by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As greater Los Angeles’ first boom period, lasting from the late 1860s through the middle of the following decade, neared its peak, one of the city’s three major English-language daily newspapers, the Herald, covered many notable issues relating to the Angel City and its environs in its edition of 20 March 1875.
The paper, the youngest of the trio, including the Express (founded in 1871 in the wake of the failure of the News, which lasted for over a decade) and the Star (which was the first journal in town, forming in 1851 and operating continuously since, with the notable exception of the period from 1864-1868, after its publisher, Henry Hamilton was jailed for pro-Confederate sympathy, but also suffered increasing financial problems during a dire period of drought and economic malaise), was established in October 1873 by Charles A. Storke of Santa Barbara, but he quickly fell into debt.
A group of capitalists took over, incorporating as The Los Angeles City and County Printing and Publishing, with Prudent Beaudry as president and F.P.F. Temple as treasurer and, especially after Beaudry was elected mayor at the end of 1874, there were accusations from the Herald‘s rivals concerning is ties to the political and economic elites in the city.
In the editorial section on page two, the paper offered “A Few Words to the ‘Star,'” fulminating that
From time to time the Star of this city has indulged in adverse comments and personal animadversions on the HERALD. These attacks have partaken strongly of the chief characteristics of the Star—falsehood and vituperation—and coming from a source which this community so well understands and so correctly estimates, we have generally passed them by as unworthy of notice and comment. But when our contemporary so strongly manifests its mendacity as to attempt to distort the HERALD stockholders’ annual election of a Board of Directors into evidence of a change of the course and policy of the paper, and in order to give its falsehoods the color of truth makes a personal attack on a member of the Board and pules falsehood after falsehood around the original lie, we feel called upon to respond to the extent of showing these misrepresentations to be the mere fabrications of a feeble mind and the offspring of a jealousy that we have done nothing to create and which we shall do nothing to reprove.
Not naming the individual, but stating that he was “a gentleman whose standing and reputation in this valley is such that the shafts of the malicious fall harmless at this feet,” and the presumption here is that the target of the arrows was Beaudry, the Herald said “he needs no defense.”
As to the matter of policy changes, it reiterated to readers that it was “an independent journal,” and stated that an article after the stockholders’ election was a reminder that the paper “would remain under the same editorial and financial control under which it had attained the enviable position of the leading journal of Southern California.” Its independence would continue, moreover and “it would continue to labor for the best interests of Los Angeles valley.”
In its promotion or opposition to events, movements or people, the Herald went on, “it has never accepted the money who paid to have themselves supported and others opposed” and asked “will the Star say as much?” The paper warned, however, that “if it does do so, the evidence will be forthcoming that it utters a deliberate and premeditated falsehood.”
With respect to Mayor Beaudry, another short piece in the editorial page lauded his “sensible and well written document” concerning the police department and its duties, with specific comments about officers, whom, the paper observed, served “by the will and pleasure of the [Common, or City] Council, and is liable to removal the moment his official acts are not in accordance with the wishes of the appointing power,” which was that body. The issue, however, was that “if a member of the police is not satisfied to take his prisoners before the Mayor,” who presided over minor criminal infractions, “his duty is plain: he should resign,” and, this failing, “the Council will remind him of his remissness by immediate removal.”
The chief executive’s message to the Council, one of whose members was Elijah H. Workman, nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste, was published in the main news section page three and began with,
I wish to bring to your notice the spirit of insubordination manifested by several members of the police force of our city. When I moved the Mayor’s Court opposite to the Pico House [on Main Street nearly across from the Plaza], in December last, most of the policemen refused to take prisoners there, alleging that said office was too much our their way. This was a mere pretext, but as I intended to move the Mayor’s Court and office near the jail [on Spring Street between Temple and First streets] as soon as I could secure a suitable building, I did not complain.
Beaudry recounted that, on 25 February, the Council “ordered the police to take all prisoners before [him] for trial” and he added “I have gone to considerable expense in fitting up a proper and convenient manner the Mayor’s Court and office in a building on Spring street, opposite the very door of the jail.” Despite this, however, “the policemen still persist in taking prisoners before the Justices of the Peace, to the prejudice of the revenue of the city,” this evidently being because the Justices were paid by fees for their work.
Adding that he would give no names of offending officers, the chief executive said he wanted “to give these policemen a chance to reflect and change their course,” but gave a recent example, whereby on 10 March there were three arrests, with one prisoner, charged with disturbing the peace and resisting arrest, brought to Beaudry. In this case, the defendant pled guilty and was fined. The other two prisoners were to be brought before him at 1:30 p.m., but he waited until 3 and there was no sign of them, with the mayor finding out that the pair were taken to a Justice instead. He further observed that “some of the policemen have never brought one single prisoner before me.”
Beaudry noted that the city charter allowed for the same jurisdiction for the mayor as the Justices, but the difference was that any fines collected by the Justices went to the county’s general fund, whereas those garnered by him went to the city’s fund. Of course, the expenses of the police force were paid for by the municipality, not the county, so the matter was one in which it was incumbent on the Council “to see that the public money is not wasted” and it was that body “who engaged the policemen” and was “empowered to regulate, govern and control the police.”
Another issue was that officers “complain that I oblige them to swear to their testimony and that I not send a prisoner to jail without a commitment; that with the previous Mayors they never used to bother with that, as one of them remarked in Court.” Beaudry remarked that “I must carry out the law, and the law is that no person in this country can be sentenced to fine or imprisonment unless it be on sworn evidence; and further, that no person can be deprived of his liberty without some warrant for so doing.”
