USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs : also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 40
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Shortly after the admission of California to the Union the long-drawn-out legal contests over the confirmation of the Spanish and Mexican grants began. These contests, in some cases, were waged for years before the United States claims commission, the various courts and the land commissioner at Washington, before they were settled. Litigation often ruined both the contesting parties, and when the case was finally decided the litigants, like in "Jarndyce vs. Jarn- dyce," had nothing left but their bundles of legal documents. Even when a claimant did win and the decisions of courts and commissions gave him undisputed possession of his broad acres, it often happened that a cancerous mort- gage, the result of litigation, was eating away his patrimony. The land grants in Los Angeles have all been confirmed and it is to be hoped that they will remain so. No greater blight can fall on a community than an attack upon the validity of its title to its lands.
In early times the county officials followed the Mexican plan of designating districts and legal subdivision by ranchos. August 7, 1851, the court of sessions "ordered that the county of Los Angeles be divided into six townships named as follows, and to comprehend the ran- chos and places as follows to each appropri- ated": The first of these was the township of Los Angeles. There are few now living who could trace from the description given in the records the boundaries of Los Angeles township fifty-five years ago. Here is the description :
Township of Los Angeles. "The city of Los Angeles and the following ranchos, to-wit: Los Corralitos, Feliz, Verdugos, Cahuenga, Tujunga, San Fernando, ex-Mission, San Francisco, Piro,
Camulos, Cañada de los Alamos, La Liebre, El Tejon, Trumfo, Las Vergenes, Escorpion, Los Cuervos, San Antonio de la Mesa, Los Alamitos, Vicente Lugo, Arroyo Seco, Encino, Maligo, Santa Monico, San Vicente, Buenos Ayres, La Bayona, Rincon de los Buey, Rodeo de Las Aguas, La Cienega, La Centinela, Sausal Re- dondo, Palos Verdes, San Pedro, Los Domin- guez, Rancho Nuevo, Paredon Blanco, Los Cer- ritos, La Jaboneria, Rosa de Castilla."
"The residence of the authorities shall be in Los Angeles city."
IMMIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANT ROUTES.
The Sonorese or Sonoran migration began in 1848, as soon as the news of the discovery of gold in California reached Mexico. While these gold-seekers were called Sonorese or Sonorans, they came from the different states of northern Mexico, but in greater numbers from Sonora. The trail from Mexico by way of Aristo, Tuc- son, the Pima villages, across the desert and through the San Gorgonio Pass had been trav- eled for three-quarters of a century. Another branch of this trail crossed the desert from Yuma to Warner's ranch; and then by way of Temé- cula, Jurupa and the Chino, reached Los An- geles. Along these trails from 1848 to 1852 came the Sonorese migration. The extent of this migration was much greater than historians usually consider it. When Dr. Lincoln and ten of his ferrymen were massacred at the Yuma crossing of the Colorado river, one of the ferry- men who escaped stated in his deposition taken by Alcalde Stearns that Lincoln had $50,000 in silver and between $20,000 and $30,000 in gold. This was the proceeds of the ferry secured in less than four months almost entirely from the Sonoran immigrants. The charge for ferrying was $1 for a man, $1 for an animal and the same for a pack or mule cargo. The influx of these people in 1848, 1849 and 1850 must have reached 25,000 a year. These pilgrims to the shrine of Mammon were for the most part a hard lot. They were poor and ignorant and not noted for good morals. From Los Angeles northward, they invariably traveled by the coast route, and in squads of from 50 to 100. Some of them brought their women and children with
NNA BUFF
The First County Court-house
249
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
them. With their few possessions packed on donkeys and mules they tramped their weary way from Mexico to the mines. They were not welcomed to the land of gold. The Americans disliked them and the native Californians treated them with contempt. The men wore cotton shirts, white pantaloons, sandals and sombreros. Their apparel, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, "changed not," nor did they change it as long as a shred of it held together. The native Californians nick-named them "calzonares blancos" (white breeches), and imposed upon them when an opportunity offered. The story is told of a native Californian alcalde or justice of the peace who had his office near the old mis- sion church of San Luis Obispo. When a band of these Sonoran pilgrims came along the high- way which led past the old mission, they inva- riably stopped at the church to make the sign of the cross and to implore the protection of the saints. This gave the alcalde his oppor- tunity. Stationing his alguaciles or constables on the road to bar their progress, he proceeded to collect fifty cents toll off each pilgrim. If word was passed back to the squads behind and they attempted to avoid the toll-gatherer by a detour to the right or left, the alcalde sent out his mounted constables and rounded up the poor Sonorans like so many cattle at a rodeo, then he and his alguaciles committed highway rob- bery on a small scale. Retributive justice over- took this unjust judge. The vigilantes hanged him, not, however, for tithing the Sonorese, but for horse stealing.
