THE SOUTHWEST ARCHÆOLOGICAL SOCIETY
1898-1905
A cloud, considerably larger than a man's hand, flecked the skies at
the dawn of 1898 and troubled many who had been following the course
of events in Cuba. So, too, like the thrill sent through the nation at
the firing on Fort Sumter, the startling intelligence of the
destruction of the United States battleship _Maine_ electrified and
united the people. Along the Coast, intense excitement scarcely
permitted Westerners to keep themselves within bounds; and instant was
the display of patriotic fervor, Southern Californians willingly
shouldering their share of the unavoidable war burdens.
On January 22d, John G. Nichols, several times Mayor of Los Angeles
and always a welcome figure on the streets, died here at the age of
eighty-five years.
[Illustration: Isaias W. Hellman]
[Illustration: Herman W. Hellman]
[Illustration: Cameron E. Thom]
[Illustration: Ygnácio Sepúlveda]
[Illustration: Main Street, Looking North, Showing First Federal
Building, Middle Nineties]
[Illustration: First Santa Fé Locomotive to Enter Los Angeles]
Colonel Harrison Gray Otis, soldier, Union officer, Government
official in Alaska and President of the Los Angeles _Times_ publishing
company, was appointed by President McKinley, on May 27th, a
Brigadier-General of the United States Volunteers, following which he
was assigned to a command in the Philippines, where he saw active
service until honorably discharged in 1899, after the fall of Malolos,
the insurgent capital. During General Otis's absence, his influential
son-in-law, the large-hearted, big man of affairs, Harry Chandler,
Vice-President of the corporation, was general manager of the _Times_;
while L. E. Mosher was managing editor. In 1897, Harry E. Andrews
joined the _Times_ staff, in 1906 becoming managing editor and
infusing into the paper much of its characteristic vigor. In 1899,
Hugh McDowell, who had entered the employ of the _Times_ four years
before, began his long editorship of the _Times'_ magazine, a
wide-awake feature which has become more and more popular. During many
years, Mrs. Eliza A. Otis, the General's gifted wife, now deceased,
also contributed to both the _Times_ and the _Mirror_. From the
beginning, the paper has been Republican and in every respect has
consistently maintained its original policies. Especially in the fight
for San Pedro harbor, it was an important element and did much to
bring the energetic campaign to a successful termination.
Paul De Longpré, the French artist who made his mark, when but eleven
years old, in the Salon of 1876, was a distinguished member of a
little group of Frenchmen arriving in the late nineties. In 1901, he
bought a home at Hollywood and there surrounded himself with three
acres of choicest gardens--one of the sights of suburban Los
Angeles--which became an inspiration to him in his work as a painter
of flowers. De Longpré died in Hollywood, on June 29th, 1911.
On August 23d, my excellent friend, Dr. John Strother Griffin, for
nearly fifty years one of the most efficient and honored residents of
Los Angeles, died here.
A career such as should inspire American youth is that of Henry T.
Gage (long in partnership with the well-known bibliophile, W. I.
Foley,) a native of New York who in 1877, at the age of twenty-four,
began the practice of law in Los Angeles, to be elected, twenty-one
years later, Governor of California. A handsome man, of splendid
physique--acquired, perhaps, when he started as a sheep-dealer--he is
also genial in temperament, and powerful and persuasive in oratory;
qualifications which led to his selection, I dare say, to second the
nomination at Chicago, in 1888, of Levi P. Morton for the
Vice-Presidency. Ex-Governor Gage's wife was Miss Fannie V., daughter
of John Rains and granddaughter of Colonel Isaac Williams.
April 27, 1899 was printed large and red upon the calendar for both
Los Angeles and San Pedro, when the engineers, desiring to commence
work on the harbor in true spectacular fashion, brought a load of
quarried rock from Catalina to dump on the breakwater site. President
McKinley sent an electric spark from the White House, intended to
throw the first load of ballast splashing into the bay; but the barge
only half tilted, interfering with the dramatic effect desired.
Nevertheless, the festivities concluded with the usual procession and
fireworks.
