by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we’ve progressed on this post sharing some early history of walnut growing in greater Los Angeles, we’ve increasingly seen an important element of the region’s first development boom, as the ascent of agriculture paralleled other aspects of growth from the late 1860s to the mid 1870s. For Angel City newspapers, boosting was a key operational component and the Los Angeles Star, operated in 1874 by Benjamin C. Truman (who compiled his writings into one of the first books written about the area, Semi-Tropical California), was very active in this area.
So, on one of the many local travelogues appearing in the paper, this on 2 April, a visit to El Molino Viejo, or the old mill of Mission San Gabriel in what is now San Marino owned by attorney Edward J.C. Kewen, it was noted that 200 enclosed acres included 50,000 grape vines producing 90 tons of grapes. While there were 100 bearing orange trees, 2,500 others were heading to that status and there were 600 lemons, 500 limes and 700 walnuts “all arrived at maturity,” with pecan, hickory and black walnuts also planted.
The next day’s edition included a description of the nearby Sunny Slope of Leonard J. Rose, in which “twelve hundred acres of this princely domain are under fence, all substantial [wood] picket—an divided into six fields.” Included in this substantial agricultural estate were 135,000 Mission grape vines; 45,000 of foreign varieties; 500 bearing orange trees with 5,500 more set out towards maturity; 100 bearing lemons and 1,000 more “coming on;” 350 walnut trees that were full bearing; and 2,000 more fruit and nut trees.
Also on the 3rd, the Los Angeles Herald spoke to nursery owner Milton Thomas (soon a co-founder of the agricultural colonies of Artesia and Pomona), who informed the paper that “there has been a great demand for all kinds of fruit trees—twice as many sold this year as last.” Five-year-old oranges fetched $3 each, with half the price for four-year-old ones and 60 cents for those three years of age, while limes cost even more. Two-year-old apples and peaches were 30 cents each, and English walnuts of three years vintage were a quarter each.
Moreover, Thomas was to have 40,000 trees readied for purchase in 1875 and was apparently guaranteeing them to grow when transplanted and his five-year old trees comprised the greatest amount ever sold in the county. At Rancho Los Coyotes to the southeast in the Los Nietos township, he had 2,000 acres of grain and ten artesian wells (hence the name of the town soon to spring into being) and “he has planted fifty acres of English walnut trees, four years old, which are growing finely.”
In its edition of the 4th, the Star published a letter written on 30 March from Lake Vineyard, the expansive estate of Benjamin D. Wilson, neighbor of Kewen and usually compared to Rose in the fecundity of his fertile domain and “whose name is a household word in Los Angeles county”. Wilson’s son-in-law, James deBarth Shorb, managed the 1,300-acre place and had his own 500-acre portion of the property as Mount Vineyard, some of this now comprising the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens.
As with Rose, picket and board fencing enclosed these two holdings, with Wilson’s having 102,000 grapevines and Shorb’s 129,000 and bearing and maturing orange trees being 1,600/750 on the former and 450/1,200 on the latter. Each had 250 lemons, 300 limes, 500 olives and 450 walnuts, as well. Respecting wine production, this totaled 75,000 gallons along with 5,000 of brandy, with between 85,000 and 90,000 in storage at Lake Vineyard’s commodious cellars.
The Herald of the 8th, under the heading of “Crops and Farming News,” shared a short piece about the experiments of John Quincy Adams Stanley (1818-1884), who was born in Maine and left New York City for California and the Gold Rush. He soon came south to Los Angeles and was a leader of the Los Angeles Rangers citizen militia that was widely known, including because of the wildly entertaining but factually frustrating autobiography of member Horace Bell, Reminiscences of a Ranger, published in 1881.
Stanley who spent some years in Texas and Arizona remained in the Angel City for most of three decades and served as an agent for the commission mercantile firm of Banning and Wilson, was a Republican and supporter of the Union during the Civil War and was county assessor in the late Sixties. The paper remarked that “Capt. Stanley [this title apparently from his Rangers years], living four miles below the city, has about 1,000 growing fruit trees on his place, consisting of English walnuts, almonds, apples, peaches, etc.,” while he also raised alfalfa, barley and corn for hay and feed.
