by Paul R. Spitzzeri
When William B. King, formerly of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad, then its new owner the California Southern Railroad, and, lastly, the sister line (both owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe) the California Central, of which he was trainmaster, responsible for operation of the trains on its route, wrote the 16 June 1887 letter to New York City financier Richard Smith, also treasurer of a Midwest line run by Ohio banker John M.C. Marble, that is the featured object from the Homestead’s holdings for this post, the point was to urgently request Smith to agree to help purchase land on the “flats” of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights along the east bank of the Los Angeles River.
At the time, the public was not aware of the impending project at hand. King resigned from the California Central within three weeks and the Los Angeles Herald of 7 July reported on a farewell party thrown for him by his former colleagues at the St. Elmo Hotel (formerly the Lafayette, dating back to the 1850s). He received an engraved watch chain and his health was “quaffed” with champagne with the paper concluding that King “departs shortly for New York, where he expects to stay for four weeks.” We can assume he met with Smith and others interested in what was to come.
This was announced a little four months later in the 9 October 1887 issue of the Los Angeles Times, which reported on the filing of the article of incorporation of a railroad company called the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Utah (SPLA&U) and observed that,
The object is to build a railroad from Rattlesnake Island, on the Bay of San Pedro, through the cities of Los Angeles and Pasadena and thence through the counties of Kern, Inyo, etc., past Owens Lake, making a connection with the Union Pacific in Utah.
Securing a key portion of what became the massive Port of Los Angeles, under a decade from the conclusion of the “Free Harbor Fight,” in which the federal government and its appropriations from Congress selected San Pedro/Wilmington over the Southern Pacific’s port and wharf at Santa Monica, provided for the crucial ocean shipping element.
Running the line north of the harbor and through Los Angeles (hence the idea of purchasing that riverfront land in Boyle Heights) and through the Arroyo Seco to Pasadena, the existing line of King’s former employer, the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley, the company would then have the Santa Fe’s new transcontinental line through the northern part of that valley (the Southern Pacific, since 1874, had theirs in the southern section through the Rancho La Puente).
The California Southern, meanwhile, constructed a line north from San Diego through the Cajon Pass to Barstow and, again the Santa Fe had its route through that location. The new SPLA&U, then, looked to build its track into eastern California along the same route as an 1870s project, the Los Angeles and Independence, which had F.P.F. Temple as it founding president, but which only built a spur line, from Los Angeles to the new seaside burg of Santa Monica, where the company’s new majority stockholder and president (Temple was relegated to treasurer), U.S. Senator John P. Jones of Nevada was the main investor. In 1877, the ailing Los Angeles and Independence was acquired by the Southern Pacific, which then promoted the site for the main greater Los Angeles harbor.
The grandiose plans of the Los Angeles and Independence included a future extension of the line from the Inyo County seat of Independence, where local silver mines were the initial goal in the mid-Seventies, and push northeastward to Ogden, Utah and the link with the transcontinental road, then only five years old. If this was to be successful, the SPLA&U would become the third transcontinental line through Los Angeles, which was going through the frenzy of its Boom of the Eighties. Notably, the mayor of the Angel City was William H. Workman, nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste, co-founder of Boyle Heights and who was mentioned in King’s missive, as noted in part one.
The Times recorded that “the directors are I.W. Hellman, S.O. Houghton, L.K. [actually L.R.] Winans, J.P. Woodbury and W.B. King” and it added that Isaias W. Hellman, former banking partner of Temple and William Workman and soon to be a titan of western America finance, “is the leading banker of Southern California and his name insures the project.” Sherman O. Houghton was a former mayor of San Jose and member of the House of Representatives, whose bill was crucial for the Los Angeles and Independence and its charter. Married successively to two of the Donner family who endured the horrific 1846 ordeal in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Houghton moved to Los Angeles in 1886 and set up a law practice—he remained in this area for nearly thirty years and died in 1914 at Hynes, now Paramount.
