by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The monthly journal, The Overland Monthly, debuted in 1868 under the editorial hand of poet and short story writer Bret Harte and quickly gained notice as a literary publication of quality never before seen in California. After some two-and-a-half years, Harte, whose poem, “Plain Language from Truthful James,” renamed “The Heathen Chinee” was intended to generate sympathy from the oppressed minority but readers gravitated instead towards the racist attacker, left for New York.
When the April 1871 issue, featured here from the Museum’s collection, was published, the Los Angeles News of the 2nd, allowed that there were “several articles of great interest” in the journal, but commented,
There is no denying that our favorite Monthly has deteriorated since the retirement of Mr. Harte from its editorial management. We miss, however, not so much the pen of Truthful James and the crisp sketches of California life, as the critical acumen and literary taste displayed in the standard maintained . . . If something be not done to restore the Overland to its former standing, it must sink permanently into a second-class magazine.
The News did, though, opine that “‘Cotton Experiments in California,’ by J.L. Strong, is the most valuable and one of the best written articles in the present number,” adding that it reflected Strong’s background on the subject “and is abundantly fortified with statistics. Strong had a short period of residence in greater Los Angeles, but spent of his time in California in the San Joaquin Valley, and grew cotton in both sections.
His experience came from his formative years in the South, Strong, born in 1841, being a native of northern Mississippi near the Tennessee border. After study at the University of Georgia (his father hailed from that state, while his mother was from Alabama), Strong pursued the law at Columbia College (now University) in New York City. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army and rose to the rank of colonel—at one point he was captured by Union forces and imprisoned in New Orleans, though he escaped and reassumed his command.
Because of the devastated conditions of the postwar South, Strong came west in 1867 to California and undertook the raising of cotton, a crop he would know all-too-well, near the town of Snelling in Merced County on a ranch formerly owned by Senator William M. Gwin, a Tennessee native who resided for years in Mississippi before coming to Gold Rush California and becoming a very powerful figure. In 1870, the California Legislature received correspondence from his brother-in-law in Dickson (this was Strong’s wife’s maiden name), Alabama and it was mentioned that Strong was the first person to attempt cotton growing in the San Joaquin Valley and previously managed a cotton plantation in northeast Arkansas.
Notably, it was mentioned that a problem in the South was that plantation owners had to “hire labor for wages” since the emancipation of slaves during the late war. When it came to California, however, there was “the prospect of an unrestricted importation of Chinese laborers at such a low rate of wages as to reduce the cost of production to such a limit as to revive the quantity” of cotton harvested. Blacks and the Chinese, demeaned and despised as they were, could be thereby exploited to great profit in the grueling work in the cotton fields of the South or California.
In fall 1870, Strong wrote to ex-governor John G. Downey, a long-time resident of Los Angeles and who made a great deal of money as a druggist and real estate speculator, while then a partner in the Angel City’s first bank, Hayward and Company. After explaining to Downey that his enterprise was such that he netted $8,000, Strong offered,
If any individual or company in your section will try the experiment, I will make a hand—superintend the affair—at reasonable wages, and take my pay out of the net proceeds of the crop. I am a practical farmer, and can give satisfactory references, both here and in the South. I am unable to undertake the thing on my own account. If it should prove a success, it would be of inestimable value to your section, to say nothing of the additional benefits of home manufacture.
There were, however, cotton experiments in California dating back around a half-century, with historian Hubert Howe Bancroft reporting that cotton was raised at the Mission San Luis Obispo during the Mexican era and that the crop was also grown at the end of the period in 1846. In the early American period, there was a September 1850 report of cotton grown in the northern part of the new state and sent to New Orleans. A few years later, a farmer near Sacramento raised a crop from seed sent from Mississippi.
In greater Los Angeles, some of the earliest efforts were engaged in at El Monte, which, not coincidentally, was largely settled by Southerners. Fielding W. Gibson, a Mississippi native, planted cotton at his ranch, land on the southern edge of the Rancho San Francisquito he acquired from Henry Dalton. The 1 November 1856 edition of the Los Angeles Star reported that Gibson was awarded a framed diploma from the California State Agricultural Society “for one half-acre of cotton.” His future partner in the development of what became Compton, F.P.F. Temple, earned the same prize for his sugar cane experiment, while Temple’s father-in-law, William Workman got his diploma “for best grape brandy, ten years old,” from his fortified grapes grown just south of his house along San José Creek.
In 1860, Downey opined that “the cotton plant has not been cultivated on a sufficiently large scale to enable me to arrive at a conclusion as to its real merit as a staple product in this region,” but a major effort soon came with the outbreak of the Civil War. With the view that there had to be alternatives to Southern-produced cotton, some greater Los Angeles figures made significant efforts in growing the crop and, in 1862, the California Legislature offered bonuses. None were awarded, though, until 1865 when Mathew Keller, who was also a viticulturist and winemaker of significance in what was then the grape-growing capital of the Golden State, earned a $3,000 premium for his cotton crop.
