by Paul R. Spitzzeri
This latest “Read All About It” post, featuring historic Los Angeles-area newspapers from the Museum’s collection, looks at the 6 March 1875 edition of the Los Angeles Herald, one of three English-language dailies in the city, which was at the apex of its first growth boom, which began in the late Sixties, but which would within a half-year come to a sudden and dramatic bust.
The publisher was The Los Angeles City and County Printing and Publishing Company, a joint stock corporation (the first such media company in the Angel City) presided over by Mayor Prudent Beaudry and including F.P.F. Temple as treasurer. It is not surprising that a second-page editorial section article, titled “Going to Work,” informed readers that,
A committee composed of F.P.F. TEMPLE, Col. J[AMES] G. HOWARD, Major FRANK GANAHL and Chief Engineer [James U.] CRAWFORD, leave this morning for the Southern part of the county on a canvassing tour for subscriptions to the stock of the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad Company. The rumor that the people of Anaheim and vicinity were so opposed to the building of the Independence Road that they would take no stock in it, is, we are informed, without foundation.
This railroad, slated to run to the Inyo County silver mine boom towns, such as Cerro Gordo, in which Temple and his father-in-law, William Workman, were heavily invested, struggled to secure enough local capital after its founding not quite a year prior, when Temple was its president. United States Senator from Nevada, John P. Jones, who also had substantial mining investments in eastern California, came up with funds for a majority of the stock, so assumed the presidency, which relegated Temple to serving as treasurer.
Jones was also developing the new seaside town of Santa Monica, so, when he became the key figure in the L.A. & I. R.R., he insisted that a branch line to that community be built first, an argument being made that silver ore and bullion transported from Inyo County to this area by the railroad could use a wharf at the new town for shipment.
The question of getting southeastern Los Angeles County residents (this was 14 years before the establishment of Orange County because denizens there felt perennially overlooked and underrepresented) to take stock was a vexing problem and it is understandable that folks there didn’t see direct benefit, as the line was to run to the north through the San Gabriel Valley (and through Workman’s Rancho La Puente, largely shared with the heirs of his late friend, John Rowland, who died in October 1873) to get to Cajon Pass and then onward to Inyo.
The Herald, however, asserted that
The people of the lower portion of the county cannot overlook the fact that a continuous line of railroad from Anaheim to the mines of Inyo county will be a mine of wealth to them, by affording a ready market for their surplus products of every kind . . . The people of Anaheim and the farmers of that part of the county will not stand in their own light, and we believe they will meet the committee with spirit of enterprising citizens.
The “continuous line” apparently meant the Southern Pacific’s connection from Anaheim to Los Angeles, via a branch to Florence (South Los Angeles) where the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad (which the SP took over in 1872 as part of a subsidy package approved by county voters) had a station.
The paper added that “every portion of Los Angeles valley will be benefited by the building of this road” and open up markets with competition reducing the SP’s freighting rates. It also commented that “every farmer and every producer in this valley must see that railroad communication with the mines gives not only a good market but one that will buy all we have to sell,” deeming this to be “an important fact and one that cannot be set aside or covered up.”
It was not foreseen that the mining boom, like the one in California propped up by a stock bubble in San Francisco for silver mines in Virginia City, Nevada, would eventually go bust, which it did within a few years. The L.A. & I. R.R. completed the Santa Monica branch line in October, by which time a panic erupted that included the closure of the Temple and Workman bank, and the Inyo line never got beyond very early stages of construction in Cajon Pass and some grading elsewhere. In 1877, it was purchased by the S.P., which continued operating the Santa Monica branch.
Speaking of San Pedro, another local editorial peace concerned “Wilmington Harbor,” this an extension of the old rudimentary port at San Pedro founded by Phineas Banning and named after his Delaware hometown. Banning lobbied heavily for federal appropriations to improve the harbor, which, naturally, would greatly benefit his forwarding and commission business and the town he was developing.
