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IELPUEBLO•I I I i :====:::======.,\ I I I ( J:..gs rufngeles rlefore the 'l(q,ilroads
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WRITTEN BY THE PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT' EQlTIT ABLE BRANCH ~ECURITY ,.fRUST & SAVINGS B ..r\.NK_
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PUBLISHED BY THE EQUITABLE BRAr.CH
OF THE SECURITY TRUST & SA VlNGS BANK
DEDICATED TO THE CONTINUING GROWTH OF LOS AXGELES, THE 1\IETROPOLIS
COPYRIGHT 1928
_.; IGLESIA DE NUESTRA SENORA LA REINA DE LOS ANGELES
HURCH of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels! Words of surpassing beauty and how intriguing! In those days-days of a preceding century when this historic place of worship was being built-time permitted the common use of long and musical names. But now-alas, what have we gained by our hurry? But the picture! You look twice and then again to make sure it might not have been taken a century ago. How cleverly the stealthy photographer has caught the tran quil scene; the restful Latins unconscious of the camera's click and unmindful of the pulsing roar of a great American city. Yet, more has been caught. The very atmosphere of Old Spain!-the leisurely, ron1antic Spirit of the Mother Country of the Americas! It pervades the scene and persists amid the sur rounding hustle and hustle of the Anglo-Saxon. May this Spirit live! May not we, a generation over-charge- with energy, cherish and foster it and pass it on unspoiled to the future City of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels?
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~ ______. - :...... ,,-:., .-,·· ,-.. 2 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJJefore the CJ{ailroads
Los Angeles in 1853, from offecial report of railroad survey made to the then Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis. This is the first known sketch of the city.
EL PUEBLO ~s ~ngeles G_Befare the ~ilroads
.1. . OT long ago a writer in the Century Magazine had this to say about Los Angeles: "Los Angeles is of course the new- ill,. est city in the world. It is vehemently up-to-date, like the '1r· latest extra issue of an evening newspaper. It may be t';/{:
General John C. Fremont to whom California v.:as .surrendered in the .,.\1 exican War. He became California's fir.st V nited States Senator and Cannon, sru:ord, madieta and lamp broug/1t to California by Junipero Serra. No:i:.: part of Coronel Collection. CALIFORNIA~ A BUFFER SPANISH PROVINCE HAT was the situation in the Western World when Portola and Crespi, W as the original Caucasians in Los Angeles, looked first upon its site? France, as the loser of the French and Indian War, had left the North American continent to England, Spain and Russia. England, by the Proclama tion of 1763, had forbidden the Thirteen Colonies to extend their jurisdiction over the former French Empire stretching from the Appalachians to the Mississippi. Spain had been ceded Louisiana but accepted the new territory with reluctance. She realized that France's surrender only brought the Atlantic seaboard colonists that much closer to New Orleans and she may have sensed that the shortsighted Proclamation of 1763 had transformed them from Eng lishmen into Americans. On the Northwest, the annual hunts of the Russian and English trappers brought those nationals nearer and nearer to the Spanish outposts. Texas, Louisiana and California had lain outside the scheme of Spain in America, but that country now saw that, to dispel the danger to Mexico from the Americans, the English and the Russians, she must build these three states into great buffer provinces. For more than a century California had been looked upon as an island, so little was known of it. But Jose de Galvez, the far-seeing statesman of New Spain, realized that it must be settled if the Spanish colonial policy of monopoly and isolation was to be maintained in the interior states. Governor Gaspar de Portola and Father J unipero Serra were commissioned by Galvez to build a ne,v Northwest frontier. They extended it to the mouth of the Sacramento River. Alta California as a Spanish province had its inception with the founding of '.Mission San Diego de Alcala on July 16th, 1769. Twenty-one missions in all were established, stretching from San Diego to Sonoma. l\1ission San Gabriel, destined to be the largest and richest of these Franciscan establishments, came into being on September 8, 1771. Ten years later to the week, a procession of soldiers, priests and laymen, headed by Governor De Neve, marched nin'.; miles across the valley from that Mission and founded the Pueblo of Los Angeles. cl Pueblo-Los c.4.ngeles c.Before the CJ{ailroads 5 ... . : •• _'.ct ~~ "' -t....,o \.\..t. •r,. ,..... ~,... ., ,i. .. "?,,,..,, •.: __ __ ,'-"; ,.~.~ \\~~ •• • • t,.O t•"' ,., ... · ,.- ,,.., c::··)11\'-:;:;-~--- SKETCH OrTNC BATTLE 01' '/".('\~, •\•,'<:J'r-l•r,; •c.l,~ ,....!.J ...J..../ ~ • ~-!. J ~.J.:.l .:.~~!J ~ t·ppf.J{ L\l,JFOR ~ i .\ r-·ou •,ht b1•1wi•1•n 1111• .\m,•ri,·an:• .1111' \l1.•!\11·.t11s · • l,\.'-: ~)":'" HI 1-1. Tliis sdf-exp/anatory skctcll is rcproduad from the official go:vcrnment military reports of tlie :Uexican Jf1ar LOS ANGELES AS THE FIRST CAUCASIAN SAW IT EW American cities enjoy the distinction of having been founded. Los FAngeles is among them. But before telling that story, let us quote directly from Father Crespi's description of what he saw at the site of Los Angeles, when he was traveling north with Portola in the first and vain attempt to locate l\1onterey Bay. He was near the present location of :Mission San Gabriel when he wrote: "Tuesday, August 1.-This day was one of rest, for the purpose of explor ing, a~ especially to celebrate the jubilee of Our Lady of Los Angeles de Porciuncula. We said l\iass and the men took communion, performing the obligations to gain the great indulgence. . • . The soldiers went out this afternoon to hunt, and brought an antelope, with which animals this country abounds; they are like wild goats, but have horns rather larger than goats. I tasted the roasted meat, and it was not bad. Today I observed the latitude and it came out for us thirty-four degrees and ten minutes north latitude. "Wednesday, August 2.-We set out from the valley in the morning and followed the same plain in a westerly direction. After traveling about a league and a half through a pass between low hills, we entered a very spacious valley~ well grown with cottonwoods and alders, among which ran a beautiful river from the north-northwest, and then, doubling the point of a steep hill, it went on afterwards to the south. Toward the north-northeast there is another river bed which forms a spacious water course, but we found it dry. This bed unites with that of the river, giving a clear indication of great floods in the rainy season, for we saw that it had many trunks of trees on the banks. We halted not very far from the river, which we named Porciuncula ( Los Angeles River. The dry river bed to the north u:as Arroyo Seco. Camp was probably near juncture of Los Angeles River and North Broadway.) . . • We must have traveled about three leagues today. This plain where the river runs is 6 El Pueblo-Los cAngeles <:IJe/ore the CJ{ailroads Don Antonio Coronel with padres of the Plaza Church. Don Antonio ,u,•as the first Assessor of Los Angeles County and ser,ved as Mayor of the city in 1853. The Coronets were hosts to Helen Hunt Jackson during her visit to Los .4ngeles. very extensive. It has good land for planting all kinds of grain and seeds, and is the most suitable site of all that we have seen for a mission, for it has all the requisites for a large settlement. As soon as we arrived, about eight heathen from a good village came to visit us; they live in this delightful place among the trees on the river. They presented us with some baskets of pinole made from seeds of sage and other grasses. Their chief brought some strings of beads made of shells, and they threw us three handfuls of them. Some of the old n.en were smoking pipes well made of baked clay and they puffed at us three mouthfuls of smoke. We gave them a little tobacco and glass beads, and they went away well pleased. "Thursday, August 3.-At half-past six we left the camp and forded the Porciuncula River, which runs do-wn from the valley, flowing through it from the mountains into the plain. After crossing the river we entered a large vineyard of wild ~rapes and an infinity of rosebushes in full bloom. All the cl Pueblo--Los cAngeles CJJefore the ~ailroads 7 Old Lugo adobe on San Pedro Street between Second and Third Streets, one of the better residences during Mexican era soil is black and loamy, and is capable of producing every kind of grain and fruit which may be planted. We went west, continually over good land well covered with grass. After traveling about half a league we came to the village of this region, the people of which, on seeing us, came out into the road. As they drew near us they began to howl like wolves; they greeted us and wished to give us seeds, but as we had nothing at hand in which to carry them, we did not accept them. Seeing this, they threw some handfuls of them on the ground and the rest in the air. We traveled over another plain for three hours, during which we must have gone as many leagues. . . " It was at this point that Portola and Crespi discovered the famous La Brea pits which the latter described as follows: " . We judge that in the mountains that run to the west in front of us there are some volcanoes, for there are many signs on the road which stretches between the Porciuncula River and the Spring of the Alders ( Ballena Creek west of Cienega), for the explorers saw some large marshes of a certain substance like pitch; they were boiling and bubbling, and the pitch came out mixed with an abundance of water. They noticed that the water runs to one side and the pitch to the other, and there is such an abundance of it that it would serve to caulk many ships. . . ." ,,•' -~ I ' . . .:... --~- . . . - _::;:: -.....-: -~_.:.:...- - . -- ~=- iii]~~:~-i1::: ~ . . -- ~-='~: .. - j_ .---~"-~=~~~~~~2t~::§a!~ Plaza, Church, and Sonora to<;;.'Tl zn late sixties g cl Pueblo-Los c-4.ngeles CJ3efore the CJ{ailroads LOS ANGELES WAS ONCE CALLED YANG-NA LTHOUGH Father Crespi does not record the fact, he probably was told A by the Indians that their village was called Y ang-na. It centered some where near the corner of Commercial and Alameda Streets. It was one of 25 or 30 aboriginal villages scattered over Los Angeles County and con tained in the neighborhood of 300 inhabitants. If Crespi had been a trained ethnologist he would have noted that the general cast of their features was more Asiatic than Indian. Rather than the distinctively American Indian, they resembled the Alaskan and Aleutian tribes which crossed from Asia when that continent and North America joined. As human beings they were not much removed from the animal plane. The men went entirely naked. It is probable that they were in the same wild state two centuries before when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the Christopher Columbus of California, landed at San Pedro Harbor to obtain water and found the Indians engaged in a great rabbit drive. Portola and Crespi with their band of 62 persons were the first since Cabrillo to look upon Southern California. The Pueblo of Los Angeles was to differ as much from Yang-na as the modern city does from the original Spanish settlement. And eventually it was to be as completely obliterated. No trace of either Yang-na or the origi nal Pueblo is to be found today. Only the early handiwork of the "Gringo" remams. FELIPE DE NEVE AND THE PUEBLO PLAN OF COLONIZATION HE pueblo plan of colonization is older even than Spain herself. In early T European colonization, the plaza conception-the common square in the center of the town, the house lots grouped around it, the planting fields w.1th the public pasture lands beyond-appeared in Aryan villages, in the ancient German "markplatz" and in the old Roman prresidium. Primarily, no doubt, it was adopted for protection against hostile tribes, and secondly for social advantages. Spain used it throughout her colonies in North and South America. The Spaniard who left his home-land to settle in the New World had no voice in selecting his destination. The King sent his people to those parts of his domains which he believed should be populated, and he designated the particular territory which each group of colonists was to occupy. Ea~h pueblo was built along the lines advised by the royal engineers and in accordance with the law of the Indies. The feudal system was applied to agriculture as part of the scheme. The colonist was a dependent of the Crown. The land he lived on belonged to the King. It was merely leased to him for cultivation. He could raise only certain crops. If for any reason he neglected to cultivate the land, he ·was deprived of its use and he himself was deported from the colony. Los Angeles can well be proud of the fact that her colonizer, the man who was to use the Pueblo plan of colonization in founding this city, was one of the few great men of the Spanish regime in California. Felipe De Neve has been described as second only to Junipero Serra himself in ability, force and foresight. \Vhen he assumed the Governorship of the eight-year-old prov ince of California at Monterey in February of 1777, eight of the 21 missions had been established. Supplies for the presidios were still brought up by vessels from San Blas, 11:exico. De Neve knew this system was wrong and before coming to California he told the Viceroy that the only way to change it was to import settlers to cultivate the fields, collecting them in cities or pueblos for safety's sake. He straightway went about selecting sites for his future cities. He recommended the establishment of three more Missions on the Santa Barbara Channel, one to be a presidio as well. The locations chosen were those subsequently occupied by the missions of Purisima (near Point cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles c.Bef ore the CJ{ailroads 9 a~~ d.., ~~ -~~ ~:,._~ -~ ✓~__ , ------'_·.__ The siynalttrl'S to the Tn·aty fJf Cahun1(/ll, :;.:..:lttTi-1, y .111drrs Pico surrord,·r,·d California to Frn,rn,r/ a11d th,· fatlt'I" tlruirauttrd tri th,· Califr,rnians 1/Ji'ir ci:;:il rif1hts. Concepcion), Ventura, an -~ •-~ ·+ ,:-4·_ ,.,_, .~',-· fa;.; ·.:-~~~...... :ar,j'.:;..,..:_- · .