by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As the 1920s dawned, the economic backbone of the San Gabriel Valley town of Irwindale was shifting. From the time of its establishment in the 1890s, it was principally known for its agriculture, including vegetables, berries and citrus. By 1910, the first of the gravel pits, tapping the immense reservoir of granitic material accumulated through time from the San Gabriel River coming out of the canyon of that name just to the north, began operation.
An early firm, Pacific Rock and Gravel, was run by Monrovia residents, including Walter L. Hodges and Alfred G. Wessling (who later married Josephine M. Workman, a former film star known as Princess Mona Darkfeather, and who was the granddaughter of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste). Through the Teens, it unearthed and crushed material used for buildings, roads and other projects as greater Los Angeles continued its relentless growth.
In spring 1919, Pacific merged with another company and became United Rock Company with Hodges and Wessling remaining part of the new enterprise. Meanwhile, with the onset of the Roaring Twenties, orange growing continued an important part of the Irwindale economy with the Irwindale Citrus Association the cooperative that handled the valuable fruit through its packing house on Vincent Avenue (this named for a local ranching family) at the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks.
As just a few examples of the ICA’s operations during the decade, the Covina Argus of 17 December 1926 reported on the entity’s annual meeting at which it was reported by President George Aschenbrenner, of another longtime Irwindale family, and Secretary C.E. Hutchison, also the plant’s general manager since 1922 and was a bookkeeper for a decade prior to that, that the recent season was one of the best in its history. Hutchison told members that, for the year ending the 1st of October, nearly 90,000 boxes were packed with 222 rail car loads of 400 boxes each. Looking back the previous dozen years, he determined that the yield was over 90% of a normal crop.
As for improvements to the house, it was noted that a borax tank was installed to treat fruit for blue and green mold, while the Association also bought a stamping machine that, for the first time, labeled Irwindale’s oranges with the near-universally recognized brand name of “Sunkist.” The apparatus did so at the rate of 400 pieces each minute or two carloads daily. Moreover, the organization purchased stock in the California Fruit Growers Exchange firm, which developed that Sunkist name, and voted at the confab to acquire a tank to store oil for smudge pots used to keep fruit warm in the winter. The new 100,000 gallon capacity tank was to replace one storing up to 60,000 gallons and installed just a year prior.
The following year’s ICA annual meeting, covered in the Argus of 9 December, noted record prices for boxes of oranges, with navels at just under $2.50 and valencias at about a dollar more with the overall returns at the highest amount to date at above $550,000. Close to 240,000 loose boxes were received at the packing house, with close to two-thirds, or some 150,000, packed. With rail cars holding 400 boxes, the output climbed dramatically to 370 cars, though oranges were of a smaller size, particularly with the valencia variety.
The 10 December 1928 issue of the Pomona Progress-Bulletin under a banner headline of “IRWINDALE CITRUS RETURNS ARE $626,913,” covered that year’s annual meeting with Hutchison reporting that the amount was $74,000 more than in the 1926-1927 season. Even though there were more than 50 car loads less with almost 190,000 loose boxes processed, the increase in revenue was due to price increases, with navels fetching $2.39 per box and valencias realizing $3.39.
Due to the higher amounts received for fruit, the secretary and manager continued, debt dropped to $10,000 and it was hoped that, at current prices, it would be eliminated in two years, if crop yields were sufficient. Among further improvements at the house were a higher capacity washer and fruit marker, while two treatment methods, styled the Brogdite and Brogdex systems, to better manage mold and shrinkage on the fruit.
For recognition of his work, Hutchison was presented with a $200 bonus as Christmas gift and the speaker of the day (which was dispensed with in 1926, though this was rare) was Earl Maharg of the Los Angeles County Farm Bureau. He talked about that organization’s range of services including those concerning county budgets, taxes, freight rates and, our current concern of tariffs. The event closed with a chicken dinner served to about 100 members and their family members by the Irwindale Miscellany Club, the largest, most active social club in the community.
As noted previously in this post, newspaper references were almost exclusively among Anglos, especially growers and those in the upper echelons of local society. When it came to people of color, including Latinos who were a substantial proportion of Irwindale’s residents, press mentions were far fewer. The Los Angeles Spanish-language paper, La Prensa, did report in detail on a celebration of the centennial of México’s independence from Spain in its 16 October 1921 edition.
The paper observed that, “the published program was carried out with precision, and it is only fair to note that the festivities . . . were unprecedented. They brought to us Mexicans who live in this country the sweetly delicious fragrance that our distant homeland would send us.” The account continued that,
These celebrations were solemn and pleasant, causing a highly favorable impression among the American families, who praised the Mexicans of Irwindale, if it may be said, for the eloquent demonstration of patriotism and culture they had just given, which, along with the overflowing joy that reigned during the celebration, shone from the moment the grand civic parade began until the hour the lively popular dance ended.