The Sonoran migration began to decline after 1850, and entirely ceased a year or two later. The foreign miner's tax and their persecution by the Americans convinced the Sonorans that there was no place like home. So they went home and stayed there.
A route by which a number of immigrants from Texas and some of the other gulf states came in 1849 led through the northern states of Mexico until it intercepted the Sonora trail and then by that to Los Angeles.
The old Santa Fe trail to New Mexico, then across Arizona, following the Gila to the Colo- rado river, was another southern route by which a great deal of overland travel reached South-
ern California. In 1854, from actual count, it was ascertained that 9,075 persons came by that route. About one-fourth of the 61,000 overland immigrants who came to the state that year reached it by the southern routes. But the route by which the majority of the Argonauts of '49 and the early '50s reached Southern California led south from Salt Lake City until it inter- cepted the great Spanish trail from Los Angeles to Santa Fé at the southern end of Utah Lake. Immigrants by this route, crossing the Colorado desert, reached the San Bernardino valley through the Cajon pass. Capt. Jedediah S. Smith, in 1826, was the first white man to reach Los Angeles by this trail. There was consid- erable trade and travel between Santa Fé and Los Angeles over the old Spanish trail before the conquest of California. The early immigra- tion from New Mexico came by this route. By it came J. J. Warner, William Wolfskill, the Rowland-Workman party, numbering forty-four persons ; B. D. Wilson, D. W. Alexander, John Reed, Dr. John Marsh and many other pioneers.
For several years before the conquest, on ac- count of the hostility of the Indians, this trail had been little used, and to the great many of the Argonauts who crossed the plains in 1849 it was unknown. The belated immigrants of that year who reached Salt Lake too late to cross the Sierra Nevadas had the alternative present- ed them of wintering with the Saints or of find- ing a southern route into California and thus evading the fate that befell the Donner party in the snows of the Sierras. These delayed Argo- nauts found a Mormon captain, Jefferson Hunt, late captain of Company A of the Mormon Bat- talion, who had recently arrived in Salt Lake by this southern route. He was engaged as a guide. A train of about 500 wagons started in November, 1849, for Southern California. After several weeks' travel, a number of the immi- grants having become dissatisfied with Hunt's leadership, and hearing that there was a shorter route to the settlements than the train was pur- suing, seceded from the main body and struck out westward across the desert. After traveling for several days together, they disagreed. Some returned to the main body; the others broke up into small parties and took different directions.
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
One of these parties, numbering eleven persons, penetrated Death valley and all perished. An- other, after incredible hardships and after losing several of their number on the desert, reached Los Angeles by the Soledad pass. Another com- pany, after weeks of wandering and suffering, reached the Tulare valley, where they were re- lieved by the Indians. The main body, with but little inconvenience, arrived in San Ber- nardino valley the last of January, 1850.
After the establishment of the Mormon colony at San Bernardino, in June, 1851, the Salt Lake route became a well-traveled road, over which, up to the completion of the Union Pacific Rail- road in 1869, a large amount of freight and travel passed between the City of the Saints and the City of the Angels. By this route came a number of the pioneer American families of Los Angeles. Among others may be named the Macys, Andersons, Workmans, Ulyards, Haz- ards, Montagues.
OX CARTS, STAGES AND STEAMERS.
San Pedro was, in 1850, as it had been for more than half a century before, the entrepot through which the commerce of the Los Angeles district passed. It was, next to San Francisco, the principal seaport of the coast. In the early 'sos all the trade and travel up and down the coast came and went by sea. No stage lines had been established in the lower coast counties. In 1848, and for several years after, the only means of getting to the city from the port and vice versa was on horseback. A caballada (band) of horses was kept in pasture on the Palos Verdes for this purpose.
