by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we move into the 1870s and greater Los Angeles continued its first significant and sustained period of growth, the beginning of 1871 found the Los Angeles News of 8 January referring to “the prevailing depression in financial circles,” but celebrated the fact that “the erection of first class brick structures, for business purposes, has been, for months steadily progressing.” As noted in the prior post, this included projects carried out by former governor Pío Pico and his compadre and neighboring rancher, as well as banker and business figure F.P.F. Temple.
Because of growing commercial activity in the Angel City, the latest major structure to be feted was the block completed by another former California chief executive, John G. Downey. Situated at the northwest corner of Temple and Main streets, with Spring Street terminating at this intersection. The paper detailed the tenants of the structure, including first-floor stores and second level professionals, as well as crediting architect and contractor, Thomas J. Baker (1831-1894).
Baker was born in London, worked in San Francisco, came to Los Angeles by 1870, where the only trained architect was Ezra F. Kysor, designer of the Pico House and, apparently, the Workman House remodel at the Homestead, and worked on F.P.F. Temple’s buildings. In 1876, after the financial collapse in California and Los Angeles that included the failure of the Temple and Workman bank, the architect and builder decamped to Honolulu, where he quickly made a name for himself and was selected by King Kalakaua to design ‘Iolani Palace. Quarrels quickly arose over the management of the project and, in 1880, Baker was paid $1,000 (he’d expected $65,000) and he left for Australia, where he died fourteen years later.
In complimenting Baker for his work in creating a building “constructed with an eye to the convenience of its occupants, and in the most thorough and substantial manner,” the News observed that the $25,000 structure, deemed “a credit to the city,” was to be followed, according to Downey, “with similar buildings, [on] the balance of the frontage of Main street owned on him, and now occupied by adobe structures.”
The Los Angeles papers, meaning the News and the Star, to date, sounded the tocsin for some time previously about the deteriorated condition of adobe structures in the Angel City, the nuisance they created and the need to modernize and beautify the growing town with modern brick and wood edifices. This was continued with a short notice in the Star of 9 February, which complained that “the adobe house and brea covered corridor on the southeast corner of Los Angeles and Commercial streets, are in such a condition as to be in danger of falling at any moment.”
The paper pointed out that “the walls of the house are broken in many places, and leaning so far . . . that a slight shock [earthquake] would be more than sufficient to throw them down.” While water intrusion was the biggest enemy of adobe buildings, necessitating frequent repairs of the plaster walls and careful attention paid to the brea covering on roofs, this is “earthquake country” and an already compromised structure, if such was the case here, could obviously by susceptible to a serious shaker. The Star ended with the comment that the intersection was an important one and that there was “a great danger” that a collapse could cause a fatality.
Nine days later, news of significant import was announced by the paper regarding the latest commercial building project:
The occupants of that portion of Temple Block, which is still in its normal adobe condition, have been served with notices to vacate the premises by the first day of next March. We understand that the adobes will be torn down, and a magnificent three-story brick building, on a par with the remainder of the block, will be erected in their stead. This will make this property the finest piece of improved real estate in the city.
F.P.F. Temple, as mentioned earlier in this post, acquired the centrally located and, therefore, very valuable property in 1867, following the death of his elder brother, Jonathan, who constructed the two-story adobe building mentioned in the quote in the late 1840s, at the north end of the triangular shaped tract. In 1857, an early prominent brick commercial structure was completed at the south end (followed two years later, in an open area below that, by the Market House, later the Court House).
As we’ve seen, F.P.F. added to the property, with two more brick buildings built there until he decided to finally raze the last adobe structure there. When this short piece was published, the Hellman, Temple and Company bank he owned with his father-in-law William Workman and Isaias W. Hellman, was only very recently dissolved by the latter over sharp differences with Temple on its management.
In the dissolution papers, Hellman specifically referred to sums forwarded to Temple so that he could pursue development projects, obviously including this one. While Hellman joined forces with Downey to open the very successful Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank, Temple and Workman went on their own with an institution opened, in November 1871, in the ground floor of the last Temple Block edifice.
In its 7 March edition, the News provided an update on this project, commenting
The work of tearing away the old adobe building . . . is progressing rapidly. Its place is to be occupied by a block of buildings which will be an ornament to the city. The improvement will be a notable one, though many of our older citizens remember the time when the building now being removed was one of the most imposing structures in the city.
