by Paul R. Spitzzeri
With greater Los Angeles undergoing its first period of significant and sustained growth from the late 1860s through the mid 1870s, one of our best sources for detailed information about the transformation, small as it was compared to the many booms that followed, is through the Angel City’s newspapers. In the Museum’s collection, there is a stock of issues of such dailies as the Express, the Herald and the Star that allow us to better understand this period, when the personal fortunes of the Workman and Temple family were on the ascendant as the region generally was.
This “Read All About It” post looks at the 3 July 1875 weekly edition of the Herald, launched in October 1873 and mainly under the ownership of a stockholding corporation called The Los Angeles City and County Printing and Publishing Company. The president was real estate developer Prudent Beaudry, then the city’s mayor, and its treasurer was banker and business figure, F.P.F. Temple, son-in-law of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste.
The weekly issue of the newspapers were a compendium of the articles and tidbits of news that were printed in those past editions of the week and with very few advertisements, because those appearing in the dailies were important for revenue and were seen by more readers. So, the front page, usually taken up almost entirely, if not completely so, with ads had many items. For example, one short one stated that “a new census of Los Angeles City and county is being agitated” because “during the past year our population and wealth have been increasing more rapidly than ever before, and our authorities have but a faint idea of the number of inhabitants and the personal wealth” in the region.
Generally, such sources as the annual census of school-age children or that of the men on the Register of Voters were cited as ways to extrapolate the larger population, while financial data such as bank clearings, post office receipts and others were studied to estimate the economic might of the area. The paper, however, concluded,
We earnestly suggest to our Supervisors the necessity of an immediate census, thoroughly made, showing in detail our population, value of real estate, value of personal property, acres cultivated, acres open for settlement, number of cattle, sheep and horses, agricultural products, wool crop, fruit crop, and value of churches and schools.
No such census was conducted, but, given what happened within a couple of months, of which see the end of this post, that was hardly a surprise. Meanwhile, part of the reason why the region was at the peak of its first boom was because, the Herald reminded readers, “for invalids, there is probably no climate in the world superior to that of Los Angeles.” This did not mean that every person suffering from whatever malady would be cured by coming here, because many “have had their constitutions completely wrecked before, and of course such have little hope.”
For those, though, who were “debilitated” and for whom “disease has not reached the vital parts,” recovery was likely, with the right type of health care. In fact, it was asserted that “home-sickness is the terrible enemy that besets invalids here,” as would be true anywhere, because being among strangers meant that many “turn involuntarily to their old home” with family, friends and “familiar social customs.” The condition was such that it “becomes a morbid longing and many who sink under nameless diseases, actually die of home-sickness.”
More short examples of immigration-related items concerned Judge James De Long of Independence, Kansas, near the Oklahoma border and southeast of Wichita, and who spent several months in Los Angeles in 1874 and 1875. Inspired by Charles Nordhoff’s 1872 book California: For Health, Pleasure and Residence, De Long wrote a pamphlet and then a book extolling the virtues of southern California and he shared two letters with the Herald.
One was from the recent United States Land Office Commissioner Willis Drummond, who wrote De Liong that he intended to visit “Los Angeles and the other points of interest in Southern California, and hope to enjoy and be benefited by its invigorating and healthful climate.” He did stay for about two weeks in the Angel City in October.
The Herald also wrote for the need of an immigration bureau and cited one of “hundreds of letters received by private citizens” and its office, in which John McDonald, a Texas building contractor, who wrote De Long, “I have long had a notion of going to California, and would like to hear from you. Do you think I could do well in that country?”
One of the newer towns established during the boom was Santa Monica, where a branch line of the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, founded by F.P.F. Temple and other local capitalists, was being built thanks to the infusion of capital from United States Senator from Nevada John P. Jones, who took over the rail firm’s presidency from Temple (he becoming its treasurer), and was founder of the seaside community. The Herald cited the 15 June edition of the New York Sun as stating, apparently tongue firmly planted in cheek, that Jones
has now made his appearance in a new character, that of the founder of a prospective commercial city which is to have a population of 100,000 within ten years . . . [after noting other endeavors] these are trifling incidents compared with his spirited enterprise of erecting an important city upon a sheep pasture which borders upon the open ocean. We believe Jones has not, in fact, done much building in the new city yet, but we understand he has city lots to sell, which amounts to about the same thing . . . [yet, a San Francisco newspaper trumpeted that it] is surely the coming city of the Southern coast, and that it will have 25,000 inhabitants within three years, and four times that number in ten. It is doubtless mere envy that induces another California journal, published in Oakland, to deride the project of the impulsive Senator and to declare that the idea of building a great city upon a bleak shore fronting point blank on the main open ocean is a delusion . . . The same journal sarcastically counsels the dwellers in the already established neighboring town of Los Angeles to put wings to their shoulders some night, fly out to Santa Monica, “and jump the whole outfit.” We deprecate such disparagement, and, appreciating the energy of the Nevada Senator, have full confidence that Santa Monica will be all that is predicted for it by its friends when Jones gets his 100,000 enterprising citizens settled there.
A century and a half later, Santa Monica has not yet reached that figure, which is around 93,000, but it is a city that is proud of noting that it is listed in TIME magazine’s “Best Places to Live” and in National Geographic‘s “Top 10 Beach Cities in the World.” Separately on page one, the Herald cited the Inyo Independent, from that county’s seat of Independence, the intended terminus of the railroad, which only finished its Santa Monica branch, as receiving an ad, but with only “one-quarter rates,” so the resulting product was such that “all the poetic description is in very diminutive type, requiring a microscope to see it.”
