by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we continue on with our deep digging into some of the early history of the San Gabriel Valley town of Irwindale, long known for the massive pits from which material washed down over millenia from the San Gabriel Mountains were unearthed for crushing into cement, gravel and sand that were vital for our regional built environment, more notable aspects from the 1910s are worth featuring.
For example, the Covina Argus of 16 May 1911 reported that a consortium of communities including Baldwin Park, Covina, Irwindale, Valley View (likely Valley View Acres, now part of northern Baldwin Park) and Walnut Center (today a portion of West Covina) banded together to address “the question as to whether the Los Angeles city garbage shall be dumped at Baldwin Park and fed to thousands of hogs.” Notably, representatives from Vernon, the industrial city just southeast of Los Angeles, were there to join forces, presumably to protect its hog industry.
Despite the united front with Covina, that burg then engendered the ire of its neighbors when, as covered by the Los Angeles Times of 10 January 1912, the towns of Puente and Irwindale protested that the former was planning “to use acreage bought in the name of W.P. Watts,” the latter communities charged, “for the purpose of establishing a sewer farm for the discharge and disposal of the sewage of Covina.”
It turned out the proposed location was within olfactory distance of an Irwindale school, probably Lark Ellen (if it was closer to the “Spanish” Merwin School one wonders if there’d have been a protest). Employing a typical argument, the 200 “indignant citizens” present at the meeting at the campus claimed that the sewer farm “would not only decrease adjoining property values but would be especially dangerous to the health of the school children in that vicinity.”
The Los Angeles paper added that a $70,000 bond issue was approved by Covina voters for the proposal and that the county’s Board of Supervisors was working on a sewer farm ordinance, but it was remarked “this proposed ordinance may completely change the situation between the Irwindale district and the city of Covina.” The piece concluded that, “otherwise Puente and surrounding citizens will fight the project to a finish.” About a decade later, when Covina aimed to direct its sewage in West Covina, the latter community incorporated to fight that effort.
Smelling sweeter, however, was a beautification project related to county roads, as mentioned by the Pomona Review of 14 December 1914. That sheet observed that,
The force of men under the direction of the Los Angeles county highway department that has been installing the rose trellises on the boulevards have reached Irwindale this week, having set the roses from Bassett to Irwindale. They are now working toward Covina, and will come through San Dimas and as far as the city limits of Lordsburg [La Verne].
The road from Valley Boulevard northeastward was perhaps Sunset Avenue which becomes Irwindale Avenue north of Badillo Street, while the eastward route could well have been Badillo which becomes Covina Boulevard and then Cataract Avenue in San Dimas with the route to La Verne maybe being Arrow Highway or Bonita Avenue.
Another positive development for Irwindale residents was reported in the Argus of 8 November 1913 as it commented that a county project to create libraries in outlying areas not close to existing branch facilities “seems to be fast working into a success.” It added that “one has been in operation in Irwindale for some time, and is proving to be a fine source of satisfaction” to locals.
The library was situated in the post office portion of the Southern Pacific railroad station (see part one of this post for a photo of the depot from that era) and not quite 100 volumes, with it mentioned that “the school children are using the library quite extensively.” Moreover, credit was given to Fred C. Devendorf, an orange grower on San Bernardino Road, “who is taking a keen interest in the work” of the little library. The paper ended with the remark that similar experiments were being conducted near Glendora and at a Puente bank.
As has been noted elsewhere in this post, finding information about Latinos in Irwindale during this period can be challenging and, when there are accounts, they are often about criminal matters. A couple of examples from the Teens concerned efforts by county law enforcement officials to crack down on the illicit manufacture and sale, without licenses, by so-called “blind pigs.”
The Monrovia News of 9 August 1915 observed that a sheriff’s department detective utilized a truck and a powerful touring car to arrest a quintet of men in Duarte and Irwindale, “all of whom are Mexicans” and who were said to be “dumbfounded when the police descended upon them and not only arrested them but without apparent trouble unearthed their stock in trade.”
Six weeks of investigation led to the nabbing of four Duarte men and one from Irwindale, with beer, whisky and wine found hidden in gardens, under clothes in washtubs or in water bottles. It was asserted that the operations were about a half-year old and the paper deemed it noteworthy to remark that “wherever officers would enter, from the house would promptly issue sounds of lamentation from the women and children” while “the men remained silent, with ‘Quien sabe’ to all questions.'”
The New Year’s Eve 1916 edition of the Times reported that fifteen investigators from the county District Attorney’s office descended upon locations in Azusa, Puente, Rock Hollow (this location could not be determined) and Irwindale, with eight men and a woman, again all Latinos, arrested for their “blind pig” establishments. While it was merely said that officials received complaints, one wonders if these were from teetotaling whites, or perhaps those who sold alcoholic beverages with licenses, and the profiling seems abundantly clear.
A rare reference to everyday life among Irwindale’s Latino community was located with respect to the celebration of Christmas in 1919, reported on in the Los Angeles Spanish-language paper, La Prensa. The longstanding Fraijo and López families “celebrated the traditional Christmas fiesta with a nice evening, which apart from its solemn religious character, was extremely pleasant as well as enjoyable and simply elegant.”