The structure that replaced it stood more than twice as long, but was similarly considered old and decrepit, as well as archaic and subject to the demands and dictates of progress when it was demolished in 1926 to make way for City Hall. Fortunately, Temple’s son, Walter, a dedicated “scavenger” of historical material, was able to procure bricks and the vault from the bank that succeeded Temple and Workman before the structure was razed and used these at his La Casa Nueva and adjoining Tepee retreat.
Earlier, it was noted that the remnant bricks from demolished structures were often repurposed and this was mentioned in the Star of the 10th, as it reported that minor improvements were being made to Alameda Street “by the chain gang, who are hauling adobes and scattering sand . . . to fill up one or two of the worst holes in the street.” Chain gangs of prisoners (see below for more on the jail) were routinely used for public works projects and have been sometimes described as created from “slave marts,” especially indigenous persons arrested for public drunkenness on a Sunday and, unable to pay fines, contracted for free private and public labor and then returning to the same vicious cycle week upon week.
Remarkably, in the briefest of reports, the paper, in its edition of 8 April, noted that “there are six hundred and twenty-three adobe houses in the City of Los Angeles.” It would be fascinating to know how many there were a decade before, as well as where the survivors were concentrated—presumably, Sonoratown, north of the Plaza, was a key area.
The News of 23 April noted with no disguised satisfaction that “from the debris of adobes left near the sidewalk, one sees that the old Montgomery Block is being removed as fast as possible.” The saloon in this structure on Main Street was not just popular in earlier years as a watering hole, but also was a gathering place for political rallies and by vigilantes who worked themselves into a frenzy (no doubt, some aided by “liquid courage”) before committing its outrages of “popular justice.”
A proprietor for some years was Damien Marchessault, mayor for several terms before the sad end to his life just a few years prior to this announcement about the structure, which concluded with the report that a two-story livery stable, presumably of brick, was to “occupy the place recently made hideous by an unsightly pile of yellow adobes.”
That adobe building at the corner of Commercial and Los Angeles streets was mentioned in both papers in their issues of 16 June, with the News (under a report of the brutal stoning of a Chinese women by a “crowd of boys”) commenting that it was “a sort of morgue for dead animals but also a place of wassail (on Sundays) for drunken squaws.” Its rival was more florid in its assessment, stating,
On Sundays it is the abode of drunken Indians; week days, a receptacle for all kinds of filth, such as dead cats, rats and rubbish of all sorts. Visitors from San Francisco, who invariably pass the above street, on arriving in this city, will by no means imagine the powerful odors emanate from one of our orange groves.
Turning to an argument that would accelerate in coming years and be amplified in subsequent decades, including during outbreaks of disease in the 1920s that led to wholesale demolitions of structures in poor neighborhoods very close to this location and later “urban renewal” projects, the Star added, “if measures are not immediately instituted to in some way remedy the evil, it will prove the source of illness to people living in the vicinity.”
The News of 12 July followed up on the projected plans of Downey, now in league with his banking partner Hellman, as it announced that “the old adobes on Main street, near the corner with Requena, are being torn down to make room for a fine block of brick buildings.” Named for Manuel Requena (1802-1876), who served several city council terms as well as alcalde/mayor, county supervisor and education board member, the short street, first called Libertad (Freedom), passed from Los Angeles to Main, ending very near the Temple Block. In he early 20th century, it was renamed Market Street and is long gone now.
While most of the adobe buildings in the Angel City were residences or businesses, there were those devoted to civic and public uses and these, too, were frequently denigrated as wholly unsuitable for their purposes. The chief complex was on the property comprising the house and yard and formerly owned by the Rocha family (whose Rancho de la Brea was where the tar pits were located which supplied the material for covering roofs, as noted above) and which was sold in 1853 to the city and county by Jonathan Temple.
Located on the west side of Spring Street, between Temple and First, with a short lane heading west into Bunker Hill and called Jail, Court and then Franklin Street before it was removed, the adobe structure was the city hall prior to its move in 1861 to Temple’s Market House, though it later returned when funds were lacking. It was also, however, the meeting place of the Common (City) Council, the County Clerk’s office, and the county courthouse—though the latter moved to the Market House and remained there for years with a new purpose-built facility completed in summer 1891.