In its issue of the 12th, the Star remarked on developments at Anaheim, noting that the burgeoning town was almost triple its original size, at about 3,200 acres, with the paper noting that it was one of several local communities which “successfully demonstrated the capacity of a repulsive looking cactus plantation [reclaimed] for the successful production of . . . everything necessary to support life.” In what was a compliment, it was added that “these plodding and irrepressible Anaheimers have, while benefiting themselves, conferred a benefit upon the entire country,” meaning the region and it was remarked that,
several of the vineyardists are taking up the fourth in every fifth row and replacing them with orange trees, intending to convert their vineyards into orange groves. Other are planting English walnuts, almonds, lemons and limes pretty much upon the same principle.
William W. Hollister of Santa Barbara, a former ranch partner of the Bixby family of Rancho Los Cerritos in modern Long Beach with a ranch north east of Monterey and near the town bearing his surname, wrote of Los Angeles in a piece published in the 14 April edition of the Los Angeles Express.
Taking a five-minute walk from his hotel, probably in the hills west of town, he expressed pleasure at the views of the Pacific to the west and the snow-topped mountains to the east, below which were groves so that “it seemed as if I could pick an orange with one hand and gather a snow ball with the other.” Later, that juxtaposition was commonly used with postcard images and in other ways.
The rancher then remarked,
Lemons, limes, figs, apricots, peaches, olives, almonds and English walnuts are largely cultivated, and many fine orchards are to be seen. I think the climate good here, and in a business point of view I like its appearance.
A strange phenomenon was reported in the Star of the 18th at Rose’s Sunny Slope as the paper informed readers, “it grieves us very much to state that a tornado struck the beautiful place . . . yesterday morning, tearing up more than half of his large walnut trees by the roots,” as well as almost all of the massive olive trees and a significant number of the oranges. The twister centered over his ranch, “causing terror and devastation,” but “leaving all the neighboring places untouched.” The paper concluded “it is the first thing of the kind that has ever taken place in this section of the county.”
In that issue, a new area near Anaheim was highlighted with Richland becoming today’s city of Orange in the county of that rather obvious name, given the growing importance of the fruit in the region’s agricultural economy, though there may have been another reason. The town was established by law firm partners Alfred B. Chapman and Andrew Glassell, who specialized in real estate and had William Workman and F.P.F. Temple as clients, and Glassell’s brother, William, was the agent and surveyor.
Virginia native William Glassell enlisted in the Navy in 1848 at age 17 and was on a ship off the coast of China when the Civil War broke out and, after the craft returned home, he refused to swear allegiance to the Union and was discharged. He took up a lieutenant’s commission with the Confederate navy and, after a short while, became a specialist in mines and torpedoes. In October 1863, he led an attack on a Union ship, but was captured during the engagement and made a prisoner of war. He was exchanged toward the end of the conflict and was promoted to commander, serving in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, until war’s end.
Glassell’s health was shattered by the war and headed to Los Angeles to visit his brother, who came to California in 1853 and, a dozen years later, following the conclusion of the war, to Los Angeles where he and Chapman, a former Army lieutenant who resigned when the war began, built their substantial practice. When the two lawyers purchased a portion of the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, William Glassell surveyed the 600 acres and the name of Richland, the name of the Glassell family plantation in Virginia, was selected, but changed when it was found the same name was used in Sacramento County. The Glassell place back east was in Orange County, Virginia, also home to James Madison’s Montpelier plantation.
The Star account recorded that Glassell was away, so the visitor perambulated alone through the small farms and walked streets lined with “gum [eucalyptus], walnut, locust, willow, sycamore” or other trees. In some cases, it was added, “gum and walnut trees were planted alternately, so close together that by the time the walnut trees are in bearing the gum trees will necessarily have to give way” and be used for lumber. The community grew to some 7,000 acres, only about 20% of it unsold and the 40-acre town with water supplied by iron pipes.
