THE GREAT BOOM
1887
Not as impulsively perhaps as on previous occasions, I left Los
Angeles for Europe on April 30th, 1887, accompanied by my wife and our
two children, Marco and Rose. Mrs. Eugene Meyer, my wife's youngest
sister, and her daughter joined us at San Francisco and traveled with
us as far as Paris. We took passage on the French ship _Normandie_,
departing from the Morton Street Pier in New York on May 14th, and
nine days later we landed at Havre, from which port we proceeded to
the French capital.
On this trip we visited France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium,
Holland, Denmark, Germany, Austria--including Bohemia--and Italy. We
also touched at points in Sweden, although we did not "do" that
country thoroughly until a later voyage. While in Germany, where I met
my nephew Leo--son of J. P. Newmark--then a student in Strassburg, I
was impressed with the splendid hotels and State highways, and the
advantage taken of natural resources; and from Ems on July 22d, I
wrote a letter on the subject to Kaspare Cohn, which I later found had
been published by one of the Los Angeles dailies. During this journey
we traveled with M. J. Newmark and his family. It was also on this
tour, on June 10th, that I returned to my native town of Loebau, both
to visit the graves of my parents and once more to see some relatives
and a few old friends.
In Paris we had an exciting experience as observers of a
conflagration that might have terminated seriously for us. We had
been thinking of going to the Opéra Comique in the evening, but
instead had accepted an invitation to dinner at the residence of
Alexander Weil, the well-known international banker, formerly of San
Francisco; and only on our return to the Hôtel du Helder, a
comfortable family hostelry in the Rue du Helder (within a couple of
blocks of the theater), did we learn of a disastrous fire in the opera
house which caused the loss of many lives. For blocks around, streets
and sidewalks were roped in and great was the confusion everywhere.
The following day a number of solicitous inquiries arrived from
friends in America.
In connection with our departure for this tour of Europe, I am
reminded of a unique gift to my wife of a diary in eight volumes,
tastefully bound in Russian leather--the whole neatly encased for
traveling. With almost painful regularity my wife entered there her
impressions and recollections of all she saw, refusing to retire at
night, as a rule, until she had posted up her book for the day.
Glancing over these pages written in her distinct, characteristically
feminine hand, I note once more the intellectual vigor and perspicuity
displayed by my companion in this, her first contact with European
life and customs.
It was during my absence, on May 2d, that Erskine Mayo Ross was
appointed, by President Cleveland, Judge of the new United States
District Court just established. He was then in partnership with
Stephen M. White. A native of Belpré, Virginia, he had come to Los
Angeles in 1868 to study law with his uncle, Cameron E. Thom. Soon
admitted to the Bar, he was elected in 1879, at the age of
thirty-four, to the Supreme Bench of the State. The Judge, with whom I
have been on friendly terms since his arrival, is still living in Los
Angeles, a familiar and welcome figure in club circles.
Speaking of this esteemed Judge, I am reminded of a visit here, in
1887, of Justice Stephen J. Field, when he sat with Judge Ross in the
United States Circuit Court, the sessions of which were then held over
the Farmers & Merchants National Bank at the corner of Main and
Commercial streets. On that occasion the members of the Bar,
irrespective of party, united to do him honor; and Justice Field, in
turn, paid a warm tribute to Los Angeles and her hospitality.
D. W. Hanna, a Michigan pedagogue who had come to Los Angeles in 1884
to open Ellis College on Fort Street near Temple--burned in
1888--established on September 2d, 1885, the Los Angeles College, a
boarding school for girls, in a couple of buildings at the corner of
Fifth and Olive streets. In 1887 Hanna, having formed a stock company,
erected a new school structure at the southwest corner of Eighth and
Hope streets, where eighteen teachers soon instructed some two hundred
and fifty students. But the institution failed, and the building,
still standing, was finally bought by Abbot Kinney and named the
Abbotsford Inn.
In a note regarding the life and accomplishments of Mme. Severance, I
have referred to the distinguished _rôle_ played by this Angeleña in
the early advocacy of the kindergarten for America. It took three
years, however, for the educational authorities here to awake to the
significance of the departure, for it was not until 1887 that
Froebel's plan was admitted for experiment into the Los Angeles
schools.
A group of Presbyterian clergymen from Los Angeles and vicinity in
1887 joined in establishing Occidental College--now, as developed
under John Willis Baer, one of the promising institutions of the
Southwest--locating its site east of the city between First and Second
streets, both lots and acreage having been donated with the usual
Southern California liberality. There, the following year, the main
college building was erected; but in 1896 that structure and most of
its contents were destroyed by fire.