-;. This picture taken m 1859 is tlze earlfrst kno 0u.:n photograph of the Plaza. The building in its centrr is the city reser•·l'oir. Tlzc Carrillo home faas it on the south and the Lugo and Dr/ ralfe liomcs face it, on tlu cast. DE NEVE'S PLAN FOR FOUNDING LOS ANGELES AN JOSE provided a profitable experimental ground for De Neve. The S ex-soldiers used there had not served his ideal of building up a prosperous agricultural community that could support the presidios. He decided, therefore, to recruit his colonists for Los Angeles from the agricultural classes of :Mexico. Twenty-four families were wanted. The requirements were that they should be healthy and strong, and of such good character and regular lives as to set a good example to the natives. Among them must be a mason, a blacksmith and a carpenter. They must all remain at least ten years. The women of the families were encouraged to come. The proposition made to the 1\Iexican farmers was far more liberal than any made by England to its yeomen in colonizing the Atlantic seaboard. Each future citizen of Los Angeles was to be given enough land to engage his personal labor. It was not his to mortgage or sell, but he owned h through life and at death it was inherited by his children on the same terms. In addition, each settler was to receive an allowance of $116.50 per annum for the first two years and $60 for each of the next three years, these sums to be paid in clothing and other necessary articles at cost prices. :Moreover, each was to recehe two horses, two mares, two cows :..nd a calf, two sheep, two goats, a mule, a yoke of oxen, a plow point, a spade, a hoe, an axe, a sickle, a musket and a leathern shield. Breeding animals were to be provided for the community, and also a forge, an anvil, crowbars, spades, carpenters' tools, etc. The cost of all these articles was to be charged against the recipients, to be paid for at the end of five years in stock and supplies taken at the market price for the consumption of the army. The regulations drawn up by De Neve provided that the pueblo should contain four square leagues or 36 square miles. A plaza, measurin:;r 275 feet by 180 feet, was to be placed near the center of this area. Building lots, 111 by 55 feet in size, were to be assigned to the settlers around it. About half a mile away .a series of fields was to be laid out, each field containing about seven acres and each settler being entitled to two of these for cultiva tion. Besides these, he was given a community right in the general area, both within and without the city, for pasturage. Careful and complete as were his plans and liberal as were his offers to his prospective settlers, De Neve was doomed to be as disappointed, perhaps, in these people, as he was in the colonists at Pueblo San Jose. In the first Sl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles 'Before the 9{ailroads 11 place, RiYera, his lieutenant in l\i1exico, was able to secure only twelve of the twenty-four families asked for, and of the twelve, subsequent events proved them lacking in qualities that make for success in building a new community. One family was lost en route or never started, for when the expedition headed by Lieutenant Jose Zuniga arrh-ed at San Gabriel O!l August 18th, the party contained only eleyen families. To add to De Neve's disappointments, the [ ndians attacked Rivera, who was coming up with the livestock and initial supplies by another route, massacring the whole party and appropriating their possessions. Despite these dishE·artening reverses, the Governor, neYertheless, determined to go ahead with the founding of the Pueblo of Los Angeles. The plaza haci already been laid out, the brush cleared from the building lots, and a tempo rary arhor erected under which the founding ceremonies were to be held. THE CITY IS FOUNDED, SEPTEl\1BER 4, 1781 EPT EMBER 4th was selected, therefore, as the natal day for California's new royally ordained city. At dawn, the little band of eleven families, S forty-four persons in all-eleyen men, eleYen women and twenty-two chil dren-with :-in escort of soldiers and priests, started from San Gabriel on foot and on horseback. As the sun began to cast long shadows, they forded the river and formed a procession, according to the quite complete and authentic account of :Mrs. A. S. C. Forbes: '•First came Sergeant Jose Anton Navaree or Navarro, carrying the image of Our Lady of the Angels, followed by Corporal Jose Vanegas with the Holy Cross and Private Luis Quintero bearing aloft the banner of Spain. "Then came Governor De Neve and Fathers Crusado and Sanchez, attended by Indian acolytes. Guards, friends and settlers followed in slow procession. Circling the plaza and approaching the arbor, where an altar had been pre pared, mass was said. GoYernor De Ne,·e addressed the little company and closed the ceremony of founding El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles by ordering the house lots assigned to each of the settlers. A guard was then stationed and camp made for the night." Thus ,..,·as founded one of America's greatest cities. Unlike most of our communities, Los Angeles did not just expand from a crossroads, grow up Earliest kno::i;.:n picture of Plaza Clzurch. Tlie entrenchments of Ft. ltf oore may be seen faintly along hilltop. 12 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJ3efore the CJ{ailroads T:! Pa!arin, !tom, ,,_f DfJn .-1 hd Strarns, in tit, s,·-,·tntirs. fl stood r;11 prrunt sit, oi Baka Blocl..· a,t.l -..:.:as fiunt rl'SiJnr(I' in tit,· P111·hlo ,luring //rt .l!t'xiuw ~wd l'lJrly .-l mrriuw p,·riods. arou11 '•First, at lht' corrwr fronting New Hi:.d1 Street came the home of Pablo Rodriguez, an Indian. 2.S yt'ars of age. His family consisted of an Indian wife and one child. NPxt adjoining was the home of Jose Vanegas, an Indian. 28 year~; old, ,vith an Indian wift' and ont' child. He was the first to hold th<' office of alcal ';Coming now to the front that correspoll(ls to Upper l\fain Street. W(' haYe, first, Alejandro Rosas. an Indian, 19 years of ago, whose wife is rlescrilwd as a ·Coyote Indian'-which does not sound Yery promising-with no children. ~ext came a Yacant lot, then a narrow street. and then the home of Antonin ~aYarro, a mestizo, i. e., Spanish-Indian half-breed. whose wife was a mulat tress ,vith three children. Lastly, coming hack to the side of the public Ianrl, we haYe the residence of \Ianuel Camero, a mulatto, aged 30 years, with a mulattress wiff' and no ch ildrt'n. He was elec-ted n·gidor, or councilman, in 1789. "Cataloguing this exlraordinary collection of adults hy nationality or color, we haYe: two Spaniards, one mestizo, two negroes, eight mulattoes and nine Indians. The children are e,·en more mixed, as follows: Spanish Indian, four; Spanish-;\ t-'gTo. fiye: :\ egro-Indian. f'ight: Spanish-N egro-T nd ian. three; Indian, two." cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles C/Jefc,re the Cf<,_ailroads 13 Bun1a rista Strrd (.YfJrth Br"aI1.::ay i li7], frr,m hilt n,,:-..~· ,,-,·(r fr,·s,·nt S,,rt h Rroad:;,.~ay I II n 111'! PHESENT PLAZA NOT ORIGINAL PLAZA NLIKE some of the original homesteads of our eastern progenitors which U can be pointt>d to with pride, tlwre is no trace of the property settled hy the original colonists of tlw Pueblo of Los A.nµ:elt:>~. 1n the tir:-t place. the plaza which De Ne\·e laid out is not the present Plaza park lying between .'.\fain and Los Angt>le:- streets opposite the Church of Our Lady of the Ang-el:--. The two would to11d1 only at one point-the northwest corner of the pre:-:ent Plaza. The old plaza proYided for hy De Ne-ve in his ··Jn~trncion para la Fundacion de lo:-: Angt>Je:,;~! was a parallelogram 100 Yara~ ( a rant c<111alh1g .18 inches) in length and 75 in hrt>adth. It wa:-- laid out with it~ corn Catlffdral of Santa J'ibiana on M afo Street just south of Saond St1·eet. It ~as completed sltortly brfore the coming of the first ,·ailroad. Tlirs picture <;.;.·as taken in the ciglrtirs. THE PASSING OF DE NEVE AND SERRA ELIPE DE NEVE had little more than given Los Angeles a good start Fwhen he was promoted to the responsible colonial posts of Inspector General, then Governor General de Provincias Internos and received the cross of the Order of San Carlos. He died only two years later, and the same year, 1784, saw the passing of De Neve's companion in greatness, Father Junipero Serra. The loss of the two proved irreparable to California. If Spain had always been as fortunate in the choice of her colonial leaders, the n~xt century might not have witnessed the complete collapse of her Western Empire. Both the Governor of California and the President of the Missions were great administrators. Both were brilliant and forceful men of vision, who could make a vision a reality. · Felipe de Neve had been a major of cavalry Lefore ccming to Monterey as Governor. Before moving on to the higher position which ranked almost with that of the Viceroyship of 1\1exico, his administration saw the creation of the Presidios of San Francisco and Santa Barbara, the founding of the Pueblos of San Jose and Los Angeles, and the establishment of five Missions. including San Gabriel and Santa Barbara. Serra built an agriculturnl and industrial foundation for his Missions and De Neve took the first steps in building the same foundation for the civil institutions of the new province. His promotion attests his constructive statesmanship, for he had no more than put into operation his plans and regulations for the establishment and conduct of presidios and pueblos than the King of Spain ordered him to institute the same system throughout the Provincias Internas del Ocidente. The giving of great Spanish land grants by his California successor, Pedro Fages, was only a part of the execution of his comprehensive plans of Western colonization. In so far as these f!:rants affect the present-day title of property, the influence of De Neve's "Reglamentos" are felt today. Although greatly respecting the work of J unipero Serra, he was sure that the missionaries would never be able to transform the California Digger Indian into a self-governing citizen. Therefore, he felt that a strong civil state should be built up with self- 81 Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles C/3efore the CJ{ailroads 15 supporting towns. A liberal policy of g1anting land to the actual cultivators of the soil was the basis of his plan. Like Serra, De Neve realized that no permanent agricultural community could be built up without irrigation, and the first communal work of the Pueblo of Los An~eles was the construction of an irrigation ditch or zanja from Rio Porciunc-ula ( Lo~ Angele~ R i\·er) to the planting fields. FIRST YEARS IN THE LIFE OF EL PUEBLO E NEVE'S guiding hand was missed in the new Pueblo. Although it had D been his plan that Los Angeles should be self-governing, it was, as a matter of fact, kept under military control. Corporal Vicente Felix, with a command of three or four soldiers, acted as g:eneral manager of the colony. Felix, with the title of "comisionado," conferred by the Go\·ernor, continued as the real executive and court of last appeal e\·en after Jose Vanegas was elected Alcalde in 1788. He continued in charge through the administration of seven Akaldes. His guard house was the first public building erected. Those desiring to attend church had to journey to San Gabriel. It was not until 1784 that a little chapel was built in Los Angeles. The successive padres who came over from the Mission to conduct mass complained of the lives lived by many of the parishioners. That there must have been some basis for the complaint was shown by the expulsion of four of the families "as useless to the Pueblo and to themselves." In 1785, Jose Francisco Sinova, who had lived in California for some time, was, on application, taken into the Pueblo on the same terms as the original settlers. By this time two of the sons of Basilio Rosas had become of age and Juan Jose Dominguez, a Span iard, had been added to the colonists. The latter was given a special land grant by Governor Fages, including what was afterwards known as the San Pedro or Dominguez Rancho, which has descended to the heirs of that family to the present time. He is, therefore, the first known link between the Pueblo and the great metropolis of today. Calle de· los Xrgros (Sigga .41/ry) about 1870 16 el Pueblo-Los <:Angeles CJJefore the CJ{ailroads In this connei::tion 1t. 1s interesting to note that the great grants parceled out hy Fages were all in the jmmediate dcinity of Los Angeles. The grantee in each ca~e, according to the De NeYe regulations, was obliged to impron~ the rancho and put .--tock upon it. The Pueblo, consequently, had its ··!Jack cotrntry·' deyt'loped more rapidly than did most communities. This gaye I .os .·\nl,!des an adrnntal,!e. The first ~rant ,vas the huge San Rn.foe! Rancho, then dt'scribed as ··across the Ri\·er and four leagues distant from Los Angeles.'· Except for lhe portion now including Glendale and Burbank, this rancho i:z:. now within the city limits of Los An!,!<-'les. It was giyen to Jose :Maria Ver dugo. J11 the ~ame yt'ar, 178-1, :Manuel l\'ieto receiYed all the land between tla~ Santa Ana and the San Gabrit'l Ri,·ers, from the sea to the hills. The ('011tip10us land on the ea:-t :-ide of the Santa Ana, Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, was gin'n to Antonio Yorha in 1810. .After the Dominguez grant, Gov ('rlWr Faµ:P:-- gaY<' the Encino Rancho. which included rno:--t of tlw San Ft>r· nando Yalley, to Franci:--co Heyes. ln 1797, the great tract was taken from him an ' . . .I _.- ' • .:,J,,,~. - ., ·,' ;_. .·¢...... , --.-.- . I .,; -.· - .~- . _·: __ ,,.._ ... • ------illl!!!lllll!iei Yo .. Los .-1ngl'!i-s llarhor as t/1,· .-lmtriran pionNrs A-Ill':..~· it A YANKEE SHIP PUTS IN AT SAN PEDRO HARBOH ND except for one small intru~ion, _such was L_os .\ngeles v,·l_:ien Jefferson A had been succeeded hy :\Iad1son m the Presidency. and :\apolt>on had broken up the Holy Roman Empire and saw thf' co11li1wnt at his fr<>I. For by 1810 Los Angeles had made a gain of only fifty in population, its crop totals wf're stationary and its herds were reduced. The intru:-ion referred to had no immediate effect, hut it was important ne\'ertheless. As might he suspt>cted. the intruder was an .\nwriean. In 1805. the good ship Lelia Byrd, with Captain Shaler in command, sailed into San Pedro Harbor on a return trip from the Hawaiian Islands to Roston. He had !wen directed there hy the Indians of A \'alon, where he had stopped in quest of fre:--h meat. He readily obtained what hr ,vanted at San Pedro in exchange for Yankec- 111anufactured goods. .\ half a Ct>ntury later Commodore Perry was to open Japan to the trade of the world. Captain ~halt'r did the same ~real S(T\'ice at the beginning of the ninelrt>nth Ct>nlury for California, for after his return to New England, the Yankt>c brigs and !--hip:,,; from other nations called regularly at San Pedro, first in que~l of olter :,;kins and later for hides and lallow. This trade during the rf'maindt>r of the Spanish pt'riod. or until 1821. of roursc. was contraband, but durin~ the :\lexiean period it wa~ lef,!:al. The illegal trade with tht> Yankee skippers was made possible by the ever-growing weakness of Spain in :\merica. The Napoleonic Wars kept Spain so busy that she had little time to think of her Western colonies, and ts el Pueblo-Los c4.ngeles 'Before the 'l{ailroads Campo Cahuenga (opposite Uni'l.