Read All About It in the Los Angeles Express, 11 December 1874

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

The Homestead’s collection of historic newspapers from greater Los Angeles, with most concentrated in the period of 1874-1875 during the peak of the region’s first boom, allows us to better understand that somewhat underappreciated era—this being because the much bigger growth periods from the late Eighties onward propelled the Angel City into metropolitan prominence, but the trend had to start somewhere and much of that occurred in the Seventies.

No development was as important as the railroad, which was true of any significant American city in the 19th century, but more so for Los Angeles, which was not along a navigable river and had only the most rudimentary of ports (though the first federal appropriation for a breakwater came during that time and expansion would rapidly accelerate by the end of the century).

The first milestone in the region’s rail history came in 1869, the year the epochal transcontinental railroad was completed, as the Los Angeles and San Pedro, connecting the growing town to the wharf at Wilmington. Two years later, when the powerful Southern Pacific petitioned Congress for a charter to build a line south from the Bay Area to the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona, locals were able to lobby for a requirement that the company build through Los Angeles as part of that project.

A crucial follow-up was a November 1872 special election, after months of negotiations (in which F.P.F. Temple was a key figure), for voters to decide whether to hand the Southern Pacific control of the Los Angeles and San Pedro and some $600,000 in subsidies in exchange for an additional branch line from Florence (South Los Angeles) to Anaheim, in the future Orange County), as well as construction of the main route to Los Angeles from the north and then east through the San Gabriel Valley (and William Workman’s portion of Rancho La Puente) on its way to the Colorado.

Temple and others then created the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, which was conceived to run well more than 200 miles northeast to the Inyo County seat, where a silver mine boom was underway, including at Cerro Gordo (where Temple and his father-in-law, William Workman, proprietors of their namesake bank, were heavily invested), with the idea of transporting ore and bullion among other goods.

The idea was to build the line with local capital and major efforts were undertaken during most of 1874 to secure stock subscriptions throughout greater Los Angeles, including in San Bernardino County, through which most of the route traversed. Enough funding was provided to hire engineer James U. Crawford to conduct surveys, especially in Cajon Pass (where the Southern Pacific, even though its main local line was not going through it, hoped to get its surveyors first and cut out the Los Angeles and Independence project).

The highlighted artifact from the Museum’s holdings for this post is the 11 December 1874 edition of the Los Angeles Express, which featured a locomotive and car as a prominent part of its masthead, and the featured editorial on the second page was titled “Now Or Never” with the paper proclaiming:

The character, the sentiment and the acts of the railroad mass meeting to-morrow, will exercise a decisive influence upon an event which is intimately connected with our future commercial and agricultural destiny. The question of railroad or no railroad carries with it contingencies of the most vital moment, and much will depend on the sagacious, clear, practical and harmonious treatment the subject shall receive to-morrow.

The Express, moreover, asserted that it “has, from the start, been a warm, if not enthusiastic, advocate of the construction of a railroad from this city to our great back region,” this last being a notable description of a sphere of influence that boosters insisted included southern and eastern California, as well as portions of Arizona and Nevada, with the idea that commerce and trade centralized in the Angel City would draw from a wide section of the American Southwest as it grew in population and development.

Averring that it was “perhaps in advance of the times,” the paper wondered whether, if the public could have come around to its way of thinking at the start of the year, “our interests would not now ne placed in peril by the rapid advance toward Tehachepi [sic] of the Southern Pacific Railroad.” Still, it continued, there was no use questioning past missteps and remarked “either we must abandon all hope to ever control the trade of our great interior, or we must act promptly and wisely, and take such advantage of our situation as in is [sic] our power.”

Crawford, moreover, was said to have conducted his surveys so that “all the traditional difficulties of a passage through the mountains” were ameliorated, leading the Express to claim that “Cajon Pass has been placed at our door as if nature had foreseen and provided for the exit our necessities now require.” The engineer’s analysis proved that construction could be completed at some $3,000 per mile from the Rancho Cucamonga for 75 miles northeastward, far lower than previously estimated (the first surveys were done two decades earlier as planning for the transcontinental line were undertaken.)

The Express went on to suggest that “such a revelation ought to exercise a decisive effect on all that class of people who have looked with fear and trembling upon our mountain barrier” as the Pass was now determined to be successfully breached. Moreover, after staring that “there is a general concurrence of opinion as to the needs to our commercial and agricultural prosperity and expansion of this projected road,” the paper that “we doubt if there is an intelligent man in this county who does not believe that with this road Los Angeles can become a large commercial city, and our agricultural section the most flourishing on the Pacific Coast.”

