Through the Viewfinder With a Photo of a Temple City Business Building, ca. 1924

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

When Walter P. Temple, with associates Milton Kauffman (also his business manager), George H. Woodruff (his attorney) and Alhambra sheep rancher Sylvester Dupuy, launched his Town of Temple project in spring 1923, only a small portion of the 285-acre tract was dedicated to a commercial district as the subdivision was clearly advertised as a residential community.

This section was centered at the main intersection of Sunset Avenue, now Temple City Boulevard, and Main Street, today’s Las Tunas Drive and extended a very short distance north and south and a bit further east and west. Remarkably, the structures built at the corners at that time are still with us although all significantly remodeled.

That at the northwest corner is depicted in the featured artifact, a newly acquired one, from the Museum’s collection for this post, and shows the Temple Pharmacy and Temple Hardware Store. The title on the image is “Looking North Temple Cal.” and the photo was taken by R. Thornton Smith, a realtor and insurance agent, as well as a former professional photographer, without whom the visual record of early Temple City would be virtually non-existent.

Smith climbed onto the roof of the edifice across Las Tunas, being on the southwest corner of the intersection with Temple City Boulevard and which is where his office was located. In the foreground are a few automobiles with a few more parked on Temple City Boulevard, with several men standing on the sidewalk and in front of the building. The singe-story brick building has some decorative elements, including a parapet that reaches its highest point at the corner entrance.

That corner store was occupied by the Temple Pharmacy (in fact, a pharmacy operated there until fairly recently) and, in addition, to a banner with that name along a row of small windows, small awnings have the store name and “DRUGS,” while smaller signs just below these read “PRESCRIPTIONS,” “EX-LAX LAXATIVE,” and “STATIONERY.” A projected corner sign also reads “DRUGS” while one in a window identifies the business as part of the Rexall chain. To the left, or the west, is the Temple Hardware store, owned by Sears, is simpler with a long banner reading “HARDWARE” and a projecting sign with the store title and other items on it.

When the town was launched, business lots, few in number compared to the residential ones, look to have been sold rather quickly. When an early article about the Town of Temple appeared in the 11 May 1923 edition of the Pasadena Post, it observed that,

Temple and his associates . . . plan to start the construction of a business district at once and the installation of street lights, gas, water and electric service. The business section will be five blocks long, according to present plans, extending east to west on the main street [Las Tunas], and with two blocks of business north and south on the main cross thoroughfare [Temple City]. Fifty-foot residence lots will be laid out and the outlying section will be divided into half acres. The entire site is about one mile long and one-half mile wide. Water will be supplied by the Sunnyslope [Sunny Slope] Water company.

A key selling point in early advertising and promotion of the Town of Temple was the extension of the Pacific Electric Railway’s streetcar line from Alhambra, which was a project first pursued by the Burkhardt Investment Company and its Sunny Slope Acres subdivision. The 5 July edition of the Pasadena Star-News reported that “the projected new city of Temple is taking on strides of progress” as word was relayed about approval of the line’s extension and this was felt that this “will open up splendid possibilities.”

It was added that “this is a thickly settled region and a wonderfully rich and prosperous farming section” and the rail line “will make the town of Temple the center of a rich and beautiful section.” Consequently, “the big demand for business and residence property in the new town of Temple” and this “is shown by reports of the sales already aggregating over $200,000.”

Advertisements that began to appear in the local press in the summer offered the usual sentiments, such as one in the 17 July edition of the Post that was headed by “Money Will Be Made At Temple” with the addition by the selling agents at Thomas Acton Company that “it is our honest belief that you cannot fail to make money on an investment.” Notably, however, the firm told readers that “business lots are almost all sold.”

In the Star-News of the 24th, realtor Charles W. Faulkner impressed upon readers that there was a

Big opportunity to get on the ground floor as this is a town of 782 lots and started right—no guesswork. The townsite is owned by Temple himself and he is going to build several houses himself to show faith in the town . . .

Several firms have already bought locations, such [a] lumber yard, drug store, [and] grocery stores.

In the 9 August edition of the paper, Faulkner advertised that it was the “last chance to get in on the low prices as these lots advance in price” soon, stating that five lots were sold the prior day and “we can sell you a business lot this evening for $750, tomorrow morning [the] same lot will cost you $850, so you had better hurry.” At that price, buyers would put up a quarter in cash and the balance due over the next three years.

In a major ad in the Post five days earlier, official sales agents Byron Marsh and Douglas D. Coughran emphasized $350,000 in lot sales in three weeks, with 40 houses under contract and “street lighting [installed] in [the] business section.” Moreover, the coming Pacific Electric line with a passenger and freight depot at the west end of the proposed city park (the location is now where City Hall stands) was to be “built for the accommodation of business and passenger travel.”