[Illustration: Spring Street, Looking North from First, about 1885]
[Illustration: Cable Car, Running North on Broadway (Previously Fort
Street), near Second]
[Illustration: Early Electric Car, with Conductor James Gallagher
(still in Service)]
Early in June, as ex-Mayor E. F. Spence was about to leave for Europe,
some enthusiasm was created in educational circles by the announcement
that he would deed certain property, including the lot at the corner
of Pearl and Sixth streets (on which the Gates Hotel now stands), to
the University of Southern California for the establishing of a
telescope on Mount Wilson. The matter had been communicated to
President M. M. Bovard, who ordered a glass from the celebrated
Cambridge grinders, Alvan Clark & Sons. When President Bovard died,
Spence was too ill to arrange the details necessary to the further
carrying out of his plans; the property that he had promised to give
remained part of his estate; and the great glass, when ground, had to
be resold, the University of Chicago becoming the lucky purchaser. As
all the scientific world knows, the Carnegie Foundation at Washington
some years later established, to the extension of California's fame,
the celebrated Wilson telescopes on the mountain Spence once had in
view.
Early in June, also, Smith & McPhee issued a directory of Los Angeles.
But two weeks afterward, George W. Maxwell published another book of
addresses with more than _five thousand_ additional names! The second
directory listed over eighteen thousand adults, from which fact it was
estimated that Los Angeles then had a population of quite sixty
thousand.
In 1887, Mrs. Charlotte LeMoyne Wills, wife of the attorney, John A.
Wills, and daughter of Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne (who in 1876 erected
at Washington, Pennsylvania, the first modern crematory in the world,
notwithstanding that he was denied permission by the cemetery
authorities there and was compelled to construct the furnace on his
property outside of the town), inspired the establishing here of what
is said to have been the second crematory in the United States and
certainly the first built west of the Rocky Mountains. It was opened
at Rosedale Cemetery by the Los Angeles Crematory Society, which
brought to the Coast an incinerating expert. Dr. W. LeMoyne Wills, a
son, was one of the leading spirits in the enterprise and among the
first directors of the local organization. The first cremation
occurred in June; and the first body so disposed of was that of the
wife of Dr. O. B. Bird, a homeopathic physician. The experiment
stirred up a storm of adverse, as well as of favorable criticism.
The brothers Beaudry were interested, doubtless through their
undeveloped hill-property, in organizing the Temple Street Cable
Railway, running from the foot of Temple Street at Spring out Temple
as far west as Union Avenue, with cars operated every ten minutes. The
Company had an office at No. 10 Court Street, and the Directors were:
Prudent Beaudry, Victor Beaudry, Walter S. Maxwell, E. T. Wright, the
surveyor, Octavius Morgan, Ralph Rogers, Thomas Stovell, John Milner
and E. A. Hall.
About July, the trustees of James Lick sold Santa Catalina Island to
George R. Shatto (who founded Avalon[40]--at first giving it his
name--and after whom Shatto Street is called), the price fixed upon
being one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Shatto making a partial
payment; whereupon the latter agreed to resell the island to an
English syndicate. Failure to find there the store of minerals they
expected, however, led the English bankers to refuse the property; and
in 1892, after a friendly suit had reëstablished the title of the Lick
trustees, they disposed of that part of the estate (for about the same
price offered Shatto), to William, J. B. and Hancock Banning--sons of
my old friend, Phineas Banning--the three forming the Santa Catalina
Island Company. Several years later, George S. Patton was admitted as
a partner. Little by little Catalina became a favorite resort,
although it was years before there was patronage enough to warrant a
daily steamer service. In the summer of 1887, for example, at the
height of the Boom, William Banning, manager of the Wilmington
Transportation Company, ran the steamer _Falcon_ (whose Captain was J.
W. Simmie) only once every seven or eight days. Then the vessel used
to leave San Pedro wharf at one o'clock in the afternoon and return
the next day in time to connect with the three o'clock train for Los
Angeles. The fare for the round trip was four dollars.
The year 1887 witnessed the completion of the Arcadia Hotel at Santa
Monica, named after Doña Arcadia, wife of Colonel R. S. Baker. It was
built on a bluff, was four stories high and had a great veranda with
side wings; and with its center tower and cupola was more imposing
than any hotel there to-day. Under the proprietorship of J. W. Scott,
the Arcadia became one of the first fine suburban hotels in Southern
California.
As late as 1887 there was no passenger service between the city and
Santa Monica from six to seven o'clock in the evening, though I cannot
say just how many trains ran during the day. I am sure, however, that
there were not many. Merchants spending their summers at the beach
were more inconvenienced through this lack of evening service than at
any other time; and after repeated complaints, a coach was hooked onto
a freight train. Later, the Board of Trade objected to this slow
method, and arrangements were made for another passenger train.
Speaking of Santa Monica in the late eighties, I am reminded of a
gravity railroad, somewhat on the principle of the present-day
roller-coaster, which was opened near the Arcadia Hotel and as a
novelty was a great success. The track was not more than fifteen feet
above the ground at its highest point of elevation--just sufficient to
give the momentum necessary for an undulating movement.
As the final sequence to the events of three or four preceding years,
Los Angeles, at the time when I left for Europe, had already advanced
beyond the threshold of her first really violent "boom;" and now
symptoms of feverish excitement were everywhere noticeable in Southern
California. The basis of real estate operations, heretofore sane
enough, was quickly becoming unbalanced, a movement that was growing
more and more intensified, as well as general; and as in the case of a
mighty stream which accumulates overwhelming power from many feeders,
there was a marshalling, as it were, in Los Angeles of these forces.