Lewis R. Winans was manager of a lumber company at San Pedro and later operated one at Redondo Beach, where there was also a commercial wharf of long years standing. John P. Woodbury was a founder of Altadena (his rows of deodar trees is now well-known locally as Christmas Tree Lane) and mentioned in the letter as a founder, with George G. Green (of the Hotel Green) and map publisher Andrew McNally (whose house in Altadena still stands) of the Pasadena Railroad, which had ambitions of extending to Utah along the route appropriated by the SPLA&U. Then, there was King. The Times added that the new firm rushed its articles for filing in Sacramento to circumvent another nascent company, the Salt Lake and Los Angeles.
The account continued that
The parties named as directors in this latest project are the same who recently effected the purchase of Rattlesnake Island, San Pedro harbor, for $300,000. It has been a popular belief, however, that that neck of land was purchased in the interest of the Union Pacific. [A previous report in the Times from the 4th stated] It is said to be the intention of [Jay] Gould to hold the island for a Pacific Coast terminus for the Union Pacific, although it is not deemed unlikely that he will order an extension of the line through Utah until next summer.
Jason (Jay) Gould was one of the infamous “robber barons” of late 19th century America, beginning his investment in small railroad companies at the end of the Fifties and, within a decade, he and his business partner James Fisk sought to amass enough holdings in gold to corner the market, leading to an 1869 panic. Gould’s purported deep ties to William M. “Boss” Tweed and his Tammany Hall machine in New York City allegedly kept him out of legal trouble, but he was soon the subject of a notorious con job by a fake British nobleman in an attempt to seize the Erie Railroad.
In 1873, though, Gould took advantage of conditions during a terrible depression and take control of the Union Pacific and actively revamped the powerful railroad, including further western expansion, and controlled about 15% of the nation’s trackage within a decade. Though he stepped away from active management of the UP in 1883, he also owned the Missouri Pacific, which had extensive lines through the Midwest and Mid-South regions. Gould also possessed the Texas and Pacific of Thomas A. Scott, who long sought to build a southern transcontinental route to San Diego, owned the Western Union telegraph firm and controlled New York City’s elevated railways.
In a separate editorial, the Times, after noting the speculation about the Union Pacific and its plans in the area, commented that “it is pleasant to know that a company has at last been organized to build a road from this Coast to meet the Union Pacific” at Utah. It reiterate that Hellman’s name being attached the project made it a sure thing, while the others, including King, were “men who do not lend their names to mushroom enterprises.” The paper added that “Rattlesnake Island will furnish just the terminal facilities that a great continental road like the Union Pacific will require in reaching tidewater.
In broadly laying out the route, to encompass 320 miles, it was observed that “a branch or spur road to Redondo Beach” and its wharf “is included in the defined route.” The account continued that, whether or not the UP was directly behind the SPLA&U (and it observed that “railroad men have the faculty of keeping their own counsel when they choose to do so”), it was averred “that a project of the magnitude of the one in hand would not be undertaken without a complete understanding with the Union Pacific Company.” The Times long discussed the desirability of a third transcontinental line as good for competition and reasonable shipping rates and passenger fares, as well as the fact that it would “multiply our prosperity in arithmetical ratio.”
The Herald of 16 November reported that surveying was being conducted at Compton and, when asked whether there was a connection between or future commingling of the SPLA&U with the Los Angeles and Salt Lake, flatly answered no to the first, but demurred as to the second. An unnamed source (one wonders if it was King given his history of track construction supervision) added that his firm was “now at work in East Los Angeles [Lincoln Heights] trying to secure a suitable entrance for the road from the southern limits of the city [north of Compton], near the County Hospital along the side of the Southern Pacific Company’s route.”