In the Herald of the 22nd, a description of our region was published in the Argus of Petaluma, north of San Francisco, and the unidentified journalist marveled at what was observed, gushing,
On every hand are trees bending under the weight of golden fruit, some bearing as high as 1,500 oranges. We saw English walnut trees over twenty feet high and branching fifteen or twenty feet . . . Vegetation grows to an extent which taxes the credulity of one not seeing it . . . The profits of semi-tropical fruit culture would not be credited if told.
The example was cited of nursery owner Thomas A. Garey, highlighted elsewhere in this post and the future partner of Thomas in the Artesia and Pomona projects, and his purchase of 10 acres that he’d previously leased for $4,000, but which he would not sell for double that amount because of the boom and price leaps.
A notable citation of how much growth was taking place south of Los Angeles, where the agricultural center was long developing, came from the Express of the 23rd, which told readers that the county Board of Supervisors sent a committee “to examine the line of a projected road from this city to Compton, which, when finished, will form one of the finest and most inviting drives in California.” It was added that the road was to start at Washington Street, near the place of George Dalton, and move south for six miles.
Later, it was expected that the route would reach Compton and, eventually, Wilmington and the port. For the time being, landowners along the six miles agreed to provide the land for the right-of-way and to plant eucalyptus trees on either side, while ditches would parallel on both sides, as well, with water fed from the Los Angeles River through city zanjas. Explaining that the water would fuel the growth of these trees and lead to a beautiful shaded thoroughfare, the paper exclaimed,
The Alameda between San Jose and Santa Clara would not approach it in picturesque loveliness. And then to pass for miles in successive orange groves and vineyards, and peach and walnut orchards, which could be clearly taken into view, why, it will be a scene of unapproachable beauty and enjoyment. We are glad that our people realize the value of a public improvement of this character. It shows a chaste and appreciative taste for the beautiful—a taste which will enhance our fame and accentuate our natural attractions.
Today, Alameda Street does not have the picturesque aspect promoted in the piece, but is instead a busy commercial corridor along which runs the railroad line, much of it recently moved below grade, dating back to 1869 when the Los Angeles and San Pedro became the first in the region. The Compton and Wilmington sections were completed and the section south of the 91 Freeway is State Route 47 until the latter when there is a divergence of the 47, which absorbs State Route 103, to Interstate 710, while Alameda continues southwest until it becomes Harry Bridges Boulevard, named for the longshoreman union leader.
The Star of the 25th provided readers with another outside account about the impressions greater Los Angeles had upon visitors, including one published in a newspaper in Mendota, Illinois, some 90 miles southwest of Chicago, and which alluded to the Ozro W. Childs place on Main Street at 11th Street in the Angel City. It remarked,
Mr. Childs’ fruit does not consist only of oranges, lemons, limes and citrons, but of almost every kind you can mention. You have no idea with what rapidity trees and every kind of vegetation grow here. His English walnut trees not sixteen years old look like forest trees of half a century.
On the 28th, a correspondent, known only as Viator and a regular contributor of sights from Los Angeles County, wrote from the somewhat new San Gabriel Valley community named Duarte after the family and the Rancho Azusa de Duarte. In particular, the ranch of Asa Ellis, recently a member of the state Assembly and previously a county supervisor and who was featured in a prior post here.
Viator remarked that,
Mr. Ellis, who is the agent for the [Duarte subdivision] property, owns 160 acres. He has planted four acres in English walnuts and three acres in the Alexander white (raisin) grape, besides oranges and other varieties of grapes. He claims that the upper portion of the Duarte is absolutely free from danger from frost. A banana stock [stalk], growing near his temporary house, has remained unscathed through the winter. [After mention of a neighbor’s garden of fruit and tomatoes] When the improvements on Mr. Ellis’ place are completed, it will compare favorably with any I have seen.
There was so much going on in April 1874 concerning walnut raising and its place in the rapidly expanding agriculture of greater Los Angeles that we are going to halt here and return soon with part twelve taking us further into that banner year of the boom that was peaking in the region, so join us then.