by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The Homestead is fortunate to have a cache of historic greater Los Angeles newspapers in its collection dating from 1860 to 1930, as these help us to get a better perspective on the history of the region through their pages. The featured one for this post is a ragged paper, but the 23 May 1873 edition of the Los Angeles Express has some excellent and informative content, even if it isn’t in the best of condition.
The first significant and sustained period of growth in the area, which began at the end of the Sixties, was heading towards its peak when this issue was published and we can easily see how some of this was manifested in the edition’s content. For example, water delivery and supply was obviously vital for the town approaching 10,000 residents, especially as the community could only rely on local sources, four decades before the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.
In a review of the proceedings of the most recent meeting of the Common (City) Council, after Mayor James R. Toberman reported on revenues from fines derived from ordinance violations as well the sale of city land and a notice that city laws were to be published in Spanish in La Crónica, the sole Spanish-language sheet in town (although there was a contract with the Los Angeles Star before that paper changed owners), Aurelius W. Hutton, the city attorney and soon to be a district court judge, gave a report regarding the water taken from the Los Angeles River, with the paper noting,
The report holds that the city is entitled to all the water she wishes to use from the stream; that hers is a prior right to all others, above and below the city, and that she has the power to regulate the distribution and use of the water of the river.
Council member William H. Workman, nephew of Homestead owners William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste and a future mayor and city treasurer, remarked that “there was a waste of water at the Coralitos,” an area around Elysian Park, while George E. Long, later the assignee of the failed Temple and Workman bank, chimed in that the same was true at the Rancho Los Feliz, also north of town.
The Council decided that the zanjero, the figure tasked with keeping the water supply in good order through its open ditches, or zanjas, would talk to City Surveyor William Moore about which affected properties were within city limits—then still consisting of the original pueblo limits established with the founding of Los Angeles nearly a century before. He was then ordered to “bring the owners under the regulations governing the use of water,” while also to “notify people north of the city not to take water from the river up to the 20th of each month, without making application to him.”
The body also passed an ordinance “which provides that parties who take water by the hour shall only be served rom 5 to 6 o’clock in the morning.” Residents whose properties drew from Zanja No. 7 petitioned the council that the water in that ditch “is but the seepage of the river” and requested a flume near a distillery to link it to the river “so as to furnish a reliable supply of water.” The Council agreed, provided, however, that this was “found necessary.”
Meanwhile, former Governor John G. Downey and others using the eighth zanja filed a protest that an eastern branch not be altered or limited. Finally, Moore informed the board that “there are about 1 1/2 miles of the ditch yet to clean and repair” and that this work was to completed during the next week at a cost of about $300 to be paid from the city’s Current Expense Fund.
Mathew Keller, known widely as Don Mateo, was one of the biggest growers of grapes and manufacturers of wine and spirits in Los Angeles and he “presented a remonstrance” to the Council “against the ordinance compelling distilleries to take out a city license.” The reason was that “wine and brandy producing interests are already oppressed by taxes” and he requested that the license requirement be cancelled. This matter was referred to a committee including Long, Workman and Prudent Beaudry, who became the city’s next chief executive.
Beaudry, who had large land holdings in the hill sections immediately west of town in what are now the Bunker Hill and Bellevue Terrace (to the south in around the Central Public Library), told his colleagues that the city held lands worth $30,000, but only “a few privileged persons” were aware of the location.
There were some people, he added, who said they’d bought lands from the municipality, but lost their deeds, so he recommended that “the city be mapped, so as to put an end to the practice of obtaining titles surreptitiously.” This issue, of course, was part and parcel of the city’s continuing growth and development and the council decided to pay a surveyor from sales of “such lots as are discovered that belong to the city.”
Another key element to improvements in the Angel City were the introduction of sewers (previously much waste was dumped in zanjas, open lots and the streets, leading, naturally, to serious concerns about health and cleanliness) and the Council passed an ordinance for the building of “the Main and Arcadia street sewer, which is intended to relieve the Pico House block from the present nuisance.” The hotel, the adjoining Merced Theatre and other structures clearly generated waste that was not properly dealt with, so John Mayer worked on extending the sewer, which was expected, by a forthcoming ordinance, to be so approved.
Lastly, the Council meeting addressed the matter of “the man who was engaged to attend to the cultivation of the Park and Plaza,” the former being Sixth Street, or Central, Park, renamed Pershing Square in 1918. Although he was paid $25 a month to tend to these public spaces, which had plantings procured from Elijah H. Workman, brother of the aforementioned council member and who served several terms on that body, as well, the unnamed figure “was discharged, as nothing is now being done there.”
In the “Local Dottings” column, there were a trio of references to ships and shipping, a reference to mining in the Piru district north of Los Angeles, the report that “the police . . . foiled the plans of a Chinaman to elope . . . with one of his countrywomen, among others. Of musical interest was, along with an advertisement, that a concert at the Merced Theatre featured Manuel Y. Ferrer (1828-1904), born to Spanish parents in Baja California and who became a prominent guitarist and composer based in San Francisco. The column mentioned that Ferrer left a piece of sheet music for a piece he’d written, while William Castillo, “a guitarist of fine touch,” would join the program.
As the school year was coming to a close, the Express remarked that “this morning the school children of the high school building,” which just opened on Fort Moore Hill west of the Plaza, “were all grouped on the side of the hill, so as to allow an opportunity for a photographer to take a view of them.” The number of students, the range of their dress “and all the surrounding circumstances” were such that it “tended to make the scene a most interesting one,” including the fact that it was “a view that shall show the fine situation of our principal school building, and give an idea of the number of children who are there obtaining instruction.”