The following day’s edition of the paper reprinted a telegram received by Mayor Workman from a representative of the Los Angeles and Salt Lake stating that company officials were heading south from San Francisco, with the Angel City’s chief executive telling the Herald “this visit means work” in that the line “will be commenced at once and pushed to a rapid completion. It was added that the project emanated from the desire of Salt Lake City business leaders wanting a direct point of shipment for articles made in Utah with the route to be along the Mormon Trail, some of which constituted portions of the Old Spanish Trail used by the Workman family 36 years prior, including a stop at a desert watering hole called Las Vegas. Yet, mention was made of the possibility that the Los Angeles and Salt Lake might sell out to or acquire the SPLA&U as was the likelihood that Gould was backing the latter with the tycoon’s recent trip to Europe speculated to be for securing financial backing.
Problems concerning securing land for the route emerged, however, with the Herald of 26 November noting that surveying was suspended “until the business of securing a right-of-way from the property owners along the routes already surveyed” was completed. An exact route was yet to be determined, but “it is understood that it will be on the east bank of the Los Angeles river” and rights-of-way from landowners there (almost certainly including Mayor Workman) were being pursued. The next day, the San Bernardino Courier reported that King would be in that town to discuss the railroad’s entry into that city as part of its route.
The 2 December issue of the Herald reinforced that the work to get a right-of-way from Boyle Heights to the southern extremity of the Angel City was “meeting with considerable difficulty” and that “this trouble arises from the fact that the Salt Lake and Los Angeles road” was seeking the same, specifically through Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights as far south as Seventh Street. Again, an unnamed official (King again?) impressed upon readers that, whether or not rights-of-way could be obtained over the preferred route, another option, even if not as favorable, would be pursued and “we will surely build our road from San Pedro to Pasadena” even if “we do not say positively that we will build the road to Utah.”
This was because there was still the question of obtaining “a suitable amount of cash and a good route,” but “we have an excellent terminal at San Pedro, one that no other road can secure, and we also have a good one at Pasadena,” this being the former LA&SGVRR station. There was also an option on Woodbury’s “Altadena road,” which involved seven miles out of the Crown City. The idea for the Angel City was to “cross the Los Angeles river at the southern limits of the city and run up the east bank some distance, when we will cross to the west bank and locate our station if we can secure grounds.” The statement ended with the assurance that “we are not building a road with our ‘jaws,’ and the road will as surely be built as it is that the sun shines,” even if a timetable was not yet established.
Three days later, the Herald of the 5th quoted from the trade publication Railway Age that
The rumored intention of the Missouri Pacific interest to build a line to the Pacific coast seems now to be made certain by the announcement of the incorporation of New York of the Salt Lake, Los Angeles and San Pedro Railway Company with Jay Gould named as the leading incorporator . . . The length of the road would be about 650 miles. This company has filed articles of incorporation in New York for the purpose of building a railroad from Salt Lake City, Utah, to San Pedro, Mex. [sic]. [The incorporators are] Jay Gould, S.M. Nichols, Richard Smith, of New York, and Isaac Trumbull, of San Francisco, and J.S. Salisbury, of Salt Lake. Mr. Charles H. Roser, of New York, is chief engineer.
On the 8th, the Los Angeles Express observed that, when a third transcontinental line with a connection to Utah was first broached, “Los Angeles capitalists speedily became interested,” but it then noted that Trumbull and another Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad figure sought concessions. When it came to the New York incorporation of the new company, however, it was Gould’s son George who was named, though he and Smith steadfastly denied involvement, even as they were both known to be large stockholders of the Missouri Pacific and Union Pacific companies, while the surveyor was also a Union Pacific employee. Moreover, continued the account, “it is known how Mr. Smith bought Rattle Snake Island, and for whom he purchased it, either for Mr. Gould or for the Union Pacific Company, either of which is one and the same as far as the matter of control is concerned.”
We’ll halt here and pick up the story with a part three soon, so check back with us for that.
This blog delves into the intriguing and exciting railroad battles of the 1880s, focusing on the efforts to connect San Pedro to Utah. Jay Gould prematurely declared his victory and claimed a partnership with Richard Smith, which Smith subsequently denied. I hope Smith makes the right decision to align himself with the railroad man William King instead of the notorious Jay Gould. I eagerly await part three of this series!