Movements of great importance making for a municipal water-system
occurred in 1899, the thirty years' contract with the assigns of John
S. Griffin, P. Beaudry, S. Lazard and others having expired on July
22d, 1898. An arbitration committee, consisting of Charles T. Healey
for the Company and James C. Kays--long a citizen of importance and
Sheriff from 1887 to 1888--for the City, failed to agree as to the
valuation of the Los Angeles City Water Company's plant, whereupon
Colonel George H. Mendell was added to the board; and on May 12th,
1899, Kays and Mendell fixed their estimate at $1,183,591, while
Healey held out for a larger sum. In August, the citizens, by a vote
of seven to one, endorsed the issuing of two million dollars of City
bonds, to pay the Water Company and to build additional equipment; and
the water-works having been transferred to the municipality, five
commissioners were appointed to manage the system.
During August, 1899, the Reverend Dr. Sigmund Hecht of Milwaukee took
into his keeping the spiritual welfare of Los Angeles Reformed Jewry;
and it is certainly a source of very great satisfaction to me that
during his tenure of office his good fellowship has led him, on more
than one occasion, to tender the altar of the Jewish temple for
Christian worship. Scholarly in pursuits and eloquent of address, Dr.
Hecht for sixteen years has well presided over the destinies of his
flock, his congregation keeping pace with the growth of the city.
Incursions of other jobbing centers into Los Angeles territory induced
our leading manufacturers and wholesalers to combine for offensive as
well as defensive purposes; and on October 11th, 1899, in answer to a
call, an enthusiastic meeting was held in Room 86, Temple Block,
attended by J. Baruch, J. O. Koepfli, J. Saeger, R. L. Craig, L.
Kimble, L. C. Scheller, George H. Wigmore, F. W. Braun, C. C.
Reynolds, I. A. Lothian, W. S. Hunt, A. H. Busch, M. H. Newmark and
others, who elected Baruch, President; Koepfli, First Vice-President;
Reynolds, Second Vice-President; Scheller, Treasurer; and Braun,
Secretary. A couple of weeks later, A. M. Rawson was named Secretary,
Braun having resigned to accept the Third Vice-Presidency; and on
November 3d, the Associated Jobbers of Southern California, as the
organization was called, was re-christened the Associated Jobbers of
Los Angeles. Meanwhile at a quiet luncheon, Koepfli and Newmark had
entered into negotiations with Charles D. Willard, with the result
that, when Rawson withdrew on February 28th, 1900, Willard assumed the
duties of Secretary, holding the office for years, until compelled by
sickness, on January 18th, 1911, to relinquish the work. On February
21st, 1900, Baruch having resigned, M. H. Newmark began a service of
twelve years as President. The strength of the organization was
materially increased when, in March, 1908, F. P. Gregson, well up in
the traffic councils of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad,
assumed the management of the recently-established traffic bureau.
On April 10th, 1908, after many years of hardship, financial trouble
and disappointment, during which the Executive Committee and Secretary
Willard had frequent conferences with J. C. Stubbs and William Sproule
(then Stubbs's assistant) of the Southern Pacific, and W. A. Bissell,
of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad, it became evident that
more equitable rates for shippers into the San Joaquín Valley and
elsewhere could not peaceably be obtained. A promised readjustment,
lowering Los Angeles rates about twenty per cent., had been published;
but at the request of the San Francisco merchants, the new
tariff-sheet was repudiated by the transportation companies. A
rehearing was also denied by them. The Associated Jobbers then carried
the case before the newly-created Railroad Commission and obtained
concessions amounting to fifty per cent. of the original demands.
Guided by their astute Traffic Manager, F. P. Gregson, the jobbers,
not satisfied with the first settlement, in 1910 renewed their
activity before the Commission; and on the 15th of the following
February, still further reductions were announced. The last rates
authorized in 1912 are still in effect.
In 1899, James M. Guinn, after some years of miscellaneous work in the
field of local annals, issued his _History of Los Angeles County_,
following the same in 1907 with a _History of California and the
Southern Coast Counties_. As I write, he has in preparation a still
more compendious work to be entitled, _Los Angeles and Environs_.
At half-past four o'clock on the morning of December 25th, a slight
shock of earthquake was felt in Los Angeles; but it was not until some
hours later that the telegraph reported the much greater damage
wrought at San Jacinto, Riverside County. There, walls fell in heaps;
and a peculiar freak was the complete revolution of a chimney without
the disturbance of a single brick! Six squaws, by the falling of their
adobes at the Reservation some miles away, were instantly killed. When
day dawned and the badly-frightened people began to inspect the
neighborhood, they found great mountain-crevices, into some of which
even large trees had fallen.
