by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As “Socrates Hyacinth,” the nom de plume, or pen name, of journalist Stephen Powers, passed, in fall 1868, through greater Los Angeles on his transcontinental journey that began in Raleigh, North Carolina and ended in San Francisco, he walked on today’s Valley Boulevard through the San Gabriel Valley and passed very near the Rancho La Puente residences of its owners John Rowland and William Workman, if not stopping at one or the other.
In his account of his ramblings through the region, published as “On Foot in Southern California” as part of series in the January 1869 issue of the newly launched literary journal, The Overland Monthly, the scribe colorfully described his impressions, focused heavily on the landscape, as he headed west towards Los Angeles.
At the time, the area was in the earliest stages of its first significant and sustained period of growth, the first in a series of booms that propelled the Angel City and environs from a remote outpost on the western edge of America to a major metropolitan area by the first three decades of the 20th century. What “Hyacinth” saw and described, then, is notable given what was to come as much as for what he encountered, or, at least, chose to include in his travelogue.
Not mentioning the San Gabriel River as he left La Puente, the writer recorded,
El Monte was hidden from me till I was right upon it, by its lusty weeds, vineyards, willows and corn-fields. The flaunting jungle of various products in which this town crouches, abundantly shows what California would be, if its valleys were moist as this spot.
In fact, that section, where the river, only recently split into two courses by flooding during the prior winter of 1867-1868, with the older route at the west denoted as the Río Hondo and the new one, following irrigation ditches, such as that built by ex-Governor Pío Pico, to the east becoming the “New San Gabriel River” was especially well-watered. It was small wonder that El Monte was established there in the early Fifties, while downstream, the newer community of Los Nietos (where modern Downey, Pico Rivera, Whittier and other cities are now) was rapidly growing.
“Socrates” continued westward and would, through Mission Road, have passed Mission San Gabriel, but said nothing about it, which is surprising—although, again, it was the landscape that was primarily of interest. It was noted that “west of El Monte I crossed a broad hard plain to the point of the wedge of hill which is thrust down between the San Jose [San Gabriel Valley] and the Los Angeles [Valley],” these being the hills through which the route passed and now flanked by Cal State Los Angeles to the south and the Ascot Hills on the north.
The account continued that, “the road led directly through it, gently heaving and tossing two or three miles among great mounds, almost as conical and smooth as if chiseled by art,” and the time of year had much to do with the absence of vegetation on these low hills. The writer then observed,
Then the Los Angeles valley opened before me, trending southward; while thirty miles or more to the north [northwest] I saw the Santa Monica mountains, wandering lone and vast in the haze westward toward the sea. The valley sweeps down from them between hills and mounds, which tumble together in a kind of smooth bulky grandeur, as they slope easily down from the mountains.
Descending to the Los Angeles River through what, five years later, would be the first Los Angeles suburban neighborhood, East Los Angeles, now Lincoln Heights, “Hyacinth” remarked “on the west side of the stream a handful of low mounds is flung against it, crowding the city close down near the water,” this almost certainly referring to the Elysian Hills. He continued that “all down through this tumbling desert,” which our region definitely is not, “winds a valley half a mile in width; and within its narrow space whatever green and trooping splendors grow from the tropic ground of California, or are conceivable in the imagination, are represented.”
Further, it was remarked, the low hills, including those where City Terrace is now on the east and Bunker Hill is to the west, ended “and the verdure broadens immeasurably toward the Pacific.” Our travelogueist stopped and observed that
As I stood at the foot of the hills, three-quarters of a mile from the city, all of it but its steeples was hidden by the orchards; but all the fabulous gardens and vineyard glories of Damascus [Syria], “Pearl of the East,” were not sweeter to the eyes of Mohammad than were those of the River and the City of the Angels to mine.
He planted himself next to the watercourse “and bathed my forehead with the water which slips along so thin over the golden sand,” the levels in the river being low because of the time of year. Crossing over the stream, “Socrates” noted that “the valley is nearly level with the river; and I walked along an old avenue of willows” trimmed at their tops and “soon these gave place to hedges of stalwart canes,” while “in another place was a curious old Spanish hedge of living cactus.” This last, however, was very common in prior years before the onset of wood fencing.
It is telling that “Hyacinth” then recorded that “I entered the city; but straightway fled from its dust, to wander in the vineyards and orchards,” apparently due south. As speculated in part one of this post, he may have arrived in the area during a Santa Ana winds condition, though dust was a regular feature of the long dry season in the streets of the Angel City. He stated that outlying areas in parts of the city area were comprised of vineyards, these, of course, along the river and others of orange groves, such as that of the late William Wolfskill (who died in 1866), the first commercial grower in California.
“Socrates” then stated “I went down long alleys, fenced and over-arched with willows, where white cottages and red-tiled adobes played bo-peep in orchards” and sauntered in gardens of dahlias and roses, while unkempt ones were also passed through. He also ambled into “neglected orchards, where yellow and fragrant bushels of fruit smirked from green boughs, or wasted their quality don among the tangled grass and leaves.” After some time, “I found that I was indeed lost—lost in an orchard-main of lemons, and castor-oil plants, and pomegranates, and burrs, and oranges.”
The writer plopped down under a pear tree, though after his five-month diet of bread and meet, he ate only one piece of fruit, though he frowned on the apple he tried. After “getting sight of a modest steeple,” perhaps that of St. Athanasius’ Episcopal Church,” which was on a slight rise on Temple Street just west of the intersection with Spring and Main streets, “Hyacinth” passed through another orchard with all manner of products. These included grapevines which “stood boastfully up alone, playfully covering the peeping eyes of its children with its leafy umbrella,” “ruddy cheeks of pomegranates [which] laughed gayly,” and “solemn and umbrageous [shaded] olives,” among apples, figs, lemons, pears, and peaches. The inevitable palm trees were also briefly mentioned.
