attended all of the operations of that eminent engineer. After an
abundance of water was secured, we sold the property in five-acre and
smaller lots, locating the town site of Newmark near the tracks of the
San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad, and naming the entire
settlement Montebello.
It was in the spring of 1886 that Colonel H. H. Boyce, who had been
business manager of the Times-Mirror Company, was bought out by
Colonel H. G. Otis and became editor-in-chief and general manager of
the Los Angeles _Tribune_, conducting the paper, during his short
association, with some vigor.
One more reference to the _Times-Mirror_ publishing house. On April
8th, the company was reorganized, with Colonel H. G. Otis as President
and General Manager, Albert McFarland as Vice-President and Treasurer
and William A. Spalding as Secretary. About the middle of July, the
company bought the corner of Fort and First streets, and in the
following May moved to its new home erected there. On February 1st,
1887, the _Times_ began to appear seven days in the week.
After grinding away for ten years as the sole owner of the Los Angeles
_Herald_, J. D. Lynch, in 1886, took into partnership his former
associate, James J. Ayers, and once more the alliance of these
puissant forces made of the paper a formidable bulwark for the
Democracy.
Colonel John Franklin, or plain J. F. Godfrey as he was known in those
days, was rather a prominent attorney in his time; and I knew him very
well. About 1886, as chairman of a Democratic committee, he headed the
delegation that invited me to become a candidate for Mayor of Los
Angeles; but a contemplated European trip compelled me to decline the
honor.
In the spring of 1886, a falling out between the Southern Pacific and
the Santa Fé railroads brought on a rate-war, disastrous enough to
those companies but productive of great benefit to Los Angeles.
Round-trip tickets from points as far east as the Missouri River were
hammered down to fifteen dollars, and for a few days, Charley White
(who then conducted the Southern Pacific office in the Baker Block,
and had full authority to make new fares) defied the rival road by
establishing a tourist rate of just one dollar! When normality again
prevailed, the fare was advanced to fifty dollars for first-class
passage and forty dollars for second-class. The low rate during the
fight encouraged thousands of Easterners to visit the Coast, and in
the end many sacrificed their return coupons and settled here; while
others returned to their Eastern homes only to prepare for permanent
removal West. In a sense, therefore, this railroad war contributed to
the Boom of a year or two later.
Freight as well as passenger rates were slashed during this spasmodic
contest, and it was then that the ridiculous charge of one dollar per
ton permitted me to bring in by rail, from Chicago, several carloads
of coal, which I distributed among my children. Such an opportunity
will probably never again present itself to Los Angeles.
Another interesting shipment was that of a carload of willow-ware from
New York, the freight-bill for which amounted to eight dollars and
thirty-five cents. These goods ordinarily bear a very high tariff; but
competition had hammered everything down to a single classification
and rate. I remember, also, that M. A. Newmark & Company brought from
New York a train-load of Liverpool salt, then a staple commodity here,
paying a rate of sixty cents per ton.
Stimulated, perhaps, through the setting aside of Elysian Park by the
City Council, another pleasure-ground, then known as East Los Angeles
Park, was assured to the public toward the middle of the eighties; the
municipal authorities at the same time spending about five thousand
dollars to improve the Plaza, one of the striking features of which
was a circular row of evergreens uniformly trimmed to a conical shape.
On October 14th, H. T. Payne and Edward Records published the initial
number of the Los Angeles _Tribune_, this being the first newspaper
here to appear seven days in the week. The following January, a
company was incorporated and for years the _Tribune_ was well
maintained.
Charles Frederick Holder, the distinguished naturalist, came to
California in search of health,[39] in 1886, and settled in Pasadena,
where he was appointed Professor of Zoölogy in the Throop Institute.
An enthusiastic admirer of the Southland and an early explorer of its
islands and mountain ranges, Professor Holder has devoted much
attention to Pasadena and the neighboring coast. As early as 1891, he
published _Antiquities of Catalina_; later he wrote his spirited
Southern California book on _Life and Sport in the Open_; and with
his gift for popularizing, probably no other scientific writer has
contributed more to make known, both in America and abroad, this
attractive portion of our great State.
Prudent and Victor Beaudry bought considerable land on the west side
of New High Street, probably in 1887, including the site of one of the
old _calabozos_; and as some of the purchase was a hill, he spent
about one hundred thousand dollars grading the property, excavating
fifty thousand or more cubic feet of earth and building the great
retaining wall, finished in 1888, four hundred and sixty-five feet
long and fifty feet high, and containing two hundred thousand cubic
feet of stone. When he was ready, Beaudry began to advertise the
superior merits of his land; and I still have in my possession one of
the flaring circulars, printed in red ink, including such headlines as
these:
NOW IS THE TIME!
DON'T SHUT YOUR EYES AND TURN YOUR BACK!
and the following:
Have a Home on the Hills! Stop paying rent in the Valleys!
