by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The Homestead’s collection of historic newspapers is largely comprised of editions from the first of the 1870s because this was the peak of greater Los Angeles’ first significant and sustained period of growth, or boom, even as this paled in comparison to later ones. The Angel City and environs experienced a notable boost in population, as well as important developments in business, such as agriculture, light manufacturing, banking, oil and others; transportation; education; and more.
Among the key individuals in this era was F.P.F. Temple, son-in-law of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste, husband of their daughter, Margarita, and father of three subsequent Homestead owners, Francis, John and Walter Temple. Though he does not appear by name in the pages of today’s highlighted artifact, the 7 September 1874 edition of the Los Angeles Express, we’ll make at least passing reference to him, while noting others who were important during the period.
Invariably and not unexpectedly, a common feature of these newspapers is the rivalry among them, which is especially noted in a relatively small community, growing rapidly as it was, which meant that competition was particularly keen for readership, subscriptions, advertising and, also quite important, the city printing contract. This was, of course, put up for public bid and the challenge was to be able to do quality work at the lowest possible price.
For this issue, the editorial “We Looked For It” was the main example of such intra-journalistic rivalry as the Express clearly enjoyed the squirming of its rival, the Los Angeles Herald, operated by a company in which Temple was a stockholder, while the Express, as was more typical of small-town sheets, was run by George A. Tiffany and a couple of associates. The topic concerned the printing contract and the Express observed that “when the Herald took the city printing at a much less rate than it could fairly be done for, we were satisfied that the whining time would soon arrive.”
Sure enough, that time came the prior day, when the rival paper tried to draw a comparative point between its desire for extra money and statements made by City Assessor Lothar Seebold, a longtime surveyor as well as assessor for three years during the Seventies and about whom a prior post was largely comprised here.
Seebold issued his own lengthy statement, which we’ll cover below, but the Express was more than amused by a complaint by its competitor, in which it stated “we took the contract at rates which would just cover the cost of the work, provided the volume did not exceed that of last year.” But, the Herald continued, “like the Assessor, we have been a little mistaken” as the Common (City) Council “is heaping the work upon us” so that it would cost $1,000 more than the amount the paper assumed.
The response of the Express was that,
It was well known by the intelligent publishers of Los Angeles, at the time the bids were made, that the volume of work done last year would be an unsafe criterion upon which to base bids for this year’s work. The new City Charter was a law, and all were familiar with its provisions. That instrument provided for a large amount of official advertising which was unknown here before, and if the Herald was ignorant of the fact, it was guilty of one of those oversights which will not evoke and which is not worthy of public sympathy.
So, concluded the Express, its rival learned “a severe lesson” on overreaching its competitors, while it also scored city government, which “should be made to pay a fair price for its printing” because “it must be plain to everybody that if a newspaper does the city work at a positive loss, that loss must be made up out of other pockets” including those of “stockholders in the unfortunate concern,” such as Temple, “or the business men who compelled to advertise in it.” In any case, the problem came “from an illegitimate source.”
For Seebold’s part, his dander was up because of two Herald editorials in the prior week concerning the Assessor and his salary, as he was seeking more money for his work. Specifically, he wanted it known that “the salary of the Assessor is not fixed [by city ordinance] at all, and that it always was regulated by the City Councils in proportion to the work of said officer.”
Seebold observed that the pay for the position in 1870 was $500, but in the next three years, the amount climbed to $700, $800 and $1,000, the last recommended to the Council by a committee. His salient point was that,
At the time when the $500 were paid to the Assessor, the city property consisted of land, live stock, and adobe houses, while with the march of progress, land has been sub-divided, improvements extended and personal property of various character added, as railroads, telegraphs, water works, libraries, musical instruments, sewing machines, steam engines, etc.
In other words, the boom intensified and, as such, the work of Seebold and others in that position, correspondingly became more complicated and sophisticated. He also answered the query of what work assessors did, citing the California Political Code for specifics regarding the drawing up of the assessment lists, as well as having access to maps from the Board of Supervisors, the county’s management entity, or the Common Council.
Seebold then made another notable comment regarding this last point:
It always was a standing complaint, that the poor are heavier assessed than the rich, and probably with good reason, as long as the Assessor has no maps, for the properties of the poor, being mostly actually occupied [that is, comprised of houses, outbuildings and so on], present themselves open to the public eye, while much of the property of the rich is hidden even from the searching eye of the Assessor; not to mention the fact, that the rich property owner is more liable to forget in his Assessment list, now and then, one of his numerous lots than the poor to overlook the small space he dwells upon.
Hence the need for the maps, but Seebold was forced, in their absence, to resort to contracting for “sketches of the city property, though it was not my duty, and made a complete, equitable and impartial assessment of the city property.” What this did, however, is “where the trouble commences” as those “who in former years escaped, feel injured and indignant about it,” while he also pointed out the difficulty in “the taxation of mortgages,” these becoming more frequent.
As to the assertion of the Herald that some rich property owners evaded almost all taxation, Seebold rejoined as to why no complaint was made to the Board of Equalization and its regular two-week assessment sessions and then added that the paper “and its prompter,” who was perhaps the president of its publishing company, future mayor and among the largest landowners in the city, Prudent Beaudry, “know that the only parties who complain against the assessment are a few rich men, who are constitutional complainers, and whose only grief is that at least one rich man has not almost wholly escaped taxation.”
