by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we bring this post on some of the history of the La Puente/Temple School to a close with a fourth part, it bears reminding that the production, starting in 1917, of oil in the nearby Montebello Hills, including on 60 acres owned by Walter P. Temple, a longtime trustee and census marshal of the tiny school district, co-founded by his father, F.P.F., some four decades prior, utterly transformed its financial condition.
For the 1911 graduates of the school, Walter gave the commencement address and he remarked that “you have had most excellent teachers and you should be thankful and grateful to them as well as to our liberal School System for giving you a free education.” He also implored them to continue on to El Monte High School and touted its benefits and those of the colleges and universities in the region.
It is notable that Temple told the assemblage that,
Many of the children of this school are of Spanish and Mexican descent belonging to the great Latin race. Not all of you are of the other great race that rules such a big part of the world—I mean the Anglo-Saxon race. But it makes no difference in this beloved land of ours which of these two races a child belongs to. There is no distinction; each has the same rights, the same duties and responsibilities and the same opportunities as the other. There is no discrimination . . . the children of the Latin race may well be proud of your ancestry . . . Therefore, let there be no race prejudice, no ill feeling among you, but remember Children that we are now all Americans, all Californians and what is best of all lovers of our Country and our Country’s flag.
As a prior post here, even those it was just three miles from the Misión Vieja, or Old Mission, community in which La Puente School was situated, to El Monte and its high school, there were vast differences in the ethnicity of their populations. The latter was founded in the early 1850s by new migrants from the Southern states, with a great deal of racial prejudice animated among them. The former was settled from at least the 1830s by Spanish-speaking Californios, with a sprinkling of Anglos like Temple’s father.
The idealism of the commencement speech belied the reality that distinctions very much existed, racism commonplace, and discrimination rampant. Just a year prior to the speech, the Mexican Revolution erupted and, during succeeding years, a wave of migration from the south came to greater Los Angeles.
While during the Roaring Twenties, many Mexican immigrants found work, almost completely low-wage labor in farms, orchards, brickmaking, household work, and other industries, the Great Depression (coming after our nation’s first immigration laws passed in 1924) brought mass deportations that, nearly a century later, are starkly part of our reality.
In 1911, Thomas, the eldest child of Walter and his wife Laura González, an Old Mission native, began his education at La Puente School and he was followed by his sister Agnes and younger brothers, Walter, Jr. and Edgar. The following year, Walter purchased 60 acres at the northeast corner of the Montebello Hills and adjoining land to the west of the Río Hondo (the old course of the San Gabriel River) and sold the 50-acre Temple Homestead that was the family’s home for six decades.
It was on the new tract, dubbed “Temple Heights,” where the oil was found which propelled the Temples to sudden and startling wealth. The four Temple children were promptly sent to private schools, which they attended until the money ran dry as the Great Depression was in its early stages. Yet, Walter’s involvement at the La Puente school and district did not come to an end.
As noted in part three, there was an effort in 1904 to rename the district and school, with a pair of factions fighting over which moniker to adopt. One side, with Walter and his brothers John and Charles at the head, petitioned the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which had jurisdiction over such matters, to adopt Temple School District. The other advocated that it be named for James D. Durfee, who, with his deceased brother George, was also among the founders in the 1860s. The Board, however, demurred and called on the parties to come to an amicable agreement, which did not happen.
While Durfee died in October 1920, a new fissure developed as the La Puente District was preparing to use some of the windfall derived from revenues accumulated by rocketing property values due to the burgeoning oil industry within its boundaries. As the 6 June 1920 edition of the Pomona Bulletin reminded readers after previous similar accounts, the district of just 4.7 square miles and which had assessed values at about $575,000 prior to the first well coming in three years was expected to have a staggering $18 million for the current year.
Not surprisingly, district voters in the 1920 election approved a $40,000 bond for significant improvements to the school—a previous effort of almost a third of that amount in 1911 yielded a new building. The 2 January 1921 edition of the Los Angeles Times reported that architect Edwin C. Thorne, who shortly afterward designed the grammar and high schools in El Monte, was hired for the project, of which the paper noted,
The present school building will be remodeled, and two new wings will be added, the improvements and additions to be made at a cost of about $65,000. The building will be of brick and plaster construction, and will contain eight class rooms, and [an] auditorium to seat about 360 people, and a large stage. Two additional rooms will be located in the basement for the teaching of sloyd [handicrafts] and domestic science.
