by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The first growth boom in greater Los Angeles began in 1868 and continued largely unabated for seven years, during which time the population of the Angel City jumped by at least double (the 1870 federal census—and these are generally undercounts—tallied under 6,000 persons and estimates ranged up to 15,000 within five years) and a wide variety of factors demonstrated the development that took place.
These include the region’s first railroads, including the Los Angeles and San Pedro in 1869, the Southern Pacific’s branch lines to Anaheim from Florence and eastward through the San Gabriel Valley (as well as its takeover of the Los Angeles and San Pedro and the imminent completion of the main line from the north, which was finished in September 1876), and the Santa Monica branch of the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad by the end of 1875; early oil prospecting near modern Santa Clarita; basic improvements, with federal appropriations, to the rudimentary harbor at San Pedro/Wilmington; the formation of the Los Angeles Public Library late in 1872; the opening of Los Angeles High School the following year; and many others.
Among the most resolute and faithful of the emerging city’s boosters were its newspapers and the Museum’s collection includes samples of some of these from the peak of the boom, in the period from 1873-1875, and many have been shared in this blog’s “Read All About It” series. This edition features the 8 January 1873 edition of the Los Angeles Express and there are a few references to boom-era aspects.
One of these refers to the weather, which increasingly proved more alluring to tourists and settlers, especially as transportation was improved, including those aforementioned railroads—and this would only be better represented by the Boom of the Eighties, peaking during William H. Workman’s mayoral term in 1887-1888, following a direct transcontinental link to Los Angeles.
Also important to locals in their communication with others in more frigid parts of the county during the winter months was the stark variation in climate (this, too, would be more played up in the future). So, under the heading of “A Delightful Day,” the Express boasted,
The Readers of [the] EXPRESS, yesterday, enjoying our balmy atmosphere, cannot have failed to comprehend fully the contrast existing between winter here and in the East . . . while almost the entire country was visited by excessive cold, tornadoes and the severest storms, Los Angeles county was gladdened by a clear day and warm sun—a cloudless day, just warm enough to be pleasant. The air was balmy and healthful, the green blades of glass were shooting up from the hillsides, the orange groves were glistening with their golden fruit, the windows of our houses were thrown open to admit the soft air and warm sunshine, and the children were playing in the streets as if it were May-day in New York. Our long months of winter sunshine, with an atmosphere uniformly pure, mild and bracing, will bring to our county many thousands of visitors and permanent settlers. Before many years have passed, our hills and valleys will be crowded with sanitariums and dwelling houses, vieing [vying] in beauty with our vineyards, orchards and gardens.
Naturally, the paper felt it important to note in its “Local Dottings” section, after its observation that “each succeeding day seems more delightful than the last,” that readers could “set out on the new year by sending THE EXPRESS, daily or weekly, to the old friends at home. It might be the means of drawing many new residents to our delightful country.” It did this, while also stating that “even up in ‘Sonora’ there is progression” as a pair of new structures were being constructed in this poorer section north of the Plaza in what was the Angel City’s first barrio.
With respect to the new library, one of the founding trustees of which was Thomas W. Temple, cashier at the bank owned by his father F.P.F. Temple and grandfather William Workman, the paper informed readers that it “was open this morning, nearly all the preparations having been completed” and “the rooms are neat and attractive” in its quarters in the Downey Block at the northwest corner of Main and Temple streets. Among books provided to the new institution were those donated by merchant Charles Ducommun, attorney E.J.C. Kewen, who gave 65 and 60 volumes each, while others who promised contributions were Downey, lawyer and future judge Volney E. Howard, County Judge Harvey K.S. O’Melveny and Express publisher George O. Tiffany.