Some money was obtained from Washington in March 1871 for a breakwater from the south end of Rattlesnake (now Terminal) Island to Dead Man’s Island (this later demolished for further breakwater work) and channel dredging. The Herald informed readers that the Wilmington Enterprise reported,
After many unavoidable delays and vexatious interruptions, we think we may safely say that dredging has fairly begun. Those who have witnessed the working of the machinery, that are capable of judging, say that everything is in excellent running order. And had it not been for the worthless chains sent from San Francisco, from time to time, dredging would have been under full headway several weeks ago.
While the machinery was considered sufficient, the chain problem held work up, while it was added that the man hired to get the former in working order, he proved to be “notoriously incompetent, and his entire work had to be overhauled.” Moreover, other laborers were found to be “the merest shirks” while “there were also many other interruptions which we will not mention,” though Albert Boschke, who superintended the project was praised for having “displayed a perseverance and a good temper that is highly creditable.”
Adding that it was time to “turn to a more pleasant phase of our enterprise,” it was noted that “constant changes are going on in the bay, and they are all in our favor,” especially as “the breakwater is daily becoming more imbedded,” while some 10,000 cubic yards of sand was dredged and carried away so that “the water is cutting a new and straighter channel next to the ocean.” Maps showed that the amount of water at low tide increased from seven to nine feet and work also led to “the belief that the scouring of the water only needs the aid of the dredger at the rocky, hard points to perform a greater portion of the work.”
The Enterprise observed that “the drift is all seaward” with no shoaling posing significant problems, though it was not clear concerning “the direction of the current that scatters the sand.” It concluded that (bearing in mind that federal investment would be many times greater in the future, especially after the Free Harbor Fight of the 1890s),
Again we record our convictions that our harbor prospects present nothing but the most convincing evidences of its ultimate, and not very distant success.
On the third page, where most news was reported, a “Wilmington Items” column also collated from the Enterprise included the note that “since last week considerable work has been done on the new wharf” while the laying of another railroad track. Also observed was that a schooner arrived “with 120,000 feet of lumber for the railroad company,” while another unloaded a locomotive and other “railroad material,” presumably for the S.P. and its Los Angeles San Pedro or perhaps a new streetcar line mentioned below.
In our last post in this series, concerning a late February edition of the Herald, the second day of sales for the new town and tract of Artesia, was discussed. In this edition, under the heading of “Artesia in Second Hands,” the paper remarked that “since the conclusion of the Artesia sale, a considerable part of the property has changed hands from the original purchasers at advanced rates” with some of it done “for speculative purposes.”
Among the sellers were John W. Potts, Isaac W. Lord, and Dr. Edward A. Preuss and transactions involved the sale of acreage at prices from $35 to $58 an acre and town lots fetching from $55 to $200 each. A separate advertisement from developer, the Los Angeles Immigration and Land Co-operative Association, promoted a “Second Sale” to be held from 6-8 April and involving 2,000 acres, with it noted that the first sale covered 1,600 acres.
Buoyed by the success of the Artesia project, the proprietors of the Association soon turned their attention to a new tract inland, with Pomona involving funds borrowed from the Temple and Workman bank. With directors including President Thomas A. Garey, Vice-President J.S. Gordon, Milton Thomas, George C. Gibbs, Robert M. Town and Luther M. Holt, their monikers all grace streets in that city today.
Another sale was conducted on the Fairview Tract, owned by the Real Estate Associates, and situated near the west edge of town between today’s 6th Street and Wilshire Boulevard and on both sides of Union Avenue to Valencia Street. The Herald reported that buyers, including Lewis Wolfskill, Edward Germain and others acquired nearly 30 lots priced from $60 to $190, with 18 remaining unsold and offered that night at the business of auctioneers Jones and Bland.
In the “Real Estate Transactions” column, which reported “deeds filed for record for the 48 hours ending March 5 . . . as reported for the HERALD by Judson & Gillette, examiners of title,” by the far the biggest was that of nearly 3,700 acres, all but some 800 of the total, of the Rancho Cienega o Paso de la Tijera sold by former sheriff Tomás A. Sánchez and his wife to Daniel Freeman, F.P.F. Temple, Henry S. Ledyard and Arthur J. Hutchinson, with the sale price of $60,000.
