by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The J.B. Ransom Organization’s subdivision of Montebello Park, a residential community adjoining major industrial developments in what is now in the City of Commerce (part of which was the Bandini project, which Ransom and partner O. Nicholas Gabriel were also major figures) represented a significant transformation of the west end of Montebello and the neighboring portions of East Los Angeles as part of a broader evolution of what was termed Los Angeles’ East Side during the Roaring Twenties.
What was, for two decades, a ranch operated by the prominent Arizona firm of the Babbitt Brothers, became a rather remarkable iteration of directly linking industrial and residential tracts. In mid-June 1925, the grand opening was held with the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News of the 18th reporting that “initial sales have already established a record for [the] East Side industrial area.” It was added that Ransom’s firm “prevailed upon” the Babbitts “to part with [their 443-acre ranch] so it might be subdivided into attractive homesites for the increasing army of executives and skilled mechanics of the rapidly expanding industrial area.”
Grading machines and steam shovels were busy working on streets and sidewalks, curbs and gutters and landscaping, while on-site wells had ample supplies of water, while the first school, Calvin Coolidge, now Montebello Park, Elementary, was to be built in the first unit of the tract and Montebello High School adjacent to the east end of the subdivision and completed at a half million dollars had a capacity of 1,200 pupils, “many of whom will reside in Montebello Park in the next few years.”
Access to downtown Los Angeles would be greatly improved with the August completion of the Ninth Street Viaduct spanning the Los Angeles River and the extension of that thoroughfare, renamed Olympic Boulevard for the 1932 summer games, were touted as among several improvements costing some $12 million. It was added that “the traffic plan being worked out for the East Side is on a mammoth scale” because the Chamber of Commerce and Planning Commission were fully cognizant that “tremendous development will occur in the next few years.”
Key to all of this, of course, was the movement on hundreds of acres surrounding Montebello Park of industrial growth, including huge yards and service centers for the Santa Fe and Union Pacific railroads, “the great central manufacturing district,” and “other industrial projects which in a short time will employ thousands of workers,” as the Los Angeles area rapidly rose to become one of the major manufacturing metropolises in America. The Union Pacific’s 1000 acres alone were said to eventually involve $100 million in factories and plants.
An accompanying advertisement reflected Ransom’s vivid approach to marketing and promotion with a striking vignette of houses dwarfed amid a mass of industrial plants in stark black-and-white. Under the heading of “Look Now To The East Side!” readers were exhorted,
Look through the gates and see the vision of the future—homes, apartment houses, bungalow courts, banks, stores, theatres to house and cater to hundreds of thousands of workers and their families—all brought here by the army of industrial agents now at work in every section of the country bringing factories to the East Side.
Land values, it was added, skyrocketed as, in 1921, the Union Pacific rejected $950 an acre for some of its property, but the prior month that land was sold for $8,750 per acre and along Whittier Boulevard, the busiest section of road in the region, and Ninth Street “prices are soaring” with changes in just a couple of years such that “the difference will astonish you.”
It was remarked that 225 industrial concerns came to the Angel City and environs in just the last year with many millions invested in new factories and plants, so that the increase in land prices would only continue unabated and there would inevitably be “profits for those who invest wisely nearby—in Montebello Park now.” For the time being, lots were available for as low as $995 and as high as $1400 for general ones and from $1600 to $1800 along Whittier and Ninth “with beautiful landscaped parkways.”
On the 21st, the Los Angeles Times remarked that dozens of trains of 50 cars each would be needed to ship all of the construction material needed for the $650,000 in development work underway with contracts signed between Ransom and three firms. These included landscape architects Cook and Hall, who laid out the distinctive curved tract plan, the George L. Eastman Company for materials, and the Fitzgerald Engineering and Construction Company working on improvements for the 108-acre first unit, this being the west end of the former Babbitt ranch.
