by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The abrupt and sensational end of the first boom in greater Los Angeles, which included the Temple and Workman bank as its biggest casualty, brought several years of sluggishness, if not outright stagnation, in the regional economy—this mirrored what nationally has been called by some “The Long Depression.” For grape growers and wine makers, there was substantial growth in the number of vines and gallons of wine and brandy, including by L.J. Rose of Sunny Slope in the San Gabriel Valley, produced during the boom, but lean years lay ahead and a terrible drought in 1876-1877 compounded matters.
When 1876 dawned, the Los Angeles Herald of New Year’s Day reported that federal Internal Revenue Service collector, former Los Angeles newspaper publisher John O. Wheeler, who co-owned the briefly operated but colorful Southern Californian in the mid-Fifties, reported that there were 45 distilleries in the county, along with nine wholesale and over 280 retail dealers in alcoholic beverages—though half of the nearly 60 distilleries in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties were not operating for reasons not stated.
Wheeler added that most of the taxes paid on brandy were by nine manufacturers including such well-known names as Antonio Pelanconi, Mathew Keller and the firm of John Frohling and Charles Kohler in Los Angeles; Isaias W. Hellman at Rancho Cucamonga; Benjamin Dreyfus at Anaheim; George Stoneman, Benjamin D. Wilson and Rose at San Gabriel.
A major development for Rose is when, in May, he joined Samuel C. Perkins and Charles Stern in a partnership selling California wines, including, of course, those made by the Sunny Slope proprietor, through offices in New York City, Boston and Chicago. Like Rose, Stern hailed from Bavaria in what became a united Germany in 1870, migrated when young to the United States. He and Perkins began working together about the time Rose came to California and, in 1867, merged with Kohler and Frohling, so that the latter operated in San Francisco and Los Angeles under their name and the former worked in New York and Chicago with theirs.
In what was otherwise a somewhat quiet year, Rose was a host in late September of the famous Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman with Wilson, Stoneman (also a Union Army general during the Civil War) and E.J.C. Kewen when Sherman toured the San Gabriel district on his way from the east during a quick one-night visit, including a stay at the St. Charles (formerly the Bella Union) Hotel, to greater Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Express of 29 September recorded that the hero of the late war told an assemblage in the Angel City that he’d visited twenty-seven years prior (1849) and that there were “a few dirty ‘dobie [adobe] houses here and there,” but, in 1876, it deserved to be called a city, though there was much more to do. This included, he went on, the need “to collect the rains which fall in winter and use them in summer” in what he was sure would become “one of the most beautiful [regions] on the continent.”
The Express of 27 November summarized the meeting, two days prior, of the Southern District Agricultural Association, formed at the beginning of the decade with Rose as its first president and which operated Agricultural (now Exposition) Park. No doubt because of hard economic times, the Society determined to sell of some of its surplus land “without interfering with the track, buildings or trees,” and appointed Rose, banker Jonathan S. Slauson, former Governor John G. Downey and two others to handle the subdivision.
Despite the difficult financial environment, the 21 February 1877 edition of the paper noted that Rose was offered $35,000 by an unidentified party for his orange crop, but refused it. In late April, reported the Los Angeles Star of the 24th, Rose was to address the local fruit growers association on the topic of “Will It Pay To Bud The Orange?” reflecting his standing among citrus ranchers in the region.
The Express of 3 May reprinted from its competitor, the Herald, the complete address about whether grafting was better than planting from seeds and he opined that Los Angeles orange seedlings were superior and not varying notably within the region. Crucial were conditions of the soil, distance between trees, sheltering from winds, quality of the water supply and others. Rose’s experience was that grafting might be more economically efficient, but not substantially improving the quality of the fruit and he preferred raising from seedlings. He also emphasized the importance of judicious pruning, concluding “the less pruning the better, provided the trees have plenty of room” to grow.
Thomas A. Garey, a well-known nursery owner and co-founder of the towns of Artesia and Pomona during the late boom, however, offered a rebuttal to Rose’s views, being “an advocate of budded orange trees. Garey promoted the idea that grafting would lead to extra volumes of fruit “if we use only buds from the very best Los Angeles seedlings” and he mentioned that other growers, including James de Barth Shorb (Wilson’s son-in-law) and John W. Wolfskill, whose late father William, planted in the Angel City in 1841 the first commercial grove in California, who also preferred budded orange trees.