Freeman and Temple were principals in the Centinela project which was adjacent on the west, while Ledyard was the managing cashier at the Temple and Workman bank (though his poor management would become readily apparent in coming months with the institution’s financial collapse.) Whatever plans were considered for the Cienega property, most of which was hill land, the subsequent problems with the bank led to the land being transferred to Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, who loaned the tottering enterprise a substantial sum, for which Cienega and plenty of other ranch land, including most of William Workman’s portion of Rancho La Puente, was put up as collateral.
After Baldwin foreclosed at the end of the Seventies, he took possession and kept it until his death in 1909. As with the Montebello Hills, also obtained from the foreclosure and much of which was owned by Temple, the Baldwin Hills generated a windfall in copious amounts of oil for Baldwin’s daughters and heirs, Clara and Anita. Much of the property was purchased the Los Angeles Investment Company in their early Teens as part of massive development scheme previously discussed on this blog.
In the “Local Brevities” column, it was briefly noted that “grading has been commenced on Commercial street, between Main and Los Angeles [streets,]” this thoroughfare being imported for the reason embodied in its name. At Santa Monica, it was remarked that “soundings are being taken for the projected wharf,” where the L.A.& I.R.R. was to terminate and provide transportation to and from Los Angeles for the shipment of goods.
Speaking of the Los Angeles and Independence, it was commented that “the surveyors” for the company, “completed one of their preliminary lines into the city the other day, coming in on San Pedro street.” Later in the year, when the Santa Monica branch was finished, it terminated at San Pedro and 6th Street where an ornate depot was built and was a landmark in that relatively undeveloped area for some time.
With regard to Banning’s harbor town of Wilmington, the Herald mentioned that “Col. [Benjamin D.] Wilson and General Banning have donated an eligible site of five acres to the people [of that town], and they will have a cemetery as soon as the planting season commences.” While the Wilmington Cemetery is said to date from 1857, this citation indicates otherwise (unless the site was previously an informal burying ground) and the earliest located reference to a funeral there was in October 1876 when Charles Lecoeur, who lived with Alexander and died of a stroke, was interred at the burial ground.
A second Wilmington item concerned the repot that “a public entertainment will be given at Wilson College,” opened in 1874 by Wilson and Banning and “to consist of charades, tableaux, and vocal and instrumental music.” Some of the entertainers were to come from Los Angeles and “the proceeds will be used to aid in paying for an organ and piano for the institution,” which was a precursor to the University of Southern California, which was founded a half-dozen years later.
Another real estate project at this boom’s end was the Forbes Tract, for which a map was filed with the County Recorder. The property was laid out with 40 lots measuring a generous 80×230 feet (18,400 square feet) each and the paper remarked that “the tract lies between Pico, Figueroa and Charity streets,” this latter renamed Grand Avenue, with the parcel being east of today’s Crypto.com Arena.
It was concluded that “this will doubtless offer fine opportunities for parties desirous of purchasing cheap residence lots,” and the owner was Arthur Bullock, cashier with the Temple and Workman bank. His immediate boss, Ledyard, bought four lots there for $2,000 at the end of March, but these were sold by a sheriff’s sale by the bank assignees after it closed.
Streetcars were introduced in 1874 with the Spring and Sixth Street Railway, in which a car was pulled by a horse and whose president was lawyer, former judge, real estate developer and future U.S.C. founder Robert M. Widney, while F.P.F. Temple was its treasurer. A second line, formed in November 1874, followed and the Herald stated that,
The arrival of the ties ad iron for the Main Street and Agricultural Park [now Exposition Park] Railroad will be the signal for the early completion of the road to Pico street. The materials are afloat and are daily expected at Wilmington. Within forty days after their arrival here, without accident, the cars will be running. We learn that those interested in the enterprise have determined not to wait until just previous to the county fair and races, but to proceed immediately upon completing the road to Pico street to push it through to Agricultural Park.
Among the founders of the streetcar company were former Governor John G. Downey, longtime District Attorney Cameron E. Thom and neighbors along Main Street at around Tenth Street, Ozro W. Childs and Elijah H. Workman—this latter was the nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste.
This issue of the Herald is certainly filled with interesting and instructive content helpful for understanding conditions in greater Los Angeles at the end of its first boom and we will continue mining those newspapers in our collection from that period as part of this “Read All About It” series on this blog, so keep an eye peeled for those.