by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Though much more modest in scope and range that later examples, the first boom in greater Los Angeles that arose in the late 1860s and continued into the middle of the next decade helped to establish patterns for those that followed. This was the case in terms of real estate development, transportation, oil prospecting and much more and one of the more active capitalists, dubbed “city makers” by historian Remi Nadeau, during this period was F.P.F. Temple, who was associated financially with his father-in-law, Homestead founder and owner William Workman.
In this “Read All About It” series of posts featuring historic regional newspapers from the Museum’s collection, summaries from issues from a slew of 1870s newspapers have often noted Temple’s participation in a variety of activities during the boom, though this is not the case with this entry, which features the 28 May 1874 edition of the Los Angeles Express, which emerged a few years ago from the ashes of the long-operating Los Angeles News. Other notable figures, however, are discussed in its pages.
This includes Prudent Beaudry (1819-1893), who served for a couple of years on the Common (City) Council during this period and also was the Angel City’s mayor for a two year stint from December 1874 to December 1876, when the boom crested and then went bust. Beaudry, a long-time merchant and who was involved in the founding of the Los Angeles City Water Company, which built the Buena Vista Reservoir at the east end of the Elysian Hills, acquired, during the Sixties, considerable property on the range of low hills at the west edge of town and which was considered to be largely worthless. He, however, was convinced that this section could be profitably and successfully developed, even when the water company he helped establish demurred from working with him.
This led to the creation of the Bunker Hill and Bellevue Terrace areas and a core component of Beaudry’s project was the delivery of water through a system which included a reservoir to the north near the Elysian Hills and a pumping apparatus to deliver the precious fluid to higher elevations. The Express remarked that, as it was typing an editorial on the subject for its previous day’s edition, “the engine at Mr. Beaudry’s pond on Alameda street commenced to work the huge Hooker pump, and the water was flowing in great volume into the reservoir, at an elevation of 240 feet above the level of the pond, and at a distance of 3,750 feet (about 7/10 of a mile) from the engine.” This led the paper to exclaim,
This is a great triumph, and to Mr. Beaudry belongs alone the glory. There is not another man in this whole lower country who would have had the indomitable courage and unyielding tenacity to have stuck to the grand project of supplying these hills with water under all the trying circumstances. After repeated failures in other directions, which would have discouraged other men, he still held fast to his great purpose.
Previous efforts including digging artesian wells and damning the arroyo that fed the woolen mill not far south of Bellevue Terrace, this being the Arroyo de los Reyes, where, at its northern end, Reservoir #4 was built in 1868—today this is Echo Park Lake—and the arroyo came out of a ravine and flowed near what was Central or Sixth Street Park, now Pershing Square. As for the source, the Express observed that “the springy swamp, off Alameda street near the junction with Main, possessed an exhaustless supply of water.”
There a pump house was constructed at the edge of the cienega for the Hooker pump engine and intensive efforts undertaken to create the pond “with the water which boiled up from the bottom in every direction” and “is now a beautiful body of pure crystal water,” rising a foot above a slough “showing that there must be a powerful rise of natural water at that point, which is at least half a mile from the [Los Angeles] river.”
Beaudry’s anxiety concerning whether the water would reach the reservoir was alleviated when “the water came with a rush and a rumble, expelling the pent-up air in the pipe before it, and at last gushed out with full force into the basin.” When this happened, stated the paper, “it was, no doubt, a gladdening sight” while “with its appearance came a stream of gold, for the entire border of high lands fringing our city at once took a shoot upward in price.”
The speculator invited the public to see his new water system at 10 a.m. that day and attracted “quite a delegation of our citizens,” who saw that “the pump was working finely with about 20,000 gallons an hour emptying into the reservoir, which was not yet completed. It was added that the storage basin was “excavated out of a hard clay-colored rock with three high sides and the fourth still to have a bank constructed, while “it is contemplated to cement the entire inside.”