Turning to the second page, an item on “Public School Improvements” is a reminder that a hallmark of any developing city was the quality of its educational institutions. The Angel City was about two decades along with its public school system and its progress was, not surprisingly, slow and gradual, but, the Herald cited another publication which reported that, “contracts have been let for the erection of four new school houses, one in East Los Angeles [Lincoln Heights], one on Pearl [Figueroa] Street, near the Woolen Mills [in the Bunker Hill and adjoining areas to the south], and one near the crossing of Washington and Figueroa streets.
It was added that,
The houses will be frame buildings, 36ft, by 28ft, and 14ft high. There will be two ante-rooms for hats and cloaks, and a room for the library and teacher’s wardrobe. The schoolroom will be 30ft by 28ft. It will be lighted by six large windows, and will be well supplied with blackboards.
The houses are all so situated as to have ample grounds for recreation. These grounds can be easily improved and made very attractive.
Other news included the repainting of the high school, which opened two years before, “in a way to make it a thing of beauty,” while a contract was let “for putting a story on the L of the Spring street school house,” the first in the city, opened in 1854. The Herald concluded by commenting “when all the improvements projected by the Board of Education are finished the citizens will realize that their money, so freely given, has been well expended.” What is not clear is how much of this work was completed—again, see below!
Another important element of the growth of any 19th century town or city was its railroad connections and, after the local Los Angeles and San Pedro was completed in late October 1869 (months after the transcontinental line was finished) to connect the fledgling city to the rudimentary harbor, the next major step was Congress’ requirement that the powerful Southern Pacific build through this region as the company (which took control of the Los Angeles and San Pedro as part of a subsidy county voters approved) constructed a line to the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona as it planned to head eastward from there. Then, there was the aforementioned Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, a direct competitor to the Southern Pacific, and its ambitious and unrealized plans to tap silver mines in the eastern part of the state.
The Herald ran a feature on “A Spheroidal Railroad” concept proposed by Pierre Gassaux, a visitor from Trinidad, which the paper said was in New Mexico, though perhaps it was meant the town in southern Colorado close to the border with that state. In any case, it was stated that Gassaux “claims to have discovered a new system of railroads” while also telling the paper he’d invented many machines, but had no patents for any of them, while the principles were “stolen by other inventors, who are now rolling in wealth won by his discoveries.”
Needless to say, Gassaux’s concept was shown through a “little model” which the paper opined “seems to be the perfection of the spheroidal idea as applied to railroads.” What the fifty-something inventor told the Herald was that “the track is a polished grove [groove] of great strength, which can be cheaply laid down; the drawing power is in a spherical frame, which has a convex rim, polished highly and fitting in the groove or track.” This way, it was explained, “great speed is attained” because of a lack of friction, but, significantly, the paper added “we are not at liberty to go into details,” which, of course, is where the devil is in any such scheme!
Gassaux, who presented himself as one in a long line of French mechanics, was apparently en route to Washington, D.C. “and we can explain no further,” the Herald remarked, other than to note that only one track was needed and, remarkably, no road bed, while costs were to be far less than traditional railroads “and accidents are almost an impossibility.” The enthusiastic, and a tad naive, paper gushed that, “it is destined to work a revolution in railroad matters, and we expect soon to hear of the official triumph of Mr. Gassaux and his wonderful Spheroidal Railway.” The problem was that Gassaux only seems to have existed with this visit as nothing else could be found about him and his scheme!
In a century of remarkable surveys of many kinds in the American West, from the Lewis and Clark expedition at the beginning and including those of Zebulon Pike, John C. Frémont, William H. Emory, George H. Derby, the Pacific Railroad transcontinental project and more, one of the last of the major endeavors by United States Army engineers was that led by 1st Lt. George M. Wheeler between 1871 and 1879. His ambitious plan was to survey everything west of the 100th meridian, an immense territory from the Dakotas to Texas, though his methods were questioned and Congress required a change in techniques and scaling back of scope.
The Herald noted that “as the work of the Wheeler Expedition,” actually a series of them over the eight years, “has commenced, all appertaining to it is interesting to our readers,” it quoted the Denver News as remarking that,
The field work of the expedition will be carried on by two divisions, one starting from Los Angeles, Southern California, and the other from Pueblo, in this [Colorado] Territory . . . Lieutenant Wheeler himself takes charge of the California section, which will also be subdivided as may be deemed advisable. The prospects of the season are very promising, and the importance of the work to be done exceeds that of all previous years.
The Homestead’s holdings includes a pair of maps associated with the Wheeler Expedition, so we will look into a future post on it. Speaking of exploration, a decade had elapsed since the first oil drilling took place in greater Los Angeles at Pico Canyon near modern Santa Clarita. A rush of prospecting in petroleum continued into the first half of the Seventies, with F.P.F. Temple one of those active engaged in seeking that gusher.
His Los Angeles Petroleum Refining Company, formed in 1873, worked a well in Towsley Canyon, just south of Pico, in what is now the Ed Davis Park, and reports indicated at least some success in unearthing crude oil, but there were cave-ins at the well and the steam-powered drilling apparatus, the first used in the area, was insufficient in getting any deeper than 400 feet. The Herald noted that there was a meeting at nearby Lyon’s Station, to the northwest along what became the Southern Pacific rail line mentioned above.
It was noted that “all persons interested in mining land in this district,” this being the San Fernando Petroleum Mining District, were invited to vote to elect a recorder, with Christopher Leaming selected for the position, one he held from its inception in 1865 until his death 23 years later. He came to Los Angeles by at least 1862 and had a 160-acre claim in a canyon named for him just south of Towsley.
Once more, we’ll summarize some of the contents in the Herald given events soon to come, but, for now, we’ll halt and return with part two and more of the material in the issue, so look for that very soon.