The four-acre site was also to have new sports fields and courts for baseball, basketball and tennis as well as landscaping from the nursery of Howard and Smith in nearly Montebello, while the contracts were issued to El Monte’s Joseph C. Thurman for the construction of the greatly expanded campus.
Just about a month later, remarked the Pasadena Post of 3 February, “what is thought will prove one of the most hotly fought school battles ever waged in this part of the state” was to come before the Supervisors “when it is said Walter Temple, millionaire oil king, is pitted against the residents of the present La Puente grammar school in an effort to negotiate a change in the boundaries of that district.”
The reason for the schism is not clear, but it was observed that “Mr. Temple, for many years a rancher living in the La Puente district and also for many years a member of that school board, a few years ago came into prominence because of the discovery of vast quantities of oil on his limited acreage in the center of the present Montebello field.”
The Post continued that,
He is now said to have severed his former devotion to the school district in which he has so long lived [he actually moved in 1917 not long after the first well came in on his lease and then lived in Alhambra, with the Homestead as a secondary residence] and it stated has secured the assistance of an attorney in an effort to turn large acreage of oil bearing lands into the limits of [the] Potrero Heights school district, land with an assessed valuation in 1920 of $19,000,000. The action is being valiantly fought by the residents of the La Puente district.
The Potrero Heights School District also had a single elementary school, still with that name in Rosemead and now part of the Montebello Unified district and about 1.5 miles northwest of Temple’s oil lease. The paper added that “Mr. Temple has promised the residents of the Potrero Heights district a new and handsome building to cost some $200,000 in case the change is made.”
In its counter-petition, said to be signed by every adult resident, the La Puente district stated that the upstart neighbor had just 15 students, while its campus had ten times that number. Moreover, if the change was adopted, some of its pupils would be forced to walk two miles to the Potrero Heights school and “they point with pride to the record of the La Puente school, which is recognized as one of the great Americanization centers of the state,” this hearkening to Walter Temple’s commencement speech of a decade prior.
Beyond this, the article went on,
One room, the ungraded class in the La Puente school, it is stated contains many nationalities. Among these are three Japanese graduates of high schools in Japan. They are beginning at the bottom in American schools and are learning the English language; two Italians, who can speak no English, and one Mexican, recently from Mexico, who has had no schooling and speaks no English. A new school building was recently erected and that has already been found inadequate and the foundations have been laid for the erection of two great wings to the school.
The Los Angeles Express of 7 February commented that “the board of supervisors today decided in favor of the La Puente school district,” while also denying the Potrero Heights district’s request to annex a portion of the Garvey School District in Monterey Park. The paper mentioned that “each side in the dispute was represented by a large delegation” with the La Puente side noting that it would lose only 7% of its students, but 40% of the assessment district, while adding that it was putting in $64,000 towards its expansion program.
In its coverage of the meeting and decision, the Post of the 10th added the important fact that,
Following the unanimous decision of the county board members of both parties mingled in friendly discussion of the matter and as good feeling was everywhere evident during the entire meeting, it is not felt that any hard feeling over the decision will linger.
In fact, in the Homestead’s collection, is a document that recorded that at a meeting of the La Puente School District Board of Trustees, held at the school on the 8th, the three members, including Durfee’s son Roswell, George Metcalf and Timoteo Repetto, whose mother was from the Alvitres, some of the original settlers of Misión Vieja, and whose father, Alessandro, owned a large ranch in modern East Los Angeles, Montebello and Monterey Park, resolved,
That the La Puente School formulate and present a petition with the required signatures attached, to the county Board of Supervisors, asking them to change the name of La Puente School District to Temple School District of Los Angeles County, California.
The Times of 15 March briefly observed that “La Puente school district will now be known as the Temple school district, in honor of John Temple,” Walter’s uncle, who settled in Los Angeles in 1828 and was one of its most prominent citizens for nearly four decades. It was added that Supervisor Preston Cogswell, in whose district the school was located, “was sponsor for John Temple, a pioneer of Southern California,” while it was also noted that “this school district, comprises a part of the old Temple Homestead near the Old Mission on the Rio Hondo.”