Other news of note included an early morning fire at the Askin & Metzker stable, which drew the attention of “several men who slept in the stable” and tossed buckets of water on the blaze. The 38s volunteer fire fighting company soon arrived “with their apparatus in time to quench the flames thoroughly,” though “one of the horses attached to the engine fell dead shortly after reaching the fire” while two of the animals let loose from the stable when the conflagration erupted were burned, one severely. The stable owners took out a card thanking the department “for saving our property from destruction” adding that it was to “their promptness in being on hand and extinguishing the flames we owe the salvation of our property.”
After a recent passage by the Common (City) Council, which included William H. Workman among its members, of a Sunday law, banning any business from conducting transactions on the Sabbath, enforcement included cases reported upon from the court of Justice of the Peace John J. Trafford. These included a pair of saloon keepers who pled guilty and were fined $15 each and the upcoming case of a confectioner, who was found guilty by a three-man jury (women were not permitted to serve in those days) and docked $50, while “the other cases will be disposed of during the week.”
During the first years of the Seventies, there were three major English-language daily papers: the Express (launched in 1871), the Star (which operated from 1851 to 1864 and then from 1868-1879), and the News, which began in 1860 but closed late in 1872. Its last owner, Charles E. Beane, took over in the first part of October, but was unable to avoid the inevitable and it was shuttered by the end of the following month. Beane took out a card dated 6 January to inform those who were in debt to the late sheet to only remit payments to him.
Brief mention was made about the recent election in Nevada, which became a state almost a decade prior because its immense silver deposits were vital for the Union in the Civil War, including for a United States Senator. It was noted that silver mine magnate John P. Jones sought the seat, but, though “his friends were almost universally elected to the Legislature,” he “may be disappointed, after all, and some one else elected.” Yet, the paper observed, “the Senatorship has been regularly bought and sold, since the admission of the State; and the present canvass has been probably the most disgraceful of all,” and Jones’ defeat was, therefore, necessary.
In those days, senators were determined by the vote of the legislature and Jones was actually “elected” and ended up serving five terms over three decades. Soon after, he took an interest in Los Angeles and, acquiring majority interests in ranchos on the coast west of the Angel City, became the leading figure in the development of the seaside town of Santa Monica and the aforementioned Los Angeles and Independence Railroad. Jones retired to the town he founded and died in Los Angeles in 1912.
The last item of interest was rather important for the development of the city and county, though it seems surprising it took so long for the projects to occur. These had to with bridges constructed over the Río Hondo (the old course of the San Gabriel), the “new” San Gabriel River established by flooding in the winter of 1867-1868), and the Los Angeles River. It was long understood that transportation, including shipping of farm products and other goods, as well as commuting, required modern spans across these water courses, even if they were dry or low in water for much of the year.
Finally, in spring 1872, the local delegation to the state legislature secured a bill allowing the county to spend $60,000 on the three bridges, while a separate one was passed to provide for a $25,000 span along the Los Angeles River south of the new town of Compton (this established on land developed on the northern edge of the Rancho San Pedro by F.P.F. Temple and a partner in 1867.) The Board of Supervisors then took on the project of building the trio of bridges, with surveyor Frank Lecouvreur carrying out soundings of the Los Angeles River bed in the summer after it was decided that the Old Aliso (later Macy Street, now César E. Chávez Avenue) Street route was the best.
This was largely because Old Aliso provided the main route out of the city and into the San Gabriel Valley and points east, though it was obviously necessary that the bed have enough clay to be able to support the pilings for the span. The News of 14 July 1872 added that it was vital that the bridge be part of planning that included the future railroad development of Los Angeles, including the location of a depot.
Regarding this, Congress mandated that the Southern Pacific, in its building of a line through California and meeting the Colorado River at Fort Yuma, Arizona, go through Los Angeles to meet the demands of its issued charter to the powerful railroad company. In early November 1872, Los Angeles County voters approved a deal by which the SP took control of the Los Angeles and San Pedro and received a subsidy of some $600,000 for work conducted locally.
