by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As has been oft-noted on this blog, one of our chief sources for understanding conditions in greater Los Angeles during its first boom, spanning the late 1860s and first half of the 1870s, are Angel City newspapers, of which we have a decent number in the Homestead’s artifact collection. The “Read All About It” series of posts enables us to examine these issues and tease out what they tell us about this period, in which our region embarked on its first significant and sustained period of growth, humble as it was compared to all that followed.
Here we look at the 16 July 1874 number of the Los Angeles Express, which emerged three years prior and not long after the end of the long-running (about 15 years) News. By the time, this edition appeared there were three daily English-language papers, including the Star (which debuted nearly a quarter-century ago, in May 1851, and went into a hiatus from 1864-1868, returning as this first boom ensued) and the Herald, which began in October 1873. There was also the Spanish-language La Crónica (Chronicle) and, nine days after this edition, the Sud Californische Post, a German-language paper, was launched.
By summer 1874, the Angel City boasted a high school that just completed its first year; the continued expansion of local Southern Pacific Railroad lines (including, in April, the completion of the main eastern route to Rancho La Puente, home of the Workman family) as a connection from San Francisco was about two years away; the pending opening of Wilson College at the harbor town of Wilmington and which was a forerunner of the University of Southern California; the formation of the new town of San Fernando (on that main Southern Pacific line north of Los Angeles); and more.
While the rest of the United States was mired in a severe economic downturn that, because it extended through the rest of the decade, was known as the “Long Depression,” California largely seemed immune because of the silver mining boom at Virginia City, Nevada, northeast of the capital of Carson City, that fueled banking and other financial growth at San Francisco, the Golden State’s prime metropolis. Generally speaking, times were good and Los Angeles newspapers were more than happy (and invested) in promoting the region’s current environment and fertile future.
Naturally, the Express, on its front-page masthead, featured a belching locomotive, followed by cargo cars labeled “Expresss” and “USM,” or U.S. Mail and a couple of passenger coaches. Tiffany and Company, headed by George O. Tiffany (1814-1892), was the paper’s primary proprietor, with offices in the Temple Block at Spring and Market streets, this being the 1857 two-story brick edifice erected by Jonathan Temple. From 1868 to 1871, Temple’s brother, F.P.F., an energetic and enthusiastic entrepreneur and president of the Temple and Workman bank, one of two commercial institutions (along with the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank, run by former partner Isaias W. Hellman) added three more brick structures to the block—now the site of City Hall.
Subscribers paid $10 in advance for a year and half for six months and a quarter for three months, with an extra quarter weekly for delivery. The weekly version of the Express was available at $3 annually. While the front page, where this information was printed, was mostly taken up with advertisements, including cards by doctors, attorneys, realtors, surveyors and others, as well as for hotels, rail and ship transportation, and purveyors of alcohol, there was some state and Pacific Coast news.
Also briefly mentioned was that “a patent for one of Abel Stearns’ ranches, in Los Angeles county, has been received at San Francisco from Washington, through the United States Surveyor-General, by the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Land Company.” The unnamed ranch totaled more than 33,000 acres and was “situated near Anaheim Landing,” a wharf of somewhat recent vintage, established by Anaheim capitalists for shipping and in competition with the port at Wilmington/San Pedro.
This was the Rancho Las Bolsas (“pockets,” as in sections of land not covered by abundant wetlands and swamps in the area), which today includes part or all of the Orange County cities of Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Westminster, Garden Grove and slivers of Anaheim, Orange and Santa Ana, with the Santa Ana River its eastern boundary. It was part of the massive Rancho Los Nietos, one of Spanish California’s first land grants in 1784, totaling some 300,000 acres according to grantee Manuel Nieto, though disputes with the Mission San Gabriel led to a decree (just as the missions were being secularized, or shuttered) whittling down the Nietos ranch to a mere 167,000 acres and dividing it into five ranches distributed to Nieto heirs.
Las Bolsas was given to María Catarina Ruiz, the widow of José Antonio Nieto, a son of Manuel and, it should be noted, women could own land under Spanish civil law, whereas, to the east in the United States, and common law, this was not the case. In 1849, just after the American seizure of Mexican California and the onset of the Gold Rush, members of the Yorba family, who had immense holdings on ranchos to the east and north, acquired Las Bolsas. A dozen years later, with the Gold Rush long past and economic conditions in a troubling state, including a national depression in 1857, Stearns, a former merchant who came to Mexican-era Los Angeles in 1829 and owned Rancho Los Alamitos to the west, purchased the tract.
This was in 1861, just in time for what we might call a Super El Niño (coming this winter), in which an estimated 50 inches, around three times what we have long considered “normal” rainfall (though we might as well dispense with that concept), drenched the region. This was followed by a pair of parched years, with four inches and then less than that, by most estimates (La Niña, anyone?) For Stearns, who’d amassed a remarkable empire and loaned money to some of the owners of Las Bolsas, the acquisition of it and the smaller adjoining Bolsa Chica (“little pocket” and this being western Huntington Beach and surrounding sections), were part of a 200,000-acre domain.