The mayor concluded by asking the council,
Are we to be governed by the police, or shall we stand by our rights and our duties? Shall the police dictate to this Council, or shall they be made to understand that being paid with the public money they are the servants of the public, and not the masters? Who should hold the authority, the Mayor and Common Council who abide by the law, or the policemen, their servants, who act contrary to law?
Returning to the editorial page, the Herald commented that “the development of the oil mines in the San Fernando [Santa Susana] mountains,” near modern Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles, “is rapidly progressing, and from present indications those enterprising men who have worked so long and faithfully in an abiding faith of ultimate success, will receive a return for the labor and money expended.” One of these was F.P.F. Temple, whose Los Angeles Petroleum Refining Company, was working in Towsley Canyon west of today’s Interstate 5.
The paper went on that “the latest reliable information from the oil mines is that one of the wells . . . is now yielding about fifty barrels of oil per day . . . this well will soon be flowing at least one hundred barrels per day.” This, presumably, was the Temple well in Towsley Canyon. Moreover, similar production was expected from other wells in the area, leading the Herald to assert that “the oil yield of the San Fernando mines will soon average a daily product of one thousand barrels” meaning that “here is the opening of a vast industry which will prove a source of incalculable wealth.”
The collapse of the economy several months later, including the failure of the Temple and Workman bank, ended Temple’s efforts at the San Fernando field, but the Star Oil Company hit a gusher in 1876 that effectively marked the beginnings of the region’s oil industry, which eventually entailed that “incalculable wealth” the paper asserted was waiting to be generated. Four decades later, Temple’s son, Walter, became the fortunate beneficiary of “black gold” found in the Montebello Hills on land his father owned, and lost, after his economic collapse.
Another major investment of F.P.F. Temple during this boom was in railroads and the Herald asserted that,
We regard the building of the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad in the light of an assured fact. Only about forty thousand dollar’s [sic] worth of the stock required to be taken remains unsold, and this will be subscribed in a few days. Chief Engineer [James U.] Crawford is about to leave for San Francisco to purchase the locomotives and other rolling stock to be used on the road, and it now seems probably the road between this city and the water will be in operation by the first of July.
When the L.A.&I. was established about a year prior, it was comprised of local capitalists, with Temple as president. Outside money, however, was needed, so United States Senator John P. Jones of Nevada, who had mining interests in eastern California to be tapped with the line, but also was developing the new seaside town of Santa Monica, where a wharf was to haul silver bullion from the mines of Inyo and San Bernardino counties, stepped in to buy a majority of the stock and assume the chief executive role, with Temple shifting to treasurer.
A branch line to Santa Monica from Los Angeles was prioritized and this is what was meant by Crawford’s trip to the Bay Area to acquire materiel, but, with surveying completed at Cajon Pass [where the engineer and his crew fended off an attempt by the powerful Southern Pacific, which had a monopoly on local railroading to date, to seize the pass by its own surveyors] and started east of the Angel City, including through the San Gabriel Valley, the paper added, “it is the intention of the company to have the road in operation from the wharf to Cajon Pass by the close of the present year.”
The effect, then, was that, with 90 miles of operating line, “the entire trade of the Inyo county mines” would be directed “through this valley and cause the mining sections to draw their supplies from us, thus affording our farmers a ready market for this surplus products.” This achieved, finally, and “in anticipation of the vast interior trade,” comprising areas in Nevada and Arizona, not just California, with some discussion of expanding the railroad past Independence, the Inyo County seat and connecting with the transcontinental railroad near Salt Lake City in Utah, “which this road will secure us, real estate in the city and valley is steadily advancing.” While the Santa Monica branch was opened in October 1875, the financial crash ended all further work and the L.A.&I. was sold to the Southern Pacific under two years later.
Another notable editorial page comment regarded that fact that,
Yesterday [bandit chieftain Tiburcio] Vasquez paid the penalty of his crimes with his life. He was hanged at San Jose, and died like a brave man—cool and self-possessed—protesting that his hands were free of human blood . . . The evidence was strong against him that he had committed murder not once but on several occasions. No matter now; he is hanged, and there are few, if any, who believe he deserved a better fate.
As noted elsewhere in this blog, Vásquez committed his last depredations in this region, including the robbery of rancher Alessandro Repetto in what is now Monterey Park, before his capture in May 1874 in modern West Hollywood, while a letter in our collection mentioned his body lying in a house prior to burial.
The execution of the bandit was mentioned in the “Local Brevities” section along with our tidbits, such as that 180 boxes of oranges were shipped to the harbor at San Pedro and Wilmington from the railroad depot in Los Angeles; that Manuel Requena was looking to construct a two-story brick structure for stores on the ground floor and “family rooms above” with bids solicited by architect Edward J. Weston for the structure; that the Wheeler Comedy Troupe was performing that evening at the Merced Theatre; that “Los Angeles valley produces more corn annually than all the other portions of the State [put] together]; and that Edward Bouton, a Civil War general, was auctioning land in 14 lots fronting on 7th, Olive and Charity [Grand Avenue] streets.
As always, perusing the pages of these publications is one of the best ways for us to know about this first boom period, in which the Workman and Temple family was one of the wealthiest in the region and among the most active in developments, such as oil and railroads, as well as real estate and banking, until the sudden and terrible change in their fortunes that came with that financial disaster that hit just five months after this issue of the Herald hit the streets.