by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we conclude this look at some of the early history of the San Gabriel Mountains foothill community of Monrovia, following a talk given to its historical society last Sunday, we move to the end of 1886 as greater Los Angeles was heading towards the peak of its second development and growth boom (William H. Workman was elected mayor of Los Angeles in December and presided over the two years of the most frenzied activity).
A key component of the success of Monrovia’s establishment was the building of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad, the line of which headed from the Angel City through the Arroyo Seco to Pasadena and then along the foothills. Some projects along the route prospered and others didn’t, as was typical during booms.
The 4 December edition of the Los Angeles Times reported from the Monrovia Planet, the burg’s first newspaper, that attorney Charles Cassat Davis, a recent transplant from Ohio, purchased 100 acres nearby and close to the Duarte depot of the railroad and was planning a town—this never came to fruition, but the land became part of the east side of Duarte.
The same issue, celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Times, ran a feature on the local sheets and the Planet submitted its brief précis about itself and the town, noting that Edward L. Buck, who soon sold the paper (this being a tough business in any case, but especially in a small town), issued his independent periodical on Saturdays at $2 annually and, like any other publisher, was “devoted to the development of local resources.” Monrovia then had 300 residents, with about 2,500 in the vicinity considered the bailiwick of the Planet and where “fruit culture” predominated economically.
The Los Angeles Tribune, established recently by Henry H. Boyce, an embittered former partner of the Times‘ chief Harrison Gray Otis as well as a booster of the town of Gladstone, now a section of Azusa, but which lasted all of four years, of the 6th received from “H.L.C.” a detailed description of what it termed “A Thriving Village.” The account began with the observation:
Everybody who knows anything about Southern California, knows that it doesn’t take long to make a town in any favored locality, but notwithstanding this fact, hardly anybody is prepared to see such a sprightly specimen of a six-months-old town as Monrovia. It is not an unusual thing in this country to see a good-sized village develope [sic] into a city, or a cross-roads town into a village within a year, but half a year ago there was no such place as Monrovia.
It was then asserted that “I am not sure that it had a clearly defined existence in the minds of the gentlemen who became its projectors,” though why this was believed to be the case was not explained, but it was remarked that “to-day there must be four or five hundred people here,” leaving aside visitors who arrived to “size up the prospects of the town, and invest something in town lots.”
It was two-and-a-half years prior that William N. Monroe, after some two decades as a railroad construction supervisor, including for the Southern Pacific, settled on that portion of Rancho Santa Anita and, on around 1,000 acres, cleared the brush and planted citrus, vegetables, grapevines and other items, leading to the statement that “there is no manner of doubt about this being one of the best fruit-growing sections in the State.”
Between Monroe’s successful experiments with agriculture and the development of the LA&SGVRR to provide access to markets, the work in the area,
attracted the attention of other gentlemen to the lands in this vicinity, and about a year-and-a-half ago Judge [John D.] Bicknell and Mayor [Workman’s predecessor] Spence, of Los Angeles, bought something like 800 acres of the Baldwin [Santa Anita] and Duarte ranches, and Col. Samuel Kiefer [Keefer], of New York, and Gen. W.A. Pile, also of New York, bought considerable bodies of land here later, and last May they decided to pool their issues, divide their land into small lots, and lay out a town.
Crucially, half of the water in Santa Anita and Sawpit canyons was secured to provide the precious fluid for the new burg and “which will undoubtedly furnish for all time to come an abundant supply.” With 480 town and 100 five-acre tracts established and the town named for Monroe, “the syndicate took the name of the Monrovia Land and Water Company” and first sold property on 17 May.
Since then, the review continued, “half a hundred residences and business houses, at least, have been put up here,” while lot values appreciated healthily, and “a dozen or more stores and shops of various kinds have opened up for business.” Brick and lumber yards, two churches (Baptist and Methodist) and the Planet were opened and the long-anticipated Grand View Hotel was likely to opened by Keefer within a couple of weeks and managed by his son, John.
“H.L.C.” received a tour through the structure and offered that “it is not large” but “it will be equipped, however, like a first-class city hotel,” so that “it will be a gem” of a hostelry with gas in each room, electric call and alarm bell systems, and “very handsome and luxurious furnishings.” The three-story building was to be surrounded by a lawn and other landscaping that “will be artistically laid out.” Nearby were to be a clubhouse with a library and billiards and assured to be “a delightful place for guests to while away their leisure hours.”