On 27 February, a correspondent to the Express subscribed as Amos, in a broader look at greater Los Angeles, wrote on “The Wine and Brandy Interests,” said to be “in their infancy,” and preferred the former to the latter. As to Sunny Slope, he commented,
I tasted some very fine breakfast wine, light, and, for new wine, well toned, only requiring age to give it a rich bouquet, and remove the present “earthy” flavor. His port wines are heavy; Nature has “charged” them too highly, they are too sweet to ever please the taste of an epicure. With age I should consider their medicinal properties unusually good, indeed vastly better than the ordinary imported Burgundy, but not quite so desirable as the fine Oporto [port].
The 7 November edition of the paper summarized from the French-language Los Angeles sheet, L’Union concerning the vintage under processing at the time, noting that Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, who purchased the Rancho Santa Anita, part of which was sold to Rose prior to Baldwin’s acquisition in spring 1875, had 75 acres of vines, with 125 newly set out, and produced 50,000 gallons, with French employees using methods and techniques from their home country. While his wine was considered of high quality, none of it had yet been sold commercially.
Wilson and Shorb, at Lake Vineyard, had 175 acres planted to grapes, yielding a half-million pounds, close to 20% more than anticipated. Because, however, of low wine prices, due to too much grape production, the pair “will convert all their vintage this year into brandy.” As for Rose, it was briefly observed that his “vintage has also turned out satisfactorily” and as “his wines have a fine reputation in the East,” it was expected that “this year’s vintage will add greatly to their celebrity.”
As to horses and racing, The 11 May issue of the Express, covering another gathering of the Southern District organization, noted that “Mr. L.J. Rose was appointed to represent this city at the meeting” in San Francisco “to arrange a speed circuit for California.” This was considered to be very advantageous for the various agricultural societies “diminishing the often highly oppressive strain in making up the purses at the annual fairs” for races.
The paper’s edition of 18 September summarized another gathering of a new Los Angeles Horticultural Society, organized in June, including appointments to the several standing committees. For semi-tropical fruits, meaning citrus, Rose joined Garey, Shorb, and Luther M. Holt (an associate of Garey at Artesia and Pomona). The Viniculture Committee included him with August Langenberger of Anaheim, Wilson, Keller and former state treasurer Antonio Franco Coronel.
The Horticultural organization gathered again in December and the officers, including Garey as president and Holt as secretary, and directors such as Rose, Milton Thomas (another Artestia/Pomona stalwart) and two others, submitted a series of resolutions to local representatives in the state legislature.
Among these was that the Society published the Southern California Horticulturist; co-sponsored the October agricultural fair—with $2,500 raised and with horse racing not dominating the proceedings; had 400 members; emphasized semi-tropical fruits by forecasting that they “will be a source of great wealth to the State if properly managed;” that a free library and reading room was considered; and that local capitalists subscribed $15,000 for a Horticultural Pavilion for a fair, office and library. This latter was opened in October 1878, though existed for under four years as a prior post here noted.
With the onset of 1878, the Herald of 3 January expressed its appreciation to the Sunny Slope winemaker for sending a case of his Hock, that is, Riesling, “which has obtained a deserved fame both in California and in the East.” The paper continued that,
Mr. Rose has demonstrated the fact that light wines, rivaling those of the Rhine, can be made in Los Angeles county from carefully selected, properly cultivated and scientifically manipulated foreign grapes. The owner of “Sunnyside” [sic] has done much both for himself and his section by making this fact patent.
Just over a week later, the Herald had a conversation with Rose, recently returned from San Francisco where he and Stern went “with the object of filling certain departments in California wines in which the Sunny Slope warehouses were deficient.” Rose told the paper that “the demand for our vintages is rapidly on the increase in the East” and “embraces all grades of our wines.”
Proudly commenting that each year saw a market increase in quality, the paper concluded “the reliance upon the old Mission grape, the finest table grape in the world,” but not at all well regarded for its rendering into wine, is waning.” Wine producers, led locally by Rose and others, “are rapidly discovering that the introduction, and careful manipulation, of foreign grapes, result in wines of approved standard.”
The Express of 2 February recorded that two rail cars of brandy and wine were being shipped to Chicago by Rose for handling by the company he ran with Perkins and Stern. Moreover, it was noted that he was readying 640 acres adjacent to the brothers, Alfred and William Chapman, and to the Rancho Santa Anita for a new vineyard. He also purchased 5,000 cuttings of raising grapes from Yolo County near Sacramento as well as 1,000 of wine grapes from Anaheim, while two car loads were soon to arrive from Sonoma County. Finally, he was preparing to erect six miles of wood fencing with 50 kegs of nails at Sunny Slope and 125,000 board feet of lumber anticipated imminently.