Toward the end of the nineties, Henry E. Huntington sold much or all
of his large holdings in the San Francisco railways and began both to
buy up Los Angeles railway stocks and to give his personal attention
to the city's traffic-problems. At the same time, he bent his energies
to the crowning work of his life--the development of the various
interurban electric systems focusing in Los Angeles. In 1902, the road
to Long Beach was completed; and in the following year electric cars
began to run to Monrovia and Whittier. In 1903, the seven-story
Huntington or Pacific Electric Building at the corner of Main and
Sixth streets was finished. The effect of these extensive improvements
on local commerce and on the value of real estate (as well as their
influence on the growth of population through the coming of tourists
seeking the conveniences and pleasures of social life) cannot,
perhaps, be fully estimated--a fact which the people of this city
should always remember with gratitude.
During the winter of 1899-1900, business cares so weighed upon me that
I decided temporarily to cast off all worry and indulge myself with
another visit to the Old World. This decision was reached rather
suddenly and, as my friends insist, in a perfectly characteristic
manner: one morning I hastened to the steamship office and bought the
necessary tickets; and then I went home leisurely and suggested to my
wife that she prepare for a trip to Europe!
About the first of January, therefore, we left Los Angeles, reached
Naples on February 1st and traveled for nine months through Great
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden and
Denmark. I returned to my birthplace, Loebau, which in my youth had
appeared of such importance; but although somewhat larger than it used
to be, it now nevertheless seemed small and insignificant.
While making this tour of Europe, I revisited Sweden and renewed my
acquaintance with the families that had been so kind to me as a boy.
Time had lamentably thinned the ranks of the older generation, but
many of the younger, especially those of my own age, were still there.
Those only who have had a similar experience will appreciate my
pleasure in once again greeting these steadfast friends. I also
reviewed numerous scenes formerly so familiar. It is impossible to
describe my emotions on thus again seeing this beautiful country, or
to convey to the reader the depth of my respect and affection for her
intelligent, thrifty and whole-souled people, especially when I
remembered their liberal encouragement of my father about forty years
before.
Thanks to the indefatigable labors of Mrs. A. S. C. Forbes of Los
Angeles, the beautiful ceremony of strewing flowers upon the restless
ocean waters in honor of the naval dead was first observed at Santa
Monica on Memorial Day in 1900, and bids fair to become an appropriate
national custom.
Señora António F. Coronel entrusted to the Chamber of Commerce, on
June 6th, the invaluable historical souvenirs known as the Coronel
Collection; and now[43] for years these exhibits, housed in the
Chamber of Commerce Building, have been one of the sights of the city,
a pleasure and a stimulation alike to tourist and resident.
A good anecdote as to the transfer of this collection is related on
the authority of Miss Anna B. Picher, President of the Boundary League
and the lady who made the first move to secure the interesting League
mementos now preserved and displayed at the County Museum. When the
matter of making the Coronel heirlooms more accessible to the public
was brought to Señora Coronel's attention, she not only showed a
lively interest, but at once agreed to make the donation. She imposed,
however, the condition that Miss Picher should bring to her M. J.
Newmark and John F. Francis, then directors, in whose integrity and
acumen she had great confidence. This was done; and these gentlemen
having pledged their personal attention and sponsorship, the Señora
committed the historic objects to the Chamber of Commerce for the
benefit, forever, of all the people.
The Los Angeles _Herald_, on July 7th, passed into the hands of a
group of stockholders especially interested in petroleum, Wallace R.
Hardison being President and General Manager, and R. H. Hay Chapman,
Managing Editor. At the same time the newspaper's policy became
Republican.
The Harvard School was opened, on September 25th by Grenville C. Emery
and was the first notable military academy for youth in Los Angeles.
After many terms of successful work under Congregational auspices, the
School has passed to the control of the Rt. Reverend J. H. Johnson, as
trustee for the Episcopal Church, which has acquired other valuable
school properties in the Southland; Professor Emery remitting fifty
thousand dollars of the purchase price in consideration of a promise
to perpetuate his name.
A tunnel was put through Bunker Hill--by the way, one of the highest
of downtown elevations--from Hill Street to Hope on Third, in 1901,
bringing the western hill district into closer touch with the business
center of the town and greatly enhancing the value of neighboring
property. The delay in cutting through First and Second streets, which
would afford so much relief to the municipality, is a reproach against
the good sense of the City.