The charms of climate and scenery (widely advertised, as I have said,
at the Philadelphia Centennial and, later, through the continuous
efforts of the first and second Chambers of Commerce and the Board of
Trade), together with the extension of the Southern Pacific to the
East and the building of the Santa Fé Railroad, had brought here a
class of tourists who not only enjoyed the winter, but ventured to stay
through the summer season; and who, having remained, were not long in
seeking land and homesteads. The rapidly-increasing demand for lots
and houses caused hundreds of men and women to enter the local
real-estate field, most of whom were inexperienced and without much
responsibility. When, therefore, the news of their phenomenal activity
got abroad, as was sure to be the case, hordes of would-be speculators
--some with, but more without knowledge of land-manipulation, and many
none too scrupulous--rushed to the Southland to invest, wager or
swindle. Thousands upon thousands of Easterners swelled the number
already here; dealers in realty sprang up like mushrooms. It was then
that the demand for offices north of First Street, exceeding the
supply, compelled many an agent unwillingly to take accommodations
farther south and brought about much building, even to--Second Street!
It also happened that a dozen or more competitors occupied a single
store-room. Selling and bartering were carried on at all hours of the
day or night, and in every conceivable place; agents, eager to keep
every appointment possible, enlisted the services of hackmen, hotel
employees and waiters to put them in touch with prospective buyers;
and the same properties would often change hands several times in a
day, sales being made on the curbstone, at bars or restaurant tables,
each succeeding transfer representing an enhanced value. Although I
was abroad during the height of this period, psychologically so
interesting, newspapers, letters and photographs from home--supplemented,
on my return, by the personal narratives of friends--supplied me with
considerable information of the craze.
As I have already remarked, the coming of the Santa Fé--as well as the
ensuing railroad war--was a very potent factor in this temporary
growth and advance in values; and soon after the railroad's advent, a
dozen towns had been laid out on the line between Los Angeles and San
Bernardino, the number doubling within a few months. Indeed, had the
plan of the boomers succeeded, the whole stretch between the two
cities would have been solidly built up with what in the end proved,
alas! to be but castles in the air. Wherever there was acreage, there
was room for new towns; and with their inauguration, thousands of
buyers were on hand to absorb lots that were generally sold on the
installment plan. More frequently than otherwise, payments became
delinquent and companies "went broke;" and then the property reverted
to acreage again. This sometimes led to serious complications,
especially when the contract between the landowner and the so-called
syndicate allowed the latter to issue clear title to those who paid
for their lots. In such cases, the acreage when recovered by the
original owner would be dotted here and there with small possessions;
and to reinstate his property was, as a rule, no easy task. This, of
course, refers to the failures of which there were more than enough;
on the other hand, many of the towns inaugurated during the Boom
period not only have survived and prospered, but have become some of
our most attractive and successful neighbors.
If every conceivable trick in advertising was not resorted to, it was
probably due to oversight. Bands, announcing new locations, were seen
here and there in street cars, hay and other wagons and carriages
(sometimes followed by fantastic parades a block long); and for every
new location there was promised the early construction of magnificent
hotels, theaters or other attractive buildings that seldom
materialized. When processions filled the streets, bad music filled
the air. Elephants and other animals of jungle and forest, as well as
human freaks--the remnants of a stranded circus or two--were gathered
into shows and used as magnets; while other ingenious methods were
often invoked to draw crowds and gather in the shekels. The statements
as to climate were always verified, but in most other respects poor
Martin Chuzzlewit's experience in the Mississippi town of Eden affords
a rather graphic story of what was frequently in progress here during
the never-to-be-forgotten days of the Boom. As competition waxed
keener, dishonest methods were more and more resorted to; thus
schemers worked on the public's credulity and so attracted many a
wagon-load of people to mass-meetings, called ostensibly for the
purpose of advancing some worthy cause but really arranged to make
possible an ordinary sale of real estate. An endless chain of free
lunches, sources of delight to the hobo element in particular, drew
not only these chronic idlers but made a victim of many a worthier
man. Despite all of this excitement, the village aspect in some
particulars had not yet disappeared: in vacant lots not far from the
center of town it was still not unusual to see cows contentedly
chewing their cud and chickens scratching for a living. In 1889,
however, the Council governed this feature of domestic life by
ordinance, and thenceforth there was less of the "cock's shrill
clarion."
Extraordinary situations arose out of the speculative mania, as when
over-ambitious folks, fearful perhaps lest they might be unable to
obtain corner- and other desirably-situated lots, stationed themselves
in line two or three days before the date of anticipated land-sales;
and even though quite twenty selections were frequently the limit to
one purchase, the more optimistic of our boomers would often have two
or three substitutes waiting in a line extending irregularly far down
the sidewalk and assuming at night the appearance of a bivouac. I have
heard it said that as much as a hundred dollars would be paid to each
of these messengers, and that the purchaser of such service,
apprehensive lest he might be sold out, would visit his representative
many times before the eventful day. Later, this system was improved
and official place-numbers were given, thus permitting people to
conduct their negotiations without much loss of time.