The Los Angeles Tri-Weekly News of 20 November 1863 informed its readers,
We were shown on yesterday, by Mr. F.P.F. Temple, several fine and well matured bolls of cotton which were raised on the ranch of Mr. William Workman, as trial, and which has proved so successful as to induce him to try the experiment on a larger scale the coming season. Several fields of cotton will be planted in the Monte, the coming spring if seed can be obtained.
The 17 February 1864 edition of the News contained an editorial on “A New Feature In Our Trade” and, after noting that southern Utah cotton was being shipped through San Pedro after a long overland shipment on what had been portions of the Old Spanish and Mormon trails, added that the product “resembles the samples which have been raised in the vicinity of Los Angeles, by Messrs. Workman, Temple, [James] Watson and [John] Holt.”
The paper continued that “many of our citizens are turning their attention to the culture of cotton, as experiment has shown, which must ere long become a leading commodity for shipment.” It noted that there was “desert waste” land “between here and the Colorado river,” which was “peculiarly well adapted to the growth of cotton” and it predicted that there would be fields “which will eventually cover an area which is now known only as a desert.”
The News of 20 April ran a feature on “Cotton and Tobacco in Southern California” and pointed to “the several successful experiments which have been made with the above named products, in this vicinity.” It cautioned that “great profit” could only be realized “if labor can be so economized” but added,
It is with pleasure that we note the fact that in the trials—in the cultivation of tobacco—made by Messrs. Keller, Hutchings, Dibblee & Bro., and others in Los Angeles county [including F.P.F. Temple, who had an eighth of an acre, or about 5,500 square feet, at his Rancho La Merced, with the State Agricultural Society of 1865 commenting that it was well-grown if too closely planted]; as also, the experiments, in the growth of cotton, which have been made by Messrs. Workman, Temple, Watson and [William] Wolfskill, have proved most satisfactory; thus far all doubt on the subject of mature growth has been banished.
The paper concluded by insisting that there was plenty of land, especially since the current two-year devastating drought, which followed a winter of terrible flooding, brought near-ruin to the long-dominant cattle industry, for such endeavors. Such tracts “now lies waste” and it proclaimed “the field is now open to all; the proof of profit to cotton-growers, has been demonstrated by the late shipment of a cargo from Salt Lake.”
On the last day of 1864, the News noted the presence of “Los Angeles Cotton in France” as it quoted from Jacques Morenhaut, the French consul in the Angel City, in a letter written to the Wilmington Journal, in which he informed that paper that “a few months ago I sent to France five samples of cotton cultivated in this county. The owners were M.M. Wilson, Temple, Workman, Watson, and another person whose name I do not know.” A response was received from the French minister of Agriculture and Commerce who adjudged the “short silk cotton” samples to be “a little rougher and less regular” than others elsewhere in the United States, meaning the South, but “would fetch about the same price.
Given this encouragement, qualified though it was, the paper noted that “several hundred acres of cotton will be planted in this county the coming season” and it claimed that, with harvesting, “the question of continuance and expansion in the culture of cotton will be thoroughly settled.” Yet, it ended, “from the trials which have already been made, it is pretty certain to prove a success” and, this being the case, “it will greatly increase the staple products of this portion of California.”
The 16 September 1865 issue of the News observed that Watson brought a stalk of cotton to the paper from the field of José Rubio, who resided in Paredon Blanco (White Bluff,) an area across the Los Angeles River in what a decade later became Boyle Heights (established by Workman’s nephew, William H., and partners John Lazzarovich and Isaias W. Hellman). It was favorably noted that the sample showed the full span of development and “the number of bolls upon the stock—an average of the field—is almost incredible.” A rare Californio venturing into the experiment, Rubio possessed what “is said by the best judges to be the finest field of cotton in this valley.”
The Journal of 6 January 1866 noted that Eldridge E. Hewitt, who worked for Phineas Banning, the father of Wilmington and “Port Admiral” of what is now the expansive Port of Los Angeles, reported on imports and exports from April through December 1865. Of exports, including shipments of corn, wool, wine (perhaps including products from William Workman’s newly finished wineries), hides, petroleum (the first oil well was drilled that year in what is now Santa Clarita), dried fruit, tobacco and much else, there were 283 pounds of “native cotton.” This was, of course, a very modest amount.
The 19 June edition of the News observed, by quoting from the San Francisco Alta, that Keller, not far removed from receiving the inaugural premium from the state, had the distinction of generating “the first considerable invoice of Californian grown cotton ever received” in the commercial capital of the state. Rather than baled, as in the South, the cotton “was put up in 79 large sacks, about the size of those used for shipping wool.” Deemed of fair quality, the product was such that it was claimed “the time will come when such shipments will excite no more comment than the arrival of a sloop load of Bodega potatoes.”