The Los Angeles _Express_, which enjoys the honor of being the oldest
daily newspaper still published in Los Angeles, and which, for fifteen
years, has been so well managed by H. W. Brundige, was sold in January
to Edwin T. Earl, who moved the plant to a building erected for it on
Fifth Street between Broadway and Hill. Earl came to Los Angeles in
1885, having previously for years packed and shipped fruit on a large
scale. In 1890, as a result of the obstacles handicapping the sending
of fresh fruit to the East, Earl invented a new refrigerator car with
ventilating devices; and unable to get the railroads to take over its
construction, he organized a company for the building of the
conveyors. On selling out to the Armours, Earl made large investments
in Los Angeles real estate. A few years ago, the _Express_ was moved
to Hill Street near Seventh. Possibly owing to the renewed interest in
local historical study, the _Express_, in 1905, commenced the
republication of news items of "Twenty-five Years Ago To-day"--a
feature of peculiar pleasure to the pioneer.
William F. Grosser, who died on April 15th, was long active in Los
Angeles Turnverein circles, having popularized science before
institutions and lecture-courses existed here for that purpose. A
native of Potsdam, Prussia, Grosser came to Southern California _via_
Panamá, and on settling in Los Angeles, laid out the Grosser Tract.
Having been an advanced student of astronomical science and
microscopy, and possessing a good-sized portable telescope, he was
soon in demand by societies and schools, for which he lectured without
financial remuneration. One of Grosser's sisters, Mrs. A.
Jelinek--whose husband, a Boston cabinet-maker, had an interesting
part in the carving of the chair made from "the spreading chestnut
tree" and presented to the poet Longfellow by the school children of
Cambridge--has been for years an honored resident of Ocean Park, where
she was one of the early investors. A granddaughter is Fräulein Elsa
Grosser, the violinist.
On April 24th, Samuel Calvert Foy died, aged seventy-one, survived by
his wife and six children.
A little town in Ventura County, bearing the name of the famous
student and author, recalls the death near here in July of Charles
Nordhoff, whose pioneer book, _California: For Health, Pleasure and
Residence_, published in the early seventies, did more, I dare say,
than any similar work to spread the fame of the Southland throughout
the East.
Charles Brode, who died in August, first saw Los Angeles in 1868, when
he came here to nurse Edward J., my wife's brother, in his last
illness. He then opened a grocery store at South Spring Street near
Second, and was active in Turnverein and Odd Fellow circles. The
mention of Brode recalls the name of one who has attained distinction
here: even as a messenger boy at the California Club in the eighties,
Oscar Lawler gave promise of an important future. He had come from
Iowa as a child, and his personality, ability and ambition soon
brought him prominently before the Bar and the people. He served as
United States Attorney for this district from 1906 until 1909, when he
became Assistant to the Attorney-General of the United States. He is
high in Masonic circles, being Past Grand Master of the Masonic Grand
Lodge of California. In 1901, he married Miss Hilda, daughter of
Charles Brode.
Catalina Island, in the summer of 1902, established wireless
connection with the mainland, at White's Point; and on August 2d, the
first messages were exchanged. On March 25th of the following year
began the publication of the Catalina newspaper known as the
_Wireless_.
After graduating from the University of California in 1902, my son
Marco attended for a while the University of Berlin; after which he
returned to Los Angeles and entered the house of M. A. Newmark &
Company.
The women of California, in the late eighties, wishing to pay Mrs.
John C. Frémont an appropriate tribute, presented her with a residence
at the northwest corner of Hoover and Twenty-eighth streets, Los
Angeles where, on December 27th, 1902, at the age of seventy-eight
years, she died. Mrs. Frémont was a woman of charming personality and
decidedly intellectual gifts; and in addition to having written
several meritorious works, she was engaged, at the time of her death,
on her autobiography. Her ashes were sent East to the banks of the
Hudson, to be interred beside those of her distinguished husband; but
her daughter, Miss Elizabeth Benton Frémont, has continued to reside
here in the family homestead.
On the site of one of my early homes, the corner-stone of the new
Chamber of Commerce was laid on March 28th with impressive Masonic
ceremonies. The principal address was made by Jonathan S. Slauson.
Ferdinand K. Rule was then President of the Chamber; and the Building
Committee consisted of M. J. Newmark, Chairman; A. B. Cass, Homer
Laughlin, F. K. Rule, H. S. McKee and James A. Foshay--the latter for
sixteen years, beginning with the middle nineties, having demonstrated
his efficiency as Superintendent of City Schools.