So little scientific consideration was given to actual values that
they were regulated according to calendar and clock; lots in new
subdivisions remaining unsold were advertised to advance to certain
new prices at such and such an hour, on such and such a day. After
these artificial changes, investors would gleefully rub their hands
and explain to the downcast outsider that they had "just gotten in in
time;" and the downcast outsider, of whom there were many, yielding
after repeated assaults of this kind, would himself become inoculated
with the fever and finally prove the least restrained boomer of them
all. From what I read at the time and heard after my return, I may
safely declare that during the height of the infection, two-thirds of
our population were, in a sense, more insane than sane.
Syndicates, subdivisions and tracts: these were the most popular terms
of the day and nearly everybody had a finger in one or the other pie.
There were enough subdivisions to accommodate ten million people; and
enough syndicates to handle the affairs of a nation. And talking
about syndicates: the disagreement of members themselves as to values
frequently prevented the consummation of important sales and resulted
in the loss of large profits to the objectors as well as to their
associates. In many a well-authenticated case, the property remained
on the owners' hands until it became almost worthless.
Wide-awake syndicates evolved new methods, one of which--the lottery
plan--became popular. A piece of land would be prepared for the
market; and after the opening of streets, as many chances would be
sold as there were lots in the tract. On the eventful day, the
distribution took place in the presence of the interested and eager
participants, each of whom made a selection as his number was drawn.
To increase the attractiveness of some of these offers, cottages and
even more elaborate houses were occasionally promised for subsequent
erection on a few lots. The excitement at many of these events, I was
informed, beggared description. Among others sold in this manner at
the beginning, or possibly even just before the Boom, were the
Williamson Tract, beginning at the corner of Pico and Figueroa streets
and once the home-place of the Formans, and the O. W. Childs orchard
on the east side of Main Street and running south from what is now
about Eleventh. Both of these drawings took place in Turnverein Hall,
and the chances sold at about three hundred and fifty dollars each.
Tricksters, of whom at such times there are always enough, could
exercise their mischievous proclivities; and the unwary one, who came
to be known as the tenderfoot, was as usual easily hoodwinked. Land
advertised as having "water privileges" proved to be land _under
water_ or in dry creeks; land described as possessing scenic
attractions consisted of--mountains and chasms! So situated were many
of these lots that no use whatever could be made of them; and I
presume that they are without value even now. One of the effects of
subdividing a good part of the ten thousand or more acres of
agricultural land in the city then irrigated from the _zanjas_ was
both to reduce the calls for the service of the city _Zanjero_, and to
lessen considerably the importance and emoluments of his office.
Advertisers tried to outdo themselves and each other in original and
captivating announcements; with the result that, while many displayed
wit and good humor, others were ridiculously extravagant. The Artesian
Water Company came onto the market with three hundred acres of land
near Compton and the assurance that "while the water in this section
will be stocked, the stock will not be watered." Alvan D. Brock,
another purveyor of ranches, declared:
I mean business, and do not allow any alfalfa to grow under
my feet.
A. F. Kercheval, the poet, to whom I have already referred, relieved
himself of this exuberance regarding the Kercheval Tract (on Santa Fe
Avenue, between Lemon and Alamo streets):
HE OR SHE
That Hesitates is Lost!
An axiom that holds good in real estate, as well as in
affairs of the heart.
Selah!
Another advertisement read as follows:
HALT! HALT! HALT!
Speculators and Homeseekers, Attention!
$80,000--Eighty Thousand Dollars--$80,000
Sold in a Day at the Beautiful
McGarry Tract
Bounded by Ninth and Tenth and Alameda Streets.
Come Early, before they are All Gone!
Still another was displayed:
Boom! Boom!
ARCADIA!
Boom! Boom!
And now and then, from a quarter to a full page would be taken to
advertise a new town or subdivision, with a single word--the name of
the place--such as
[Illustration: RAMIREZ!]
Vernon and Vernondale were names given to subdivisions on Central
Avenue near Jefferson Street. Advertising the former, the real-estate
poet was called into requisition with these lines:
Go, wing thy flight from star to star,
From world to luminous world as far
As the universe spreads its flaming wall,
Take all the pleasure of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,
One Winter at Vernon is worth them all!
while, in setting forth the attractions of the Lily Langtry Tract, the
promoter drew as follows from the store of English verse:
Sweet Vernon, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheers the laboring swain,
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed;
concluding the announcement with the following lines characteristic of
the times:
Catch on before the whole country rushes to Vernondale!
Every man who wishes a home in Paradise should locate in this,
the loveliest district of the whole of Southern California.
This is where the orange groves are loveliest!
This is where the grapes are most luxuriant!
This is where the vegetation is grandest!
This is where the flowers are prettiest!