The finest building in Monrovia, though, was said to be the realty office of Monroe and Pile, while the Barnes store and the Monrovia Hotel, recently purchased by William N. Monroe’s brother-in-law, Charles C. Hotchkiss and expanded by him before it was sold the following spring, were also mentioned. With enough visitors to keep several hotels occupied, the Tribune asserted that the “most remarkable growth” of the town was such that “its era of prosperity is just fairly beginning, there is every reason to believe.” An unidentified Angeleno told the correspondent,
I consider Monrovia one of the most promising settlements in the State. The lands which are being cut up into small parcels . . . are exceedingly valuable . . . with such markets as are now opening to us, the industrious and frugal man needs but a little patch of ground, to provide himself and family with a comfortable living, and, considered from this standpoint alone, the Monrovia lands are worth all and much more than they are selling for. When you take into consideration, in addition to this, that it has by reason of its favored location, attracted the attention of some very prominent people who propose to make it their home, you may safely conclude that they will be followed by a good class of people, and that the neighborhood cannot fail to build up rapidly.
“H.C.L.” added that this domino effect meant that “the result will be the rapid building up of a handsome suburban village, if not a suburban city, and, among the “better sort” mentioned in the piece were William A. Pile, Remi Nadeau of Los Angeles, Topeka merchant George Bates and “the Studebakers, the famous wagon manufacturers of South Bend, Ind., have recently invested here. The aforementioned Pasadena syndicate including Theodore P. Lukens and Angel City attorney Shobal P. Mulford were also cited as among those of “quality” who were actively developing property in Monrovia.
Lastly, it was observed that transportation linkages were only to greatly improve, as “the San Bernardino and Los Angeles road,” meaning the LA&SGVRR, “is to be part of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe,” whose transcontinental link to the region about a year prior was a major motive force in the current boom, while a branch of the Southern Pacific line in the southern portion of the San Gabriel Valley “is almost an absolute certainty.”
The Los Angeles Herald of the 9th offered “Monrovia Movements” with the subheading of “A Remarkable Improvement in a New Town,” commenting that the first lot there was sold on 3 April and “since that time improvement has been great and constant” so that nearly 60 buildings stood in town. Among these were a bakery, barber shop, furniture store, dry goods store, grocery, three hotels, two livery stables, meat market, restaurant and more, while some of the houses were “very elegant.”
Nadeau, who’d best been known for his animal-drawn teams that brought silver and other minerals from many of California’s mines to Los Angeles, was mentioned as having come to Monrovia for his health as well as to invest in lots on the west side of town, where he was to “erect fifteen genteel cottages for rent.” The LA&SGVRR ran five daily trains to and from the burg and had timber and steel for the bridge crossing over the San Gabriel River to the east, but the lack of ties kept the work from progressing.
Meanwhile, the Santa Fe company had surveyors out running a proposed line a half-mile north, while the Southern Pacific did the same above the Santa Fe’s route and it was remarked that, “if these two lines are built, Monrovia will have three competing lines for the thronging thousands that will soon walk her beautiful avenues,” though the Santa Fe became the only line to run through the town. The conclusion was that, “the whole settlement is improving in a rapid manner” and the erstwhile mayor, William Monroe, “is justly proud of what he calls the smartest town in America, and promises to make his vaunting true.”
The Tribune of the 22nd covered the opening of the Grand View, designed by architects Eugene L. Caukin and Solomon I. Haas, reporting that “a large and very pleasant company assembled last night at the opening banquet and ball” with most of the visitors going out from Los Angeles on the LA&SGVRR with carriages taking them to the hotel. There they were received by a committee including William Monroe and son George, William E. Pile and a fourth man and, after some pleasantries, guests were taken to the dining room where “they were feasted upon all that the skill of man could devise or procure.”
Because Samuel Keefer was ill (in fact, his poor health led him to commit suicide just a month later), William A. Pile led the toasts and Spence briefly acknowledged his role in the hotel and town before giving the floor to others, including William Monroe, who “pictured in glowing colors the progress and future prospects of the thriving little city.” Bicknell then toasted Keefer and his establishment as well as “those whose energy and foresight had reclaimed the place from a wilderness, and which is a beautiful and desirable spot.”