Otherwise, greater Los Angeles would remain secondary and subservient to San Francisco and the gathering at the Court House (built in 1859 by Jonathan Temple, F.P.F.’s half-brother, as a commercial building before hard economic times led to its conversion to a civic structure) would address the questions raised by the Express: “Whether we shall connect ourselves with our geographical consumers or permit them to be permanently shut off from us?”

It was stated that the completion of the line would double property values after its first year, provide farmers “a ready and profitable market for his products,” and “measurably extend the area and volume of affairs of every business house in this city.” Given this, it was commented that “no man having an interest in our city and county could make a better investment than to place some of his property [funds] in this road” as “we believe that as a railroad speculation it will pay handsomely.”

Yet, even if no interest was actually earned, “the indirect advantages to all interests are so manifest an adjunct to our material prosperity, that every man will be gainer by helping the road to completion.” The goal for the meeting was simple: to assure interest and garner financial support for the Los Angeles and Independence, including “a present sacrifice in behalf of the future.” It was added,

If this spirit animates our people, and our leading men of wealth do their duty, there is nothing which can prevent the successful completion of this great and vital enterprise. With such a spirit, even if our own means are short, capital will not be slow to come to our assistance [from outside Los Angeles] . . . it is now or never that we must show ourselves worthy of the great advantages with which nature has no munificently endowed us.

The paper was correct that outside capital was needed and that came in the person of United States Senator from Nevada, John P. Jones, who had extensive mining interests at Panamint near the route, but who also was readying to build a coastal town called Santa Monica. He soon took a majority of stock in the Los Angeles and Independence and insisted that a branch line to his seaside community be constructed first, which was done in fall 1875. The recent economic panic in California, coming amid the “Long Depression” from 1873 through the rest of the decade, forestalled any future work, however, and the line was sold to the Southern Pacific in 1877.

Another short editorial piece under the heading of “Removal of the Depot” concerning a proposal to raze the little Los Angeles and San Pedro station on Alameda Street at Commercial Street, not far south of today’s U.S. 101. The Express reminded readers that it had “already given irresistible business reasons against the present removal” stating that it was too early and “would impose unnecessary and injurious hardships upon the commerce of this city.”

To replace the current depot with one “remote from the business heart of the city,” before the line from San Francisco was finished, claimed the paper, “would be a consummation replete with folly” and it was added that 99% of Angel City business figures “have signed a protest against such removal” so “it is the duty of the [Common, or City] Council to yield to their objections.” Elijah H. Workman, nephew of the Homestead’s founder, William Workman, was a council member until the end of his term a week or so later, while his brother, William Henry, would soon take a seat with his election to the board.

It was stated in the aforementioned subsidy deal that there was a provision to have a new depot by about this time, but the Express claimed that the only persons who were in favor of exercising “its strict letter” were “those who have unproductive real estate in the vicinity of the depot.” Therefore, it pronounced, “it is not just the thing to injure and disarrange our entire business system for the benefit of a few land speculators” and it repeated that the time for a new depot, which became the River Station in present Chinatown north of downtown, was when those first trains came in from the north—this was in September 1876.

Another important transportation enterprise was the near monopoly of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company in controlling steamer traffic of passengers and freight along the California coast, including the port at San Pedro/Wilmington. Long an object of criticism by the local press, the firm was damaged by the completion of the transcontinental railroad and the gradual increase in its traffic of goods.

The Express remarked on the allegations that a director, Richard B. Irwin, was accused of embezzling $750,000 “to secure subsidies for the company” and that “the President and managing director have quarreled” with the first having resigned. The paper added that the situation could have been worse than the Credit Mobilier scandal of nearly a decade prior that tarnished the construction of the transcontinental line. Lastly, it was suggested that the funds expropriated by Irwin were used for the “muzzling of the press” if not for the usual greasing of the palms of politicians.

With regard to the deliberations of the Common Council’s meeting the prior day, there was a report from the Finance Committee concerning a claim from Juan José (Jonathan Trumbull) Warner, a resident of the city for most of four decades, that his property was damaged by sewage but that it disagreed with the amount sought and requested more time to consider the matter.

As noted in a prior post here, the Canal and Reservoir Company, which included F.P.F. Temple as a partner, was given a charter by the city to dam the Los Angeles River at Griffith Park and building reservoirs, including what is now the lake at Echo Park, for water distribution at the Woolen Mill Tract, named for a facility operated near what is today’s Figueroa and 6th streets.