As to location, the Express noted that “the hill upon which it is located is a very elevated one just west of the Jewish Cemetary [sic],” this latter at the base of the Elysian Hills, west of the 110 Freeway and below today’s Dodger Stadium. It was added that “the success of this great enterprise will make [Beaudry] immensely rich” and, with the successful demonstration, “while the crowd were there, toasting in bumpers of champagne this grand achievement, Mr. Beaudry foreshadowed a few of his views on the improvements he would make.”
Under the heading of “A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE,” the account discussed his plans for streets that “conform to the topography of the country than to the inflexible rules of rectilinear lines [at right angles],” while he talked of “hydraulic[ally reshape] the hills, filling up depressions and making the country as even as possible.” The Express then told readers,
Should he carry out his plans—and now that he has such an exhaustless supply of water, there is nothing to prevent him—we shall look for the elevated [area] to be the most beautiful and picturesque portion of our city in a few years. It will be covered with handsome cottages, and elegant gardens will meet the eye in every direction. The inviting inequalities [topographically] of the tract will be suggestive of architectural variety and intelligent landscape gardening, and when the entire range has been improved by the thousands who will make their homes upon it, it will form one of the most delightful pictures of home beauty and suburban felicity which this or any other State can present.
This idyllic and boosterish view proved not to be realized, given the economic downturn soon to ensue as part of the national Long Depression that spanned most of the decade and Beaudry lost considerable money on his ambitious ventures, but Bunker Hill did, with the Boom of the 1880s, contain some of the finest houses in the city, though its status as a high-end residential section was brief as other portions of Los Angeles were developed.
A brief item, also on the second page, devoted generally to editorials, concerned “The Breakwater” at Wilmington where the Port of Los Angeles gradually arose. With the first federal appropriations made during this period for improvements at what could hardly be termed a harbor, the Express reported that an Army Corps of Engineers officer, Lieutenant Clinton B. Sears, was ready to re-advertise for bids on dredging work, the first attempt unsuccessful because of challenges for contractors to estimate costs. The article went on to note that,
Lieut. Sears says he has the channel now well straightened out, and if he had the necessary dredging machinery he could give us our full expected depth of water from the entrance [of the breakwater] in a very short time. The process of scouring is going on all the while satisfactorily, but it is slow. The money yet in the fund will, he thinks, be sufficient to dredge the channel to the depth first contemplated by the work.
This early effort barely presaged the massive federal investments of later years when the great port, by the early 20th century, assumed the proportions of a major harbor meeting the demands and needs of the burgeoning metropolis, region, western United States and international trade.
In its “COMMERCIAL REVIEW” on this page, the paper let its readers know that “we are now passing through one of the light intervals between the shipment of one crop and reception of another,” so the local economy was “a little slack.” The processing and shipment of wool, with the sheep industry growing by leaps and bounds, was done, while a new fad of sorts, the raising of bees for honey, was just now coming into season.
It was remarked, however, that, in the next several days, “the new barley crop will begin to arrive, and things will begin to brighten up,” while, generally when it came to agriculture, conditions were said to be “highly favorable, and the crops will be simply immense.” Hay yields, for example, were reported to be enough for three years, which was considered excellent, because a good year could easily be followed by a bad one (this would be the case in the drought year of 1876-77).
Not properly accounting for dramatically changing weather cycles by storing surplus products “has caused our dry seasons to be more severely felt than there was necessity for,” so farmers who stored their extra produce in a “prudent reserve” would come to realize that “their prudence will pay in the long run.” It was added that “considerable wine is being shipped by our vintners, and we notice that numerous heavy parcels are consigned directly to Eastern [wholesale mercantile] houses.”
Also remarked upon were Beaudry’s water system success and its expected effects on values and sales of land on the hill, while “real estate in all quarters of the city is active, and the sales are numerous and the prices rising,” and the report that the Los Angeles County Savings Bank was soon to open, this expected to “cultivate habits of economy among the working classes, and it will afford a supply of money for building purposes, on easy terms, to men who will avail themselves of the facility to erect homesteads.”
Generally speaking, the piece concluded, with the expected enthusiasm of boosterism:
A general review of the posture of affairs in this county gives the most satisfactory results. Our prosperity is general; men of means are attracted to us; families are coming among us to settle; all the industries are flourishing, and we are rapidly marching to a period of great commercial development.