The number of carloads of cement, granite, gravel, oil, pipe and sand totaled nearly 3,500 and the Olympic Boulevard digging and grading was well under way; other streets, sidewalks and curbing initiated; 20 miles each of water and gas mains laid; forty-foot wide parkways established; and 350 double-standard light fixtures to be installed along Whittier, Olympic and other thoroughfares. Mind-numbing stats regarding how much of the material was used was apparently designed to make an impression on the reader regarding how much work was being put into Montebello Park.
Lastly, the landscaping was detailed as Cook and Hall’s plan “calls for beautifying all parks, parkways, [and] grounds of public buildings with both deciduous and evergreen trees.” Thirty acres of parks, principally the Northside and Southside, were to planted to such trees as carob, camphor, eucalyptus, gingko, oak, pine and walnut, while the sides of roads were to be planted with “one variety on one street and one on another.” On those distinctive curved streets at the west and east ends, “Lombardy poplars will line both sides.”
The Los Angeles Record of the 25th ran a photo of Gabriel passing the $650,000 contract to George Hart of the Fitzgerald firm, while Fred T. Beaty, the head of the East Side Organization, which promoted development and who went on to be a county supervisor, looked on. The article added that an important landscape feature concerned Southern California Edison’s wide easement of transformer lines and its conversion into parkland—Saybrook Park is now included within that. William D. Cook commented,
Everything is being done to enhance the comfort and beauty of Montebello Park. People in this day and age must have comfort and beauty around the homes. We need lots of parks and open space, and these we have added to Montebello Park.
Our theory is that we can put all the features into Montebello Park that west side and other communities have. You don’t have to have a big house to have an artistic, beautiful and comfortable home. The working man is just as much entitled to have all these things for his wife and children as the man who lives in a $100,000 home. You’ll find some of the homes in Montebello Park in a year or so to be just as artistic and attractive as many that cost $50,000.
In fact, an ad in the Los Angeles Express of the 24th expressly touted the development as “The Beauty Spot Of The East Side” as it gushed that “here nature’s gifts have been bountifully bestowed, and man’s artistry is completing a picture that will be one of the show places of our beloved Southland. It was observed that the great fertility of the soil (covered as it was by the tract and surrounding industrial development) was attested to by the proliferation of nurseries in and around Montebello that “add beauty and charm to [Montebello Park’s] surroundings.”
Cook and Hall were lauded for their design and it was added that the firm worked on projects at Beverly Hills, Carthay Center in west Los Angeles, and San Diego’s Mission Beach and with their efforts, much of which is noted above, it was stipulated that “all in all, nothing will be omitted to make Montebello Park a homesite that anyone might be proud to live in.” The piece concluded,
To the workers, executives and business men of the East Side, to all who appreciate beautiful high-class development combined with nearness to downtown Los Angeles, and to investors who are looking for property with [the] likelihood of maximum increase of value, we unhesitatingly recommend Montebello Park.
In a feature in the 2 July edition of the Illustrated Daily News, Ransom commented that “our object is to pave the way for attractive homes for the workers in east side industrial plants and others engaged in business on the east side” and added “we are looking ahead and preparing for thousands of far-seeing people just such a community as they will require.” The issue of 6 August featured more photos of the building of a house, an administration building, the installation of park equipment, and the laying out of Olympic to Vail Avenue, the eastern limit of the tract.
The second unit opened in November 1925, with sales of the first unit so satisfactory that Ransom officials announced that the next phase was to have all preparatory work done before sales would commence. The 23 October 1926 issue of the Express promoted “unusual heavy buying activity” as the Ransom firm launched a month-long discount for the pre-sale of the third unit a few days before with the claim that, “investors and prospective home buyers from virtually every community within a 30-mile radius attended.”
Adding that the first two phases “practically sold out in record time,” and infrastructure work pressing quickly for the new one, it was remarked that “Montebello Park continues to hold the limelight as the center of buying activity in territory immediately east of Los Angeles.” The third unit included 25 acres of parkways along Whittier, Olympic and the major north-south thoroughfare in the eastern section of the tract, Garfield Avenue, which was being pushed to completion and now runs from South Pasadena to Bell Gardens.
