by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The second and final part of this post looking at the promotion of the Town of Temple (renamed Temple City in 1928) during its first two years continues with the efforts made by Byron R. Marsh and Douglas D. Coughran as exclusive agents for the 285-acre tract developed by Walter P. Temple, his business manager Milton Kauffman, his attorney George H. Woodruff and his friend Sylvester Dupuy.
The first post covered the earliest stages of the project during the summer and early fall of 1923, which was the year the real estate market peaked during yet another of Los Angeles’ succession of booms. With several dozen houses, the first commercial structures, the extension of the Pacific Electric Railway’s Alhambra streetcar line, the city park and other elements underway, the Pasadena Post of 17 October noted that “the first social event of the new town of Temple” recently was held when resident Leon Rossbach married Ruth Murrey of Hollywood at his house.
A little over a week later, the Los Angeles Express ran an advertisement from Marsh & Coughran about the community which was “Planned for Those Who Love a Home,” and which promised that an investment in the town “under ordinary conditions,” whatever that meant, “ought to increase in value at least 100% within the next few years.” The piece also promoted the idea that, at not more than a dozen miles from downtown Los Angeles, the development was “quickly accessible . . . yet free from the smoke, heat and congestion of a big city.”
The Monrovia News of 9 November included an article and ad about another marketing effort, in which it was reported,
As a special attraction to display the advantages of the new town of Temple, situated in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley, the sub-dividers will give away a Ford touring car Sunday afternoon at 3 o’clock. Everyone on the grounds will be presented with a numbered coupon entitling [them] to one chance on the car.
After adding that the Temple Townsite Company “paid the Pacific Electric a substantial sum and got the Alhambra-San Gabriel car line extended to Temple” and where a $9,000 depot was being built, it was noted that the McNaulty Brothers contracting firm, recently relocated from Minneapolis, took on a contract for 80 residential lots on which it would build houses, while three dozen residences were in construction and another 51 were under contract.
By the end of 1923, another major component of the nascent town that was emphasized was the relocation of the Mountain View Church of South Santa Anita, a community between the Town of Temple and Arcadia where the church began fifteen years prior. The Express of 15 December reported that the pastor and “a large delegation” from Mountain View met with Walter Temple at his San Gabriel office (he soon moved to the Great Republic Life Building, which he helped build, in Los Angeles and then to the Edison Building, the last construction project under his Temple Estate Company, in Alhambra) to choose two lots at the northeast corner of the block where the city park is situated for what became Temple Community Church and now is the First United Methodist Church.
By the 1st of February 1924, Marsh & Coughran announced through an advertisement that there were eighty houses, five stores and the PE depot were being built and added “with all this activity within but a few months, think what developments a year will bring.” Having previously tied development to profit for investors, the firm soon added to climate, soil, abundant water and other elements the presence of “splendid school facilities,” which would later be embodied in the opening of the South Santa Anita School, now Longden School at the north end of town.
The 3 March edition of the Whittier News reported that the Sycamore Canyon Gravel Company, which had its pit in the location of that name at the west end of the Puente Hills north of the Quaker City and its crushing mill in Baldwin Park, was contracted for $75,000 to provide all materials for new streets in the Town of Temple, which went to lengths that many communities did not for paving, curbing, sidewalks and other amenities. The matter of paying for many of these infrastructure elements came to the fore in spring 1925 when the state legislature passed the Mattoon Act to allow for bond-funded improvement districts.
The next big promotion push for the town was in May, the first anniversary of its founding. A Marsh & Coughran ad in the Los Angeles Times of the 18th was headlined “SEE THE BUSINESS OPENINGS AND HOME-MAKING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE TOWN OF TEMPLE” and added that “a splendid future awaits you in this young, well established, fast growing” community. The realtors reported that more than 100 dwellings were built during the first year, with the streetcar line tracks laid and “service to commence shortly” and concluded that it was “a golden opportunity” to buy property and enjoy “ideal home conditions and low living costs.”
An ad by the agents in the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News from the same day promoted “The Town of TEMPLE As It Is TODAY!” and, in addition to the number of houses and work on the PE line, noted that “business houses [are] thriving” as “a beautiful residential community [is] making amazing progress.” Fifteen stores opened since the dawn of 1924, while “electricity, gas, water, improved streets and paved sidewalks are provided for every home” so that “you will keenly enjoy living” in the town which “is well removed from the turmoil and congestion of the great metropolis” of the City of Angels.
The 25th featured another advertisement in the paper that asked “Have You Seen It?” and included a coupon with a request for a Marsh & Coughran representative to call on the reader with the caveat that “it is understood this puts me under no obligation.” Separately in the pages of the Illustrated Daily News reported that
The Pacific Electric has just laid the last rails into the town of Temple, completing an extension of three miles to its San Gabriel valley [Alhambra/San Gabriel] line. The station is already constructed and car service will begin shortly.
Founded less than one year ago the town of Temple now embraces more than 100 homes, a score of business houses and is rapidly completing a program of street and other improvements.
The agents were cited as stating that the success of the infant community was because of its proximity to (in terms of access) yet distance from (with respect to avoiding the evils of urban life) Los Angeles and it was concluded that “with street car service supplementing the motor car transportation over Huntington boulevard [Drive] to Temple, the community is expected to take an even greater impetus.”