With the Boom affecting not only Los Angeles but also each acre of her
immediate vicinity, Pasadena and the district lying between the two
towns took on new life. Five thousand inhabitants boasted a million
dollars in deposits and a couple of millions invested in new
buildings; while "gilt-edged Raymond," a colony surrounding the
Raymond Hotel, became a bustling center. In March, George Whitcomb
laid out Glendora, naming it (with the use of a couple of additional
letters) after his wife, Ledora; and at the first day's sale, he
auctioned off three hundred lots. In December, the old-established
town of Pomona was incorporated. Whittier, started by Quakers from
Indiana, Iowa and Illinois, and christened in honor of the New England
poet, began at this time with a boom, two hundred thousand dollars'
worth of property having been sold there in four months. This
prosperity led one newspaper to say with extreme modesty:
Whittier is the coming place! It will dwarf Monrovia and
eclipse Pasadena. Nothing can stop it! The Quakers are
coming in from all over the United States;
and another journal contained an advertisement commencing as follows:
WHITTIER! WHITTIER!! WHITTIER!!!
Queen of the Foothills and Crown of the San Gabriel Valley.
I. W. Lord established Lordsburg--or at least an elaborate hotel
there, for in those days a good hotel was half of a town; and when
Lordsburg slumped, he sold the building to a colony of Dunkers for a
college. Nadeau Park was projected as a town at the junction of the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé's Ballona road and the Southern Pacific.
Santa Ana, too, after its sale in June of over eighty thousand
dollars' worth of land, came forward in the summer with this confident
salutation:
THIS IS PURE GOLD!!!
Santa Ana,
The Metropolis of Southern California's Fairest Valley!
Chief Among Ten Thousand, or the One
Altogether Lovely!
Beautiful! Busy! Bustling! Booming! It
Can't be Beat!
The town now has the biggest kind
of a big, big boom.
A Great Big Boom! And you
Can Accumulate Ducats by Investing!
Fullerton was started in July, when ninety-two thousand dollars
changed hands within half a day; and conditions favoring the young
community, it survived. Rivera, in the Upper Los Nietos Valley, also
then came into being. The glories of Tustin (founded in 1867 by
Columbus Tustin, but evidencing little prosperity until twenty years
later) were proclaimed through such unassuming advertisements as this:
TUSTIN
THE BEAUTIFUL
Unexcelled in charm and loveliness.
An Earthly Eden Unsurpassed in
Wealth of Flower and Foliage.
However, Imagination Cannot Conceive It:
It must be seen to be realized,
supplemented by the following versification:
When the Angel of Peace to Earth first descended,
To bless with his presence the children of men,
'Mid the fairest of scenes his pathway e'er tended,
And unto his smile the glad earth smiled again.
He joyed in the fragrance of orange and roses,
And loved 'mid their glances to linger or roam,
And he said: "Here in Tustin, where Beauty reposes,
I also will linger or build me a home!"
In April, Jonathan S. Slauson and a company of Los Angeles capitalists
laid out and started the town of Azusa, on a slope eight hundred feet
high in a rich and promising country. Not so far away was Palomares,
announced through the following reassuring poster:
Grand Railroad Excursion and Genuine
AUCTION SALE!
_No Chenanekin!!_
Thursday, June 7, 1887.
Beautiful Palomares, Pomona Valley!
Lunch, Coffee, Lemonade, and Ice Water Free!
Full Band of Music.
And here it may not be without interest to note the stations then
passed in making such an excursion from Los Angeles to the new town:
Commercial Street, Garvanza, Raymond, Pasadena, Lamanda Park (named,
Henry W. O'Melveny tells me, after Amanda, wife of L. J. Rose), Santa
Anita, Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Glendora, San Dimas and Lordsburg.
Providencia _rancho_, consisting of seventeen thousand acres of
mountain and valley, was opened up in 1887 and the new town of Burbank
was laid out; J. Downey Harvey, J. G. Downey's heir, and David
Burbank, the good-natured dentist and old-timer, then living on the
site of the Burbank Theater (once the orchard of J. J. Warner), being
among the directors. About the same time, twelve thousand acres of the
Lankershim _rancho_, adjoining the Providencia, were disposed of.
Sixty-five dollars was asked for a certificate of stock, which was
exchangeable later for an acre of land. Glendale was another child of
the Boom, for the development of which much dependence was placed on
a new motor railroad. Rosecrans and its Addition were two other tracts
relying on improved facilities for communicating with Los Angeles.
Under the caption, _Veni, Vidi, Vici!_ a motor road was promised for
service within ninety days; and lots, from one hundred dollars up,
were then to be advanced five hundred per cent! Excursions,
accompanied by Colonel Bartlett's Seventh Infantry Band, to
"magnificent Monte Vista, the Gem of the Mountains! the Queen of the
Valley!" near San Fernando, fifteen miles from Los Angeles, were among
the trips arranged.