The event included a parade and a series of readings, recitations and songs by local Latinos and a couple of white women from Covina, including Mary Coman, a native of Bulgaria who we noted in part four of this post as being a sponsor for Lucy Ruelas, a blind girl Coman sent to the Bay Area for education and training. We’ll look to share more about this event next month on Mexican Independence Day, so watch for that.
In the early Twenties, there was a significant migration of Mexicans into the United States, including California, much of this an outgrowth of another revolution, a century after the one celebrated, with political fighting and uncertainty continuing for years afterward. A major source of continuity for immigrants, of course, was the Catholic Church and The Tidings, a Catholic newspaper in Los Angeles, published, as part of a feature on the San Gabriel Valley, a photo of the stone Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission and it was stated,
In Irwindale, but a few miles distant from Azusa, the Mexican congregation have recently erected a small stone chapel which is a beautiful sight. The town is [un]incorporated [incorporation happened in 1957] and had been for years the headquarters of a class of undesirables. This class of Mexican has disappeared and today the good people are worshipping in a church built by themselves.
What was meant by “undesirables” was left unexplained, as was how conditions changed. Significantly, the congregation, who heard mass from the priest at Sacred Heart Church in Covina, gathered the rocks, for which Irwindale increasingly became known, from the neighborhood of the San Gabriel River using donkeys and wheelbarrows. The structure, on Arrow Highway between Irwindale and Vincent avenues, was finished in 1917, with masses held inconsistently, though a parish was established and a new church to the southwest at the northeast corner of Cypress and Irwindale opened in 1965.
Following the Whittier Narrows earthquake of 1987, which caused some damage to the edifice, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced it could not pay about $100,000 needed for seismic stabilization. Negotiations with the City of Irwindale, including discussion of a lease, stalled and, once the property was put up for sale by the Archdiocese, there was talk of razing the structure. Fortunately, the City of Irwindale paid $270,000 for the edifice and an adjacent lot and it is available as a rented facility.
Returning to the rock, sand and gravel industry, with greater Los Angeles growing by leaps and bounds and the demand for this material for cement and concrete used in structures; roads; sidewalks; bridges; the expanding Port of Los Angeles; flood control dams, reservoirs and channels; and more, there was concern about a “Rock Trust” with the firms conspiring for their mutual benefit. In the Angel City, where a hefty percentage of the products of the firms was utilized, the City Council got involved in 1921.
The Los Angeles Record of 25 January briefly reported that the “City council smashed the so-called ‘rock trust’ today when it decided by a vote of 5 to 4 to change the rock specifications in sidewalks, curbing, gutter and street improvement work so as to allow competition.” Specifically, observed Council Member Walter Mallard, the existing specs were written so that “the Union Rock company is the only concern which can furnish rock to contractors” and that “this is one reason for the high cost of street work.”
Among the majority was Council President Boyle Workman, who was a cousin of Josephine M. Workman, the third wife of Alfred G. Wessling, a Monrovia capitalist who was a vice-president and general manager of Pacific Rock and Gravel, which then became part of Union Rock Company. Workman joined the council and became its president in 1919 and remained on it for much of the Twenties.
The Council then considered another issue with specifications, as reported on by the Los Angeles Times of 4 June, this time regarding a “rattler test” that concerned the quality of the material being used for city street projects as a new ordinance was being developed. The vote over this test was, again, 5-4, with Workman joining the majority in voting down any change to the test and Council Member Fred C. Wheeler expressing concern that a modification would be “more liberal and result in poorer jobs which would mean heavier cost for upkeep.”
Council Member Bert Farmer, one of the minority, declared that four building contractors declined to speak to the Council “because they feared that rock companies with which they had to deal would have vengeance [there’s a word for our own time] upon them if they talked.” Moreover,
It was charged that certain contractors couldn’t get rock from the Union Rock Company unless they bought their sand from the same firm. H.C. Stone, treasurer of the firm [and an officer with Hodges and Wessling in Pacific as well as having a great name for the industry] denied this, but explained that it was the policy of the company to decline to sell rock to contractors who did not have good credit.
Los Angeles Gravel Company official H.W. Holly then told the council that he wasn’t sure that Wheeler “was on the pay roll of the Union Rock Company” because of the council member’s vote regarding the test. When Wheeler protested Holly’s remark, President Workman told the gravel officer that he “had better cut that out,” and Holly withdrew his statement. When, however, questions of rock company officials led nowhere, Farmer commented “well, I guess we’ll have to serve a few subpoenas.”