Bids were advertised by the Supervisors at the end of August and a local capitalist, John M. Baldwin submitted one, as did the Oakland firm, the Pacific Bridge Company. Baldwin, however, only sent in a proposal for two spans, for the Los Angeles and Río Hondo ones, while Pacific included all three in its submission. Baldwin offered to do his work for $52,000, while Pacific pegged its costs at $59,000 and, given that the latter was for all three, as called for in the request for proposals, it was accepted, in early October, with twice the cost in a bond required.
The following day, Pacific advertised for teamsters to haul material from the local lumberyard and planing mill of Perry, Woodworth and Company, founded by Wallace Woodworth and William H. Perry—the latter would, three years later, build his fine house (designed by Ezra F. Kysor, said to have overseen the major remodel of the Workman House) in the Mt. Pleasant Tract very close to the Los Angeles River span. The Mount Pleasant House is now at the Heritage Square Museum.
Just before it shut down operations, in its edition of 23 November, the News provided an update on construction, including the insertion of “piers to support the new truss bridge” and reporting that “there are six men employed excavating the foundations, [and] putting in and ballasting the iron cylinders forming the base of the piers.” Four of these were “done “laid down” with the ballast consisting of rock, while the other two were soon to follow and it was added that the work was progressing rapidly. The paper concluded,
We have not to wait long to see the river spanned with a strong and elegant bridge. Teams sticking in the quicksands [sic], and failures to cross on account of floods, will then be numbered as among the things of the past.
Two days later, the Star added that pier work was well underway at the other bridges, with all of this endeavor apparently began on the 18th. The Express featured here provided some excellent technical detail of the Los Angeles River span, noting that it was to be 575 feet in length, with 175 feet of trestle “on the city side” and a pair of 150-foot long spans. These latter were on the iron piers of four feet diameter and “sunk in the river bed to solid bottom” and then “capped with blocks of Frear stone,” these being imitation stone cast in molds and weighing 1,750 pounds and “which rest entirely on the concrete with which the iron columns are filled.”
At the time of writing, the first span was being put into place, with dressed timber by Perry, Woodworth and Company that was 46-foot long and measuring 6 x 12 inches placed first onto a false support system. Posts measured 24 feet in length and it was added that on these “the chord timbers [are] solidly bolted together; the top chords are then run on and drawn up to the top of the posts with a derrick, where they are put together and bolted to each post.” Braces were then attached to the post, after which the falsework was removed “and for the first time the bridge swings with its full weight on the piers.”
The account noted that “the entire frame of the bridge is of Puget Sound pine, of the best quality,” shipped from Washington Territory,” and was to be 18 feet high “and wide enough for loaded teams of all kinds to pass with ease.” Moreover, this first and only covered bridge ever built in greater Los Angeles “is to be roofed with redwood shingles, sided up and painted.” It was noted that Perry, Woodworth and Company “got their planer extended to enable them to dress timber of this extreme length” and that “their work is highly spoken of by the framers who say that it is fully equal to the best work of the kind done in San Francisco.” Finally, it was stated hat there were twenty men “most of whom are mechanics,” employed by Pacific Bridge on the job and they “will push the work to completion as rapidly as the weather will allow.”
Considering how much ink was devoted in the press to the planning, it is surprising how little was said about its completion on 26 January 1873, with the Star of two days later, merely commenting, “the bridge across the river is completed, and is one of the finest in California” while adding, “a great many people went down to see it yesterday.” The Spanish-language paper, La Crónica, of the 25th, reported, more colorfully, if also briefly,
The new bridge over the Los Angeles River will be completed very shortly; it will be a magnificent place for romantic scenes, for which it seems expressly built. The secluded place, the dark bridge, the rest is obvious.
A “bridge of sighs” indeed! The span lasted three decades and was replaced by a new bridge constructed in the middle part of the first decade of the 20th century. The Homestead is fortunate to have in its collection a very rare Henry T. Payne stereoscopic photograph, from about 1875, of this covered bridge—the only of its kind ever constructed in our region.