View from your own home the broad Pacific, the green hills
and the model city! Best water supply. Drainage perfect.
Best sunny exposures. Pure air, and away from fogs!
Have a Home on the line of the great Cable Railway system!
Mark your Catalogue before the day of sale!
February 15, 16 and 17, at 10 o'clock each Day.
Bear in mind that this property is on the HILLS, and on the
line of the Cable Railway System! No such opportunity has
ever been offered to the people of Southern California.
Public School and Young Ladies' Seminary in the immediate
vicinity.
Four years after he had built the Nadeau Block, Remi Nadeau died
here, at the age of sixty-eight, on January 15th. The same month,
another man of marked enterprise, Llewellyn J., brother of Reese and
William Llewellyn, founded the Llewellyn Iron Works, attaining a
success and fame very natural considering that the Llewellyns' father,
David, and uncle, Reese before them had acquired a reputation as
ironworkers both in Wales and San Francisco.
In January, Fred W. Beau de Zart and John G. Hunsicker established
_The Weekly Directory_, whose title was soon changed to that of _The
Commercial Bulletin_. Under the able editorship of Preston McKinney,
the _Bulletin_ is still fulfilling its mission.
Phineas, son of J. P. Newmark, my brother, came to Los Angeles in 1887
and associated himself with M. A. Newmark & Company. In July, 1894, he
bought out the Southern California Coffee and Spice Mills, and in the
following September, his younger brother, Samuel M. Newmark, also came
to Los Angeles and joined him under the title of Newmark Brothers. On
December 26th, 1910, the city suffered a sad loss in the untimely
death of the elder brother. Sam's virility has been amply shown in his
career as a business man and in his activity as a member of the
Municipal League directorate.
Among the hotels of the late eighties were the Belmont and the
Bellevue Terrace, both frame buildings. The former, at the terminus of
the Second Street Cable Railway, was known for its elevation, view,
fresh air and agreeable environment of lawn and flower-bed, and the
first floor was surrounded with broad verandas. For a while it was
conducted by Clark & Patrick, who claimed for it "no noise, dirt or
mosquitoes." The latter hotel, on Pearl Street near Sixth, was four
stories in height and had piazzas extending around three of them; both
of these inns were quite characteristic of Southern California
architecture. The Bellevue Terrace, so full of life during the buoyant
Boom days, still stands, but alas! the familiar old pile has
surrendered to more modern competitors.
The Tivoli Opera House, on Main Street between Second and Third, was
opened by McLain & Lehman in 1887, and for a time it was one of the
attractions of the city. It presented a curious mixture of Egyptian,
East Indian and Romanesque styles, and was designed by C. E. Apponyi,
an architect who had come to the Coast in 1870. The stage was the
largest, except one--that of the San Francisco Grand Opera House--on
the Coast, and there were eight proscenium boxes. The theater proper
stood in the rear of the lot, and entrance thereto was had through the
building fronting on the street; and between the two structures there
was a pretty garden, with grottos and fountains, and a promenade
gallery above.
In February, the Postmaster packed the furniture and other
outfit--only two or three good loads--and moved the Post Office to the
Hellman Building, at the corner of North Main and Republic streets;
but it was soon transferred to an office on Fort Street, south of
Sixth, a location so far from the center of the city as to give point
to cards distributed by some wag and advertising rates for sleeping
accommodations to the new office. In that year, the sum-total of the
receipts of the Los Angeles Post Office was not much over seventy-four
thousand dollars. During the twelve months of the Boom, mail for over
two hundred thousand transients was handled; and a familiar sight of
the times was the long column of inquirers, reminding one of the
famous lines in early San Francisco when prospectors for gold paid
neat sums for someone else's place nearer the general delivery window.
I have told of some incidents in the routine of court proceedings
here, in which both judge and counselor played their parts. Now and
then the juror also contributed to the diversion, as was evidenced in
the late eighties when a couple of jurymen in a San Gabriel Cañon
water case created both excitement and merriment through a practical
joke. Tiring of a midnight session, and bethinking himself of the new
invention to facilitate speaking at a distance, one of the jurors
telephoned police headquarters that rioters were slashing each other
at a near-by corner; whereupon the guardians of the peace came tearing
that way, to the merriment of the "twelve good men and true" peeking
out from an upper window. The police having traced the telephone
message, the jury was duly haled before the judge; and the latter,
noting the reticence of the accused, imposed a fine of twenty-five
dollars upon each member of the box for his prank.
William H. Workman, who had repeatedly served the City as Councilman,
was elected Mayor of Los Angeles in 1887. During Workman's
administration, Main, Spring and Fort streets were paved.
About 1887, Benjamin S. Eaton, as President, took the lead in
organizing a society designed to bring into closer relationship those
who had come to California before her admission to the Union. There
were few members; and inasmuch as the conditions imposed for
eligibility precluded the possibility of securing many more, this
first union of pioneers soon ceased to exist.