The Star-News of the 27th ran a feature on the PE construction project and recorded that, as part of “the elaborate plans under way to put on another strictly modern city on California’s map,”

At the eastern end of the townsite area, realty men and investors have been busy building homes and stores or getting ready for such operations, and the ambitions plans to rear the new city between Arcadia and San Gabriel have been well advanced.

As 1923, the peak year of the latest development boom in greater Los Angeles, came to a close, the Los Angeles Express ran a Marsh & Coughran ad that remarked that there were 50 houses being built, the $9,000 depot was underway and there were five stores in the Town of Temple, while it was claimed that, within a few years, property values would grow at least 100%.

Two days later, an ad disguised as an article in the paper stated, in addition to the remark that a half-million in property was sold to date, that,

Perhaps a very small portion of the people in Los Angeles and vicinity are aware of the great activity and wonderful opportunities for investment in the new town which is now building at the very heart of the beautiful San Gabriel Valley, just 12 miles east of Los Angeles . . .

This wonderful tract of 300 acres, originally a part of the famous Santa Anito [sic] Rancho [it was actually on the Rancho San Francisquito, once part-owned by Temple’s father, F.P.F., and grandfather, William Workman, founder of the Homestead], was purchased and is being marketed by a syndicate headed by Walter P. Temple, a descendant of one of the oldest pioneer families of Southern California, and the town now building was named to perpetuate this historic family name.

Just before Christmas, Marsh and Coughran proclaimed that “Developments MEAN Increasing VALUES” and that “the building of stores and homes by the score in this community of fertile soil and plentiful water supply means prosperity.” A key component to promoting the town’s business district and other elements was the chamber of commerce, the earliest located mention of which came with the throwing of a first birthday celebration on 28 September 1924.

The Chamber was also active with the Associated Chamber of Commerce of the San Gabriel Valley, attending meetings and hosting some in town. It also promoted road projects, including the heavily touted Arrow Highway, to run directly from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, through the Town of Temple, though the thoroughfare was only partially completed, as well as an improved water supply.

Perhaps its biggest impact was in sponsoring floats for the Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena for the years 1925 to 1928, including ones that proclaimed the Town of Temple as the “Heart of San Gabriel Valley.” Another depicted a model home, including the residence surrounded by landscaping comprising flowers, lawns, shrubs, sprinklers, as well as a garage, chicken and dog houses, a children’s playhouse and Old Glory on a flagpole. Another featured a quartet of children from the South Santa Anita School (now Longden Elementary) singing “The Little Town O’er The Way,” while the fourth one displayed a large basket of flowers and peaches, these latter four six-year old girls from the community.

When the Roaring Twenties came to a close, the Chamber sponsored a “Better Homes Week” program for a nationwide program; hosted District Attorney Buron Fitts, whose remarks were that Los Angeles had the dubious distinction of being “the second city in the world for crime”; and oversaw a name change contest, purportedly because Temple was deemed too confusing given other similar place names and which yielded the winner of Santa Rita, though a challenge from Walter Temple and allies led to a compromise, in spring 1928, of Temple City.

As noted above, without R. Thornton Smith’s camera, we would have very few images of the Town of Temple in its early stages. Born in 1878 at Kansas City, where his father was an undertaker, Smith grew up in that area and spent some years in Omaha, Nebraska, working for a hardware-type business, although, around 1908, he migrated to California, settled in Alhambra, and launched a photography business, which he operated for several years. This apparently proved challenging for making a living and he returned to Omaha for about another decade.

When Smith came back to the San Gabriel Valley as the boom was in full ferment, he obviously saw an opportunity at the nascent Town of Temple for his insurance and real estate business, but also to show off his photography skills. The first located mention of him is from an ad he took out in the Los Angeles Times of 23 March 1924, where he promoted:

GOOD BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY. Come out to TOWN OF TEMPLE and see where real opportunity is knocking at your door. We have openings for the following kinds of business in TOWN OF TEMPLE: Bakers, barber, electrician, grocery, dry goods and restaurant.

Smith was active in the Chamber of Commerce and was a charter member of the Workman Lodge of the Free and Associated Masons (William Workman and F.P.F. Temple were masons, as well, with that order.) At least one of his photographs was printed in a newspaper, as the 25 May 1924 number of the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News published a Smith view of PERY rails being laid as the line from Alhambra neared completion.

Smith remained a realtor and insurance agent in Temple City, while also serving as its first postmaster, for about two decades and then moved to the northern California town of Paradise, which was ravaged by the Camp Fire in 2018, though he was back in Temple City in the early 1950s and died in Alhambra in 1965. This photo is a fairly rare surviving image taken by him of the longtime hometown he did so much to promote and for which he should be remembered as a key figure in the early history of the Town of Temple/Temple City.