Early in 1903, G. A. Dobinson, a Shakespearian student and teacher of
elocution, induced me to build a hall on Hope Street near Eleventh,
connected with a small theater; and there, in the spring of 1904, he
opened the well-known Dobinson School, which he conducted until 1906.
Then the Gamut Club, an organization of 1904--whose first President
was Professor Adolph Willhartitz,[44] the artistic German
pianist--moved in.
The pioneer experiments with the navel orange have already been
referred to; a late episode associates the luscious fruit with a
President of the United States. On May 6th, amid great festivity
participated in by all Riverside, Theodore Roosevelt replanted, in
front of Frank Miller's Mission Inn, one of the original, historic
trees.
William K. Cowan came to Los Angeles as a jeweler in 1887, later
embarked in the bicycle trade and was one of the first men in Los
Angeles to sell automobiles, at length building in 1903 at 830 South
Broadway the first large garage here.
Some months later, if I recollect aright, witnessed the advent on our
streets of a number of horseless carriages, and I was seized with a
desire to possess not one, but two. My acquisitions were both
electric, and soon I was extending, right and left, invitations to my
friends to ride with me. On the first of these excursions, however,
one of the machines balked and the second also broke down; and to make
a long story short, no mechanic in town being sufficiently expert to
straighten out the difficulty, I soon disposed of them in disgust for
about seven hundred dollars.
In 1903, a notable change was made, and one decidedly for the better
interests of the public schools, when one hundred citizens, pursuant
to a change in the City's charter, selected a non-partizan Board of
Education consisting of John D. Bicknell, Joseph Scott, J. M. Guinn,
Jonathan S. Slauson, Charles Cassatt Davis, Emmet H. Wilson and W. J.
Washburn.
On October 23d the Southwest Society was founded here by Charles F.
Lummis with Jonathan S. Slauson as its first President; Charles F.
Lummis, Secretary and W. C. Patterson, Treasurer. Associated with
these officers were J. O. Koepfli, M. A. Hamburger, General H. G.
Otis, Henry W. O'Melveny, Major E. W. Jones, J. A. Foshay, the Right
Reverend Thomas J. Conaty, J. D. Bicknell and others. In the
beginning, it was a branch of the Archæological Institute of America;
but so rapid was the Society's growth that, in three years, it had
fifty per cent. more members than belonged to the thirty-year-old
parent organization in Boston, with which it remained affiliated until
1913 when it withdrew in order that all its funds might go toward the
maintenance of the Southwest Museum, a corporation founded in 1907 as
the result of the Southwest Society's labors.
The first plant of the Los Angeles _Examiner_, a newspaper owned by
William Randolph Hearst, was installed in 1903 by Dent H. Robert, then
and now publisher of the San Francisco _Examiner_. The paper,
illustrated from the start, made its first appearance on December 12th
and sprang into immediate favor. R. A. Farrelly was the first managing
editor. The office of the paper was on the west side of Broadway near
Fifth Street, where it remained for ten years, during which it
rendered valuable service to the community, notably in conducting a
successful campaign for the sale of seven hundred and twenty thousand
dollars' worth of school bonds which had hitherto proven unmarketable.
In the meantime, Robert had been succeeded, first by a Mr. Strauss,
and then by Henry Lowenthal and William P. Leech, while Farrelly was
followed by Foster Coates, Arthur Clark and W. P. Anderson. In 1908,
the enterprising Maximilian F. Ihmsen assumed the responsibilities of
publisher, and at the same time Frederick W. Eldridge became the
efficient managing editor. Under the able direction of these
experienced men, this morning daily has attained its highest
prosperity, marked by removal in the fall of 1913 to the _Examiner_
Building at Broadway and Eleventh Street.
Abbot Kinney, foreseeing a future for the tide-flats and lagoons south
of Ocean Park, in 1904 purchased enough acreage whereon to build the
now well-known Venice, which, as its name implies, was to be adorned
with canals, bridges and arcades. Through Kinney's remarkable spirit
of enterprise, a wonderful transformation was effected in a single
year. Such in fact was the optimism of this founder of towns that, in
order to amply supply the necessary funds, he closed out important
city holdings including the Flat Iron Square, lying between Eighth and
Ninth, and Main and Spring streets, the Abbotsford Inn property and
the large southeast corner of Spring and Sixth streets, at present
occupied by the Grosse Building. Kinney's foresight, courage and
persistence have been rewarded, the dreams of his prime becoming the
realities of his more advanced age.