Speaking of the Boom, I recall an amusing situation such as now and
then relieved the dark gloom of the aftermath. When a well-known
suburb of Los Angeles was laid out, someone proposed that a road be
named Euclid Avenue; whereupon a prominent citizen protested
vigorously and asked _what Mr. Euclid had ever done for Southern
California_?
During 1887, and at the suggestion of George E. Gard, many neighboring
towns--a number of which have long since become mere memories--donated
each a lot, through whose sale a Los Angeles County exhibit at the
reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic was made possible; and among
these places were Alosta, Gladstone, Glendora, Azusa, Beaumont,
Arcadia, Raymond, San Gabriel, Glendale, Burbank, Lamar's Addition to
Alosta, Rosecrans, St. James, Bethune, Mondonville, Olivewood,
Oleander, Lordsburg, McCoy's[41] Addition to Broad Acres, Ivanhoe, New
Vernon, Alta Vista, Nadeau Park, Bonita Tract, San Dimas, Port
Ballona, Southside, Ontario, Walleria and Ocean Spray. When the lots
were sold at Armory Hall, some ten thousand dollars was
realized--twelve hundred and seventy-five dollars, paid by Colonel
Banbury for a piece of land at Pasadena, being the highest price
brought. Not even the celebrity given the place through the gift of a
lot to the Grand Old Man of England saved Gladstone; and St. James
soon passed into the realms of the forgotten, notwithstanding that one
hundred and fifty vehicles and five hundred people were engaged, in
June, in caring for the visitors who made their way to the proposed
town-site, five miles from Anaheim, and bought, when there, forty
thousand dollars' worth of property in a few hours.
Ben E. Ward--a good citizen whose office was in the renovated
municipal adobe--operated with Santa Monica realty during the Boom,
somewhat as did Colonel Tom Fitch in the cradle days of the bay city.
He ran private trains and sold acre and villa lots, and five-and
ten-acre farms, for ten per cent. of the price "at the fall of the
hammer;" the balance of the first quarter payable on receipt of the
agreement, and the other payments in six, twelve and eighteen months.
On one occasion in June, Ward was advertising as follows:
HO, FOR THE BEACH!
To-morrow, To-morrow!
Grand Auction Sale at
Santa Monica.
350--Acres--350
One of the Grandest Panoramic Views the Human Eye ever
rested upon, including Ballona, Lake and Harbor, with its
outgoing and in-coming vessels, the Grand Old Pacific, the
handsome new Hotel Arcadia, while in the distance may be
seen Los Angeles, the Pride of All, and the coming city of
two hundred thousand people.
Long Beach came in for its share of the Boom. In July, H. G. Wilshire
(after whom, I believe, Wilshire Boulevard was named), as general
manager of the new hotel at that place, offered lots at one hundred
and fifty dollars and upward, advertising under the caption, "Peerless
Long Beach!" and declaring that the place was "no new settlement, but
a prosperous town of two thousand people," to be "reached without
change of cars." The hotel was to be doubled in size, streets were to
be sprinkled and bathhouses--with hot and cold water--were to be
built. One of the special attractions promised was even a
billiard-room for ladies! But the hotel was afterward destroyed by
fire, and Long Beach dwindled away until, in 1890, it had scarcely a
population of five hundred.
Besides the improving of Santa Monica and the expanding of San Pedro,
several harbor projects were proposed in the days of the Boom. About
the first of June, 1887, Port Ballona--formerly Will Tell's--began to
be advertised as "The Future Harbor of Southern California" and the
ocean terminus of the California Central Railroad, which was a part of
the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé system. In August, thousands of people
assembled at the beach to celebrate the opening of La Ballona Harbor.
The enterprise had been backed by Louis Mesmer, Bernard Mills, Frank
Sabichi and others; and Mesmer, General Nelson A. Miles, ex-Governor
Stoneman, Eugène Germain and J. D. Lynch were among the speakers. A
syndicate, headed by J. R. Tuffree, which purchased the Palos Verdes
_rancho_, announced its intention of creating the harbor of Catalina
at Portuguese Bend. The syndicate was to build there a large hotel
named Borromea, while a Mr. Kerckhoff, encouraged by the prospect of a
railroad around Point Firmin, was to erect another huge hotel and lay
out a watering place.
As the Boom progressed and railroads continued to advertise Los
Angeles, the authorities began to look with consternation on the
problem of housing the crowds still booked to come from the East; and
it was soon recognized that many prospective settlers would need to
roost, for a while, as best they could in the surrounding territory.
The Hotel Splendid, an enterprise fostered by Hammel & Denker,
proprietors of the United States Hotel, was then commenced on Main
Street, between Ninth and Tenth, though it was never completed.
Numerous capitalists and business houses encouraged the proposition;
yet the site was sold, but a single generation ago, to O. T. Johnson,
a local philanthropist, for about twenty-five thousand dollars--a
conservative estimate placing its present value at not much less than
two and a half millions.