-•ersal City), site of Pico's surrender of California to Fremont in 184i when King Fernando finally got his throne back from Joseph Bonaparte, he found the colonial empire tottering. By 1810 the rebellion in Mexico was well started ; by 1815 it had spread to South America, and by 1821 Spain found herself left with only Cuba and a few small islands in all the New World. During the revolt, Spain had the sympathy of California. But the mother country could not reward her colony for its loyalty with so much as salaries for the officials, the soldiery or the priests. She, in fact, was powerless even to sail her ships on the Pacific. If it had not been for the contraband trade, California might not have maintained her economic existence. At it was, her capital, :Monterey, was destroyed, the great Ortega Rancho was raided, and Mission San Juan Capistrano was ransacked, by a Buenos Aires privateer which considered the loyal colony rightful prey. It was in the month of March, 1822, that word finally came from Mexico telling of Spain's relinquish ment of her Western Possessions. A new oath of allegiance was taken with out delay and a new flag was raised over the Plaza at the Pueblo of Lo5 Ange]es. No one objected. A YANKEE COlVIES TO TOWN AND STAYS y a strange quirk of fate, the raiding privateer from South America gave B Los Angeles its first American settler. He had leaped, cutlass in hand. along with a dozen other buccaneers, into a dory and had shoved off towards the shore of the Ortega Rancho, with the unblushing purpose of loot ing the hacienda which lay some twenty miles above Santa Barbara. The expedition was frustrated by Dons Ortega and Lugo with their vaqueros, who took as prisoner Joseph Chapman, shipbuilder, late of the Maine woods. Chapman was taken on probation of good bahavior by the Mexican authorities to Los Angeles, where, with the adaptability of an adventurer, he quickly entered the life of the young Pueblo, which was centering at that time about the erection of its church. Owing to his knowledge of the scientific felling of trees, he was sent by the little community to "Church Canyon," back of Mt. Wilson, as manager of the lumber squad. Chapman, after his probation period was up, married Guadalupe Ortega, the daughter of one of h;s captors, and settled on an extensive ranch near San Gabriel, where, in 1826, Jedediah Smith and his party found him surrounded by children, the first English• speaking person to have settled in California. El Pueblo--Los cA.ngeles CJJefore the CJ{ailroads 19 Chapman lived happily as a respected and substantial member of the community for the rest of his days. He built for Father Zalvidea, of San Gabriel Mission, the first successful water grist mill to be operated in Cali fornia. Using his knowledge as a shipbuilder, he supen·ised the construction of a schooner for the padres to be used in otter hunting. This notable work, taken together with his construction of the present Church of Our Lady of the Angels at the Plaza, should make the present generation proud of the industry and genius of the first American in Los Angeles. He die . . . ~ c' ' . ·:;--.~,~ :_:~· . . , Y gnacio Sepu/tveda, Antonio Yorba and .ilndronica Sepu/tveda, scions of leading Spanish families, posed for this picture in 1850 just prior to their departure for Boston to enter college 20 cl Pueblo-Los cAngefes C/Jefore the 'R...ailroads Tihurrio /'aS(jllt'Z, uo:uriuus hwr.lit ::;.;.:/Ju li'rrurizcd all California in t/11· sixtirs and s,• .._•,·ntirs an,! ::..~·as rap111r1' The Californians, how eyer, were but sweep mg Lack the waYes when tllf'y orJered the fir5t of the OYerland Americans out of the country for a seconJ time. The Smith band had hardly left when their places were taken by Syhester an ; . _/4 . '•• ,~-·~ ;',, .r,·~ l'ankt'o, 't:.:ho as naturaliz,·d Jfcxi --,. , I ,,' . ,.j-i.i "1f--:;_ .. f :: :····~\--;,; .~;~·\ ~;.\r '~~i:;;_,·: · '·',. c-#'f ~-:::.~v .. :~.;{i . . . ' i ; Don Abel Stearns owned Los Alamitos, the rancho adjoining Los Cerritos, now also covered by Long Beach, and built thereon, as his country home, the adobe hacienda now occupied by Fred Bixby. His city home stood on the present site of the Baker Block and was the most elegant adobe in the pueblo. It was referred to as •'Don Abel's Palacio." Before building his residence on that site, he had conducted a successful merchandising business there. He made money at anything he turned his hand to and he seemed to be interested financially in practically every business of importance in town. At the time of his death, in 1871, he had the most valuable landed estate in Southern California. He had the distinction of having shipped to the govern ment mint at Philadelphia, in 1843, the first California gold ever coined into money. The nuggets had been mined in Placerita Canyon, not far from l\fission San Fernando, six years before l\Iarshall made his world-famous dis covery at Sutter's Mill, and Stearns had accepted them in payment for mer chandise. When California became American territory, Don Abel became a member of the first State Constitutional Convention. Later he was a city councilman, a county supervisor and a state assemblyman. Both he and Temple remained neutral in the war between the United States and :Mexico. In the decade following Temple's arrival, forty foreigners became residents of Los Angeles, of whom thirty were Americans. The brig Danube, ship wrecked in 1828 at San Pedro, contributed several members of its crew. Among these was Samuel Prentiss from Rhode Island, who became an otter hunter at Catalina Island and was buried there in 1856. Another was John Groningen, renamed Juan Domingo, because of the difficulty in sounding the Germanic gutterals. He married into the Feliz family. Groningen purchased from the Pueblo the original site of the Indian village Yang-na, expelled its few remaining aborigines and planted it to grapevines. Yang-na had degen erated into a hell-hole of filth and sin and its elimination was necessary. This aggressive German was followed by two energetic Frenchmen, Louis Bouchette and Jean Vignes. The former planted a vineyard on Macy Street and the latter a vineyard on Aliso Street. The Vignes vineyard, running to the river, was one of the show places of the Pueblo. In the friendly shade of its arbors was held many a community celebration. Vignes planted the first orange trees in Los Angeles, bringing the stock from Mission San Gabriel. cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles ':Before the 'l{ailroads 23 WILLIAM \VOLFSKILL Jo~ATHA~ T. \VAR~ER Outstanding pioneers -«:ho arrived in 1831. Wolfskill first shipped oranges commercially and Warner first, among local people, ad:vocated the building of a transcontinental railroad. WOLFSKILL AND WARNER ALSO BECOME DONS HE year 1831 brought by overland route from Santa Fe two of Los Angeles' T most useful pioneers, William Wolfskill, a Kentucky trapper, and Jon athan T. (Juan Jose) Warner, a Connecticut manufacturer. The former married into the Lugo family and the latter into the Pico family. Wolfskill secured a large tract of land centering around the present Southern Pacific station which he planted to grapevines. In 1841 he planted two acres to oranges as an experiment. By 1860 he had over one hundred acres in the golden fruit and was the first to ship oranges commercially. He is honored as the father of the industry in California. Wolfskill is also honored as the father of the Los Angeles-Santa Fe Trade. Before settling he had visited here while leading a company of trappers to the San Joaquin Valley. The party had brought bright serapes and fresadas to trade with the Indians for beaver skins. They traded some of them for mules at the rancheros, which, because of their size, created a sensation upon the return to Santa Fe. Out of this barter sprang up a trade carried on by means of caravans of pack animals between the two sections. The caravans came bearing the woolen fabrics of New l\fexico and went back laden with the silks of China. Los Angeles was the center of this trade. Warner planted an orange orchard at Sixth and Main Streets and died there sixty-four years later at the family residence, built adjoining the present site of the Burbank Theatre. He put his more th.in three score years in Southern California to splendid use. In 1840 he went to Connecticut to lec ture on California, and while there urged the construction of a transcontinental railroad. No earlier advocate of the plan a::nong Californians is known. Warner had a large ranch in the mountains of San Diego County where he spent much time and where he acquired the title of "Colonel" for his prowess in fighting the Indians. He was a leader in the movement that gave Los Angeles, in 1859, its first free reading room. In 1883, he became first presi dent of the Historical Society of Southern California, organized in the Temple Block. He was a good observer and wrote one of the earliest histories of this region. el Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles c.Before the CJ{ailroads .-1 bird's ry1· lit!J11!/raplt /Jf l.os .1llf/,/,·s ma,fr in 18il. ft sho:-..~·s the locatirm (Jj c:;.·n-:;.· ll/li"1int1 till,/ rr:'i.!:-!ff1' hz toc;;.'lt. A SCOTCHl\1AN lvIAHHIES A CHIEFTAIN~s DAUGHTER NOTH ER historian of this period was Hugo Reid, an eccentric but intelli A gent Scotchman who arrh-ed in 1834 and went into the mercantile busi ness. l\Iarrying Victoria, daughter of the chief of the Gabrielenos Indians and a neophyte of San Gabriel l\Iission, he came into possession of the great Santa Anita Rancho that was later to become the property of "Lucky" Baldwin. In 18-13 he ·was appointed encargado de justicia at San Gabriel, and in 18-16, just a year before the American occupation, he, along with William Workman, was granted the hu~e estate of l\Iission San Gabriel in payment for past services to the :Mexican goYernment. Here at the l\.Iission was made all the powder with which the Californians fought the Americans, and because of this Fremont dispossessed Reid of the property after the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga. Just before the surrender to the Ameri cans he sold the Rancho Santa Anita. With California under the Stars and Stripes, howeYer, Hugo Reid became as loyal to the new goYernment as he had been to the :Mexican, and he was a member of the convention which drew up the state constitution and peti tioned Congress for admh:sion of California into the Union. He died two vears later. One of his lust acts was to write a series of articles for the Los Angeles Star in ~852 describing in detail the language, government, reli gion, food, raiment, medicine, customs, sports, traditions, legends, missionary life, etc., of the Indians of Los Angeles County. If it were not for him we would know practicJ.Ily nothing of the ahorig:ines of this section. Reid loved the Indians and he surrounded his Indian wife with every luxury. He made frequent trips to far-away lands. Once he went to China, corning back with strings of pearls, diamonds, silks, embroidered shawls and the like. These he bestowed upon Victoria, who, squatted upon the ground Indian fashion, would order her servants about or giYe her children le:--sons in Indian etiquette. The latter were taught English, Spanish and French. El Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJJefore the 'R..ailroads 2S THE WORKMAN-ROWLAND PARTY N 1841 there came the famous Workman-Rowland party, the most notable I pioneering expedition to Southern California. Led by John Rowland and William Workman, two Taos miners, it was composed of New :Mexicans and l\'.lissourians engaged in the Santa Fe trade. Of the twenty-five members, about half came in quest of homes, a few looked for adventure, and three were attracted by scientific interest. Driving their cattle and sheep through Cajon Pass, they arrived at San Gabriel in November, after a two months' trip across the desert in which they followed the general route of Wolfskill. Immediately Rowland sought out the l\fexican officials, declaring the intention of meeting all legal requirements. As the party had been suspected of com plicity in a design to embroil New l\iexico in the Texan troubles, the reception accorded them was not cordial. Later, however, they ingratiated themselves with the authorities, and in 1845 Rowland and Workman were granted the huge La Puente Rancho of 48,000 acres, where they lived the rest of their lives. Aside from the leaders of the party, its two most prominent members were David W. Alexander and Benjamin D. Wilson. The former was an Irish trader, who acquired the present site of Burbank for 37 cents an acre. He ranched for a time in the San Bernardino region, later engaged in business with Don Juan Temple at San Pedro, where they did most of the forwarding at the wharves, was captured in the Battle of Chino by the Mexicans, and after the war became Collector of Customs at San Pedro and a member of the first Los Angeles City Council under the American regime. With Temple he bought for $1000 and two horses the first four-wheeled vehicle in Southern California. The carriage created as big a sensation as the first railroad. With Phineas Banning he owned the stage line, which started running between Los Angeles and San Pedro in 1852. "DON BENITO" WILSON, A GREAT PIONEER ILSON took the name of "Don Benito'' and became the outstanding W figure of the Mexican and the early American period. l\It. Wilson is named for him. Soon after his arrival he married Ramona Yorba, one of the reigning Spanish belles, and in 1843 he bought for Sl,000 the J urupa Rancho, on which Riverside now stands. In a fight with bears which con stantly raided his cattle range, he was nearly killed, and in a fight with Mojave Indians, he was shot with a poisoned arrow, the head of which he carried in his body to his grave. He commanded a company which fought under Generals Jose Castro and Andres Pico in the successful revolution . ,.-~ -.id.J.t~:~;~: .. ~. :<-. ~~> ~; :·_ -~: :.... ~.;, -~- ·~-~---~-- ~-~:~~i The William Wolfskill adobe which stood on present site of Southern Pacific S1a1ion. Around it grew California's first great orange gro,;;e. 26 81 Pueblo-Los cAngeles CJJefore the 'l{ailroads ·->~:~{ill\,:~~ \_ .. _ ...,_ ,..·...,--,-.. ;j ~) ~ ...... ~ ,, ... . 1_\.• 1 ~··. ,l , Benjamin D. (Don Benito) Wilson and family from an old daguerreo-type. Mt. Wilson is named for this distinguished pioneer v.:ho v.:as the second mayor of Los Angeles, founded Alhambra and helped found Pasadena. against Governor Micheltorena. In the l\ifexican revolt against Lieutenant Gillespie, the American commander of Los Angeles in 1846, he organized a company and went to the latter's rescue, only to be captured in the Battle of Chino. In 1850, Mr. Wilson was a delegate to a Southern California conven tion at Santa Barbara which petitioned Congress that Southern California be separated from Northern California and given the status of a territory. In 1852, through Daniel Webster, President Millard Fillmore appointed him United States Indian agent. That same year he bought from the Indian wife of Hugo Reid the Lake Vineyard property and built there a home with a large winery. The house stood in the center of Pasadena up to a few years ago. Later he served as l\1ayor of Los Angeles and State Senator. Buying an undivided half interest with Dr. J. S. Griffin in Rancho San Pasqual, he joined with the doctor in 1867 in having built the open ditch which first brought the waters of the Arroyo Seco from Devil's Gate onto the alfalfa : ands of their great rancho. El Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles c.Before the CJ{ailroads 21 . . . ' ..