The task of building here a King's Highway--El Camino Real--intended
to connect all the missions and _presidios_ between San Diego and
Sonoma was undertaken in the troublous days of Don Gaspar de Portolá
and Father Junípero Serra; but time in a measure obliterated this
landmark. Since 1904, however, such kindred spirits as Miss Anna B.
Picher--for nearly twenty years a zealous toiler for the preservation
of our historic monuments, and whose zeal in behalf of the royal road
was paramount--Mr. and Mrs. A. S. C. Forbes, Dr. Milbank Johnson, R.
F. Del Valle, Mrs. C. R. Olney of Oakland and Frank Ey, Mayor of Santa
Ana, have so caused the work to prosper that at the present time much
of the original highway is about to be incorporated with the good
State roads of California. The first bell for one of the mission-bell
guide posts (designed, by the way, by Mrs. Forbes) was dedicated at
the Plaza Church on August 15th, 1906; and since then some four
hundred of these indicators have been placed along the Camino Real.
An interesting attempt to transplant a small Eastern town to
California was made in 1904 when Alfred Dolge, the founder of
Dolgeville, New York (and the author of the elaborate work, _Pianos
and their Makers_, published in 1911 at little Covina), established
Dolgeville in Los Angeles County, opening there, with three hundred or
more operatives, a felt works for piano fixtures. The experiment had
been undertaken because of expected advantages in the supply of wool;
but changes in the tariff ruined the industry, and after some years of
varying prosperity, Dolgeville was annexed to Alhambra.
A syndicate, styled the Los Angeles Herald Company, whose President
was Frank G. Finlayson, in 1904 bought the _Herald_, at that time
under the editorial management of Robert M. Yost.
Future generations will doubtless be as keen to learn something about
the preserving of albacore, commonly spoken of as tuna, as I should
like to know how and by whom sardines were first successfully put into
cans. The father of this industry is Albert P. Halfhill, a Minnesotan
drawn here, in 1892, through the opportunities for packing mackerel on
this southern coast. In 1894, we find him organizing the California
Fish Company, soon to be known as the Southern California Fish
Company. In 1904, Halfhill, while experimenting with various western
sea-foods, accidentally discovered the extraordinary quality of the
albacore, a briny-deep heavyweight so interesting to the angler and so
mysterious to the scientist. As a mere bit of gossip, Halfhill's
assurance that M. A. Newmark & Company purchased the first canned tuna
is entitled to mention.
The Turnverein-Germania took a notable step forward this year by
buying a lot, one hundred by three hundred feet, on South Figueroa,
between Pico and Fifteenth streets; and on September 3d, 1905, the new
club building and gymnasium were formally opened.
William H. Workman in 1904 was elected Treasurer of the City of Los
Angeles for the third time, his first term of office having begun in
1901. This compliment was the more emphatic because Workman was a
Democrat and received four thousand five hundred votes more than his
opponent--and that, too, only a month after Roosevelt had carried Los
Angeles by a majority of thirteen thousand.
In a previous chapter, I have described the vender of _tamales_ and
ice-cream, so familiar through his peculiar voice as well as his
characteristic costume. About 1905, another celebrity plying a trade
in the same line, and known as Francisco, appeared here and daily made
his rounds through the more fashionable Westlake district. He had a
tenor voice of rare quality and power, and used it, while exquisitely
rendering choice _arias_, to advertise his wares. Such was his merit
that lovers of music, as soon as his presence was known, paused to
listen; with the natural result that business with Francisco was never
dull. Whenever a grand opera company came to town, the Italian was
there, in a front seat of the gallery; and so great was his
enthusiastic interest in the performance of those whose voices were
often inferior to his own, that he could be seen, with gaze fixed on
the proscenium, passionately beating time as if to direct the
orchestra. Seven or eight years ago, the long-favorite Francisco was
foully murdered, and under strange circumstances; leading many to
believe that, having perhaps degraded himself from his former estate
and fleeing, an alien, to an unknown land, he had fallen at last the
victim of a _vendetta_.