In 1849 Temple & Alexander had a general merchandise store at San Pedro, and did about all the forwarding business of the port. Goods were freighted to Los Angeles in carts drawn by two yoke of oxen yoked by the horns. The carts were similar to the Mexican carretas, ex- cept that they had spoked and tired wheels in- stead of solid ones. A regular freight train was composed of ten carts and forty oxen. Freight charges were $20 a ton. In 1852 stages were put on the route by Banning & Alexander. Tom- linson put on an opposition line, and in 1853 B. A. Townsend was running an accommoda-
tion line between the city and the port and ad- vertising in the Star, "Good coaches and teams as the county will afford." The stage fare was at first $10, then $7.50, dropped to $5, and as opposition increased went down to $1, and as the rivalry grew keener passengers were car- ried free.
The first steamer that ever entered the bay of San Pedro was the Gold Hunter, which an- chored in the port in 1849. She was a side- wheel vessel which had made the voyage from San Francisco to Mazatlan, stopping at way ports.
The Gold Hunter was followed by the steam- ers Ohio, Southerner, Sea Bird and Goliah in 1850 and 1851. In 1853 the Sea Bird was mak- ing three trips a month between San Francisco and San Diego, touching at Monterey, Santa Barbara and San Pedro. The price of a first- class passage from San Pedro to San Francisco in the early '5os was $55. The bill of fare con- sisted of salt beef, hard bread, potatoes and cof- fee without milk or sugar. Freight charges were $25 a ton. It cost $10 to transport a barrel of flour from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The trip occupied four days. The way ports were Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Mon- terey. There were no wharves or lighters on the route; passengers and freight were landed in the steamer's boats. If the sea was very rough the passengers were carried to San Fran- cisco and brought back on the return trip. Sometimes, when the tide was low, they had to be carried from the boat to the shore on the sailors' backs. The sailor, like the bronco, some- times bucked, and the passenger waded ashore. Both man and beast were somewhat uncertain "in the days of gold-the days of '49."
The imports by sea greatly exceeded the ex- ports. Cattle and horses, the principal products of the county, transported themselves to market. The vineyards along the river, principally within the city limits, were immensely profitable in the early '50s. There was but little fresh fruit in the country. Grapes, in San Francisco, retailed all the way from twenty-five to fifty cents a pound. The vineyards were cultivated by In- dian labor. About all that it cost the vineyardist for labor was the amount of aguardiente that it
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
took to give the Indian his regular Saturday night drunk. So the grape crop was about all profit.
FIRST STATE CENSUS.
The first state census of California was taken in 1852. According to this census the county had a total population of 7,831, divided as fol- lows :
Whites.
Males
2,496
Females
1,597
Total
4,093
Domesticated Indians.
Males
2,278
Females
1,415
Total
3,693
The cattle numbered 113,475; horses, 12,173; wheat produced, 34,230 bushels; barley, 12,120
bushels; corn, 6,934 bushels. Number of acres under cultivation, 5,587; grape vines, 450,000, of which 400,000 were within the city. This was before any portion of the county had been segregated. Its limits extended from San Juan Capistrano on the south to the Tulares on the north, and from the sea to the Colorado river; of its 34,000 square miles, less than nine square miles were cultivated, and yet it had been settled for three-quarters of a century.
During the '50s the county grew slowly. Land was held in large tracts and cattle-raising con- tinued to be the principal industry. At the El Monte several families from the southwestern states had formed a small settlement and were raising grain, principally corn. The Mormons, at San Bernardino, were raising corn, wheat, barley and vegetables, and selling them at a good price. One season they received as high as $5 a bushel for their wheat.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
GROWTH OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY AND CITY IN WEALTH AND POPULATION.
U NDER the rule of Spain and Mexico there was no assessment of real estate and personal property for the purpose of taxa- tion. Tariff on goods imported, fines for drunken- ness and other vices, licenses for dances, for saloons, for stores, for cock pits, bull rings and such afforded the revenues for municipal ex- penses. Men's pleasures and vices paid for the cost of governing. The pueblo's expenses were light. The only salaried officials in the old pueblo days were the secretary of the ayuntamiento, or town council, and the schoolmaster. The highest salary paid the secretary was $40 per month. The schoolmaster's pay was fixed at $15 per month. If he asked for more he lost his job. The largest municipal revenue collected in one year by the syndico of the pueblo was $1,000. The syndico and the alcalde received fees for their services. All this was changed when the Americans took possession of the offices; and they were not
backward in coming forward when there were offices to fill. In the first list of county officers the names of only two native Californians ap- pear-Don Agustin Olvera, county judge, and Don Antonio F. Coronel, county assessor. Coro- nel was elected assessor at the first county elec- tion, held April 1, 1850. As nine-tenths of the residents of the newly created county of Los Angeles understood the Spanish language only, it was highly necessary to have some one who spoke their language to explain to them the new system of taxation introduced by the con- querors.