~-~-:. . ,<_~:-=\. --· -:.-:.. ~=:: :.- -~ ~ . ~ -# ~~ St. llthanasius Episcopal Church, first Protntant house of •u:orship erected in Los llngeles. It stood on south'1.!.·est corner of Temple o.nd New High Streets. This picture v.:as taken during the Ci'Vil War. In 1871, :Mr. Wilson laid out the original town of Alhambra. Before his death, the largest orange orchards in the world up to that time were planted on his Lake Vineyard tract, the second large subdivision in Pasadena. He died in Pasadena in 1878. He is credited with having done more to develop and improve and open up for American settlement this region than any other . man before or since his time. That is why today we find a mountain, a canyon, a school, an avenue, a lake and a mountain trail in Pasadena-land named after this hardy and brave pioneer. The Plaza Church before the days of electric cars ZS el Pueblo-Los cAngeles 'Before the CJ{ailroads EMA!,;UEL MICHELTORESA ]VAS BAUTISTA ALVARADO Go'Vcrnors of California immediately preceding Pio Pico. Tlze latter drove Micheltorena from office. A l-,:arado 11,,;:as one of tlze few M cxican Governors v.:ho ser'Ved his full term. THE PUEBLO REBELS! LOS ANGELES OR LOS DIABLOS? F all the American pioneers, Chapman was the only one who knew Los 0 Angeles of the Spanish period. When he first saw it, it had a population of about 600. Temple, Stearns, Wolfskill and Warner found a Mexican pueblo of over 1200 souls, the largest city in California. Unlike the present, however, a doubling of population in a decade was not boasted of. Too many of ficials of the Republic of Mexico were punishing the criminal element by exiling them to California for that. Moreover, at one time a whole shipload of foundlings were sent from the asylums of the City of Mexico and left on the Pueblo's doorstep! And then to add to all these troubles there were the revolutions! Following the example of the new mother country, California was in a constant ferment of revolt and insurrection against its own ever changing officials. During the twenty-five years nf the Mexican period, seven of the eight regularly appointed governors and all of the six self-appointed ones had to contend with these local rebellions and several were driven out of the country by them. l\fost of these revolutions had Los Angeles as their storm center since most of the chronic conspirators lived here. Cosme Pena, prefect of the southern district under Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado, had so much trouble with the residents of Los Angeles in this respect that in his letters to the Governor he was · accustomed to write the name of the Pueblo "Los Diablos" instead of Los Angeles. As the largest city, Los Angeles claimed that it, rather than Monterey, should be the capital. Under two governors it was the seat of government. The government house was an adobe building that stood on the present site of the St. Charles Hotel, 314 North Main Street, formerly the Bella Union Hotel. One rebellion was started by Governor 1\1:anuel Victoria in expelling Jose Antonio Carrillo and Don Abel Stearns from the province. An army of two hundred men from Los An:,!eles and San Diego soon made Victoria see things differently. A fund was raised to pay his transportation back to Mex ico, to which Los Angeles contributed $125 on condition that San Diego should repay the amount. The debt remains unpaid to date. cl 'Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles ':.Before the CJ{ailroads 29 . ~:- ~. < ·--,.- ·- -""'...... _.. ' ...... -- Don Pio Pico, last Mexican Go,z:ernor of California THE GRINGOS TAKE A HAND IN THE REVOLUTIONS HE "foreign legion" in Los Angeles was not above mixing in these wars. T Fortunately they were comic opera conflicts for the most part, as witness Henry K. Norton's account of the Battle of La Providencia that brought Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor, into power. Associated with Pico in the rebellion were Manuel Castro, Juan Bautista Alvarado and Benjamin D. (Don Benito) Wilson heading a company of twenty-two Yankees. Governor Emanuel Micheltorena managed to gather a force of nearly 400 men and started south to crush the rebels. But the rebels did not wait to be crushed. They immedi ately retreated. In the pursuit, the Governor was careful not to come within a hundred miles of them until the rebels picked up courage and returned from Los Angeles to meet him. The two forces mustered about an equal 30 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJJefore the CJ(ailroads The old Pico House in 18i5, stil! standing opposite Plaza. It was the city's finest hotel in the seventies. number of men. They came within long cannon range of each other at Cahuenga, the scene of a previous civil conflict. The Mexicans had three cannon and the Californians two. Heavy cannonading from these batteries continued throughout the afternoon, but as both armies kept in close shelter under the banks of the Los Angeles River, little damage was done. A 1\fexi can horse's head was shot off and a California mule was injured by the flying debris. During the night some flanking was attempted which brought the armies together again the next morning at La Providencia. For almost two hours the cannonading was again indulged in without visible result, when Micheltorena raised the white flag and proposed a capitulation. This was accepted by the rebels and the erstwhile Governor was unceremoniously shipped out of the country. The real reason for his surrender was the desertion of a company of Yankees with him to the Yankees headed by Wilson on the other side. The two groups of Gringos had got together the night before and enjoyed an old-fashioned "bust'' down in the willows by the river. Temple Street1 v.:est from Bunker Hill, 1876 81 Pueblo-Los cA..ngeles c.Before the c:R._ailroads 31 ·., .", ~.~ ·.;: ~ ~"'&· Don Pio Pico TOO BUSY REBELLING TO BUILD CAPITOL HESE numerous revolutions, bloodless though they were, were neverthe T less devastating to California. They killed all progress. The population of Los Angeles at the close of the :Mexican period was only a little larger than at its opening. So constant was the turmoil and petty tumult that when Los Angeles won a revolution, it found itself without even a public building fit to house the government. In 1834, Governor Figueroa notified the Ayunta miento ( City Council) that he was going to visit the Pueblo and "desired accommodations for himself and staff.'' Not a place could be found. The town was too poor to entertain him. The transitory present seemed so impor tant that few found time to live ahead of their time._.Occasionally one made an attempt at it. Don Leonardo Cota in addressing the Ayuntamiento in 1837 said: "El Pueblo de Los Angeles now finds itself the capital of California. It should proceed to show its beauty, its splendor and its magnificence in such a manner that when the traveler visits us he may say, 'I have seen the City of the Angels; I have seen the work of its sanitary commission and all these demonstrate that it is a l\,Iexican Paradise.' It is not so under the present conditions, for the majority of its buildings present a gloomy-a melancholy aspect, a dark and forbidding aspect, that resembles the catacombs of ancient Rome more than the habitations of a free people." An early writer described the Pueblo homes as "like so many brick kilns ready for the burning." The average residence, with its clay-colored adobe walls, its flat asphaltum-covered roof, its dirt floor, its iron-barred windows, was as devoid of beauty without as it was of comfort and convenience within. There were never more than five buildings in town with tiled roofs. At the time of the American conquest of California, tile-making was practically a lost art. It died out with the decadence of the Missions, as most everything else did. It would seem that following Figueroa's destruction of the Mission system in 1834, the country lived off the loot. When the Americans arrived, the accumulated wealth of the Missions had just about been used up and most of their Indian neophytes were dead. Consequently there was no one to do the work while the free citizens cleaned their muskets or played the guitar. Like the South of the same period, California based its economic 32 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles 'Before the CJ{ailroads i • David W. Alexander, pioneer merchant and rancher, first Collector of Customs at San Pedro, and member of the first City Council. With John Temple lze owned the first four-wheeled vehicle in Southern California. system on human servitude. But unlike the South, its governing class wasted its time on frivolities and petty politics. At the time Los Angeles was the capital of California, there was not num bered among its residents a lawyer, a doctor, a resident priest, a preacher of any kind, and the school teacher was taking a prolonged vacation. Money was almost unknown. Horses and cattle were media of exchange in large denominations, while hides passed for small change. The town was without a hotel and its two public buildings were a church and a jail. A more cheerful picture can be painted of the great ranchos surrounding Los Angeles. Here the romance and the glory of pastoral California were to be found. Great spacious haciendas welcomed and sheltered for days at a time the participants in gay dancing parties, rodeos, bullfights and races. At these country places was to be seen the primitive Spanish life at its flood tide, with its dark-eyed senoritas, its light-hearted caballeros, its dashing vaqueros, its rounds of feasts, festivals and fandangos. As a city builder, the Californian was a failure, but as a man in the saddle on his rancho, he El Pueblo-Los c.4.ngeles 'Before the <:.R..ailroads 33 DON YGNACIO DEL VALLE DONA YSABEL DEL VALLE The heads of a family which has been prominent in the citvic and artistic life of Los Angeles from the Spanish era down to the present. was one of the most unique and picturesque types in history. No wonder poets sing of him and novelists write unending stories of his life! Paradoxical as it seems, the system of human slavery was a major factor in the fall of Mexican California and the rise of American California. Indian servitude passed with the surrender of this state as a :Mexican province. Negro slavery never was introduced in its place, but it was a desire on the part of an American President to secure California as potential slave territory that prompted him to take it away from Mexico. Los Angeles was the focal point in the war with that republic as it was fought in this state. And the motive of that war colored Los Angeles history for two decades. Building and campus of St. Vincent's College at Sixth and Broadway as it appeared during sixties and seventies 34 El Pueblo-Los cAngeles CJJefore the C}{ailroads Plaza Church and Sonora To"U,'1Z in early seventies. Note track of horse car line. LOS ANGELES REBELS AGAINST AMERICAN GARRISON ALIFORNIA was first taken from Mexico without the loss of a life or C the firing of a shot. The American flag was raised in quick succession in Monterey, Sonoma, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San Diego, and the Californians had taken the American oath of allegiance as quickly and as indifferently as they had that of Mexico when the Spanish flag was lowered a quarter of a century before. Then the trouble began! All the bloodshed in the Mexican War in California was poured out in a rebellion against the newly accepted government and flag. And more the pity when all the trouble might have been so easily avoided. As it was, the American troops were driven out of Southern California and this whole section had to be retaken at the loss of many precious lives in a series of five battles, three of which ended in rather inglorious defeats for the Americans. The Californians finally surrendered and accepted American sovereignty for all time on January 13, 1847, at Cahuenga hacienda in North Hollywood, when they saw that, despite their successes, final American victory was inevitable. It is the unanimous testimony of the American pioneers that, had Com modore Stockton, when he and Fremont returned to Monterey, left a com mander of his Los Angeles garrison other than Captain A. H. Gillespie, the rebellion might never have occurred. Stockton misjudged Gillespie and the latter misjudged Los Angeles. He forgot the "capacity of the ancient Pueblo for making trouble." He forgot that revolting had been the leading industry for twenty years. Stockton with great wisdom had appointed the beloved Don Juan Temple as Alcalde. A Yankee, whom the Californians regarded as one of their own, was to govern under the American flag and all were happy. But Gillespie undid all this as soon as the Commodore's fleet rounded Point Firmin. He proceeded forthwith to "Am€ricanize" the Pueblo. As one authority puts it, "The failure of the Californians to stand for a conflict had caused them to be rated as cowards by the American soldiers; and Gillespie and his men no doubt showed insolent and unwarranted contempt for the people in their charge. He refused to allow the Californians to gather in friendly reunions such as they were accustomed to hold and on slight pretexts - so it is charged he would order leading citizens to be arrested and brought before him that he might humiliate them with his arrogance." When Gillespie on one occasion threw some of the most respected Cali fornians into prison for a brawl in which they had had no part, the smoldering cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles CJJefore the <:J{ailroads 35 Gen. Joseph Lancaster Brent, president of the first Board of Education. He brought the first Jaw library to the city and dominated politics during the fifties. He was the last Confederate General to surrender. fires of rebellion burst into a great flame. Gillespie and his men had to flee for their lives and finally were besieged on the hill back of the Plaza. Santa Barbarans and San Diegans, hearing of the events, likewise drove out the tiny American garrisons. Benjamin D. Wilson, as the head of a local militia com pany of twenty Americans organized by Stockton, were intercepted at Chino while returning from a bear hunt in the San Bernardino }\fountains and cap tured after a skirmish in which three of the Americans were wounded. The members of the company were made prisoners at John Temple's hacienda at Los Cerritos Rancho. Here the good Alcalde had repaired in his ox cart laden with his family and two barrels of aguardiente, to await the outcome of the insurrection. Of course ''Don Juan" ireated "Don Benito" as a guest rather than as a prisoner and the militia enjoyed their stay at the hospitable old adobe ranch house. 