The Los Angeles Times of the same day, while repeating much of the content that was published in its competitor, added that “so rapid has been the growth of the town of Temple” that the PE was “rushing to completion” its extension and it commented that “this event culminated a six months’ period of growth.” After a Illustrated Daily News ad at the end of the month promoting “Faster Grown Than Ever, the Times followed on 15 June with another short article, with a quote from Marsh that,
Activity in the town of Temple is almost incredible. Six months ago, the place where Temple stands was a quiet, though beautiful stretch of typical California countryside. Today it is an accomplished fact. A busy town where modern stores and beautiful bungalows carry all the earmarks of prosperity.
Marsh continued that “we named this new township after Mr. Walter P. Temple, who is one of the oldest pioneers in this district” and then noted that there were a drug store, hardware establishment and two groceries, along with a meat market with a refrigerating plant. Moreover, the First National Bank of Temple was just founded (it was located at the northeast corner of Las Tunas and Main and the structure still stands) and “will undoubtedly prove a great acquisition to the community” as was the newly established Chamber of Commerce.
Another major milestone with early Temple City came in late September when a “Grand Celebration” was held in a field east of Sunset Avenue (Temple City Boulevard) and north of the business houses along Main Street (Las Tunas Drive) and comprising a massive barbeque and horse races. Carried out under the auspices of the Chamber and also including music by the Pacific Electric Railway employees’ band, the event was described by the Express in some detail:
Tomorrow will see the Town of Temple wearing the dress of a century ago. The date marks the first anniversary of the town and the chamber of commerce is celebrating the event by staging a fiesta which will duplicate events in the valley at a time when open-handed hospitality ruled the land . . . four prize California steers will be barbecued to feed visitors and the afternoon devoted to horse-racing and old time sports.
Plans were made to host 25,000 visitors, though it is not known whether actual attendance got anywhere near that lofty aim, and “visitors to the infant town will meet around the smoking barbecue pits for noonday dinner just as did the original settlers in the dawn of California history.” Following the meal and the usual speechifying, “a real old-fashioned program of amusements will be presented” including “caballeros from the old ranchos in the surrounding hills” who were to “provide a series of races and feats of horsemanship” on animals purported to be from “racing stock which traces its blue blood to the first horses that ever ranged the mesas of the west.”
It was asserted that “the program will be pioneer stuff staged in the manner prevalent when pioneers wrote history.” What stands out about this claim to pre-American history in greater Los Angeles is that it seems likely that, whatever the ethnic makeup of the “caballeros,” it is almost certain that very few, if any, of the guests were anything other than white. This should be considered in the context of prevailing “restrictive covenants” embodied in promotional brochures from the town from several years later that very clearly stipulated that “only white people—white people of a desirable class” could live in Temple City.
There were occasional efforts to place the new town in a regional context of real estate development. The Express, during a good deal of 1923, that peak boom year, ran ads blaring that “BUSINESS IS BOOMING” and opined that “the man or woman—and this means YOU—who stands by in this era of wonderful growth, and does not buy one or more good lots in Los Angeles or vicinity, is like the person who refuses to buy gold dollars for fifty cents.” It advised readers to “take the tip, and today and tomorrow visit the following good tracts,” among a list of nearly two dozen subdivisions including Pacoima, Tarzana, Belvedere Gardens (East Los Angeles), Carthay Center (west side of Los Angeles) and the Town of Temple.
A little over a week before the big barbecue, the Express exhorted readers to “Look Over Los Angeles” and inquired “what do you know about this town?” It further queried whether folks had been to the East Side, Beverly Hills, Palisades del Rey (Playa del Rey), beyond South Pasadena on Huntington Drive as well as “do you know where the new town of Temple is”? Those gazing at the piece were recommended to “take a ride. Take it some weekday, so you can lift your eyes from the traffic and behold the city.” Even if only 10% of the area could be viewed, “one ride will encourage another” and “in a few weeks you may learn something about this city of Los Angeles” and be surprised and “confirmed in the faith.”
There was, however, a decline in the real estate market, even if nowhere as bad as the bubble in Florida in 1926. The well-intended Mattoon Act proved to be problematic because property owners defaulting on their assessments had that amount assigned to their immediate neighbors—this put a severe crimp on those communities subject to the Act like the Town of Temple, which had nearly 1,000 sales of lots, but only seven in two years during that era. Moreover, there were too many speculators wanting to flip their lots for quick profits, as some ads stated, and not enough people settling and opening businesses in the new town. As for the vaunted extension of the Pacific Electric, the reference to it as supplemental to automobile use was an acknowledgment that cars were becoming dominant and the streetcar slowly on its way to extinction.
For Walter Temple and his partners, the deteriorating conditions led them to take out bonds, with the associated debt, for the Temple Townsite Company (and the separate Temple Estate Company for the other properties owned by him). By spring 1930, it was decided to sell all of the townsite company’s interests in the town to a new Temple City Company, which included Coughran as a principal. Marsh and Coughran appeared to have disbanded soon after it was decided to hire other exclusive agents in 1925 and, while Marsh continued to occasionally sell property in the town, Coughran remained a resident and key figure for many years.
A century after its founding, Temple City, with about 36,000 residents with a large degree of ethnic diversity, good schools, a strong sense of community and other attributes is a desirable suburb that maintains much of the legacy (while overcoming others, such as the restrictive covenants) of its founder. The Homestead looks forward to sharing its early history in our interpretation and as part of the context of regional real estate development and promotion, exaggerated and idealized as this generally was, during the Roaring Twenties.