Read All About It in the Los Angeles Herald, 6 January 1875

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

This latest entry in our “Read All About It” series, featuring historic newspapers in the Museum’s holdings, takes us to 6 January 1875, at the peak of the first development boom in greater Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Herald, the youngest of the three major English-language daily papers, along with the Express and the Star, having issued its first number in October 1873, was operated by a firm called the Los Angeles City and County Printing and Publishing Company.

The paper’s second page, mainly comprising editorials and news from outside the region, including those sent by telegraph, contained a brief observation that—with a special state election scheduled for 1 March to fill the seat of State Senator William Irwin, who won election as lieutenant governor because that position was vacated when Romualdo Pacheco ascended to the governor’s chair, which, in turn, occurred because Governor Newton Booth resigned to take a seat in the United States Senate—

the subject of Chinese immigration is once more attracting the attention of some of our contemporaries [likely because of Democratic Party contention for the open seat]. If we could have had an election every two weeks since 1849 [when a government was formed for California after its seizure by the United States from México], it is probable not one single Chinaman would have had an abiding place on the Pacific coast.

Rabid anti-Chinese sentiment, existing from the time of the Gold Rush when Chinese miners came in large numbers and were subjected to violence and legal discrimination through such means as the Foreign Miners Tax, were on the rise during the mid to late 1870s and culminated in the Workingmen’s Party ascent, a second state constitution being passed in 1879 and, three years later, the passage by Congress of the Chinese Exclusion Act. It had been not much more than three years, moreover, since the horrific Chinese Massacre of 24 October 1871 in which hundreds of Anglos and Latinos lynched seventeen men and a teenage boy.

Another article observed that the election of a new governor would take place in September and the paper, which asserted that it was an independent sheet, offered its take on potential Democratic candidates, including Irwin, who was labeled “a man of large pomposity and little mental calibre [sic]” while “he has aspirations equal to the frog that blew himself to smithereens on a drinking bout with an ox.”

After reviewing others, some favorably and others not, the paper turned to former Governor John G. Downey, a resident of Los Angeles for some quarter of a century, but it avowed that, while he “is young, handsome, rich, [and] liberal to a fault,” the paper could not support him and due to this “of course his chance of election is just no chance at all,” though it is not clear whether the paper was being facetious or not. In any case, Irwin did win the election and served a single-four year term.

Two other items of note on this page concerned the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, a locally promoted line that intended to build from the Angel City to the Inyo County seat near silver mine boom towns, including Cerro Gordo. One took a dig at the rival Express, which was reported to have suggested that if the line “is to pass through Cajon Pass,” which was contested by the mighty Southern Pacific but secured by the L.A.&I by planting its surveyors before those of the other firm could get there, “it must run through this city.”

The Herald, however, countered that “the conclusion does not follow the assumption” but opined that “the road ought to run through this city, and it is the business of our people to see that it does,” adding “God always helps those who help themselves.” The paper then offered a paean to the founding president of the L.A.&I:

To Mr. F.P.F. TEMPLE is to great part due whatever degree of success may attend the enterprise of building the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad. He has labored long and diligently in the cause and has spent his money freely in procuring preliminary surveys and reports. Mr. TEMPLE is one of the few rich men of Los Angeles county who are willing to invest their money in undertakings which will benefit the whole community as well as their individual selves, and it is such men who develop a country’s resources and aid in securing it trade and commerce which thoroughly selfish men would allow to pass into the control of other and more liberal minded communities.

Fine words, to be sure, though it should be pointed out that Temple was the treasurer of the firm that published the Herald. Moreover, a major change was soon announced in that United States Senator from Nevada, John P. Jones, who had extensive mining interests there and in eastern California near the proposed line, just purchased a majority stock interest in the railroad company and assumed its presidency, with Temple relegated to treasurer.

In addition, Jones insisted that a branch line from Los Angeles to his new seaside town of Santa Monica be prioritized and that route, now used as a rapid transit line, was completed in fall 1875. By then, Temple’s Cerro Gordo investments in a water delivery system suddenly failed with the spring supplying the precious fluid dried up and, when the state’s economy faltered in late August due to a collapse of a stock bubble with Nevada silver mines, his Temple and Workman bank, caught in a depositor panic, was forced to suspend business for three months while a loan was finally secured with “Lucky” Baldwin. This did not forestall the bank’s failure, however. In 1877, the L.A.&I was sold to the Southern Pacific.

On the third page, mostly concerned with regional news, the “Local Brevities” section noted that Rollin Saxe “has disposed of all but two of his thoroughbred bulls” and one of these was sold to Temple. Bee-keeping was a growing enterprise in the area and the firm of Germain and Company was reported to have sent 26,000 pounds of honey to San Francisco. Felix Signoret, it was noted “is tearing down the old buildings in the rear of his fine block,” recently completed on Main Street.

In Anaheim, where a branch line of the Southern Pacific was nearing completion, it was reported that the turntable was finished and side tracks at the site was nearly so, while a New Year’s Day fete to railroad workers including “a barrel of beer and several boxes of choice cigars.” On the Southern Pacific main line east from Los Angeles, through the Rancho La Puente owned by John Rowland’s heirs and William Workman, it was stated that material was shipped to the village of Spadra, now southwest Pomona “for the erection for suitable buildings for a new restaurant and saloon,” this built along today’s Pomona Boulevard near the 57 Freeway.

Incidents of crime reported including an unknown horse rider firing shots from his pistol on Spring Street, while a police officer was unable to catch him being on foot. Also, a Chinese resident told the police that he was just east of city limits when he was “felled to the ground and robbed,” saying that the attacker was “a d—-d Melican [American] man,” but no other identification was obtainable.