36 81 'Pueblo-Los a4.ngeles 'Before the CJ{ailroads Old A bi/a adobe, stiJ/ standing ju.st off the Plaza. Here Commodore Stockton made hi headquarters upon final American occupation of Los .4ngeles. THE AMERICANS ABANDON LOS ANGELES EARING of Wilson's capture and despairing of aid from the north for two or three weeks, Gillespie gladly accepted the proposal of General H Flores of the Californians that he retire from the city with all the honors of war. This he did and was about to start north on an American merchant man from San Pedro when Captain Mervine hove in sight with the frigate Savannah, carrying a rescuing party of 350 men. Gillespie, thereupon, turned about face and with Mervine started back to Los Angeles, only to he opposed by a small but well mounted body of Californians at Dominguez Rancho. The latter used a four-pounder, christened 44The Cannon of the White Mule," to good effect. Each time the Americans charged to capture it, the Californians galloped off, pulling the field piece after them with their reatas. Mervine, tiring of the pursuit and feeling the loss of six killed and several wounded, finally gave up the fight and retired to San Pedro. He buried his dead on an eminence at the mouth of the Harbor, which, from that time on took the name, D~ad Man's Island. Here he awaited Stockton. The headquarters of the Californians was established at Los Cerritos ranch house. They knew that, once reinforced, the Americans would renew the attack. Neither Carrillo, who succeeded Flores in command, or his prisoner, Don Benito Wilson, wanted to see any more fighting. Captor and captured, therefore, mapped out a course of action together in the sunny, flower-filled courtyard of Don Juan's hacienda. Carrillo knew that his hundred men, woe fully lacking in military equipment and ammunition, were no match for Stock ton's force. Wilson and his California wife had many warm friends on both sides and did not care to see any of them harmed. Accordingly, Don Benito was to go up as a prisoner to an elevated spot near San Pedro landing with instructions on a given signal to raise a white flag and approach Stockton with the proposal that a truce be made allowing Stockton to hold the ports but leave the Californians in peaceful possession of the interior, to abide the out come of the war between the United States and :Mexico. Meanwhile Carrillo gathered a vast calvacade of wild horses from the ranchos and assembled them behind a gap in the hills about three miles from the landing, dispersing among them as many mounted troops as he could muster. He kept the whole body in constant motion passing and repassing the gap, the horses raising such clouds of dust that it was impossible to see that most of the horses were riderless. This was kept up long enough to give Stockton the impression of a vast army of cavalry, and so effective was the trick that the Commodore withdrew imme~ diately to San Diego harbor and Wilson had no chance to offer his truce, El Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJ3efore the CJ{ailroads 37 COMMODORE R. F. STOCKTO:s' GE~ERAL S. \V. KEAR~Y Joint commanders of the American forecs THE GRINGOS RETAKE THE CITY HE PUEBLO OF LOS ANGELES, of course, was finally captured by Stock T ton marching inland from San Diego and Fremont marching down from the north. Before this was accomplished, however, a company of Califor nia lancers under General Andres Pico were to inflict a bloody defeat upon General Stephen W. Kearny, commanding a detachment of United States regulars, at San Pasqual Valley, San Diego County. The extraordinary percentage of American casualties, out of the number engaged, makes the battle unique in American mili tary annals. Stockton, leading 600 marines and Kearny, a company of dragoons, marched into Los An geles after encountering the Cali fornians in two battles, San Gabriel and La l\1esa. The former was fought on the San Gabriel River near Orange and the latter on the level ground where now stand the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards. The Americans won both fights and the Californians fled to Verdugo Canyon after the second engagement, later to surrender to Fremont at Cahuenga hacienda. Stockton and Kearny, in the meantime, with bands playing, marched into Los Angeles. To Cap tain Gillespie was given the honor of again raising the American flag and it is certain that by that time Kit Carson, Chief-of-Scouts of the American his opinion of the bravery and fight- force which captured Los Angeles 38 cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles 'Before the CJ{ailroads Don Andres Pico, who closed Mexican War in California by his surrender to Fremont in 1847. He became a distinguished American citizen and as state senator from Los Angeles County led the nearly successful movement for division of the state in 18S9. ing qualities of the Californians had undergone quite a change. Suffice it to say that from that time on the Californians have remained as loyal to the Stars and Stripes as they were valorous in the last of their beloved rebellions. Their good showing in their last war would indicate that all of the bloodless revolu tions of the Mexican era had served simply as "workouts." By the time the Californians surrendered, most of their leaders had fled to Mexico. In signing the articles of capitulation, General Andres Pico,. who stuck to the bitter end, was only completing a word picture painted in l\'Iay of the previous year by his brother, Governor Pio Pico, in a speech before the Departmental Assembly, when he said: "We find ourselves threatened by hordes of Yankee immigrants who have already begun to flock into our country and whose progress we cannot arrest. Already have the wagons of that perfidious people scaled the almost inacces sible summits of the Sierra Nevadas, crossed the entire continent and pene trated the fruitful valley of the Sacramento. What that astonishing people will cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles C/Jefore the CJ{ailroads 39 11.:•::t~- ' - --- .. - ..... ·-.. ' .. _ 1'eterans of Mexican War gathering for a Fourth of July parade in 1871. They are in front of old Bella Union Hotel. Don Abel Stearns' adobe may be seen in background. next undertake I cannot say, but on whatever enterprise they embark, they will be sure to be successful. Already the adventurous voyagers, spreading them selves far and wide over a country which seems to meet their taste, are culti vating farms, establishing vineyards, erecting mills, sawing up lumber and doing a thousand and one things which seem natural to them." General and Mrs. John C. Fremont (cr:.:ith backs to big tree) and party on outing to Big Basin in the se'Venties 40 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles 'Before the CJ(ailroads - .4 ·-. ; ? ;:1 f ~,.__ "'-~" '\, ~J \ ~ I· t, ,,, i ~ ~ ~ ' . a~ f ;: ,,,i- ;~.-:.. .. ~ . . -~ ·- . . ·.... --:- l9UQrno/ Ji;1~ Some of the men who "grew up" with Los Angeles. From pic:.f,reJ cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles 'Before the CJ{ailroads 41 ~ ~· . ... - ,r: ,:,..,".s_ ./··· ' . ', ;'· ~/ ,1 \ [I • . } ! t r .. I \ '•. . I! \·: -~.-~., ... -~· 1 ,\l ,'"£ \'-... ,1;; ,,,~~·-.,:::.' -.~~. ·~:::.·,/· -Stukel Photos Jres taken when Los Angeles was much younger than it is now. 42 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles C/Jefore the ~ailroads The Courthouse in 1869. It stood on the site of the new City Hall. Erected first by Don Juan Temple as a market and theater. LOS ANGELES REMAINS A PUEBLO-THE GOLD RUSH HE Americans did all that Pico said they would but they did not do it as Tquickly as the last Mexican Governor thought they might. Strange as it may seem, Los Angeles, twenty-five years after the American occupation, was still essentially a Mexican city. Its population in 1870 was only 2000 more than it had been at the close of the Mexican period. Of its 5000 people, the great majority were of Hispanic origin. American mayors were not always elected, nor was a majority of the city council always of that race. The two elements, however, were perfectly reconciled. Even more amazing is the fact that within three years after the American occupation, Los Angeles dropped from its proud position of capital and largest ·city of the state, to that of simply "another town." Seven cities, including Grass Valley in the north, were larger. The little town of Y erba Buena, re christened San Francisco only a short time before, suddenly found itself the largest city west of the Mississippi. Beside it Los Angeles was a mere village. The Gold Rush of 1849 was on! Los Angeles was "passed by on the other side." It was deserted by its own people who also made their way to mining camps along the American, Feather and Sacramento Rivers. And for a quarter of a century it seemed to stand absolutely still. Its population in 1860 was no larger than in 1850. Overnight, seemingly, California was admitted to the Union, against the judgment of many leaders in the south, who sensed that the mining north, with its large but transient population, and the agricultural south, with its sparse but settled population, might not get along so well under the same state government. Their leaders proposed that the country should be divided by running a line east from San Luis Obispo, so that all north of that line might have a State government and all south a Territorial government. They voted against the resolution to form a state government in the Constitutional Convention, but of course were defeated. Nevertheless, the opposition was continued even after the admission to the Union that followed. A representa tive committee of citizens from Los Angeles County, composed of Augustin Olvera, Pio Pico, Benjamin Hayes, J. Lancaster Brent, Lewis Grainger, John cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles c.Before the <:J{ailroads 43 Senora En carnation A bi/a, ,;.:.:hose home on Oi'Vera Street v.:as used as American headquarters after capture of city 0. Wheeler and Jose Antonio Carrillo, drew up an address to the public "with a view of effecting the speedy formation of a Territorial Government for the southern counties of California." "Whatever of good the experiment of State Government may have led to in California," the address read, "for us in the southern counties it has proved only a splendid failure. The bitter fruits of it, no county has felt more keenly than Los Angeles County." The situation then, and for the next three decades, which saw repeated efforts to gain separation, was well summarized in 1880 by John G. Downey of Los Angeles, Governor in 1860 to 1862: "From the morning of our exist• ence as a commonwealth, the southern counties of this state have been uneasy and restless under the lash of unequal taxation and the unequal distribution of the benefits derivable therefrom. 44 81 'Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJJefore the CJ{ailroads Looking south on Fort Street ( Broad,u.:ay) in 1871 from present site of Courthouse steps "The matter occupied the deep consideration of the members of the first Constitutional Convention at Monterey, m 1849, and the members from the southern counties only yielded a reluctant assent to the formation of a state government when they obtained a declaration that taxation should be 'equal and uniform throughout the state.' "How unfairly this guarantee has been carried out will be made manifest by the persistent attempts to free ourselves from the unnatural geographical and economical relations with the central and northern portions of the state." Residence of Mayor Cameron E. Thom which stood at Third and Main Streets during seventies and eighties cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles ':Before the CJ{ailroads 4S A Fourth of July parade on Spring Street in late eiglzties. The band is playing directly in front of present site of Equitable Branch of the Security Bank FEAR OF SLAVERY DEFEATS STATE DIVISION UT for the suspicion of Northern California, that pro-slavery advocates B were at the bottom of the almost continuous campaign during the fifties to divide the state, Los Angeles and Southern California might have won their fight. Unfortunately, perhaps, for Southern California, United States Senator Gwin, who later entered the diplomatic service of the Confederacy and was outspoken in favor of the extension of slavery, was strongly for state division. Then, too, three-fourths of the inhabitants south of Kern County, other than the natives, were immigrants from the Southern states. Two more pro-slavery senators would restore the balance of power to the South at Wash ington! Even as eloquent a statement of conditions as presented by Governor McDougall in 1852 failed to convince the northern counties that the agitation was not an attempt to add more slave territory rather than to escape heavy taxation. The Governor in his message to the Legislature said that "Taxation was equal and uniform throughout the state only in a legal sense since the six agricultural counties of the south, with a population of less than 87,000, paid into the treasury during the preceding year close to $42,000, while the twelve mining counties, with a population of nearly 120,000, paid less than $22,000." 46 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles C/Jefore the CJ{ailroads Mr. and Mrs. Peter Wilson and daughter, Ma,-y. In 1859 the Wilsons bought for $900 the southeast corner of Spring and First Streets on wlziclz nocw stands the new home of the Equitable Branch of the Security Trust & Sa,vings Bank. There they built a lzome and raised a large family. The baby is now Mrs. Joseph Boylson, secretary of tlze Wilson Land Company c;.:.;/zich still oc;.:.;ns tlie corner. At several sessions of the Legislature, resolutions calling for a state con vention to consider separation passed the Assembly but were killed in the Senate. However, victory seemed almost in the grasp of the southern counties in 1859, when Senator Andres Pico of Los Angeles County succeeded in battling through both houses his resolution calling for the segregation of the southern portion into the "Territory of Colorado." The bill, which was signed by Governor Latham, called for a referendum in Southern California. The South voted three to one in favor of separation. The Governor brought the matter before the national government. In a communication to President Buchanan, he said: ". . . the origin of this Act is to he found in the dissatisfaction of the mass of people, in the southern counties in this State, with the expenses of State Government. They are an agricultural people, thinly scattered over a large extent of country. They complain that the taxes upon their land and cattle are ruinous-entirely disproportioned to the taxes cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJJefore the CJ:{ailroads 47 Monument ereded at corner of North Broadway and Fort Moore Place, marking site of Fort Moore collected in the mmmg regions; that the policy of the State, hitherto having been to exempt mining claims from taxation, and the mining population being migratory in its character, and hence contributing but little to the State revenue in proportion to their population, they are unjustly burdened; and that there is no remedy, save in a separation from the other portion of the State. In short, that the union of southern and northern California is unnat ural." But again the slavery question undid the work of the southern county legislators. California's final and official action came too late. The Civil War was to break out in a few months and Congress was holding its last sessions for several years with representations present from both sides of the Mason and Dixon line. Northern congressmen would not let California's petition out of committee. 