In the afternoon, the closing exercises were held and it was remarked that “the children of the Girls’ Grammar School, conducted by Miss Bengough, are entitled to the credit for procuring the handsome flag which is to be raised to the top of the flagpole in front of the high school building.” The Express continued,
It is well that our national colors should float over our principal common school building, where the future sovereigns [!] are being educated. It is well that the children should on this occasion have an opportunity of testifying their love for the old flag under which they enjoy such glorious promise of freedom and happiness throughout their lives.
After stating that the event would be impressed on the students’ minds for the rest of their days and “recalled with pleasure and pride,” the article continued that “Old Glory waves more proudly today than ever” and, wherever it waved, “liberty and order, peace and plenty, spread their dominions and increase their benificent [sic] gifts.” In paying tribute to the flag, it was concluded, the pupils “will during all their days . . . find themselves safe and honored beneath its aegis.”
A very interesting reference concerned “the itinerants, who by aid of smoky torchlights, immeasurable cheek, fantastic costumes and infinite gab, hold soirees on street corners.” The paper lamented that “their wares are generally worthless” and, while they “have heretofore paid only the same license as our regular business men,” they possessed no real property subject to tax and had “no interest in the city,” so, concluded the Express, “we have ample reason for discriminating against them, and in favor of our own merchants.”
It was under a decade since a devastating two-year drought took place that, along with floods prior to that, ravaged the region’s cattle industry, long the backbone of the economy, so wheat farming, sheep raising and, increasingly, citrus growing became much more financially important. The paper cited the Anaheim Southern Californian for the statement that irrigation was vital for farming and horticulture, adding that,
The majority of the settlers in Santa Ana and Tustin [later part of Orange County when that was formed fifteen or so years later] have decided to devote all their energies to the culture of fruit, and being aware that their efforts would not be crowned with success until water in abundance was to be had, have formed an association for the purpose of bringing water from the Santa Ana river in a ditch of their own.
Alfred B. Chapman, a prominent Los Angeles real estate attorney, owned a canal and attempts were made to strike a deal to use that for the irrigation project, but, this failing, the association set out to dig its own ditch, to be finished by September. The article ended that, “should their ditch be a success, we are assured that several hundred thousand trees and vines will be planted next season.”
Though warranting only a brief mention that “work on the Southern Pacific Railroad is progressing” with 150 men working on the construction of local lines, it is worth noting that the development of this work was considered critical to the future of greater Los Angeles. After Congress mandated that the powerful company build its line from northern California to the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona, local figures like F.P.F. Temple negotiated with the firm to not just build a single line through the area, coming in from the north and then heading east through the San Gabriel Valley, including William Workman’s portion of Rancho La Puente, but to construct a branch line from the existing Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad to Anaheim.
Temple was a main negotiator for terms that were included on a subsidy vote, in early November 1872 during the general election, to the Southern Pacific, giving them control of that local line and some $600,000 based on 5% of the real property assessment value of Los Angeles County. The Southern Pacific completed that Anaheim line and the one through the San Gabriel Valley to about the county line within a fairly short time, while the main route from the north got to Los Angeles in September 1876. It was almost another decade before competition arrived in the form of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe reaching the region through a much-needed transcontinental connection.
The main editorial was titled “As A Sanitarium,” which began by asserting that greater Los Angeles did not need to rely on its salubrious climate to attract people with health problems, namely lung diseases like tuberculosis, because “our city has a splendid agricultural region all around, such as is unequalled anywhere on the continent.” With farmers, orchardists and viticulturists growing their products, livestock (sheep, in particular, became numerous after the aforementioned floods and droughts) grazing on local hills, the railroads being built and ships plying the still rather rudimentary harbor, “we have before us a time of prosperity and rapid growth which, when it once commences, will astonish all by its extent.”
Still, the paper went on, with all these understood, “we should not fail to make known to people abroad the climatic advantages which are open to them here.” It was added that
Visitors from the East are constantly assuring us that Los Angeles is unrivaled as a sanitarium. Our even, temperate yet invigorating climate is more delightful than can be experienced at any of the celebrated health resorts of the Old World . . . and the time must come when Los Angeles will be visited at all seasons by a steady stream of health and pleasure seekers, coming to avail themselves of our bright skies and soft breezes . . . Already this magnificent valley is obtaining a wide fame; and with each year the knowledge of its splendid climate and resources will be more widely diffused.
Those who were terminally ill could only expect relief on coming here, but “to the large class . . . [not] in a consumptive decline, we can promise a cure,” or, at least, significant improvement. Those with asthma and invalids, broadly, “who come here in time, and observe the ordinary rules of health, we hold out the promise of great relief, if not a perfect and permanent cure.”
Consequently, the Express concluded,
Our climate is unsurpassed anywhere; our productions are delicious; our society is good; our churches are numerous; and our common school offer ample accommodations to all; we have, in the Pico House, the best hotel in Southern California; in a word, Los Angeles has all the advantages of a city, in the midst of a fine agricultural region, with a good harbor at only twenty miles distance.
As the years advanced, especially with the much larger boom of the 1880s, when William H. Workman was mayor, and those that followed, the status of greater Los Angeles as a “health-seekers’ paradise,” was, in fact, amplified.
An advertisement in the paper for The Southern California Sanitary Hotel and Industrial College Association, with F.P.F. Temple as treasurer, fits right in to the descriptions above and we’ll return with a part two about this institution and its highly eccentric and fascinating leading figure, Frederick M. Shaw, so check back for that!.