In the “LOCAL ITEMS” column on the third page of the issue, the Express noted that “the Spadra railroad excursion next Sunday is much talked of, and the train will be filled,” this referring to the recent completion to that hamlet, now part of southwestern Pomona, of the main Southern Pacific Railroad line east from Los Angeles, which was part of a mandate by Congress, in a charter given to the company to allow it to build from northern California to Fort Yuma at the Colorado River. It was added that town founder, William W. Rubottom, a former resident of Spadra, Arkansas, “will set a table in his beautiful and ample arbor . . . for the excursionists.”
Another note reported that “Mr. Jacoby, who is about to publish a German newspaper here, will soon arrive” after falling ill and remaining longer than intended in San Francisco, though “a portion of the material arrived here some time ago.” Conrad Jacoby (1841-1900), a Jew from Schleiswig-Holstein, southeast of Hamburg, Germany launched his Sud Californische Post on 25 July and remained its editor and publisher until shortly before his death, and the Homestead has a pair of copies of the paper from 1875 and 1876.
It was mentioned above that the Los Angeles County Savings Bank was a new institution in town, joining the two commercial banks, Farmers’ and Merchants’ and Temple and Workman, with the paper observing that it “leased the present building of the Farmers and Merchants Bank,” in the Pico Building, built by former Governor Pío Pico, located on the east side of Main Street and which was the home from 1868 to 1871 of the other institutions’ predecessor, Hellman, Temple and Company, comprising Farmers’ and Merchants’ founder, Isaias W. Hellman. The Express added that it previously published the names of directors and stockholders “showing it to be in the hands of financially strong men.”
Another item of note was that “Major [Louis J., a veteran of the Union Army in the Civil War and Medal of Honor recipient] Sacriste has called a meeting of the Military Company, enrolled here several months ago, for the purpose of perfecting its organization.” The gathering was to take place at Stearns Hall, located on Los Angeles and Aliso streets behind the late Abel Stearns’ El Palacio adobe residence and the paper light-heartedly observed that “no more shall our gallant Brigadier General be snubbed with the sneer that he commands a brigade which is without a soldier and is chief of staff without a military button.” It concluded, “Attention brigade! Forward, m—a—r—c—h!”
Lastly, the Express reported on a meeting of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce (an ancestor of the current organization, which was formed during the Boom of the Eighties), with seven members present, including ex-Governor John G. Downey, merchant Solomon Lazard, Beaudry, Dr. John S. Griffin, store owner Samuel B. Caswell, wholesale liquor dealer Charles C. Lips and Isaac W. Lord.
Downey requested that a committee be formed to look into how property assessments were conducted, suggesting that there was not uniformity and fairness in the process and his motion that the Chamber ask the Common Council and the county Board of Supervisors to annually confer on how to best assess such property was carried. Caswell, who as a supervisor was on the prior year’s Board of Equalization, noted that even when that body tried to adjust assessments the County Assessor “refused to comply with their action” and Caswell decried his “supreme power.”
Beaudry, addressing the question from the municipal perspective, remarked that, as a Council member he recommended the “mapping and abstracting the city, so that every piece of land can be properly assessed,” while the property index was done by the name of owners, rather than by blocks and lots, which was not only confusing “but causes the same property to be assessed a multiplicity of times.” He concluded that both city and county approaches were poor “and public opinion ought to be brought to bear on the Assessors to compel them to make the assessments more just and uniform.”
Finally, Santa Barbara Press publisher and Congregational minister Joseph A. Johnson, a former San Bernardino resident, spoke of his plan to issue an illustrated periodical that he thought could reach a quarter million people, while he also “had his photographer now in the field in this county taking sketches” which, though exhibition on stereopticon viewers, Johnson “intended to give an exhibition of scenes in Southern California to the people of the East, and England, Ireland and Scotland, accompanying them with a running lecture, by himself.” The Chamber resolved to support the plan and to recommend it to locals, though it is not known if either project was completed.
We have plenty more 1870s Los Angeles newspapers to share (as well as others in the region during later periods) in the “Read All About It” series, so be sure to keep an eye out for those.