A petition to the Council regarding the purchase of the works by the City was reviewed and “the committee recommended the purchase of the same according to the terms of the contract entered into between the city and the company on the 29th day of June 1872.” It was stipulated, though, that the firm’s owners were to to deposit $6,000 in either the Temple and Workman or Farmers’ and Merchants’ banks “and to be expended by the city in the purchase of the ditch and reservoir for the benefit and in the name of the city.”

Another condition was that no more than 200 inches of water, granted by the municipality to the Barnard brothers, who operated the mill, would be allowed for “the use of irrigators living below the Woolen Mills before some general system” of water distribution was established.” The recommendation and conditions were stipulated to be so that “other citizens and taxpayers should not be taxed to raise money to buy the property,” though a deal was not reached for another four years.

The railroad depot matter was also discussed with the Chamber of Commerce weighing in and, while the preamble and resolutions were not reproduced, Prudent Beaudry, soon to assume the office of mayor after a heated campaign over such issues as water and his developments of Bunker Hill and Bellevue Terrace in the hills adjoining the town to the west, “denounced [them] as libelous” and was echoed by council member Jacob Gerkins.

Eulogio de Célis, Jr., however, replied that “the petition of any citizen, however, humble, deserved to be treated with respect” and submitted a motion to have the document reviewed by a special council committee, but the vote was split 4-4 among existing council members, with Workman joining Célis, while Gerkins and Beaudry were joined by Julián Chávez. With this impasse, the document was simply filed. Lastly, the Council officially certified the results of the recent city election, including setting the amounts of bonds for positions.

In the “Local Items” section, it was observed that “Jack Frost was either around or very near here last night,” indicating that cold weather was afoot, this being a potential problem for such crops as citrus. In what became Orange County fifteen years later, the Bolsa Chica Wharf Company, which sought to compete with San Pedro/Wilmington, as well as Anaheim Landing (where Long Beach and Seal Beach meet at the terminus of the San Gabriel River at the Pacific) and Newport, further south, was delaying its work until spring, though that project foundered soon when the local financial panic ensued.

The Good Templars society or order, which advocated abstinence from drinking alcohol, “have taken steps to secure the erection of a drinking fountain at some central point,” the idea being that ready access to water would somehow inhibit the desire for stronger stuff, but the Express opined that “if they succeed, the fountain will prove a great public convenience,” true as that might be regardless of any impacts on imbibers.

Whether the project succeeded or not is not known, but it was separately noted that “the churches [in town] have agreed to suspend service and attend” a Sunday evening lecture on the temperance movement at the Good Templar Hall by the Rev. A.M. Campbell of the Methodist Church. This was reported to be first of a series sponsored by the Templars.

Among the German community of the Angel City, a benefit for a German-English school was to be offered on Sunday and it was remarked that “the best amateurs in the city have consented to take parts.” The program was to comprise a German play as well as an English comedy for those attending the performance at the Turnverein Hall on Spring Street.

Also mentioned was an entertainment for the city’s public schools or, perhaps just the high school, for the next week’s conclusion of the fall term and plans were said to be nearly completed. it was added that “besides paying for the philosophical instruments purchased for the school, it is designed to appropriate a portion of the proceeds to purchase a fine field glass” for use by students and faculty.

Lastly, nuptial bliss was twice mentioned. Edward J.C. Kewen and his wife, Fannie White, celebrated their 25th anniversary at their El Molino Viejo residence in modern San Marino, this being the former Mission San Gabriel mill. It was noted that “Chinese lanterns lit up the picturesque ground surrounding the mansion, giving the beautiful place a charming and festal appearance,” while, “within the fine old dwelling” dancing and good cheer predominated.

At the residence of Dr. Frederick MacDougall, who was mayor of the city when he died in office in 1878, Sidney Lacey, manager of the Dotter and Bradley furniture store, wedded Concepción Williams, daughter of Isaac Williams, owner of the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino for about a dozen years until his death in 1856, and a stepsister of MacDougall’s wife, Francisca.

The pages of this edition of the Express, as well as its English-language contemporaries, the Herald and the Star, give us a good glimpse into many aspects of greater Los Angeles life as the region underwent its first boom, modest as it was compared to those that followed. We’ll continue sharing copies of the newspapers in our collection in future posts of the “Read All About It” series, so keep an eye out for those.