In its concerted marketing push, Ransom, through the Express, informed readers that “with 10 years of constructive development work ahead by the Ransom concern alone, coupled with the present demand for property, the territory east of Los Angeles is entering upon the greatest selling era in its history.” Including a $1.5 million construction effort, it was stated that it would be 1936 before Montebello Park was completed.
Notably, the piece remarked that, with respect to the Bandini project, which Ransom and Gabriel pursued prior to Montebello Park, its “business properties have been purposely kept off the market” until the larger tract’s residential sections were at a certain point of success. The piece went on that,
This is now an accomplished fact and the corporation will place its entire Bandini business frontage on sale [starting on the 30th] . . . Like Montebello Park and other projects, the Bandini business sale will present unusual aspects, due to the Ransom Corporation’s lenient policy of encouraging investors by selling properties at a figure which leaves considerable leeway for present and future profits.
In mid-January 1927, Gabriel, Ransom and other investors formed the Bicknell Syndicate, which purchased nearly 500 acres of the ranch of the late John D. Bicknell, a prominent Los Angeles attorney and judge, with 125 acres set aside from what is now the Bella Verde Resort and Golf Club on Garfield just below the 60 Freeway, including a $50,000 Spanish Colonial Revival style clubhosue, while another 75 acres adjacent to the course were for residences. Gabriel told the press that the location was more convenient to downtown Los Angeles than Hollywood and noted that, at the start of the decade, a nearby area was a dairy farm and some ranches with around 100 persons, but had up to 40,000 persons—this would be what was formerly Belvedere Gardens and became East Los Angeles.
Earlier in the month, reported the 7 January edition of the Pomona Progress-Bulletin, “following the greatest sales year in its history, the fifth and last unit of Montebello Park south of Whittier Boulevard will be placed on the market.” This was in time for the completion of the massive Goodrich Tire plant in what became the City of Commerce, expected to begin production at the first of March and the account stated that “many of these newcomers [workers] into the Los Angeles industrial field are already established in snug homes in Montebello Park.” A pair of auditoriums, one at Whittier and Garfield and the other on Ninth (Olympic) were readying for the influx of investors and home-seekers.
One of the stranger marketing devices, along with an observation tower so visitors could see the entire tract and East Side area, employed by Ransom at Montebello Park was his Painted Pinnacles exhibit, opened in May along Whittier Boulevard, and which was reported by the Pasadena Star-News of the 21st to have drawn 25,000 visitors in its opening the prior weekend. It was observed that,
The exhibit, which is enlivened by the presence of Indians from several tribes, shows the evolution of the American home from the prehistoric cliff dwellers to the present time . . .
For the amusement and instruction of Southern California, a real, honest-to-goodness tomahawk dance, executed by Indian chiefs after the fashion of the days of yore, when scalps were worth more than [gold] nuggets to Indian braves, is on the program . . .
Other dances, in which Indian flappers and squaws will participate, include a live-stepping squaw dance and a women’s blanket dance . . .
The permanent exhibit . . . presents strikingly interesting features showing the course of the evolution of the American home, the development of transportation and the amazing resources of Southern California.
The Pasadena Post, however, reported that there were 40,000 persons who attended the opening weekend, while replicating the information almost word-for-word that appeared in is rival’s account. The Ransom Organization also held a free carnival week around Mothers’ Day weekend that, naturally, included a discount on lots sold.
More striking visuals in advertisements through 1928 blared out key words like “Action,” “Workers,” and “White Spot,” with the former touting the inauguration of work on Garfield Avenue through Montebello Park, along with the building of Olympic, Beverly (east to Whittier) and Third Street and Pomona Boulevard (becoming Potrero Grande to Rush Street through Monterey Park and Rosemead), as well as the Goodrich plant and the new Vail Field airport across the Union Pacific track from Montebello Park.
The “Workers” ad had a “vital message” for “conscientious workers . . . men and women . . . ex-bankers . . . clerks . . . actively employed business people . . . [and] retired residents” looking for work with Ransom in its four projects, including the new Gainsborough Heath in San Marino, where Gabriel resided and which will cover in a future post, along with Montebello Park, Montebello Park Golf Club and Bandini Enterprises, this latter denoted as the “City of Industry and Payrolls.”