As for the jail, it was built in the yard behind the adobe structure and, upon completion with the deed handed over on 9 January 1854, comprised two stories: an adobe first floor for the city lockup—it was occasionally subject to escape attempts, such as one on 22 February 1855 in which prisoners proceeded “to excavate a neat opening in the wall, something over a foot square” upon which they took their “French leave”—and a second floor of brick and/or stone for the county and which, because of more available money, was considerably more secure.
Both the adobe structure and the jail were routinely criticized for impossible limited space, deteriorating elements (termite-eaten wooden joists, an improperly built fireplace and chimney in the County Clerk’s office that caused a near-catastrophic fire which nearly destroyed all the public records stored there, etc.) and, with the latter, frequently nauseous conditions involving terrible sanitation, sick prisoners secreting various effluvia, and more. As just one fairly early example relating to the Rocha Adobe, the News of 14 March 1860 reported on,
the exposed and insecure condition of the public records, in the office of the County Clerk . . . the building . . . is wholly unsuitable for that purpose. In fact, the old adobe walls, almost roofless, heretofore dedicated as court rooms, and offices of the Clerk and Sheriff, are so completely dilapidated as to render them not only insecure for such purposes, but exceedingly dangerous.
While there were occasional reports, these often being from the County Grand Jury, of improvements made when funds permitted, complaints were frequent about the inadequate conditions there. The 17 September 1871 edition of the Star is interesting for its lengthy disquisition about the jail, described as being between Spring and New High streets, the latter then terminating at the aforementioned Jail/Franklin street.
Moreover, the paper observed that “the lot is enclosed on three sides by a plank fence, about 20 feet high, and on the remaining [west] side by a row of adobe buildings, one of which is occupied by the family of the jailer, Frank Carpenter, and the others as the City Marshal’s office, Council Rooms, and the city vault.” The hoosegow was described as “about thirty three feet square . . . built of [adobe] brick and stone work.” The first floor, paved with asphaltum, included Carpenter’s bedroom and a reception room along with the cells, which included “a small and a large room . . . used as receptacles for drunks, disorderlies, and other offenders.” There were but two city prisoners at the time, but the overflow from upstairs meant four or five county prisoners were housed there.
As for the county lockup, it had one large holding area and four 64-square foot cells with a floor of two layers of wood, with one of sheet-iron between them. There were twenty-five prisoners under county detention and information was given on meals served at 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. with the kitchen “presided over by a Chinese cook of more than average culinary skill” and the food deemed of reasonable quality, with “utensils of scrupulous cleanliness.” The article ended with praise for Carpenter, who long served in his role, as “everything about the jail is kept in a condition of cleanliness and good order.”
Just over a month later came the horrific Chinese Massacre of 24 October by a mob of hundreds of Anglos and Latinos who lynched seventeen men and a teenage boy. Law enforcement officers and citizens, such as lawyer and future county judge (who presided over the trials of those involved in the Massacre) Robert M. Widney, rushed some Chinese citizens to the jail for protection. In the aftermath, the Star, whose initial reports were almost gleeful about the terror visited on the almost universally despised Chinese, commented on the long adobe structure, owned by State Treasurer Antonio Franco Coronel, where some of the worst atrocities were committed.
Under the heading of “May He Soon Build!” the paper observed,
It is a by no means uncommon thing to hear our business men talking together, as to what motives continue to prevent the Hon. A.F. Coronel from erecting a fine block of buildings at the head [north end] of Los Angeles street, in place of the wretched tumble-down adobe structure that now disgraces that locality.
A friend of Coronel told the paper that “the beggarly old ruins were kept standing intact, because that gentleman regarded it as a homestead, and respected it, as being the old mansion in which his family were raised.” For the Star, however, the problem was “the class of tenants who inhabit there and who have for many years been made up of the lowest and most vile” were such that “give no indication of [Coronel’s emotional attachment to the structure] in the public mind.”
Consequently, concluded the paper, if these animated the state treasurer’s desire to keep the building intact, it offered that “a due and sacred respect for the walls on account of shrine, home and heritage, should cause it to be kept in suitable repair, and be occupied by others than thieves and Chinese prostitutes.” Given, however, that the remainder of the Calle comprised other adobe buildings, presumably all owned by those renting spaces out to the Chinese and others, certainly most of whom were not the “lowest and most vile” nor “thieves and Chinese prostitutes,” the question was whether Coronel would invest in improving the structure when others were not well-maintained. The structure was razed in the 1880s as the Calle was largely removed for the northern extension of Los Angeles Street.
We return tomorrow with part six, so please check in with us then!