In 1905, I took part in a movement, headed by Joseph Mesmer, to raise
by subscription the funds necessary to buy the old Downey
Block--fronting on Temple and North Main streets, and extending
through to New High--for the purpose of presenting it to the National
Government for a Federal Building site. Unusual success attended our
efforts, and the transfer to Uncle Sam was duly made. In the meantime,
an appropriation of eight hundred thousand dollars had been secured
for the building, and it was with no little surprise and
disappointment when the bids for construction were opened, in May,
1906, that the lowest was found to be nearly a million dollars. This
delayed matters until the following fall. In October, the site at the
corner of Main and Winston streets was sold for three hundred and
fourteen thousand dollars; and the deficiency having thus been
supplied, it was not long before the new building was in course of
construction.
Desiring to celebrate the fifty years which had elapsed since, perched
upon an ox-cart, he rode into Los Angeles for the first time, William
H. Workman on January 21st gave a banquet to five hundred pioneers in
Turnverein Hall, the menu being peculiarly _mejicano_. The
reminiscences, speeches and quips were of the friendliest and best;
and the whole affair was one that recalled to both host and guests the
_dolce far niente_ days of dear old Los Angeles.
On February 21st, the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad was
completed--the fourth transcontinental line, with its connections, to
enter Los Angeles.
In the spring, A. C. and A. M. Parson bought a tract of land on
Alamitos Bay and there, at the mouth of the San Gabriel River, founded
Naples, with features somewhat similar to those at Venice; but unlike
the latter town, the new Naples has never developed into a crowded
resort.
Arriving in California in 1869, at the age of seven, Frank Putnam
Flint, a native of Massachusetts concerning whom much of importance
might be related, was elected in 1905 United States Senator from
California. His brother, Motley H. Flint, high in Masonic circles, has
also enjoyed an important career, having long been associated with
many local public movements.
An optimist of optimists, still young though having passed more than
one milestone on the road to success, Willis H. Booth came to Los
Angeles a mere lad and is a product of the Los Angeles High School and
the State University. Before, while and since filling the office of
President of the Chamber of Commerce, Booth has been identified with
nearly everything worth while here and gives promise of an important
and interesting future. He is now one of the Vice-Presidents of the
Security Trust and Savings Bank.
In August, Juan B. Bandini, second son of the famous Don Juan, died at
Santa Monica. Two of Bandini's daughters were noted Los Angeles
belles--Arcadia, who became the wife of John T. Gaffey, of San Pedro;
and Dolores, who married into the well-known literary family, the
Wards, of London.
Strenuous efforts were made in 1905 to house the Historical Society of
Southern California, which, incorporated on February 12th, 1891,
boasts of being the oldest organization of its kind on the Coast and
the only one doing State work; and the Legislature appropriated one
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars for a building. Governor
Pardee, however, vetoed the bill--an act which later contributed to
the endowment, by the State, of the comely County Museum in which the
Historical Society now has its home.
In the spring of 1905, the then eight-year-old town of Redondo, with
her large hotel and busy wharf, and famed for her fields of
carnations, became the scene of one of those infrequent, but typically
American, real estate frenzies which come suddenly, last a few days
and as suddenly depart. This particular attack, not to say epidemic,
was brought on by one or two newspaper headlines announcing to the
breakfasting reader that Henry E. Huntington had decided to spend
millions of dollars in making immense railroad and other improvements
in the seaside town, and that this would at once raise Redondo from
the humble status of a village to almost metropolitan dignity. In
about as little time as is required to relate it, the astonished
beach-dwellers found themselves overwhelmed by a surging mass of
humanity struggling for the privilege of buying lots. The real estate
offices were soon surrounded by hundreds of people, fighting, pushing
and shoving, all possessed of but the one idea--to buy.
And they bought. They bought corners and they bought in the middle of
the blocks; they bought heaps of sand and holes in the ground; they
bought in one breath and sold in the next; they bought blindly and
sold blindly. Redondo had become a huge, unregulated stock exchange,
lots instead of stocks for five days becoming the will-o'-the-wisps of
the fated bidders, until the boom collapsed leaving hundreds with lots
they had never seen and which, for the time being, they could not sell
at any price.
Huntington did not spend his millions--at least then and there.
Redondo did not suddenly become a big center. Yet, in passing through
the experience of many a town, Redondo has gradually grown in
population and importance, even developing something of a
suburb--Clifton-by-the-Sea. Such was the famous boom of 1905; and such
will probably be the story of similar California booms to come.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Installed, of late, in the County Museum.
[44] Died on January 12th, 1915, aged seventy-eight years.