As for the last one, the piece declared that “industry is keeping the white spot white!” because of employment to thousands of workers “who are building their homes in a new city” in those three developments in and near Montebello. Early in 1929, the Samson Tire Company, moving from its Compton location, began work on the remarkable Assyrian-themed plant that is now The Citadel outlets in the City of Commerce. At that time, the Ransom Corporation, as it was then styled, moved to new quarters in the Rowan Building in downtown Los Angeles, but, later in the year, came the crash of the stock market on Wall Street and the onset of the Great Depression.
Ransom held on until spring 1932, at which time massive waves of bank failures sent the Depression to its depths. He unloaded his East Side enterprises to a new firm led by a former sales manager in his company. Formerly a homeowner in the Hancock Park-area of Los Angeles, he, his wife and namesake son ended up renting in another part of that neighborhood and Ransom operated in real estate, though largely in obscurity. By the outbreak of World War II, he relocated to Manhattan Beach and then lived in Phoenix for a short time after the conflict and died in Berkeley, California at the end of June 1951—no mention was found in local papers about his passing.
In some ways, Ransom’s arc in regional real estate during the Roaring Twenties mirrored that of Walter P. Temple, though on a much larger, grander and ambitious scale, while the two ended up severely impacted financially as the Depression ensued. While his name has been forgotten, Ransom’s work on the “east side,” including in Montebello, East Los Angeles and the City of Commerce was an important one during a time on unbridled optimism and the linkage of industrial expansion with adjacent residential development.
This deep dive into some of the early history of Montebello to 1930, taking in aspects such as its initial formation, its prominence for its nurseries, the astonishing introduction of its oil field in which the Temple family saw their financial fortunes resurrected, and ties to East Side industrial and residential development, is hopefully interesting and informative concerning this part of greater Los Angeles’ role in the transformation of the region.
I’m curious whether Montebello Park was affected by the booming oil drilling activities. Were its future development plans redirected as business priorities shifted toward oil production? Was the park land itself disrupted or fragmented by the expanding oil fields?
Hi Larry, the Montebello oil field, which was to the east and not contiguous with Montebello Park, looks to have been a fairly shallow and short-lived one in terms of productive capacity, especially compared to later mega-producers like Huntington Beach, Long Beach/Signal Hill and Santa Fe Springs. Levels were declining by the time Montebello Park was established and that subdivision was directly linked to the burgeoning industrial development that was centered in and around what became the City of Commerce. Thanks again for your interest!
Thanks, Paul, for clarifying the distinctions of location and development between Montebello Oil Field and Montebello Park.
I worked for the So Cal Gas Co. in the 80’s. We stored gas in abandoned oil wells. I worked with a gentlemen and he and I sent probes into the wells to check for leakage in the casings. A couple of the wells bottomed around Whittier Blvd. And one almost went to Olympic. I also grew up there. 1960 to 1990. Great place to grow up. Thanks for the series. Been reading your blog for years. We are blessed to have your wonderful work.
Hi Dwane, thanks for sharing your memories of working with gas in old oil wells and for your kind words about the blog. We appreciate your interest and support!
Hi Paul, given that WHITE SPOT in this ad and the swastikas in the last article about JB Ransom was it assumed that folks should “read between the lines” that these developments were for White residents. Was there any info on JB Ransom’s sympathies? I was quite shocked that the swastikas weren’t at least commented on.
Hi Sandra, thanks for the questions. The use of the term “white spot” generally meant an area on the rise or successful economically or that was more desirable in which to live and work. With residential segregation through restrictive covenants nearly universal in the Los Angeles area, a revival of the KKK underway, including in this region, and power and wealth mostly concentrated in the hands of the white upper class, there is certainly a context to strongly consider. With regard to swastikas, these were used to reflect the good luck meaning of the symbol coming from India, but the Nazis adopted its twisted version in 1920, though it remained little known here until after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933.