48 El Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles ':Before the CJ{ailroad.s The Drum Barracks at Wilmington, military headquarters during the Ci CIVIL WAR DAYS OUTHERN California remained loyal to the Union despite the fear of S Northern California and despite the fact that Los Angeles County gave Breckinridge twice as many votes as it gave Lincoln and twice as many as it gave Douglas. In those trying tirres this section might well be com pared with the border states, which r . failed to secede yet furnished about an equal number of soldiers to both sides. Nowhere did partisan spirit run higher or was more openly dis• played. A large picture of General Beauregard hung in th e Bella Union Hotel, Los Angeles' principal hostelry, and guests wearing a Union uniform were jeered. The Los An geles 'Star,' the leading newspaper, spoke of Lincoln as responsible for "this unholy, unjust, unconstitutional and unjustifiable war." The Bear flag, as an emblem of states' rights, was paraded through the streets of El l\fonte, where a company of Con• federate sympathizers openly drilled. The miners in Bear and Holcomb Valleys threatened to raise the stand• ard of rebellion and fight. There Southerners gathered from all over the State, enlisted and left by squads, traveling at night, for Texas. It took a volunteer regiment of 1,500 Union sympathizers to break up this Asa Ellis, pioneer horticultllrist, irrigationist, migration. The California Column~ public official. Tr:v.·o of his sons fought for the as it was known, marched across the Confederacy and one for the Union. Imperial Valley in the middle of summer to Yuma, to drive the Confederate forces out of Arizona and New Mexico, and to put a stop to the hegira of Southern sympathizers from Southern California. One Southerner, Judge cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles C/Jefore the CJ{ailroads 49 Bella Union Hotel, nor:w the St. Charles at 314 North Main Street, social center of city during fifties and sixties. Its adobe predecessor garrisoned the Americans in 1846. It ,u:as center of Southern sentiment during tlze Ci:vil War. Secretary W. H. Ser:uard q;,,·as entertained tlzere in 1869. L. M. Hastings of Los Angeles, got through and visited Jefferson Davis at Richmond in December, 1863, and asked financial support for a plan to cap ture Fort Yuma. He said an army of 20,000 to 30,000 might be raised for the Confederacy in California. General Albert Sidney Johnson, the great Southern general killed at Shiloh, was from Los Angeles as was General Joseph Lancaster Brent, the last Con federate to lay down his sword. The former had a large ranch on the present site of Pasadena and the latter was president of Le:-:: Angeles' first Board of Education. A considerable body of Union soldiers, with their main headquarters at Drum Barracks, Wilmington, was maintained throughout the war. Captain (later the famous Major-General) Winfield Scott Hancock was in· command in the early part of the war. Upon his arrival, he made a stirring speech from the courthouse steps, and in the evening a public banquet was held where patriotic speeches were delivered. He organized the Los Angeles Guards, who watched the local situation and protected government stores. At one time Catalina Island was closed to the public on the suspicion that the working of mines there was a blind for the establishment of headquarters for Confederate privateers. But despite all the suspicion and intensity of partisan feeling, only one death resulted. That came in a duel. Perhaps the wisest course was followed by the Union officials in not sternly putting down the open expression of Southern sympathy. Extreme measures were never employed, with the result that there was no bloodshed or property damaged. Los Angeles' war-time mayors were Damien l\farchessault, Jose Marcarel and Casildo Aguilar. They presided over a community which, despite Yankee 50 81 'Pueblo-Los c/1.ngeles 'Be/ore the <:J{ailroads ~~--: ·' --:,~-~r~:~~- · ·--- ~--:f~-:: :: ... -':' · .. . , ., .. , "'~ .--·: ., # .· ~: Gen. Plzincas Banning, fatlzer of Los Angeles Harbor and Rebel "home guards,'' and the open wrangling around the town's war news bulletin boa.rd, was not as excited at heart over the conflict as one might be led to believe. As the names of the city's chief executives suggest, the immigrant American was still far in the minority. The native majority, trained though they were in insurrectiuns, refused to become interested in the conflict between the North and South. The Gringos could organize, drill companies, parade the streets and shout invectives, hut not they. More imme diate interests occupied them. One was the discovery of gold in San Gabriel Canyon, where for two years Wells-Fargo shipped out an average of $12,000 a month of the precious metal. Another was the terrible succession of dry years which followed the flood of 1862, when a rainfall record was established that has never been equaled since. There was so little rain between 1862 and 1868 that the cattle-raising industry, the only one of importance, was completely wiped out, never to return. Sheep raising took its place. In the latter year a second flood came which washed out the city water mains and changed the course of the San Gabriel River. And then more drought! There were enough disasters at home, let alone those on the other side of the Rockies! cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJJefore the CJ{ailroads 51 Looking do THE MORMON BATTALION YEAR and a half of military rule, following Pico's capitulation at A Cahuenga hacienda back in the forties, had failed to impress the natives with the superiority of the American way of doing things. Three suc cessive battalions, the California, the Mormon and the New York, had occu pied the city before Scott completed his victorious march from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico, bringing the Mexican War to a close. Fremont had organized the California battalion in this state, Col. P. St. George Cooke had organized the l\Iormons in Illinois and :Missouri, and Col. J. B. Stevenson had organized the New Yorkers in that state. Both Stevenson and Cooke had promised to discharge their men after a year's service and pay them off in California so that they might remain if they cared to. l\fost of the Mor mons left for Salt Lake. While here, however, they built Fort Moore, capable of holding 200 soldiers and of withstanding a siege until aid could come from San Diego, San Francisco, or l\Ionterey. The Ar.1ericans were taking no chances on another Gillespie episode! The fort stood on the hill where Gillespie had been besieged, directly over the present North Broadway tunnel, and was dedicated with the city's first observance of Independence Day, July 4, 1847. In latter days it became a picnic playground. The present site of the Head Office of the Security Trust ~ Saivings Bank in early seiventies 52 cl Pueblo-Los eA.ngeles CJJefore the CJ(ailroads Don Juan Bandini and daughter. Tlze latter helped v.:ith the first American flag ever made in California. The Bandini family remains prominent in Southern California affairs to this day. A flag raising was part of the first Fourth of July celebration. A com pan) of natives and Mormons were sent to the San Bernardino Mountains to fell the tallest tree they could find for a pole. A long time passed before they returned and the authorities became worried. Finally on the old Mission Road a large cloud of dust was seen and many creakings and groanings were heard. It was the flag pole cavalcade! Everyone was relieved. It had two tree trunks, one about 90 feet and the other about 75 feet, mounted on the axles of about tweh-e carretas. Each was hauled by twenty yoke of oxen with an Indian driver to each ox. The Mormons "were singing one of their interminable songs of Zion-a prean of deliverance from the hands of the Philistines. They had had a fight with the Indians, had killed three of them and had the ears of their victims strung upon a string." Thus was the staff of Old Glory accompanied to the city. The two trunks, spliced, made a flag pole for the city 150 feet high, that "could be seen by all men." The discharge of the Mormons in California gave Los Angeles one of its most useful pioneer citizens. Although not a Mormon, Stephen C. Foster 81 Pueblo--Los cA.ngeles c.Before the c:.R,ailroads 53 Appointed Alcalde directly after the American occupation, Stephen C. Foster ru.·as in reality the first Mayor of Los Angeles. In 1854 he c;.::.:as elected Mayor and at same time ser Traffic congestion during the se:venties! This slzows the front of the old Downey Block which stood far many decades on the present site of Federal Building. LOS ANGELES COUNTY MADE AS LARGE AS OHIO OS ANGELES County came officially into existence in 1850. Althou?h the State was divided in twenty-seven counties, Los Angeles was mapped L out to include part of the present Kern County, all of San Bernardino, Orange and the present Los Angeles Counties, and part of Riverside County. It was almost as large as the State of Ohio. In the first election, held on April 1st of that year, 375 votes were cast. Augustin Olvera, a former resi dent of Mexico City, was elected county judge; B. D. Wilson, county clerk; Benjamin Hayes, attorney; J. R. Conway, surveyor; 1\ilanual Garfias, treasurer; Antonio F. Coronel, assessor; Ignacio Del Valle, recorder; George T. Burrill, sheriff, and Charles B. Cullen, coroner. The first assessment taken of the huge county showed real estate valued at $748,606; improvements, $301,947, r AGUSTl~ OLVERA PABLO DE LA GUERRA JOAQUIN CARRILLO Don Olvera Looking down Fort Street (Broad,,.:.:ay) from present site of Courtlzouse in 1869 and personal property, $1,183,898. The latter item included livestock, the raising of which was the principal industry. Now for the first time since the Californian surrender to Fremont, Los Angeles found itself operating under American law. The administration of all local affairs had been left under the old Spanish law until a regular government could be formed. As previously stated, the Pueblo which De Neve laid out included an area of thirty-six square miles. The people, with their homes and planting fields, owned little more than cne per cent of this. The Pueblo owned all the rest. When the old Spanish law was replaced by American law, about the first thing the new regime did was either to give away, or to sell for a song, almost all of these public lands. Lacking the far-sightedness of Chicago's pioneers, who saved from that city's lands most of the area now covered by its magnificent system of parks and schools, the pioneers of Los Angeles retained only two breathing spaces within the city limits-Pershing Square and Elysian Park. Westlake, Lincoln and most all the other parks had to be bought back. lvluch of Chicago's "Loop" district is "school land" which that city has leased on a ninety-nine-year basis. Had Los Angeles followed the example of the metropolis of the Middle West, it might now have a con siderably lower tax rate. Now we have to hold bond elections to buy "school lands" once given away. One hundred and sixty acres of the public land and ten building sites within the downtown district, with an alternative of $3,000 cash, was offered Lieutenant E. 0. C. Ord, an army engineer, for the first survey of the city. That was in 1849, and Ord took the cash. The area covered by Ord's "Plan de la Ciudad de Los Angeles" was bounded by Pico Street on the south, the Street of the Grasshoppers (Figueroa) and the hills on the west, the river on the east, and by the San Fernando Street (Upper Main) depot on the north. Ord's map carried the names of the streets both in English and Span ish. Spring Street, which left its present course at First Street and straggled across lots as a dusty road to Fourth and Hill Streets, was given the Spanish equivalent, "Primavera," showing that it was named for the season rather than for any spring of water. From Fourth and Hill it skirted the hills and then went out into the Cahuenga Valley to the historic pass of the same name. Aliso Street, on the other hand, led out into the San Gabriel Valley. The 56 81 'Pueblo-Los eA.ngeles 'Before the CJ{ailroads two, therefore, are the city's most historic thorough£ ares. Lieutenant Ord named Grand Avenue "Charity Street" and such it remained until 1886. Its residents, tiring of the many jibes about "living on charity," finally got the City Council to give it its present name. Broadway was called Fort Street because of Fort l\foore at its head. The first American census shortly followed the first survey in 1850. It 5howed a population of 1,610. Had it not been for the gold rush, the figure would have been about double. The 1860 census showed 4,399 popu lation, the increase being made up largely of former citizens back from the mines and the penniless drifters who did not care to return East after failing to make a strike in El Dorado. The census of 1870 credited Gen. E. 0. C. Ord, who made original Los Angeles with 5,614 residents, survey of Los Angeles in 1849 the increase of a little more than 1,200 being made up largely of ex-Confederate veterans whose homes and life savings had been wiped out by the war. They came West to start life over again and many of them built large fortunes. Their presence was shown in the presidential election of 1868, when Seymour received 1,236 votes to Grant's 748. Politically they remained dominant for more than a third of a century. Bryan carried the city over McKinley in 1896. Train and station of Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad, 1869. The terminal of Southern California's first railroad stood at Alameda and Commercial Streets. cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJJefore the CJ{aifroads 57 Crov.:d :..