Professor T. S. C. Lowe, with a splendid reputation for scientific
research, especially in the field of aëronautics--having acquired his
first experience with balloons, as did also Graf Ferdinand Zeppelin,
by participating in the Union army maneuvers during our Civil
War--took up, in the late eighties, the business of manufacturing gas
from water, which he said could be accomplished beyond any doubt for
eight cents a thousand feet. C. F. Smurr, the capable Los Angeles
agent of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, as well as Hugh
Livingston Macniel, son-in-law of Jonathan S. Slauson and then Cashier
of the Main Street Savings Bank, became interested with Lowe and
induced Kaspare Cohn and me to participate in the experiment.
Accordingly, we purchased six acres of land on the southeast corner of
Alameda and Seventh streets for fifteen thousand dollars, and there
started the enterprise. We laid pipes through many of the streets and,
in the course of a few months, began to manufacture gas which it was
our intention to sell to consumers at one dollar per thousand feet.
The price at which gas was then being sold by the Los Angeles Gas
Company was one dollar and fifty cents per thousand, and we therefore
considered our schedule reasonable. Everything at the outset looked so
plausible that Smurr stated to his associates that he would resign his
position with the railroad and assume the management of the new gas
works; but to our chagrin, we found that gas was costing us more than
one dollar per thousand, and as one discouragement followed another,
Smurr concluded not to take so radical a step. Yet we remained in
business in the hope that the Los Angeles Gas Company would rather buy
us out than reduce their price fifty cents a thousand feet, and sure
enough, it was not so very long before they did. The large gas tank
now standing at the corner of Seventh and Alameda streets is the
result of this transaction.
Late in the spring, Senator Stanford and a party of Southern Pacific
officials visited Los Angeles with the view of locating a site for the
new and "magnificent railroad station" long promised the city, and at
the same time to win some of the popular favor then being accorded the
Santa Fé. For many years, objection had been made to the tracks on
Alameda Street, originally laid down by Banning; and hoping to secure
their removal, Mayor Workman offered a right of way along the
river-front. This suggestion was not accepted. At length the owners of
the Wolfskill tract donated to the railroad company a strip of land,
three hundred by nineteen hundred feet in size, fronting on Alameda
between Fourth and Sixth streets, with the provision that the company
should use the same only for railroad station purposes; and Stanford
agreed to put up a "splendid arcade," somewhat similar in design to,
but more extensive and elaborate than, the Arcade Depot at Sacramento.
Soon after this, the rest of that celebrated orchard tract, for over
fifty years in the possession of the Wolfskill family, was subdivided,
offered at private sale and quickly disposed of.
The old-fashioned, one-horse street car had been running on and off
the tracks many a year before the City Railroad, organized, in the
middle eighties, by I. W. Hellman and his associates, W. J. Brodrick,
John O. Wheeler and others, made its more pretentious appearance on
the streets of Los Angeles. This, the first line to use double tracks
and more modern cars with drivers and conductors, followed a route
then considered very long. Starting as it did at Washington Street and
leading north on Figueroa, it turned at Twelfth Street into Olive and
thence, zigzagging by way of Fifth, Spring, First, Main, Marchessault,
New High, Bellevue Avenue, Buena Vista, College, Upper Main and San
Fernando streets, it passed River Station (the Southern Pacific depot
on San Fernando Street), and ran out Downey Avenue as far as the
Pasadena Railroad depot.
The year 1885 saw the addition of another Spanish name to the local
map in the founding of Alhambra, now one of the attractive and
prosperous suburbs of Los Angeles.
Sometime in the spring of 1885, or perhaps a little earlier, the
Second Street Cable Railway was commenced when Isaac W. Lord turned a
spadeful of earth at the corner of Second and Spring streets; and
within a few months cars were running from Bryson Block west on Second
Street over Bunker Hill along Lakeshore Avenue and then by way of
First Street to Belmont Avenue, soon bringing about many improvements
on the route. And if I am not mistaken, considerable patronage came
from the young ladies attending a boarding school known as Belmont
Hall. Henry Clay Witmer was a moving spirit in this enterprise. In
course of time the cable railway connected with the steam dummy line,
landing passengers in a watermelon patch--the future Hollywood.
Unlike Sierra Madre, so long retarded for want of railway facilities,
Monrovia--founded in May, 1886, by William N. Monroe, at an altitude
of twelve hundred feet, and favored by both the Santa Fé and the
Southern Pacific systems--rapidly developed, although it did not
attain its present importance as a foothill town until it had passed
through the usual depression of the late eighties, due to the collapse
of the Boom, of which I am about to speak.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] On June 21st, 1914, Mr. Ralphs lost his life in a deplorable
accident in the San Bernardino Mountains, being crushed by a huge
bowlder; although his wife escaped by springing from the rolling rock.
[39] Died on October 10th, 1915.