But there are other indications of the strength, or perhaps the
weakness, of the Boom. In 1887, the total assessment of the young City
and County was three million dollars, or about one-third that
recorded for the longer-developed City and County of San Francisco. In
one day in July, real estate valued at $664,000 was transferred; on
another day in the same month, $730,000 worth; and soon after, in one
day, property to the value of $930,000 changed hands. From forty
million dollars in March, 1886, the wealth of the county jumped, in
just two years, to one hundred and three millions. So many, indeed,
were the purchasers of real estate in Los Angeles at that time who
soon left the town and were seldom or never heard of again, and so
many were the sales effected by proxy, that even in August of 1887 one
of the newspapers contained over three pages of taxes listed on
property whose possessors were unknown.
During this wild excitement, few men of position or reputation who
came to town escaped interrogation as to what they thought of the
Boom. "Phil" D. Armour, head of the Armour Packing Company, was one
who arrived late in July, and whose opinion was immediately sought;
and his answer indicated the unbounded confidence inspired in the
minds of even outsiders by the unheard-of development of land values.
"Boom--will it break soon?" repeated Armour and proceeded to answer
his own query. "There is no boom to break! This is merely the
preliminary to a boom which will so outclass the present activities
that its sound will be as thunder to the cracking of a hickory nut!"
Nor was Armour the only one who was so carried away by the phenomena
of the times: San Francisco watched Los Angeles with wonder and
interest, marveling at all she heard of the magic changes south of the
Teháchepi, and asking herself if Los Angeles might not be able to
point the way to better methods of city-building?
I have thus endeavored to give a slight idea of the lack of mental
poise displayed by our good people in the year 1887, when the crop of
millionaires was so great that to be one was no distinction at all.
But alas! the inevitable collapse came and values tumbled fully as
rapidly as they had advanced, finding many (who but a short period
before had based their worth on investments figured at several times
their value) loaded with overwhelming debts and mortgages quite
impossible of liquidation. Indeed, readjustments took years and years
to accomplish; and so it happened that many an imaginary Croesus
then became the bidder, often unsuccessful, for humble employment.
Just as is always the case, too, in periods such as I have described,
the depression, when it came was correspondingly severe and sudden.
Many of our greatest boomers and speculators lost all hope; and more
than one poor suicide so paid the price of his inordinate craving for
wealth.
To be sure, some level-headed people, acting more conservatively than
the majority, in time derived large profits from the steady increase
in values. Those who bought judiciously during that period are now the
men of wealth in Los Angeles; and this is more particularly true as to
ownership in business sections of the city. Even at the height of the
Boom but little property on any of the streets south of Fifth was
worth more than two hundred dollars a foot. Following the Boom, there
was an increase of building, much of it doubtless due to contracts
already entered into.
Incidental to the opening of the Southern Pacific Railroad's route
between the North and South by way of the coast, on August 20th, a
great railway _fête_ was held at Santa Bárbara, the first through
trains from San Francisco and Los Angeles meeting at that point. A
procession, illustrating the progress in transportation methods from
the burro pack and stage coach to the modern train of cars, filed
about the streets of the old Spanish town. On the return of the Los
Angeles excursion train, however, a defective culvert near the Camulos
Ranch caused the cars, with one hundred and fifty passengers, to
plunge down an embankment--luckily with but few casualties.
L. E. Mosher, who had much literary ability and is still remembered as
the author of the poem, _The Stranded Bugle_, joined the _Times_ staff
in August and became prominently identified with the conduct of that
newspaper. Later, he left journalism and entered on a business career
in New York; but experiencing reverses, he returned to Los Angeles.
Failing here, he at length committed suicide, to the deep regret of a
large circle of friends.
Late in August, the paving of Main Street, the first thoroughfare of
Los Angeles to be so improved, was begun, much to the relief of our
townspeople who had too long borne the inconvenience of dusty and
muddy roadways, and who, after heavy rains the winter before, had in
no uncertain fashion given utterance to their disgust at the backward
conditions. This expression was the result of a carefully and
generally organized movement; for one morning it was discovered that
all of the principal streets were covered with mounds of earth
resembling little graves, into each of which had been thrust imitation
tombstones bearing such inscriptions as the following:
BEWARE OF QUICKSAND!
FARE FOR FERRYING ACROSS, 25 CENTS.
NO DUCK-HUNTING ALLOWED IN THIS POND!
BOATS LEAVE THIS LANDING EVERY HALF-HOUR.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE!
This year, the _Sued-Californische Post_, which had been established
in 1874, began to appear as a daily, with a weekly edition, the
Germans in Los Angeles in the eighties representing no mean portion of
the burgher strength.
In 1887, the Turnverein-Germania sold to L. J. Rose and J. B.