The floods and droughts, decimating the cattle industry, long the backbone of the greater Los Angeles economy, naturally wreaked havoc on ranchers like Stearns and he borrowed money extensively, much as those who lost their land to him had done just several years prior. In 1868, he mortgaged all of his holdings in Los Angeles County, as well as San Bernardino County, for $43,000 borrowed from a San Francisco bank. Shortly afterward, a close friend, Alfred Robinson organized a trust to acquire 178,000 acres of Stearns’ land, pay him $50,000 up front so he could pay debts, gave him a eighth share in the entity and allowed him $1.50 an acre on future sales of the land.
The Robinson Trust, as it was known, then formed the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Land Company, which subdivided holdings into farm tracts from 20 to 160 acres and marketed these across the country and in Europe. Despite getting a good deal from the Trust, however, Stearns asserted rights, including rental of land, while running his livestock on sections, and even trying to sell portions beyond the Trust agreement. His allowance of sheep grazing also ruined much of the property the Trust was seeking to manage, but his death in 1871 relieved the organization of significant trouble. In future decades, those several cities mentioned within the embrace of Las Bolsas sprung up and hundreds of thousands of people reside there now.
On page two, often dedicated to editorials, as well as local, state and national news items, the Express trumpeted, under the title of “KEEPING PACE WITH THE TIMES,” its purchase of a Chicago Taylor Cylinder press to produce its product. It noted that “the extension of railroad facilities in this county has rendered it necessary, especially for an evening paper, to get to press with great punctuality.” The press could yield several thousand copies per hour and, as the editions had to be ready by 2 p.m. for delivery to “our subscription list . . . [that] is very large and increasing.”
Notably, the article also referred to an impending second telegraph line to compete with the Associated Press line, completed under a predecessor in 1860, as recently noted in a post here, and the Express groused that the AP was “established for the purpose of advancing the circulation of metropolitan papers and circumscribing and crushing the country press.” The piece continued,
We are doing our utmost to give the people of this section a good daily evening paper. Our entire energy is devoted to that end. Our experience and position enable us to furnish just as good a paper as it is possible to furnish here on sound business principles. Our people should not forget that it is a slow and difficult task to build up a first-class paper anywhere, and to do so depends as much on the liberal concurrence of the community as upon the energy and ability of the projectors themselves.
In its “COMMERCIAL REVIEW,” it was reported that “the fruit crop now in and maturing is in excellent condition,” with apricots, berries, figs and nectarines appearing in the market, with plums soon to come. It was added that “fruit growers look forward to an excellent season in every variety.” With respect to general commerce, there was not much new to note, though wholesalers were adding to their areas of service with mining sections to the east, such as Panamint, asserted to be the “most valuable mining center opened on this coast since the discovery of the Comstock” Lode at Virginia City.
Some detail was provided as to the prospects at Panamint, which followed places like Cerro Gordo between the Owens and Death valleys and where F.P.F. Temple and his father-in-law William Workman were heavily invested. Also mentioned by the Express was Holcomb Valley, north of today’s Big Bear Lake and it was remarked that “there is no scarcity of money in our market,” while a San Francisco savings bank and the recently opened Los Angeles County Savings Bank, the president of which was Jonathan R. Slauson and which launched on 18 June, were actively seeking loans and the latter “is ready to accommodate our people on the most favorable terms.”
The review also commented,
Business is in a calm. The farmers are all busily engaged harvesting, and the grain crop [William Workman had several thousands of acres of wheat, barley and other field crops on his half of Rancho La Puente] is so heavy as to tax the best energies of our husbandsmen. The crop is much more voluminous than was anticipated, as many fields of grain were suffering for the want of machinery equal to the great capacity of the growth. It is hardly necessary to repeat that we hear of absolutely nothing but good word from the farmers.
The “LOCAL ITEMS” of brevities on the third page included remarks that “the barley crop of San Jose Valley, beyond Spadra,” meaning modern Pomona and vicinity, “is harvesting to the delight of the farmers,” while “there will be a large yield on the Chino ranch” to the southeast in San Bernardino County. Another regional ranch mentioned was just north of Los Angeles, where at the Rancho Los Feliz, “the City Council this afternoon will hear the report of the Committee in reference to enjoining the Feliz ranch from using the [Los Angeles] river water,” a problem because the rest of town relied on the river for its supply.
The column noted that there were 17 families at Santa Monica, which meant enjoying a vacation at the coast (the town there soon appeared, though, with a subdivision launched the next year.) The Lanfranco Building, home to the saddle and harness business of the brothers Elijah and William Henry Workman, nephews of Homestead owners William Workman and Nicolasa, was undergoing a renovation. Joe Murphy and his troupe of entertainers were appearing at the hall of the German Turnverein society, while a circus was also in town.