~:ate/Jing a T"igilantc han(1ing rm j1rrsn1t site of Fr,frral Building in thr lair fiftirs "TOUGHEST TO"\VN ON THE FRONTIER"' HE drifting of the failures and the male on ten ts down from the gold fields T during the fifties gave the city its darkest hour. Only the hour lasted for twenty years. For two decades, Los Angeles enjoyf'd the doubtful reputa tion of being the toughest frontier town in America. Its Vigilantes, known as "Rangers," lynched four times as many as the more famous Vigilantes of San Francisco. One reason was that the undesirables driven out of that city found their way here. The local committee, therefore, had more material to work on. Also, with such skilled leaders as Don Andres Pico, Jose A. Carrillo and other lVIexican-A.mericans, it did its vrnrk more thoroughly. There ,vere thirty-seYen lynchings, compared to forty legal hangings, during the two decades. l\layor Stephen C. Foster, in one instance, resigned his office to lead a mob which lynched a murderer who was about to escape justice through a legal technicality. Conditions became so bad between 1850 and 1870 that crime ceased to be news, as witness the following brief items from the papers of that time: "Last Sunday night was a brisk night for killing:~. Four nien were shot and killed and several wounded in shooting affrays.'' "A party of Salt Lake and l\fontana teamstt>rs had a li,·ely row in tlw \fonte on l\Ionday night: several shots were fired. from the effects of which one man died." "The coroner·s jury sat on the body of a dead Indian. TI~e Ycrdict wa~ ·Death from intoxication', or by a vi!'-itation from God.' " The l\Iethodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians abandoned Los _.\ngele!' .1s hopeless. The first , denomination was reprP!'-ented for fiye years, begin ning in 1853, in a little adobe building near the Baker Block, where a school as well as a church was conducted. Rev. _-\dam Bland was the first minister. The following year, the Rev. James "\Voods came and held services for two years for the Presbyterians in a carpenter shop near the Plaza. In 1857, the 58 cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles 'Before the CJ{ailroads .... , ·. ··"" ; . .. l ·• ~. :' .. .4~' -~ &_11-. i .,,~J·,--- , • I Jforrison Murray, Superior Judge, Assemblyman, and during tlze Ci'Vil War, President of the City Council. He fathered the act of the Legislature ,.,.:.:hiclz authorized Los Angeles to 'Vote bonds for the cons/ruction of its first railroad. Rev. Elias Birdsall held Episcopal services in a specially built church structure at the corner of New High and Temple. It was the first Protestant Church building in the city, but was soon put to other use. All three ministers left fer more hopeful fields. Sl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles <:_Before the 'l{ailroad.'- 59 William H. ("Uncle Billy") J-florkman, as a young man in Los :Inge/rs. lie came zn a covered c-.;,:agon in the early fifties, became a pioneer dt·:..·t'!opcr an,i scr:,:ed as Mayor and Treasurer of the city. That there was a distinct absence of court solemnity in those picturesque days may well be imagined. Attorneys did not hesitate to settle with their fists those points of law to which their opponents took exception. And on occasion when this method appeared ineffectual, they hurled inkstands or chairs at each other. Sometimes the altercation was between judge and 60 cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles CJlefore the ~ailroads Th,· r,U lf'i/st,11 llfo1·l·, first o/fic,· buiUin9 in Lr,s .-lnyl'fr.- fo /Ja-.. ·1· ,·f,·.,:a·fJr. Built 111 1888 aid raz,·.i in 1927 /rJ malu .:..~:ay fur lli'.:..:.' lf'ilson JJui!Jiny :-..~·hid, hfJ11S1·s tit,· f:'quitahf,· Urallih oj tit,· Saurity Bani.·. coun:--el, anJ ~imilar scent's took place between the adYocate and the arbiter in a court action. One famous instance, in which the arhiter stoo ' :::; l . --~------..._ . ' ~ f- •~, t ..--,.: ... •~ .1S?~: :>- . fl£' - ; , .. . . ff'~~ . l "" ;; J·. • .. ·::-~ ··.... "~· ' ~!'So,J~IE ,-,I ," Of.I T1tr1F,•,·rt·i11 lla/J on ::u.·tsl si.lr 1,f Spring Strt'I'/ hl'l~·N11 S,·nnz.! and Thir,i Strn·ts ah1Jul !8i5 PRESENT DAY INSTITUTIONS GET THEIR START IKE orchids in a swam~, son:e of Los Angeles' n~os_t us_eful institutio~:· L ne\'ertheless, took root rn this dark era of the city s history. In 18;:>;:,~ the first public school was lmilt at the corner of Second and Spring Streets at a cost of 86,000. A handful of children had attended printlt ~chools up to that time. The first l\Iasonic Lodge was established in 18.54. In the same year came the Hebrew Benevolent Society. The year follo,ving, St. Vincent's ( now Loyola) College was founded at the Plaza. Two years later a building ,ras erected on a campus at Sixth and Broadway. In 1856 the Catholic Orphan Asylum was established, and in 1858 the Sisters' Hos pital was started in a private residence. In 1857 Wells-Fargo opened an f'xpress office. The year 1859 saw the TurnYerein started, and 1860 witnes:--t->d the creation of the French Benevolent Society. The Library Association established a small reading room in 1859, hut it was discontinued later. Tlw Public Library, as such, came into existence in 1872. '·The Star/' the city\ tirst newspaper, started in 1851 with John A. Lewis and John 1lcElroy as joint publishers. Its press was brought around the Horn in a windjammer. The paper was printed in both English and Spanish. Later the Spanish sec tion was published as a separate newspaper called ··EI Clamor Puhlico." The first telegraph line reached the city in 1860. Citizens subscribed $100 a month to get a daily bulletin sen:ice of war news over it. The first bank, that of Alvinza Hayward & Co., with John G. Downey as one of the partners, was founded in 1868. The following year the city~ s first railroad was built. It ran to San Pedro and was owned and operated by the county. It took much persuasion by Phineas Banning and Asa Ellis to secure a favorable \'Ole on the bond issue necessary for the construction of the road. The opposi tion claimed it would bankrupt the county and would not even pay expenses, and almost succeeded in defeating the issue. The railroad was opened with a hig celebration in November, 1869, and paid a handsome profit from the 62 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles CJ3efore the CJ{ailroads PETER WILSON ]OH~ SCHUMACHER REMI NADEAU Early :1merican o first day of operation. The freight schedule was: dry goods, $6 per ton; groceries, $5 per ton. Passenger rates were $2.50 each way. A little later Senator John P. Jones of Nevada built a railroad, '"The Los Angeles and lndependencet to Santa :l\lonica. His dream of extending it to Independence, Inyo County~ and then to Salt Lake was never realized. In 1849 a water department was organized to operate the old Spanish \Iexican zanja, which ran from the river near Elysian Park to the Pueblo. \Vater for domestic use was hauled in carts from this irrigation ditch. In 1857, Judge Dryden was given a franchise to supply water drawn from springs located near the old '"River Station" of the Southern Pacific and raised by means of a water wheel in the zanja. A brick reservoir was constructed in the Plaza and some iron pipe was laid down :Main and Los Angeles Streets. The system was destroyed in the flood of 1862. A second destruction of the water system by the flood of 1868 led to the city's letting Dr. John S. Griffin, Prudent Beaudry and Solomon Lazard have a thirty-year contraot to provide the city with water. The three paid $400 a month for the privilege. In 1898, ·on the expiration of the contract, the city purchased their plant for $2,000,000. Home of Go:vernor John G. Do,.._,:ney r:z,:.,·hiclz stood during the se'Venties and eighties on the r;;.,•est side of Main Street bet:u:een Third and Fourth Streets SI Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles C/Jefore the CJ{ailroads 63 ...... Ceremony of dri'Ving the golden spike at Promontory, Utah, "}.fay 10, 1869, marking com~-tJ/etion of America's first transcontinental railroad. St·,,.:en years later this railroad reached Los Angeles. A TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD REACHES THE CITY HE railroad to the harbor was completed the same year that the first T transcontinental railroad reached San Francisco. It took Phineas Banning and his associates six years in which to get Los Angeles County interested sufficiently to build the former. It took the proponents of the latter nearly forty years in which to get the nation interested. An anonymous contributor to an obscure weekly paper in the then frontier town of Ann Arbor, l\1ichigan, was the first to suggest that the American continent should be spanned by iron rails. Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, was in the White House at the time. By the time Franklin Pierce, fourteenth Presi dent, came to Washington, the idea had developed sufficiently for him to instruct Jefferson Davis, his Secretary of War, to begin surveys of possible routes for such a road. A decade later, on July 1, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Bill, authorizing the construction of the line. And one day in May, 1869, Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth President of the United States, received the following telegram: "Sir, we have the honor to report .,_--:_,: .. ~;·~...... :~.:.,..... /t)~:: ~,-{ .; "~~ ·;; ,,._, :it(";·, ,~ ~~<~.: i}fi.?i,~tt,. ~-- C. P. HUNTI~GTO!-: CHARLES CROCKER MARK HOPKINS LELAND STA~FORD The four Sacramento merchants wlw gave California and Los Angeles its first transcontinental railroad 64 Sl Pueblo-Los eA.ngeles c.Before the CJ{ailroads Thr Go-,:. Starrford, _ti.rs/ nrgi,u to go into srr-,:icc rm tlu Soutlzcrn Pacific. It 11.;,:as brought around tlu· llonr hr 186.?. This pirturr ,;,~·as takm in 1868. that the last rail is laid, the last spike is driven. The Pacific Railroad is finished!" It was another seYen years before this transcontinental railroad reached Los Angeles. Jefferson Davis' surveyors had been here as early as 1853 and mapped out all the possible routes. Thanks to an artistic member of the party, we have the earliest known sketch of Los Angeles. The Southern Pacific began building from San Francisco down through the San Joaquin Valley to New Orleans soon after Senator Stanford had driven the golden Th, ,11.f "San Gabriel," first locomoti,ve in Southern California. It ,i;.·as brought around tlzc JI orn and ran in 1869 on the Los A ngelcs and San Pedro Railroad. cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles C/Jefore the C}{aifroads 65 66 Sl Pueblo-Los cAngeles <:Before the ~ailroads Tiu famous Trltacltapi "Loop" from picturr takrn zn 18i6 would not even deign to put Los Angeles at the end of the "jerkwater'· from off the main line. Although the thought arouses a certain resentment, even to this day, perhaps Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker, the "Big Four" of the Southern Pacific, were justified in the threatened snub to the historic old Pueblo. After almost a century it was still a very small place. Its only industry of impor tance, lh-estock raising, had died out along with the pastures. Irrigation had not been developed sufficiently to substitute agriculture in its place. Wine was the only product that promised to fill any freight cars. William Wolfskill, B. D. Wilson and J. DeBarth Shorb had not yet suc ceeded in getting orange culture past the experimental stage. The sur veyors in their official report to J ef ferson Davis had dismissed Los An geles with a page on grape culture. Los Angeles had not even been able to keep its Chamber of Com merce alh-e. The Chamber had been established in 1873 with Governor Downey at its head, but it passed out of existence soon after. It did succeed, however, in getting the first go\·ernment appropriation for the im provement of San Pedro Harbor through Congress. The amount was $150,000. Here again, Banning, the father of the harbor railroad, was lf/illiarn Hood, engineer, v.:ho built till' Southern Pacific line from San the moving spirit in securing govern Francisco to Los Angeles ment co-operation. cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles CJJefore the <:J{ailroads 67 The way the tov.:n decorated to celebrate the Centennial of American lndt·pcndrncc. · Note the arch crutrd by the old "Thirty Eight," one of the t,;.:.;o .,.,oluntccr fire-fighting companies of Los Angeles. LOS ANGELES OF THE MIDDLE SEVENTIES HAT of the physical appearance of Los Angeles at the time? The W town still looked much like it had to Stockton, Kearney, Fremont and Kit Carson nearly thirty years before. There was not a foot of street paving. However, horse-car lines ploughed through the mud or the dust of Spring, Main, San Pedro and Aliso Streets. These streets were lighted with gas. Those were the most notable changes. Also, there were three grammar schools, besides a high school, the latter standing on the present site of the courthouse. The county ~eachers' institute had brought out an attendance of thirty-four teachers. The only fine residential district was on San Pedro Street and the west side of 1\fain Street. The wealthier residents on the latter thoroughfare owned through the block and fronted their stables on Spring Street. Business was confined to Aliso, Los Angeles, 1\'Iain and Spring Streets and not much of it extended south of First Street. The old Temple Block, at the junction of l\Iain and Spring Streets, rearing its three highly ornamented stories to the sky, was the city's outstanding building. The city offices and jail were in a one-story adobe at Spring and Franklin. The court house was on the site of the new city hall. Peter Wilson, a Swedish emigrant from all the way around the Horn, had a home at First and Spring Streets on the site of the new banking quarters of the Equitable Branch of the Security Trust & Savings Bank, where he raised a family of six children. John Schumacher, a German emigrant who had come as a soldier in 1847, had his home diagonally across the street, where he also raised a family of six children. The Nadeau Hotel lot was a corral for Wilson's horses. He did the Pueblo's draying. Down on the corresponding corner of Second and Spring Streets, the city's first public school stood. Between the two was a blacksmith shop, the terminal of the Butterfield "three times a week" trans continental stages, a windmill, some small workshops and chicken coops. There was a feed and fuel yard at Third ::i.nd Spring Streets and a brewery at the corner of Third and Main Streets, v.-~~h an adjoining beer garden run- €[ Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles 'Before the CR._ailroads / .1 -,:fr:;.~· a/0119 tlu: :u:alrr front at L()s .4ngrln llarhfJr in 1 Sii, just a yrar a.ft,·r 1/11· ;frst lra11st,Jlllino11al railroad n·adud Sau Prdr11 ning through the hlock to Spring Street. It was conducted by George Lehman, better known as "Roun At Second and Broadway stood the Presbyterian Church. The Episcopal Church was at its original location, Ne,v High and Temple Streets, and the Congregational Church ·was aI~o on New Hi~h Street, nearby. The ·Methodist Church stood hetween Third and Fourth Streets on Broadway. Catholics still worshipped at the Church of Our Lady of the Angels at the Plaza. The St. Vibiana Cathedral on l\Iain Street near Second was not yet completed. The town~s four hotels-the St. Charles (formerly the Bella Union), the Pico House, the United States, and the La Fayette-were all on l\Iain Street between the Plaza and :Market Street. The latter, a low-storied building of an unclas sifit,d school of architecture, had a wide Yeranda with a railing around it. On sunny afternoons passersby had their gaze assailed hy long lines of hoot ~olt>s along the railing top. It, with the other hotels, met the Wilmington train with hu~ses on "steamer days? Of the co1lectiYe cuisines, an early ~uest VvTote: '"Although I h._n-e eaten hardtack from the tail end of an army wap:on and taken my coffee and junk :standing in line with more circumspec tion than ceremony, tl1ese morsels were sweet compared with the fare of the~e hotels. Chicken tamales proved to he disjointed remains of jackrabbit and seagull, modified by chili pepper and a liberal supply of the heroic a11d unconquerahle ~ar1ic ! '~ cl 'Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles 'Before the 'l{aifroads 69 ( ;,~-- ,'.. ,.