The question of a “rock trust” would surface again and we’ll look at another example of that from 1928 in a subsequent part of this post. About nine months after the meeting, however, another major change took place with Union Rock, with the 18 April 1922 edition of the Los Angeles Express reporting that,
A consolidation of rock and gravel interests has been effected, by the merging with the former Union Rock Company of Delaware, of which W.L. Hodges was the head; of the Pennsylvania Rock and Gravel Company, owned principally by R.P. Sherman, and the Southern California Rock and Gravel Company, owned by the Russell-Green[e]-Foell Company. The consolidated concern will be known as the Union Rock Company of California, with headquarters in Los Angeles. George A. Rogers, long engaged as a road building contractor, will be president ad manager of the new company.
Hodges then retired, while Wessling went on to work for the federal Internal Revenue department and later in banking and real estate. As was noted here previously, Pacific had its offices in the Pacific Electric Building in downtown Los Angeles and one of its Irwindale area plants was along the PE line to Covina with that transportation giant employed in streetcar hauling of its products. The owner of the PE since 1911 was the Southern Pacific Railroad, which transported Pacific product on its branch line to Covina.
The Express added that the PERY’s President, David W. Pontius, announced, in conjunction with the Union merger, the order of about $1 million of gravel and crushed rock because of “Mr. Pontius estimating that during the next year there will be required for ballasting and roadbed building an average of 20 cars a day of crushed rock by his company alone” as it enlarged operations during another regional boom, which peaked in 1923.
An incorporator of the new Union firm was the Mortgage Guarantee Company and Harry Lee Martin, one of its officials remarked that, as was typical for such mergers, despite the expressed concern in the council meetings about healthy competition,
The consolidation of the companies and operation under a single management is bound to result in lower production cost and, therefore, lower prices for gravel for road building and general construction. It will, therefore, benefit the public, and we expect prove beneficial to those [stockholders] interested in the enterprise. The new concern will produce 75 to 80 per cent of all the crushed rock and gravel marketed in los [sic] Angeles and a large part of the Southern California territory. The principal quarries are in the San Gabriel valley wash [river], near Azusa, and in Brush canyon [adjacent to Griffith Park], Hollywood.
Martin added to Pontius’ announcement by commenting that the PERY’s expansion plans with some 200 cars and adding unloading stations along its lines would help the builders to the southwest of Los Angeles. This was because hauling was done previously from longer distances, such as at Brush Canyon—the well-known Bronson Caves, appearing in many films and drawing a large number of visitors, were created by these quarrying operations. Martin concluded, “I believe the new deal in the rock business will be a material help to builders and road makers.”
In its coverage, the Times of the 16th noted that the reconstituted Union Rock had four plants in the Irwindale area and the one at Brush Canyon, while adding that Rogers “will immediately enlarge and improve the company’s plants,” this “to relieve the shortage which has existed for these materials for some time past, owing to the extensive building activity in Southern California.” Homestead owner Walter P. Temple, another cousin of Josephine Workman, was one of those involved intensively in building, both with structures in downtown Los Angeles and a few San Gabriel Valley towns like Alhambra, El Monte and San Gabriel, and, in 1923, his Temple City project.
Additionally, it was observed that work was underway on updates to the five facilities “and a night crew is being formed” to try to meet demand, beyond the fact that “with the enlarged staff of employees it is expected to double the output.” As for the PERY side of the deal, the expansion of the bunkers for unloading material included new ones near the intersection of Slauson and Western avenues in the Chesterfield Square area of southwest Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Brush Canyon was called “the only trap rock quarry in Southern California,” meaning a specific kind of dark-colored igneous rock, while the quartet of plants in the San Gabriel Valley were Kincaid (near Irwindale Avenue and Interstate 210 along the Santa Fe line where the Metro A Line runs now), Crushton (the Russell-Greene-Foell plant along the Southern Pacific Railroad line in Irwindale), Puente Largo (situated on the Pacific Electric line) and Rivas (also on the SP line.)
The full roster of directors was not yet settled, but by late June, the firm, with that huge share of the local rock and gravel industry, was advertised in the Times for a bond issue of $650,000 that its dozen leaders included Rogers; Fred Baker of his prominent namesake ironworking firm; Martin; Erle M. Leaf of the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at the Port of Los Angeles; attorney Stuart O’Melveny and the Times‘ chief Harry Chandler. The ad proclaimed that “their names are synonymous with good judgment and sound business” while the firm’s net earnings were seven times the interest requirements and assets at six times liabilities.
With this, we’ll call a halt and return tomorrow with part seven—check back then!