George H. Bonebrake then offered one for railroads and “prophesied that the time would come when not one, but many railroads would be built through the valley, not only parallel [east to west], but crossing each other in all directions; and the whole valley, from San Bernardino to the ocean, would be one continuous garden spot.” Joseph D. Lynch, editor of the Herald, toasted to southern California and praised all the abundance that the region provided, while Henry Z. Osborne, his rival with the Los Angeles Express, toasted women “and handled the graceful subject with his accustomed skill.”
Dancing followed until it was time to return to catch the last train back to the Angel City. Among the guests were such well-known figures as Mamie Perry Davis, a prominent local singer and grandmother of actor Robert Stack; Lukens; Frank Miller, proprietor of what became the famous Mission Inn in Riverside; Walter and Hervey Lindley; merchants Hans Jevne; banker Marco H. Hellman; lawyer Robert N. Bulla; Sierra Madre founder Nathaniel C. Carter; Sierra Madre Villa resort owner and artist William G. Cogswell; and José Estudillo, scion of a prominent Californio family.
The next day’s Herald provided another detailed examination of the town as part of its coverage of the Grand View debut, observing that “Monrovia has grown into a household word in Southern California, of late.” Monroe, Bicknell, Crank and Spence were praised for “being the creators of this, the newest and most promising candidate for public favor as the eclectic sanitarium and center for homes in Southern California.” After listing, as had the Tribune, the various establishments in town, including the churches “rivaling in dimension and finish” any in Los Angeles, it proclaimed,
This young and ambitions if nascent city does nothing by halves, and simply anticipates her quite evident destiny as the brightest if the last of the ideal home regions and invalid resorts of Southern California.
For the “splendid project,” the town’s founders were lionized for their “wisdom and liberality” in developing the 1,500 acres of Rancho Santa Anita and about 200 more from Rancho Azusa de Duarte to the tune of around $100,000. The account reiterated the healthful environment, with the unnamed writer (Lynch, probably) proclaiming that Monrovia was “the most attractive and efficacious region in the State for persons afflicted with asthma, bronchitis, catarrh and similar ailments,” while adding that the town would “continue to be prosperous because here the wealthy man can create an ideal home,” surrounded by orchards and groves.
Moreover, the owner of a five-acre tract could make more money than a Midwestern farmer on a quarter section (160 acres). Keefer was congratulated for his hotel project, though no one could foresee what would very shortly happen to him. On those modern streets, it was added, water gates were at each intersection so “all the thirsty wayfarer has to do is to drop a dipper into the clean cement opening to quench his thirst with the most sparkling mountain water in the world.” Among the dozen buildings in the course of construction was a $16,000 house for Nadeau, while on prominent knolls, Bicknell and Spence were readying to start work on their dwellings.
Monroe was also feted for his efforts in establishing the area as an agricultural experiment station of sorts, with his orange orchard, banana grove, peas, tomatoes, deciduous fruits of several kinds (apricot, cherry, nectarines, plums, peaches, etc.) and more than benefited from the elevation, lack of frost and the fact that “the soil is a rich, moist loam, not needing irrigation” for most products, though the citrus was so watered during the summer. Monroe’s father, Sanderson, came out from Iowa in poor health including rheumatism, but “at once regained much of his old-time vigor” and farmed his own melon patch of two-and-a-half acres.
Lot prices leapt by up to six times in the last several months and a railroad passenger agent who bought five acres doubled his investment in a few months when he sold and Nadeau’s purchase of 25 acres was highlighted as an example of how,
The indications are that a boom of giant proportions will set in for Monrovia next month. It will be coincident with the appearance at the place of the track of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, which is steadily pushing hitherwards.
The Grand View was described as a Queen Anne structure of 45 rooms and “finished in an elegant, but simple style and all the appointments are first class.” Aside from the main dining room for adults, a smaller one was for younger folks and a pair of parlors opened into each other and the comfort was accompanied by “unlimited sunshine and exquisite views.” As for the grand opening, the account was fundamentally the same as that in the Tribune.
As noted above, the Boom of the Eighties exploded during the next two years and, when the inevitable bust came, many boom towns evaporated or went into hibernation for later growth or reconstitution, but Monrovia persevered. It did become a mecca for health seekers who sought cures at the many sanitariums located there, while its citrus industry also proved to be very successful well into the 20th century. Today, with a population of 37,000, it maintains much of its small-town feel and has a very active historic preservation group and historical society, with a great deal of its past shared through websites and social media, including a remarkable Monrovia Legacy Project sharing a broad collection of artifacts.