· .. ·1>:---=..-----r-1 ~. ;* .Tack Rifry, rrmductor of tflr first transmntinn1tal railroa.I tra:11 fo oz:a L1Js .l1111rl1·s Buffum\, saloon \Ht~ more successful as a social center. Here the volun teer fire department had been organized. The members had acquired an engine and hose cart in J 876. Buffurn's continued us the place of their regular meetinf!:s. Of its opening, the News wrote: "On Saturday evening William Buffum's new saloon ·was thrown open to the public. We venture to say there is not a more eleµ:unt and tastefully arranged place of the sort on the Coast. The mirrors, the engn1vinµ::,:; and paintings that adorn the walls, the arrangement of the µ:as jets, the cozy little tables where you and your friend may enjoy u \.:ocial µ:ume,' the neat carpeting-in short, the ,.,_·hole interior finish is first class. The saloon would be an ornament even in :l\Iontgomery Street." Buffum\, waf- the most elegant of the town's 110 saloons and gambling halls. Such 1s Los Angeles when the first transcontinental railway reaches it m the year that the whole country celebrates as the one hundredth anni- 70 cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles c:.Before the '1.{ailroads Bl'forc thi· compfrtion of a transcontinental railroad to Los .-!ngeles stages suc/1 as these usrd to bring the passengers to the city from the point i:u,•here the rails reached. versary of American Independence. It is evident that the town is not yet an American community, even though it joins in the Centennial with a celebration of its own down at Round House George's "Garden of Paradise," with Y gnacio Sepulveda as chairman of the "literary exercises"' and Pio Pico the recipient of first prize for patriotic decoration of business houses. Of course there are many more Gringos to be seen than in the fifties and they are more often elected to public office. Yet the community is essentially a Mexi- East Los /1ngelts in 1871 Sl 'Pueblo-Los cllngeles '13efore the 'l{ailroads 71 Construction of Southern Pacific across the :\foja:.·c Desert in JSi+ can pueblo, accepting but not as yet enveloped by the American frontier. The unkept streets harbor side by side the ox-drawn carretas of the Califor nians and the covered wagons, stages and huge freighting outfits of the over land immigrants from the States. The latter are drawn by ten, sixteen or Spring Street, north from First in 1884, just prcq;ious to tlze coming of the Santa Fe to Los Jlngclcs cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles <=.Before the CJ{ailroads Fi/tit-th anni:..·tTsary Ct·frhratiou ,,n S,·;,:011htT ~. 1926, at Lan(!, of the compfrtfon of thr Sout/u.,-,z Pad fie lint' ro1m,·lliug San Franrism mz.f Los .1 ngt'/t's. Jf ayors Rulj,.· wz,l Crya 11/ tit,· rt'Sf1·t'li-.. ·1· cili,·s may h,· s1·,·n clasping hands. twenty head of scragf,!:ly mules or horses, guided in some mysterious manner hy a single jerk line. Down the narrow, crooked thoroughfares come strings of pack-animals, droves of slab-sided steers and hands of dusty sheep, all followed by packs of harking dogs of uncertain pedigree. Easy-sitting horse men, with silver mounted saddles and jingling spurs, rein spirited mounts. .No one thinks of walkiilg a block while horses stand at every well-chewed hitching rack in front of every store or house. There are cock fights, bull fights, horse races, ·winding church processions of medi.:e,·al splendor, making a picture of easy-going acth-ity. The squat, unpainted houses and crumbling adobe ·walls of "'Sonoratown/' 0\·er which droop red-berried peppers and tower spear-pointed century plants, bespeak the prevailing spirit of Old Spain, which the jumpy little American-made horse-cars only emphasize. Just east of Alameda Street and south of Tenth Street, green Yineyards and sweet-scented orange gro\'es begin and spread oyer plain and hill. Bet\.reen them and the business district south of the Plaza are a number of pretentious homes of the highly ornate Ulysses S. Grant period of architecture. They are set amid wide lawns and trees and lo\ely flower garden!:-. But this picture is soon to change. The golden spike is driYen up at Soledad Canyon, and the sta/!e hauls the immigrant from the railroad station rather than across a continent. A. town which has spent ninety-fiye years in accumulating a population of 7,000 acquires more than half that in the next four years. An old, old Pueblo suddenly linds itself a Yery young city, so new and busy and eager, in fact, that it ,:,., -_,_._... - ...... ~ .. ££C.?,a - ' , , \ - '• ~ h, :. , :~( -~, \ ' Looking dov.:n Spring Street from present site of Courthouse in 1869. l'ard of ;atL r:.:.:ith scaffold in immediate foreground. Los Angeles did its o::;..:.:n hanging in those days. Roe-.:.; of small palms on Spring Street is in front of present site of Equitable Branch of Security Bank. --:--.i.s aa .,.,_ .... ,... A ~ ~ ,.. ., @ i ,r ! • • •"' - - . - - - •~ , ·- ~==~c:1--- ·- ~.,...... ; ...... ··, ., = ., '·~:. ~ • "t_... ' , - ~ ,~ ";"".·--.~\:~.: Commercial Street east from ]1ain Street in 18i5 ,.,:.:IU'n it c-~•as the leading retail street 74 cl Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles c.Before the CJ{ailroads The first theater, the Merced, ru.·as opened in 18i0, next door to the Pico House which ru.·as built in 1869. Its sign may be seen faintly under the portico. Business center of Los Angeles zn 1869 cl Pueblo-Los cAngeles C/Jefore the CJ{ailroads 75 '0 t\ r-J'.f'r.J.J. . r,) .I .r-1 .!.J ..! .;.1l, · ,tl rJ / { ,-1,~< ·1·'. I I ·,i• /11 /an/~,;,pa!<· C-j .. /·//(.I <'- .,_) .Jl,,/ir,~: { ~ / ~ ~ 'fi~11/1' } tJl~1;< ; \ ( ,.____~______,,__.... , //{CV/ ✓ ~21-f An invitation to tlze ceremony marking completion of the railroad connecting Los Angeles ".:Jitlz San Francisco and tlze East. As sho Present staff of the Equitable Branch of the Security Bank. HISTORY OF THE EQUITABLE BRANCH OF THE SECURITY. TRUST & SAVINGS BANK T is quite appropriate that the Equitable Branch of the Security Trust & I Savings Bank should issue this historical booklet, "El Pueblo-Los Angeles Before the Railroads," as a souvenir of the formal opening of its spacious and beautiful quarters in the new Wilson Building at the southeast corner of Spring and First Streets. Its roots go deep into the historical soil of Los Angeles. They penetrate almost to the pre-railroad era of which the booklet treats, for the Equitable Loan Society from which the Equitable Branch of the Security Bank grew, was organized but six years after the coming of· the Southern Pacific and three years before the coming of the Santa Fe. The Equitable Loan Society came into existence in 1882 as an East Los Angeles organization, opening up an office at 510 Downey Avenue (North Broadway). There it remained for fifteen years, serving directly the develop ment of that important section of Los Angeles which had been opened for settlement by Governor John G. Downey and Dr. John S. Griffin in the seventies. On November 6, 1886, the same group of men who controlled the Society. organized the East Side Bank at the same location. In October, 1890, they elected W. J. Washburn president of both institutions. Both the Society and the Bank made such progress during the early nineties that by 1897 President Washburn and his Board thought they were large and strong enough to take their place as downtown Los Angeles institutions. Consequently on April 1st of that year they were moved to quarters at the southeast corner of First and Broadway, directly across from the Los Angeles Times Building. Here they remained for several years. The Equitable Savings Bank, which became the present Equitable Branch of the Security Trust & Savings Bank in 1912, began its corporate existence cl Pueblo---Los cA.ngeles CJ3efore the C/{ailroads i7 :·•. ' : :· .-,.: '. . ~ ~ JOHN G. CAREY J. H. GRIFFI~ LUKE \Vooo Three managers of tlze Equitable Branclz of tlze Security Bank. Mr. Griffin •u:as tlze first manager, Mr. Carey, tlze second, and 11Jr. Wood, tlze present manager. on l\'1arch 4, 1903. Before that time the East Side Bank had been sold to the old Los Angeles Bank of Commerce so that the Equitable Savin~s Bank grew directly from the Equitable Loan Society which it superceded. The new bank made such rapid progress that it had to seek larger quarters and in 1905 pur chased the three-story Los Angeles National Bank Building at the northeast corner of First and Spring Streets. It opened for business in its own '"home" in October of that year. Mr. Washburn had hardly located the bank in its new quarters, however, than he started on another ambitious program of expansion. He wanted to have the Equitable Savings Bank located in an outstanding office building of . ·. s. ·~ Staff of Equitable Branclz of the Security Trust f:f Sa Spring Street front of Equitable Branch of the Security Bank. The former home of the Bank in the Equitable Building across First Street is 'Visible. the then fast-growing city of some 250,000 population. Before another year had spent its course, therefore, he began the razing of the two upper stories of the recently purchased building and then the construction in their place of six stories of modern offices. The present seven-story Equitable Building, soon to be razed in the process of constructing the new civic center was the result. It. was completed in 1907. In 1909 the capital of the Equitable Savings Bank, which up to that time had been $50,000, was increased to $250,000. The Board of Directors which voted this increase was one of which any Bank could well be proud. Its roster read like a Who's Who of Los Angeles' leading citizens of that time. Most of its members are outstanding leaders in the life of present-day Los Angeles. It was composed of Willis H. Booth, James Slauson, Frank P. Flint, F. Q. Story, J. 0. Koepfli, M. H. Newmark, Joseph Scott, Lee A. McConnell and Mr. Washburn. In 1910, Mr. Booth was elected Vice-President of the Equitable Savings Bank and became actively associated with Mr. Washburn in the actual running of the Bank. Like Mr. Washburn he had served as President of the Chamber of Commerce and was one of the best-known business men in California. In 1911, John G. Carey, who had started as a bookkeeper in 1906, was elected Cashier and Luke Wood, who had previously been with the old Union Bank of Savings, was elected Assistant Cashier. These two men with the President and Vice-President constituted the active officers of the Bank when in 1912 it merged with the Security Trust & Savings Bank and became the Equitable Branch of that Bank. It was the forerunner of the present 54 Branches of tha~ great institution. The Equitable Branch added great strength to the Security Bank. It brought two outstanding citizens, Mr. Washburn and Mr. Booth, to its directorate. It El Pueblo-Los cA.ngeles qjefore the C/{ailroads 79 W. J. \VASHBURS' WILLIS H. BOOTH These pictures were taken when Mr. Washburn and Mr. Booth Equitable Building under construction in 1906 THE SECURITY BANK THANKS YOU! UBLICATION of "El Pueblo-Los Angeles Before the Railroads," which the PSecurity Trust & Savings Bank offers as a souvenir of the formal opening of the new quarters of its Equitable Branch in the new Wilson Building at First and Spring Streets, would have been impossible except for the generous co-oper ation of a number of historically-minded people of Los Angeles. The Security is especially indebted for information or for the loan of treasured pictures to the following: Arthur lVI. Ellis, President of the Historical Society of Southern California; Mrs. A. S. C. Forbes, well-known author of several books 011 California history; Miss Laura Cooley, History Department, Los Angeles Public Library; l\frs. Dwight C. Franklin, "Forty-niner"; l\1rs. Joseph Boylson, who was born at First and Spring Streets, on the site of the Equitable Branch of the Security; l\iiss Carrie Schumacher, Percy F. Schumacher and Frank G. Schumacher, who were also born at First and Spring Streets; J. Gregg Layne, Sam Behrendt, Charles Puck, Miss Kate Harkness, Los Angeles County l\luseum of History, Science and Art, and the News Bureau of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Source material consulted included: Willard, "History of Los Angeles;" Guinn, "Historical and Biographical Record of Southern California;" Newmark, "Sixty Years in Southern California;'' Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California; Forbes, '"California l\fissions and Landmarks;" Publica tions of the Los Angeles Pioneer Society; Bolton, "Fray Juan Crespi, l\1ission ary-Explorer of the Pacific Coast;" Bolton, "Palou's New California;" Hunt, "California and Californians;" Graves, "l\1y Seventy Years in California;'' Paxson, "History of the American Frontier;'' Cleland, "A History of California, the American Period;'' Sabin, "•Kit Carson Days;'' \Varner, Hayes, Widney, "Los Angeles County Centennial History." ,, ~:' ;;",, ".:,' ;; f -M:tt~•" melllftl! ~-~mma•e~~-~·~--~,-=~~••••••••••••••• Copyright, Spence Airplane Photos PIO PICO'S PROPHECY IS FULFILLED ITHIN the memory of many still hale and hearty, Los Angeles clustered at the point indicated by the new City Hall. The thirteen blocks of height-limit structures between this new landmark and the camera were then open territory and common range for long-horn cattle, half-wild horses and fully-wild coyotes and jack rabbits which claimed it as their own. Back of the camera, the scores of blocks now deYoted to stores, factories and unending homes presented a like picture, only more open. At the present time beyond the Civic Center and both to its right and left, lie miles of other territory solidly built up with industrial plants, schools, churches, libraries and innumerable homes. These regions, likewise, were in a primith-e condition not so many years ago. It is quite apparent that the American inun dation is complete! Speaking before the last session of the California l\Iexican Legislature, Governor Pio Pico said: .. ,Ve find oursehes threatened hy hordes of Yankee immigrants who haYe already he~un to flock into our country and whose progress ·we cannot arre~t. .... \\,'hateYer that astonishing people v.-ill next undertake I cannot say, hut on whateYer enterprise they embark they will be sure to be successful.'' The prophecy has been fulfilled. And to complete it, the Gringo now rears aloft the great white tower of his municipal authority on the very spot where the Ayuntamientos and the Alcaldes of the Californians held sway!