Lankershim, for removal and renovation, the frame structure on Spring
Street which for so many years had served it as a home, and erected in
its place a substantial brick building costing about forty thousand
dollars. Six or seven years afterward, the society resold that
property--to be used later as the Elks' Hall--for one hundred thousand
dollars; then it bought the lot at 319 and 321 South Main Street, and
erected there its new stone-fronted Turner Hall. On the occasion of
the corner-stone laying, on August 14th, 1887, when the
Turnverein-Germania, the Austrian Verein and the Schwabenverein joined
hands and voices, the Germans celebrated their advancement by
festivities long to be remembered, ex-Mayor Henry T. Hazard making the
chief address; but I dare say that the assembly particularly enjoyed
the reminiscences of the pioneer President, Jake Kuhrts, who took his
hearers back to the olden days of the Round House (that favorite
rendezvous which stood on the very spot where the new building was to
rise) and pointed out how Time had tenderly and appropriately joined
the associations of the Past with those of the Present. Turner Hall,
with its restaurant, brought our German citizens into daily and
friendly intercourse, and long served their rapidly-developing
community.
How true it is that a man should confine himself to that which he best
understands is shown in the case of L. J. Rose, who later went into
politics, and in 1887 was elected State Senator. Neglecting his
business for that of the public, he borrowed money and was finally
compelled to dispose of his interest in the New York house. Indeed,
financially speaking, he went from bad to worse; and the same year he
sold his magnificent estate to an English syndicate for $1,250,000,
receiving $750,000 in cash and the balance in stock. The purchasers
made a failure of the enterprise and Rose lost $500,000. He was almost
penniless when on May 17th, 1899, he died--a suicide.
Rose was an indefatigable worker for the good of the community, and
was thoroughly interested in every public movement. For years he was
one of my intimate friends; and as I write these lines, I am moved
with sentiments of sadness and deep regret. Let us hope that, in the
life beyond, he is enjoying that peace denied him here.
The Los Angeles & San Gabriel Valley Railroad, begun the previous year
by J. F. Crank and destined to be absorbed by the Santa Fé, was opened
for traffic to Pasadena on September 17th by a popular excursion in
which thousands participated.
With the increase in the number and activity of the Chinese here, came
a more frequent display of their native customs and ceremonies, the
joss house and the theater being early instituted. On October 21st, a
street parade, feast and theatrical performance with more or less
barbarous music marked a celebration that brought Mongolians from near
and far.
On October 24th, Cardinal Gibbons made his first visit to Los
Angeles--the most notable call, I believe, of so eminent a prelate
since my settling here.
One of the numerous fires of the eighties that gave great alarm was
the blaze of October 28th, which destroyed the Santa Fé Railroad depot
and with it a trainload of oil. The conflagration proved obstinate to
fight, although the good work of the department prevented its spread.
A host of people for hours watched the spectacular scene.
The Raymond Hotel, commonly spoken of as belonging to Pasadena
although standing just inside the city to the south, was completed in
November; and catering exclusively to tourists, its situation on an
eminent knoll overlooking the towns and orange-groves contributed to
make it widely famous. In April, 1895, it was swept by fire, to be
rebuilt on larger and finer lines. The hotel La Pintoresca, on Fair
Oaks Avenue, burned four or five years ago, was another Pasadena
hostelry, where I often stopped when wishing to escape the hurly-burly
of city life. Now its site and gardens have been converted into a
public park.
In November, following the efforts made by the Board of Trade to
secure one of the veterans' homes projected by Congress, the managers
of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers visited Los
Angeles. A committee, representing business men and the Grand Army,
showed the visitors around; and as a result of the coöperation of
General Nelson A. Miles, Judge Brunson (representing Senator Jones)
and others, three hundred acres of the old San Vicente _rancho_ were
donated by the Jones and Baker estates and the Santa Monica Land and
Water Company, as were also three hundred acres of the Wolfskill
Tract. Orchards were laid out, and barracks, chapel, hospital and
extra buildings for a thousand men erected. Near this worthy
institution, housing as it now does more than two thousand veterans,
has developed and prospered--thanks to the patronage of these soldiers
and their families--the little town of Sawtelle.
In November, local Democratic and Republican leaders, wishing to
draft a new charter for Los Angeles, agreed on a non-partisan Board
consisting of William H. Workman, Cameron E. Thom, I. R. Dunkelberger,
Dr. Joseph Kurtz, Walter S. Moore, Jeremiah Baldwin, General John
Mansfield, P. M. Scott, J. H. Book, José G. Estudillo, Charles E. Day,
Thomas B. Brown, W. W. Robinson, A. F. Mackey and George H. Bonebrake;
and the following 31st of May the Board was duly elected. Workman was
chosen Chairman and Moore, Secretary; and on October 20th the result
of their deliberations was adopted by the City. In January, 1889, the
Legislature confirmed the action of the Common Council. The new
charter increased the number of wards from five to nine, and provided
for the election of a councilman from each ward.
As the result of an agitation in favor of Los Angeles, the Southwest
headquarters of the United States Army were transferred from Whipple
Barracks, Arizona, about the beginning of 1887, the event being
celebrated by a dinner to Brigadier-General Nelson A. Miles, at the
Nadeau Hotel. Within less than a year, however, General Miles was
transferred to San Francisco, General B. H. Grierson succeeding him at
this post.
FOOTNOTES:
[40] Largely destroyed by fire, November 29th, 1915.
[41] Bearing the name of Frank McCoy, who died on March 4th, 1915.