Ladislao López and, particularly, María Ornelas were singled out for praise with Señora Ornelas “who directed the literary exercises for children of both sexes” with the kids in friendly competition as “they individually strove to win the prize in their poetic recitations.” Two girls and two boys were also cited for having “performed very well” during this portion of the holiday event.
Sadly, the Latino community of Irwindale as rocked by a terrible incident that occurred just a few months prior, with the Argus of 5 September reporting that,
A human drama that ran the complete scale from the highest form of human bravery on the battlefield to sordid crime was enacted in Covina [a couple of days prior], when Anastacio Ruiz of Irwindale, wounded hero of battles at Chateau Thierry, Bellau Wood, St. Mihiel, and Soissons, was bound over to the superior court for trial on the charge of rape upon the person of a little blind girl, ten years old, known as “the little blind belle of Sonoratown.”
The paper stated that Ruiz, one of the early regional draftees in July 1917 and a member of Company L of the 128th Infantry, had only been discharged a month earlier from the American Expeditionary Force and that “after going through three major battles he was wounded in the attack upon the city of Soissons” during which he was shot by a machine gun and his thighbone severely damaged. This necessitated a partial amputation of three inches and required nearly a year of convalescence in military hospitals. Moreover, the account observed, “he appeared in court in uniform.”
The child, Lucinda (Lucy) Ruelas, lost her sight because of having infantile paralysis at five years of age and she attended a state school for the vision impaired at Berkeley, but was apparently home for the summer. Ruiz took the child and a brother, Johnny, on a ride to a local ranch for the purchase of some hay and evidently told the boy to leave the wagon. Lucy, in the complaint filed by her father, stated that Ruiz attempted to assault her three times, while Johnny testified that he told Ruiz he would get his father, who went to the scene and retrieved his children.
A woman doctor found injuries to Lucy, whose loss of vision meant that she could not identify Ruiz as her attacker, though Johnny did this. While bail was set at $3,000 and the accused held to answer to the Superior Court, his counsel was able to get a reduction to $1,000 by pleading his client’s poverty and adding that Ruiz was to go to a military industrial training school in Sacramento. The Argus concluded by remarking,
The court-room was packed to suffocation with Mexican citizens of the village of Sonoratown, there evidently being an equal number of friends of the defendant and of the little principal [victim] in the case.
One can only imagine the feelings of many of Irwindale’s Latinos as they confronted the issue before them—a war hero from their community, which generally received little positive public attention, but also the terrible tragedy of a blind child assaulted by him. The Star-News of the 9th followed up with the report that,
Rival factions in the Mexican colony, “Stringtown,” kept deputy sheriffs on guard last night to prevent the clash over the abuse . . . of a blind 12-year old girl [note the age correction] by a Mexican who served in the Army and has become somewhat of a hero among the younger element.
Arrayed on one side are the father of the girl and the residents of the settlement, and on the other are a score of young Mexicans who are hero worshippers of Anastacio Ruiz, the accused man.
The deputies being heavily armed prevented a clash, but trouble is feared as Ruiz is out on $1000 bail and has gone to the reconstruction school at Sacramento to be fitted for his life work by the government . . .
The father and adherents believe that Ruiz is to be permitted to escape punishment for the offense because he was wounded in France, hence the demonstration.
Ruiz, however, was tried for the assault in early 1920 and was convicted on the charge of assault with the intent to rape and was sentenced to a term of 1-14 years in the state prison at San Quentin. Remarkably, when he arrived there on 4 May he was wearing his Army uniform, which made him stand out from the other convicts who were in the prison mug book. His identification card listed the results of his wartime injuries, including to his thigh, as well as a broken left hip at the socket, while it was elsewhere reported that he had nine bullets in his body.
Ruiz, however, served not quite half the maximum of that term, which was a common length for a variety of crimes during that era, and was paroled. In 1927, he married Trinidad Rizzi and resided in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles and worked as a laborer. In July 1933, however, he was admitted to the Veterans’ Home at Westwood near UCLA because of what the register described as “Acute Alcoholic Psychosis.” Just a month later, he was dead, with the cause given as “Psychosis Chronic Toxic Alcoholic.” It can only be wondered if drinking was a way to deal with physical, and, perhaps, emotional and mental pain from his war service.
As to young Lucy Ruelas, known locally as “Little Blind Lucy” and who was assisted in her education by Mary M. Coman, a well-known Covina woman, she returned to the Berkeley school after the terrible ordeal through which she went. In August 1926, the Argus reported on her return home from the institution and added that she was “specializing in dress making and typing and has only the highest of praise for the teachers and training at the school and remembers with gratitude the interest taken in her all these years by her Covina friends.”
The 1930 census found the 21 year-old at an industrial home for blind adults in Oakland, where she worked weaving caning covering for chair backs and seats. In 1937, while on a visit home, the Argus called Lucy a “protege” of Coman and added that she “has become a well-educated, useful citizen.” The next two censuses, from 1940 and 1950, found her at the same institution, listed as before, as an inmate, but, as with the others in the facility, with no given vocation. She left the institution after 1950 and died in San Jose at age 67 in 1976 and who knows what trauma she carried with her during the more than half a century after the assault on her.
We’ll return soon with a part five taking the Irwindale story into the Roaring Twenties and getting more into the rock, sand and gravel part of its history, as well, so be sure to check back for that.