If Don Antonio made an assessment for the year 1850 I have been unable to find any record of it. The first report of the amount of the county assessment that I have found is that for 1851, in which the wealth of the county is esti- mated at $2,882,949. The first county assess- ment roll in existence is one made by Don An-
252
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
tonio F. Coronel in 1852. It is written on un- ruled sheets of Spanish foolscap pasted together into leaves two feet long and stitched into a book of 34 pages, covered with blue calico. This one book constituted the entire assessment roll for that year. The following are the principal items of that assessment :
Number of acres assessed. 1,505,180
Value of real estate .. $ 748,606
Value of improvements. 301,947
Value of personal property . 1,183,898
Total $2,234,45I
The county at that time contained over thirty million acres and only one in twenty was as- sessed. The average value was less than fifty cents per acre. The county then extended from San Juan Capistrano on the south to Tehachapi on the north, and from the Pacific ocean to the Colorado river. Don Antonio's district exceeded in extent the aggregate area of five New Eng- land states. By far the larger part of its in- habitants were "Indians not taxed." It is not probable that Don Antonio traveled over the vast territory of the thinly populated county. Los Angeles was the only city in the county and doubtless the inhabitants, like those in the days of old, when Herod was reducing the infant population of Judea, "went up to the city to be taxed." The assessment roll for 1853 footed up $3,030,131, which showed a rapid rise in values or that Don Antonio was becoming more expert in finding property. The assessor's report for the fiscal year ending November 29, 1856, is the first one in which the city valuation is segre- gated from the county :
Total number of acres in the county
assessed 1,003,930
Value of county real estate .. $ 402,219
Value of county improvements. 230,336
Value of city real estate 187,582
Value of city improvements. 457,535
Value of personal property. 1,213,079
Total $2,490,75I
San Bernardino county had been cut off from Los Angeles at this time and had evidently taken
away half a million acres of assessable land from the parent county. The value of county real estate had dropped to forty cents per acre.
The assessment for 1866 was as follows:
Total value of real estate and im-
provements $1,149,267 Total value of personal property. 1,204,125
Total $2,353,392
Comparing the assessment of 1866 with that of 1856 it will be seen that not only was there no increase in the property values of the county in ten years, but actually a falling off of over $140,000. This is accounted for by the great loss of stock during the famine years of 1863-64.
The county assessment for 1864 was $1,622,- 370, about two millions less than the assessment of 1862. This represents the loss in cattle, horses and sheep during the great drought of two years when the rainfall was not sufficient to sprout the grass seeds. The greatest financial depression the county has ever known occurred during these years. The people after the loss of their stock had nothing that they could sell. Land had no value. A judgment for $4,070 on account of delinquent taxes of 1863 was entered up against the richest man in the county and all his real estate and personal property advertised for sale at public auction December 12, 1864. The magnificent Rancho de Los Alamitos, con- taining over 26,000 acres, was advertised for sale on account of unpaid taxes, amounting in all to $152. The Bolsas Chico, containing nearly 9,000 acres "on which there is due and unpaid the sum of $27.34, I have this day levied on and shall sell all the right, title and interest of the defendant for cash, to the highest bidder in gold and silver coin of the United States," so said the sheriff's advertisement. But, of all the vast possessions of the great cattle barons advertised for sale on account of unpaid taxes forty-two years ago, the least valued parcel then is the most valuable now. This consisted of four Ord survey lots, 120x165 feet each, located respect- ively on the northwest and southwest corners of Main and Fifth, the southwest corner of Spring and the southeast corner of Fort street, now Broadway, and Fourth street. These magnifi-
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
cent business corners, worth to-day two million dollars, were offered at sheriff's sale December 12, 1864, for the beggarly sum of $2.52 un- paid taxes and there were no takers. The tax on each lot was sixty-three cents and the as- sessed value about twenty-five cents a front foot or $30 a lot.