A separate report from the previous day’s county Board of Supervisors meeting included an opinion by the District Attorney, Volney E. Howard, that in probate cases where there was any property left in the estate, the costs of a coroner’s inquest concerning the death of the person should be paid from those assets, though the county would pay the bill in the instance in which there was no property remaining.

The board received a request from the unnamed janitor of the Court House who fulfilled that function during the era, situated in the Market House building constructed by Jonathan Temple, F.P.F.’s late brother, in 1859, and asking that the monthly salary be raised from $60 to $75 per month. The supervisors agreed to do so for the first four months of the year, but the amount was to return to the lower one after that.

A report from “an old prospector” concerned “the buried treasures of Inyo County” with the added opinion that “when the railroad from Los Angeles to Independence is built, this entire region, so rich in mineral wealth, will be tributary to this city.” It was asserted that a new mother lode called Coso was said to be bigger than Cerro Gordo or Panamint, Sen. Jones’ mining operation and that the area’s miners were “wild with joy” and the account ended that “well may Inyo county lay claim to being the richest mineral county in the State.” Not surprisingly, the excitement proved to be premature, though some success was had at the new location.

Another project in which F.P.F. Temple was a prime mover was the Centinela subdivision and with which the California Immigrant Union was the primary agent. This entity was based in San Francisco and had success with its inaugural work at Lompoc in Santa Barbara County and the Herald informed readers,

it is now engaged in a similar enterprise in connection with the Centinela and Sausal Redondo ranches, six miles west of Los Angeles, by which 25,000 acres of land will be cut up into small farms, and placed at prices easily compassen [compassed] by men of small means. The first auction sale of property will take place on the 15th of February, 1875.

The sale was to have occurred on 18 January, but was delayed for reasons not explained and, while a great deal of effort and money was put into the subdivision, Centinela fell by the wayside in the ensuing financial crash, though it was resurrected in the next boom, in 1887-1888 when William H. Workman was mayor of the Angel City and spawned the townsites of Inglewood and Redondo Beach.

A couple of interesting reports from county officials are also of note, including one made to the supervisors by County Physician, Dr. Joseph P. Widney. Widney, a key founder of the University of Southern California five years later, was also responsible for the county hospital and informed his superiors that in the last quarter of 1874, there were 51 men and 6 women admitted to the facility, while 75 males and 10 females were treated. There were 10 deaths, while 37 were successfully treated, leaving 38 patients remaining in the hospital at the start of the new year.

Tuberculosis claimed four of the lives, with two others due to paralysis (likely stroke), and one each from alcoholism, an aneurism, bowel inflammation, fever, and “typho-malarial” infection. Beyond those persons admitted, “a great many others have been furnished medicines, and medical attendance, free, on conditions they should should furnish their own board.” There were some people sent to Los Angeles from other counties, treated and then returned at county expense, but no “citizen of this county [has] been sent away to become a burden to another county.”

Specifically, some persons came from Santa Barbara County, which had no public hospital, and told local officials “they would have to die in the fields” for lack of treatment. Notably, Widney informed the board that,

Many persons come here sick, remain here long enough to give them legal citizenship [in the county], and then apply for admission to the County Hospital. This is a manifest injustice for which it is difficult to see a remedy. Some State legislation is much needed upon these points. It is not just that one county should bear the legitimate burdens of another, because that other refuses to do its duty toward its own indigent, suffering citizens.

Lastly, Los Angeles County Sheriff William R. Rowland, who served two separate stints, from 1872-1875 and 1880-1882, in that office provided a report on “Criminal Statistics.” This included the statement that 65 prisoners were sent to San Quentin State Prison between March 1872 and the current month, while 13 persons were transported to the Insane Asylum at Stockton during the same period.

Of the prisoners sent to the prison, nine were for murder, seven for manslaughter, three for assault with the intent to commit murder, two for rape, two for embezzlement, one for forgery and one for mayhem, with the remainder of the forty convicts sent up on larceny and burglary. In that period of not quite three years, the Sheriff and his deputies made 544 arrests and a table listed the various “crimes and misdemeanors” and the total number for each.

The largest number, which corresponds to research on over 1,200 criminal case files the author examined a quarter century ago, were petty larcenies, in which the value of the material alleged to have been stolen was of a modest amount, something on the order of $50, and these comprised not quite 20% of the total. As with that larger set of cases, grand larceny was second on the list, being some one-seventh, while assault and battery placed third at just under an eighth and robbery involved about 9% of cases. In all, these crimes involved some 55% of the total.

With a general misdemeanor cases being the fifth largest category, murder came in sixth place with 39 arrests or 7% of the total and assault with the intent to kill was not far behind at 32 or 6% and arrests for “insanity” was about that same last number. The remainder of the categories in order involved robbery (22); malicious mischief (13); threatening to do bodily harm (10); and single digit instances of manslaughter; forgery (listed twice, however); embezzlement; obtaining money under false pretenses; accessory to murder; assault with a deadly weapon; arson; mayhem; infanticide; rape; abduction; desertion; mutiny; passing counterfeit money; vagrancy; resisting arrest; disturbing the peace and trespass; and one arrest under the broad heading of “felony.”

New advertisements include the notice of postponement for the Centinela sland sale, as well as the offer of English setter dogs and fifty volumes of legal books for sale, while the “Special Notices” section includes a lengthy and comical poem from Moore’s Restaurant on Commercial Street, where, it was assured, “there is probably no restaurant on the Pacific coast where so many of the substantials and so many of the luxuries may be had for 25 cts.”

We’ll be presenting these “Read All About It” posts on a regular basis, so keep an eye for the next entry soon!