The 6 October edition of the Herald contained a description of a gathering of viniculturists about concerns regarding a proposed commercial treaty of France that was thought to be potentially problematic for regional grape growers and wine makers. Rose, Shorb, Stoneman, Dreyfus and Henry D. Barrows, who was associated with the Wolfskill family by marriage, were members of a committee that suggested another group of 15 to impress upon officials at Washington and elsewhere to prevent the treaty’s approval with the larger amalgamation including the five aforementioned along with Downey, Keller, Baldwin, Ygnacio del Valle, José Rubio and others.
The 19 June issue of the paper indicated “there are better times ahead for our vineyards” and that “it is only in the last four or five years that our wine-makers failed to make large profits” as importation of foreign grapes” meant that “the vineyards never looked better than now.” It also claimed that “with a reliable and remunerative market for California wines and brandies, Los Angeles county possesses a source of incalculable wealth in the near future.”
Yet, after the fall harvest, the Express of 11 December reported that Rose bought considerable wine from Anaheim as the grape crop was poor—this admitted by the Herald of 24 November, which informed readers that Rose had to buy 12,000 gallons from Anaheim, but would be short on brandy output. The problem was heavy rainfall in the 1877-1878 season that was considered “excessive” and “hurtful to our vineyards.”
As to citrus, that June report noted that “the orange yield will come up to the most sanguine expectations, while the November article stated that Rose opined that, despite the discouraging state of his vineyard production, “the coming orange crop . . . promises to be satisfactory” and the fruit “will be both numerous and of good quality.”
Rose’s involvement in agricultural organizations increased with a meeting, held as the year began, of the Agricultural Park Association at the stable he operated with William Ferguson. Dr. John S. Griffin was elected president, while George O. Tiffany, formerly of the Express and a member of agricultural associations in Wisconsin before coming to California, was voted in as secretary.
Directors included Rose, his neighbor Luther H. Titus, Ferguson, Wallace Woodworth (whose family house was the first residence of Rose and his family on arrival in this area in 1860), Stephen H. Mott (brother of Rose’s close friend, Thomas), Ozro W. Childs and William H. Workman, the latter a grower of grapes in the recently established flats of Boyle Heights next to the Los Angeles River.
With respect to horse-breeding and racing, Rose wrote a letter on the last Christmas Eve published in an industry journal and reprinted in the Express of 23 January. Answering the statement that California might someday aspire to Eastern success in races, the Sunny Slope owner pointed to the efforts of his “young and unaccustomed to racing” filly, Beautiful Belle, a four-year old who, in races in 1876 at Oakland, “was nearly equal to anything” horses elsewhere achieved.
Therefore, Rose proposed a trotting race in September or December 1878 with four of his animals, from two to seven years of age and all from the same “get” of a stallion, in the best-of-five mile heats for $1,000 each contest. Acknowledging that he was asking a good deal of an Eastern owner to travel to California, Rose added that “my business is such that I can’t leave home,” and the trade publication repeated that no one was likely to accept the challenge with such a long trip to the Golden State.
It did suggest, however, that a horse owner looking to sell stock might accept Rose’s proposition and run the races before a sale. The Express expressed pride in Beautiful Belle’s accomplishments and offered that such a race “would excite a degree of attention which few sporting events have evoked on the Pacific Coast,” while Rose assured that “there is no buncombe about my proposition.”
The 29 May issue of the Herald published an account from a San Francisco horse-related journal that included a visit to Sunny Slope, where the writer reviewed Rose’s steeds, Silver Threads, Sultan (the owner’s favorite), Grand Moor, Del Sur and Sable. The account noted that there were thirty more horses and 27 colts from the previous year, but it focused on the 7-year old Tommy Gates, a trotter that Rose felt was not at his peak, and Beautiful Belle, aged six years, while The Moor, who died in 1876, was also mentioned.
We’ll return tomorrow with part three as we move through the last years of the Seventies and get into the early Eighties, so check back with us then.
In my mind, I’ve always thought that California’s wines have only gained wide recognition domestically and globally in recent decades. The story of Mr. Rose provided an opportunity for me to learn about the thriving viticultural and vinicultural industries in California one and a half centuries ago. With some simple research, I roughly understand that the once-glorious wine industry in the San Gabriel area declined during Prohibition. The resurgence of California wine appeared in Sonoma and Napa in terms of quality and in San Joaquin in terms of quantity.
Hi Larry, greater Los Angeles wines were generally not of the quality of those in Napa and Sonoma counties and it was the fortified ones that sold better, including out of the area. Stay tuned for more of the story as we progress with the Rose post!