Yet, there was little change with respect to the scale of cotton growing until Strong, in fall 1870, moved from Snelling and settled on 600 acres owned the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Land Company, which was formed to manage the vast landholdings of Abel Stearns (who died the following year.) The location was along the Santa Ana River, ten miles from Anaheim, in what was soon to be called Gospel Swamp and in the vicinity of today’s South Coast Plaza shopping center with the district embracing parts of Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley and Santa Ana.
Strong’s booster piece in The Overland Monthly noted that the land company “furnished to the writer the free use of six hundred acres of land on the ‘Stearns Rancho,’ for the cultivation of cotton, sharing the expense of cultivating one hundred acres.” A contract for a 140-acre tract stipulated that the per-acre production cost was to be $8.55, but Strong claimed that the lands “will yield not less than one bale of five hundred pounds per acre.” He added that the fertility of the soil was such that “lands adjacent to those selected for planting on the ‘Stearns Rancho’ yielded 140 bushels of corn per acre the past year, without cultivation [italics included].”
Noting that “cotton is an experiment in this region,” Strong added,
I have received the statement from numerous sources, that cotton of fine quality and large yield is annually grown for domestic consumption near Los Nietos [what is now Whittier, Santa Fe Springs, Downey and other areas] and El Monte, without irrigation or cultivation.
What is not known is whether Temple or Workman were still working with cotton, seven or so years after the last mention of them experimenting with the crop. Strong went on to discuss labor costs, comparisons of Snelling and Gospel Swamp to lands he’d worked in the South, his shipping of Snelling cotton to England and China so that “we shall know its value at an early day,” and much more.
Observing that “the spirit of Progress and Reform is the mania of the age,” Strong added that “individuals, societies, nations—all torn loose from their moorings—are borne outward by its irresistible tide” and this imperative of advancement “demolishes institutions, and defies the barriers of time.” California had to assert its self-sufficiency in developing the products that took full advantage of “the great and various bounties which munificent nature as provided” as well as of the fact that the Golden State is “blessed with a mild and genial climate” and “of fertile and various soils” and more.
Strong continued that “I write from the southern portion of the State: the home of the orange, the lemon, the walnut, the vine—of all the tropical and semi-tropical fruits,” though a decade before greater Los Angeles was known as the center of the “cow counties.” He rhapsodized that “gold glistens on the sides of our mountains, and sparkles in the sands of our rivers” so that “in short, we are blessed beyond all the regions of the earth with the elements of prosperity and wealth, if we will but utilize and develop them.”
After noting that the Gold Rush was long over and “the miner wanders about our villages, watching for the announcement of new discoveries, cursing the Chinaman who has extracted the cream of the old, and dispatched it to the ‘Celestial Kingdom,'” Strong concluded,
The conclusion follows, that the production of cotton is a necessity to California: because it can be produced here cheaper than at any other point on the globe, and manufactured with the same economy; because cheap cotton goods enable her to compete with the East for territorial trade, with all nations for that of Mexico, Central and South America, and the Pacific islands . . .
By the end of 1871, however, Strong left his Gospel Swamp project to assume a new 1,650-acre effort to the north, though the Los Angeles Star of 20 December praised his “able and exhaustive” treatise in The Overland Monthly while also commenting that his forecasts of cotton supremacy “were regarded as the extravagant vagaries of an enthusiast.” Moreover, it ventured that “few men have accomplished so much for California in the gloomy year that is closing” and it cited the Appeal, a paper in Memphis, where Strong had strong ties, as stating that he’d secured a place among the first benefactors of California.”
The Star‘s encomium was such that it promoted how he was “patiently, persistently and unselfishly working” on his regional cotton project and “asking no higher honor, entertaining no grander aim” though “we have thought that the day would come when they would be esteemed, a monument worthy of such devotion.” It concluded that “we part with Col. Strong, as a citizen of Los Angeles county, with regret, but we are happy to know, that, though Los Angeles loses a valuable citizen, his brains and energies are not lost to the State.”
After a boom period ended abruptly in late summer 1875 with an economic crash (following a national depression two years prior) that included the failure of the Temple and Workman bank, which emerged several months later from the end of Hellman, Temple and Company, Strong ended up with his grand cotton ambitions unrealized. The 1880 census found Strong and his wife Margie in Visalia where he was a clerk in a store—a decade later, he died in Memphis at age 49.
Yet, Strong was prescient. Cotton production in California peaked in the 1950s and 1960s with about a million acres generating more than $1 billion annually. Though acreage is now about a quarter of what is was then, the crop is grown in parts of the San Joaquin Valley, the Sacramento region, and in large swaths of Imperial County. Greater Los Angeles did not have the conditions to be successful and, even if it did, massive population growth and accompanying development would have curtailed the industry, as happened with citrus, walnuts and other agricultural crops. It is certainly interesting to read this article, given the brief experimentation that Workman and Temple family engaged in with cotton.