A special early run of the Spring and Sixth Street Railway, Los Angeles’ first streetcar line and of which F.P.F. Temple was treasurer and Robert M. Widney was president, was conducted for members of the Common (City) Council (including William H. Workman), the Chamber of Commerce (a predecessor of the current one) and members of the press. The Express observed that the passengers “were much pleased with the smoothness of the road and the excellent accommodation it affords to parties living in the suburbs.” The horse-drawn cars took in the area south of downtown, but these “suburbs” are part of today’s extensive central core of the Angel City.
On criminal matters, there were reports of the sentencing of Juan Tapia and Francisco López to terms of one and three years, respectively, at San Quentin State Prison on grand larceny convictions. Jaime Fernández was on trial for the killing of Gabriel Mendiroz and some details were provided about the case, which was held in the courtroom of District Court Judge Ygnacio Sepúlveda, one of the few Latinos in positions of civic or legal authority in Los Angeles at the time.
Remarkably, the Express informed readers that “there has not been a murder committed in Los Angeles county for eight years,” but added that “this is not a fiction in law, however a glaring a fiction in may be in fact.” What it meant was that “the last legal punishment, for murder here, occurred” that long ago and it growled,
If the law tries to get at the essence of truth, it doesn’t succeed very much, for there are people here ready to take their solemn affidavits that there has been an average of five murders a year in this county during the past eight years. But Justice is happily blind, and can’t see it.
What was left unsaid, though, was the horrific Chinese Massacre of 24 October 1871, during which a mob of hundreds of Anglos and Latinos lynched eighteen men and a teenage boy, while there were two other recent lynchings, one of Michel Lachenais in December 1870 and the other of Jesús Romo just about a month-and-a-half prior near the Workman Mill at Rancho La Puente. This period was a far cry from two decades earlier when it was claimed by chroniclers like Horace Bell and Harris Newmark that there was a murder a day in the City of the Angels (recent research has revealed that the documented number was far less, though the rates were still an enormous number for a region of under 10,000 residents), but Los Angeles very much retained traces of its oft-violent past.
Another criminal matter covered separately was the rape trial of Wiley McNair, an El Monte man accused of an outrage on a girl of 12 or 13 years of age some five years prior. McNair, married and with children, committed the sexual assault as he visited neighbors to purchase some trees, saw the girl doing housework as her parents were away and sent her brothers on an errand. The girl informed her parents of the attack and McNair fled to Baja California, where he remained until he journeyed north and was captured at Temecula, then part of San Diego County, now in Riverside County.
Andrew Jackson King, a member of a prominent and colorful El Monte family and former publisher of the News, represented his fellow townsman and “the defense hinged itself on the lack of the element of consummation in the act” while it was asserted that the only testimonial proof was that there was “a wanton dalliance with the prosecutrix.” Volney E. Howard, later a Superior Court judge and then the county district attorney, led the prosecution and, the prior evening, at 10:00, the jury brought in a verdict of the reduced charge of assault with the intent to commit rape.
Elsewhere, a short piece concerned the observation that “the United States Hotel,” situated on Main Street, “is now the most extensive establishment of the kind south of San Francisco,” surpassing the local Clarendon (formerly the Bella Union and later the St. Charles) and Pico House hostelries. After carpenters and plasterers completed their work, it was added, “in a few weeks Mr. [Henry] Hammel” and his partner, Andrew H. Denker, “will be ready to accommodate three or four hundred extra guests,” a substantial increase for the era. Results included a new kitchen and moving of the dining room from the basement to a much larger first floor space, while future plans called for an artesian well on the property and, if that did not succeed, a steam pump to “supply the house with that much needed element.”
Lastly, at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in the parlor of the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank, a resolution was offered that expressed the organization’s opinion that a recent state law allowing voters to decide whether alcohol licenses could be issued in their townships “is dangerous to American liberty and subversive of the rights of the people as guaranteed by both of our State and Federal Constitutions.” A precedent would, it continued, be established relative to any other laws and “this might be so abused and carried to excess as to seriously impair those sacred guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” from our Declaration of Independence, which we’ve just marked with its 250th anniversary, “which were the very essence and foundation of our Government.”
The wine industry was especially important in greater Los Angeles, so it was no surprise that such a position was taken regarding what was known as the “Local Option” through these resolutions. Widney, however, “opposed their adoption in a spirited [!] speech” as he averred that “the Chamber was organized for the purpose of furthering the commercial interests of Los Angeles county, not to pass upon questions of law or politics.” Such concerns about “our wine interests,” were, however, expressed by the Chamber and Widney, a Methodist and, therefore, an avowed teetotaler, was the sole no vote. Fights over the alcohol trade would continue for decades leading to the 18th Constitutional amendment and Prohibition.
This issue of the Express is chock full of interesting material relating to greater Los Angeles in the full ferment of its first boom and we look forward to sharing more editions of it and its contemporaries in future entries in the “Read All About It” series of posts on The Homestead Blog.