“Before I had fully quitted the vineyard, I had entered the city,” the correspondent continued and he observed that, despite the abundance of them found on the ground, “these fruits sold at the stalls for exotic prices!” In a remarkable passage, the author provided a fair amount of detail about the growing town:
Los Angeles stands with one foot in the valley, and the other on a terrace of plain, only broad enough for two streets; and here Main street draws out its length through the dust. Fifty feet above it, the mounds round up their nude, tawny summits to the dusty sunbeams of October; fifteen feet below it, spreads out an April splendor of vineyards, and citron and walnut groves, and hedges bristling with cactus, or cool in the mouldering shadows of willows. The business houses are built in a single, flat story, with permanent awnings, as in tropical countries, continuous along the street. If the citizens have any prerogative that they would defend with their best blood, it is that of pulling off and putting on once a year their asphaltum roofs. All along the streets, the kettles of pitch seethe in their little black furnaces, beside the pavements. All through the months of droughts, the stench of their boiling goes up; which, from seared mound and fiery street, dust responds to dust.
Aside from the scribe’s clear preference for the rural over the urban and the fact that there were more than two streets, though he likely meant major thoroughfares (Main, Spring, perhaps Los Angeles), there were a few two-story business buildings in fall 1868, including the Arcadia and Temple blocks, with many more to come in the next several years. Moreover, the “sleepy village” canard so commonly utilized by visitors was unfair, though “Socrates” arrived when the annual application of tar, from the pits at La Brea west of town, was underway because of preparation before the winter rains.
It was outside of town that “Hyacinth” found what appropriately applied to his moniker and what appealed to his nature, as he waxed eloquently:
But in the suburbs, there is a beauty perennial through the droughts. There is an embroidered and flowery geometry of gardens, and arbors in the vineyards, and villas nested among weeping willows, and dark solemn olives, and pimientas [pepper trees], delicate in their fringe of foliage and swinging scarlet pouches of seeds.
Borne across a thousand aromatic groves of orange, and citron, and California walnut, the long Pacific breeze comes up; and returning, travels again along the labyrinth of the sea, swinging into the streets of the city its morning and evening censers of sweet incense.
After his many weeks of wandering through the aridity of the American Southwest and given the sheer amount of vineyards and the liquid refreshment produced from them, it comes as no surprise that “Socrates” sampled some of the wine which, in those days, was among the best-known of our local agricultural yields.
It is unfortunate that the scribe did not identify which cellar he visited, though he vividly described the fact that “we wandered wide through subterranean gloom, along mouldering alleys, brooded over by a sepulchral solitude, and among ghostly tiers, where solemn tuns below smiled grimly at us in their ponderous circumference, and pert barrels atop filled their little cheeks with smirks and grimaces.”
After further displays of flowery and verbose prose, the chronicler, comparing the mundane and humble environment of 1860s Los Angeles to the glories and wonders of ancient Rome when it came to the dispensation of the nectar of the golds, still exhorted, “bring Angelica, golden juice; and silvery White Wine of Los Angeles; and roundest, mellowest Port; and imperial Champagne,” though this latter should, technically, have been called “sparkling wine”!
For the last, “Hyacinth” luxuriated in its effervescence and “a cool, delicious shiver [which] creeps around your heart-strings” as imbibed, while the first, erotically enunciated, “is like liquid gold . . . and indescribably smooth, creamy, and [with] mellifluous mellowness, deliciously electric as Love’s young kiss.” Moreover, betraying his long months alone on the road, the writer swooned that the sparkling wine was “a Parisian blonde—brilliant, fragile, sweetly tremulous in her ethereal beauty,” while the Angelica “is your own pure girl of California,” with soft brown hair and sad eyes which revealed “a soul full of gracious tenderness.”
The verdict for “Socrates”? “Leave the Champagne to flippant boys, and to eaters of cheese and mustard; Angelica is for finer souls.” With that, the account came to an alcohol-infused conclusion and our expansive expressively tourist offered this toast:
To California—land of the brightest dreams of our childhood; of the passionate longings of our youth; and of the most splendid triumphs of our manhood—land of golden thoughts; of golden hills; and of golden mines—we pour this golden wine as our parting libation.
The travelogue continued as the writer tramped north, after some 3,500 miles, to his final destination at San Francisco. He reworked his recollections into a book, completed in July 1871 and published the following year as Afoot and Alone: A Walk from Sea to Sea by the Southern Route. Meanwhile, his voluminous contributions to The Overland Monthly on his observations of the California Indians were refashioned into a report, The Tribes of California, to the United States Geological Survey, published in 1877.
In summer 1875, Powers was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior as a special agent to collect indigenous material in California and Nevada for display at the American Centennial exhibition at Philadelphia the following year. Writer of a third book, issued in 1871, and comprising tales related to the intersection of Shawnee Indians and encounters with Americans and Europeans in his native Ohio, Powers also occasionally contributed articles to such journals as Lippincott’s and the Atlantic Monthly.
He returned to the Buckeye State in the late Seventies, but relocated to Florida, where he’d spent much time during his Civil War correspondent period, by the mid-1880s and became, notably, an orange grower as well as editor of the Florida Farmer and Fruit-Grower, secretary of the Florida Agricultural Association and agricultural editor of the Times-Union newspaper in Jacksonville, which is where he died at age 64.
This colorful and highly evocative travelogue of greater Los Angeles in fall 1868 as the region was on the cusp of dramatic change is a very notable one and we’ll look, in a future post, to delve into the descriptions of this area in his Afoot and Alone, so keep an eye out for that.