The county recovered slowly from the great disaster of the famine years. It was six years before the county assessments equaled the amount of that of the years preceding the great drought. The subdivision of the great ranchos which induced immigration was largely instru- mental in causing the return of prosperity to the financially depressed county. Sheep husbandry succeeded the cattle industry and in the closing years of the '6os was very profitable.
The second great drought which occurred in 1877 put a check upon this industry from which it never recovered. The loss to the shepherd kings of the county was over a million dollars. Some of the great land holders who had held their ranchos intact subdivided them after the last great drought. For thirty years the growth of the county in population and wealth has been uninterrupted by any great disaster.
During the great real estate boom of 1887-88 property values increased $62,000,000 in two years. The county assessment made in March, 1886, before inflation began, gave the wealth of the county at $40,091,820; that of March, 1888, made before reaction commenced, was $102,701,629. Never in the world's history did people grow rich so rapidly. In 1890, when financial depression had reached its deepest depth, adding the value of the property taken from the roll by the segregation of Orange county the assessment showed that the county was still worth $82,000,000, a contraction of $20,000,000 in values in two years.
From 1890 to the close of the century there was a slow but steady increase in wealth averag- ing about two millions a year. The assessment is not an infallible index of true values. Asses- sors are sometimes incompetent and state boards of equalization are not always impartial in equal- izing the burthens of taxation.
The most rapid permanent increase in values has been during the beginning years of the pres-
ent century. The county assessment, as will be seen by the accompanying table, has increased from $100,000,000 in 1900 to $305,000,000 in 1906. An increase of over three hundred per- cent. This is largely due to the rapid growth of the cities and towns in the county. Thou- sands of acres of farming land have been cut up into city lots and selling value advanced in some cases a thousand per cent.
During the years of the present century, judg- ing from the county assessment returns, the people have grown rich almost as rapidly as they did in the booming days of the later '8os. In the March, 1900, assessment the county's wealth was estimated at $100,136,070. Five years later, March, 1905, it footed up $232,610,753, an increase of 132 per cent in half a decade. The assessment for March, 1906, is $305,302,995, an increase of over 30 per cent in one year.
A study of the annexed table will show fairly well the periods of prosperity and adversity through which Los Angeles has passed in the fifty-five years since the county was created. In some instances, however, the sudden rise in the assessed valuation is not due to a rapid increase in the county's wealth, but to the incompetency of the individual or individuals making the as- sessment. For instance, the assessment of 1896 showed an increase of $15,000,000 over that of 1905, while the assessment of 1897 showed a loss of $7,000,000 as compared with 1896. No such fluctuation really occurred. The following table gives the county assessment at different periods from 1851 to 1906, both inclusive :
Year.
Total County Assess- ment, Including Rail- road Assessment.
1851
$ 2,282,949
1852
2,234,45I
1853
3,030,13I
1856
2,490,750
1858
2,370,523
186
3,650,330
1864
1,622,370
1867
2,556,083
1868
3,764,045
1869
5,797,17I
1870
6,918,074
1871
6,358,022
1872
9,147,073
254
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
Total County Assess- ment, Including Rail- road Assessment.
stroke of economy to get along without an assess- ment.
The following gives the city assessments from 1860 to 1906, both inclusive:
Year.
Total Assessment for Each Fiscal Year.
1860-61
$ 1,425,648
1861-62
1,299,719
1882
20,916,835
1862-63
1,098,469
1883
26,138,117
1863-64
878,718
1885
35,344,483
1865-66
989,413
1886
40,091,820
1866-67
1,271,290
1888
102,701,629
1868-69
2,108,061
1890
69,475,025
1870-71
1891
82,616,577
1871-72
2,134,093
1892
82,839,924
1872-73
4,191,996
1893
77,244,050
1873-74
3,816,679
1894
79,495,921
1874-75
4,589,746
1895
84,797,196
1875-76
5,935,219
1896
99,520,61I
1876-77
5,291,148
1897
92,580,978
1877-78
5,871,881
1898
93,256,089
1878-79
5,947,580
1899
98,391,783
1879-80
6,871,913
1900
100,136,070
1880-81
7,259,598
1901
103,328,904
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