Whether Temple sought to have the renaming approved when the campus makeover was undertaken and some dispute came up is the question, but it was certainly notable that the agreement to change the name from La Puente to Temple was made the day after the Supervisors’ decision is obviously highly suggestive.
In any case, Temple did not offer $200,000 to the district, but he did provide a new flag pole for the campus, which, again, takes us back to his commencement remarks about the Stars and Stripes. In the Museum’s holdings is a program from the commencement ceremony of the Temple School when the exercises were held on 16 June 1921 at the El Monte High School Auditorium, likely because work at the grammar school campus was not completed.
The year 1921 was a busy one for Walter Temple. He undertook his first real estate development project, the Temple Theatre, in Alhambra; commissioned a marker for the original site of the San Gabriel Mission, placed at his oil lease; and completed the Walter P. Temple Memorial Mausoleum at El Campo Santo at the Homestead. In the next few years, a raft of other oil and real estate projects followed, not the least of which was his establishment in 1923 of the Town of Temple, renamed Temple City five years later.
As for the Temple School and District, its future involved the brief windfall of oil revenue, but also the migration of residents as wells popped up throughout the district. In 1930, a survey of the district was undertaken that has been highlighted here before. Flood control projects that ramped up from the 1910s onward led, after World War II, to the declaration that much of the Misión Vieja community was in a flood zone that should not be occupied by residents or businesses as the Whittier Narrows Dam was being planned and constructed.
This is why the Temple School was moved to South El Monte, where the New Temple Elementary, construction of which started in fall 1952, is situated and is part of the Valle Lindo School District. The Old Mission campus, as noted before, is now the headquarters of the Los Angeles District of the United States Army Corps of Engineers and some of the school buildings remain today. Significantly, when the federal government purchased nearly 750 parcels, about three-quarters were in the school district, which lost revenue from the assessed valuation of some $1.5 million for those 563 parcels.
The 31 January 1950 issue of the Times published photos of the 1860s schoolhouse that survived even as the new buildings were built as well as the bell acquired during those early years. The bell and Temple’s flag pole were moved to the New Temple campus, which remained at the old site in Misión Vieja until the new school was dedicated in April 1954, and the old structure was also relocated to what is now an industrial section of South El Monte, though it did not long survive, even as there were plans for it to be a museum within the Temple District.
Even this name did not last much longer, as the name was changed, in August 1954, to Valle Lindo, partially because there was a Temple City district in the community Walter founded three decades before. Still, the New Temple Elementary School, with its 1860s bell and 1920s flag pole, retains the history of its predecessors, as well as the custodianship of the district documents dating back to the 1868 reorganization, and let’s hope that heritage remains a recognized part of South El Monte’s own history.
I fully agree with what Walter P. Temple expressed in his 1911 commencement address to school graduates: that there should be no distinction between races, and that all people are entitled to the same rights, duties, and responsibilities.
Unfortunately, many today tend to overlook the importance of fulfilling their duties and responsibilities as members of society. Instead, they focus primarily on seeking the right of redress for injustices suffered by their ancestors generations ago. They demand monetary compensation from the American government, engage in theft or looting under the guise of historical revenge, and ask for preferential treatment in employment and college admissions as if such advantages are owed. However, granting privileges to one group inevitably introduces new forms of inequality and discrimination against others.
In my view, when addressing the legacy of past racial discrimination, recognition and awareness are more meaningful and constructive than financial compensation to descendants. Compensation to descendants is much like life insurance payouts for fatal accidents – it provides a windfall to beneficiaries who did not directly suffer the harm. Another troubling example is the awarding of punitive damages for discriminatory acts, which can sometimes reach tens of millions of dollars. While such damages may serve to enhance penalties for egregious wrongdoing, I think the majority of these funds should be directed toward the public good rather than individual recipients. Otherwise, every group may feel entitled to trace back historical injustices in hopes of securing compensation. For instance, the discriminatory treatments received by early Chinese immigrants in California and the 1871 Chinese massacre in Los Angeles can be used as grounds for current Chinese Californias to seek restitution from Governor Newson’s administration.