In the “Local Items” column of tidbits, it was noted that there was an advertisement elsewhere for an auction of land and lots at Downey City, established along the San Gabriel River on the Rancho Santa Gertrudes by ex-Governor John G. Downey. Downey and his former partner, Dr. James P. McFarland obtained that land in 1859 on foreclosure of a mortgage for a loan they made to Lemuel (Samuel) Carpenter, who, in circumstances similar to that of William Workman on 1876, committed suicide. Like many of the new towns of that period (Artesia, Pomona, and San Fernando, for example), Downey stagnated in a “Long Depression” that followed this boom, but was resurgent in the Boom of the 1880s and later.
The enmity between the Express and the Herald was not just professional and journalistic, it was personal in 1874 as the candidates for the office of the Angel City’s chief executive included Tiffany and Beaudry, along with Francisco (Frank) Sabichi, as incumbent James R. Toberman decided not to seek reelection. The battle was naturally bitter during the remaining few months of the year and the early December election, which is when city tallies were made in those days, ended with Beaudry winning the mayoral seat.
Posts here have frequently covered the virulent anti-Chinese sentiment that was felt in Los Angeles and most horrifically manifested in the Chinese Massacre of 24 October 1871, in which eighteen men and a teenage boy were lynched by a mob of hundreds of Anglos and Latinos. In this issue, there was a rather matter-of-fact report, likely because of the use of English and that it concerned religion, presumably Christianity, that,
Quite a large assemblage gathered in front of [the] Temple Block yesterday [a Sunday] to hear open-air preaching in English and Chinese. There were about twenty celestials in the congregation and the Chinese preacher held forth to their edification in a very earnest style.
Among the flurry of building projects in the expanding downtown, which was largely centralized around the Temple and Downey blocks, were references to iron columns being fitted to the first floor of jeweler and watchmaker Charles Ducommun’s building at the northeast corner of Main and Commercial streets.
Also highlighted was the fact that Domingo Amestoy “is putting up a very fine and spacious brick building at the corner of Aliso and Alameda streets,” about where U.S. 101 passes today. The second story was completed and the interior finishing soon to be introduced with the paper commenting “it is a very substantial structure, and in style sufficiently elegant to form another pleasing architectural addition to our rapidly improving city.
While the locale was out in the hinterlands, it was notable that the Express reported that the Temescal Tin Mining Company, which worked an area near today’s Lake Mathews, southwest of downtown Riverside and southeast of Corona. It is reported that Daniel Sexton, who came to this area with the Rowland and Workman Expedition of 1841 and having married the daughter of a Cahuilla Indians chief, was shown the locale with different companies sending ore to San Francisco and Wales for smelting and refining. In the early 1890s, when tin cans were instrumental in food production, a renewed effort was undertaken but the vein was soon tapped out, though there was a brief renewal during World War II.
The paper added that the firm and others “have commenced the construction of a ditch twenty miles in length which will take water enough from the Santa Ana river to irrigate about 6,000 acres, 3,500 of which belong to the above named company, and the balance to Hayward & Co. [actually Sayward], being a portion of the Hartshorn tract.” Benjamin M. Hartshorne (it is not clear how the “e” was dropped for the tract name), a New Jersey native and Gold Rush ’49er who founded the California Steam Navigation Company, which controlled steam shipping in the Bay Area until he sold it to the powerful Central Pacific Railroad, which built the western half of the transcontinental railroad and also owned the Southern Pacific, California’s dominant railroad firm.
Hartshorne took over the Temescal tin mines as well as acquired land from a failed silk farming colony where Riverside was situated. In 1870, he acquired federally-controlled property to the tune of well north of 8,000 acres at just $1.25 per acre and this then led to the irrigation project, when William Sayward and Samuel C. Evans bought land from Hartshorne at $3.50 an acre, as well as other land from the late silk project and developed what became Riverside.
Another brief item of some interest concerned the operations of the District Court (reconfigured after the ratification of California’s second and current constitution in 1879 into the Superior Court) with the Express warning, “lawyers, this is your last chance.” This was because Ygnacio Sepúlveda, who had a long legal career in Los Angeles before moving to México for some three decades and becoming a key adviser to dictator Porfirio Díaz, “has induced Judge [William T.] McNealy to take his seat on three different occasions, at great inconvenience and expense, so as to accommodate lawyers having causes to try in which our own Judge is disqualified.”
The reasons for recusal were not given, but the paper concluded that local attorneys were to blame because “the bar has shown such lack of industry in preparing cases, that a docket which should have been cleared on the first sitting is still formidable.” Bearing in mind that the legal system worked through cases with a rapidity that is astonishing given the glacial pace of today, the piece concluded with the admonition to barristers that “those whose cases are not prepared for trial this time, will have to secure a Judge themselves hereafter.”
Another item of interest concerned the visit by Sheriff William R. Rowland, son of the late John Rowland, co-owner with William Workman of Rancho La Puente, to Los Nietos, near Downey along the San Gabriel River, where a boy of about 12 years old suffered from a swelling of his tongue, though without pain. The Express added that “here is a chance for some of our expert surgeons to perform a cure for glory, reputation and charity, for the boy’s family are indigent.” Later, the paper reported a happy ending for young Adolfo Leiva, thanks to the work of Dr. Kenneth D. Wise.
There are more news items from this edition of the Express to cover, so we will return tomorrow with part two—be sure to join us then.