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 43
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The ayuntamiento chose the last proposition- the president prophetically remarking that the
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time might come in the future when the lots alone would be worth $3,000. The money to pay for the survey was borrowed from Juan Temple, at the rate of one per cent a month, and lots pledged as security for payment. The time has come and passed when a single front foot of an Ord survey has sold for $3,000.
The ayuntamiento also decided that there should be embodied in the map a plan of all the lands actually under cultivation, from the principal dam down to the last cultivated field below. "As to the lots that should be shown on the map, they should begin at the cemetery and end with the house of Botiller (near Ninth street). As to the commonalty lands of this city, the surveyor should determine the four points of the compass, and, taking the parish church for a center, measure two leagues in each cardinal direction. These lines will bisect the four sides of a square within which the lands of the municipality will be contained, the area of the same being sixteen square leagues, and each side of the square measuring four leagues."* (The claims commission reduced the city's area in 1856 to just one-fourth these dimensions.)
Lieutenant Ord, assisted by William R. Hut- ton, completed his Plan de la Ciudad de Los An- geles, August 29, 1849. He divided into blocks all that portion of the city bounded north by First street, and the base of the first line of hills, east by Main street, south by Twelfth street, and west by Pearl street (now Figueroa), and into lots all of the above to Eighth street ; also into lots and blocks that portion of the city north of Short street and west of Upper Main (San Fernando) to the base of the hills. On the "plan" the lands between Main street and the river are designated as "plough grounds, gar- dens, corn and vine lands." The streets in the older portion of the city are marked on the map, but not named. The blocks, except the tier be- tween First and Second streets, are each 600 feet in length, and are divided into ten lots, each 120 feet by 165 feet deep. Ord took his com- pass course for the line of Main street, south 24° 45' west, from the corner opposite José An- tonio Carrillo's house, which stood where the Pico house or National hotel now stands. On
his map Main, Spring and Fort (now Broadway) streets ran in parallel straight lines southerly to Twelfth street.
The names of the streets on Ord's plan are given in both Spanish and English. Beginning with Main street, they are as follows: Calle Principal, Main street; Calle Primavera, Spring street (named for the season spring) ; Calle Fortin, Fort street (so named because the street extended would pass through the old fort on the hill) ; Calle Loma, Hill street; Calle Accytuna, Olive street ; Calle de Caridad, the street of char- ity (now Grand avenue) ; Calle de Las Esperan- zas, the street of hopes; Calle de Las Flores, the street of flowers; Calle de Los Chapules, the street of grasshoppers (now South Figueroa street ).
Above the plaza church the north and south streets were the Calle de Eternidad (Eternity street, so named because it had neither beginning nor end, or, rather, because each end terminated in the hills) ; Calle del Toro (street of the bull, so named because the upper end of the street terminated at the Carrida de Toro-the bull ring, where bull-fights were held) ; Calle de Las Avispas (street of the hornets or wasps, a very lively street at times) ; Calle de Los Adobes, Adobe street. The east and west streets were: Calle Corta, Short street ; Calle Alta, High street ; Calle de Las Virgines (street of virgins) ; Calle del Colegio (street of the college, the only street north of the church that retains its primitive name). Spring street was known as Calle de Caridad (the street of charity) at the time of the American conquest. The town then was centered around the plaza, and Spring street was well out in the suburbs. Its inhabitants in early times were of the poorer classes, who were largely dependent on the charity of their wealthier neigh- bors around the plaza. It is part of an old road made more than a century ago. On Ord's "plan" this road is traced northwestward from the junc- tion of Spring and Main. It follows the present line of North Spring street to First street, then crosses the blocks bounded by Spring, Broad- way, First and Third street diagonally to the corner of Third street and Broadway. It inter- sects Hill at Fourth street and Olive at Fifth street ; skirting the hills, it passes out of the city
*City Archives.
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near Ninth street to the Brea Springs, from which the colonists obtained the roofing material for their adobe houses. This road was used for many years after the American occupation, and was recognized as a street in conveyances. Ord evidently transferred Spring street's original name, "La Caridad," to one of his western streets which was a portion of the old road.
. Main street, from the junction south, in 1846 was known as Calle de la Allegria-Junction street; Los Angeles street was the Calle Prin- cipal, or Main street. Whether the name had been transferred to the present Main street be- fore Ord's survey I have not been able to ascer- tain. In the early years of the century Los Angeles street was known as the Calle de la Zanja (Ditch street). Later on it was some- times called Calle de Los Viñas (Vineyard street), and with its continuation the Calle de Los Huertos (Orchard street)-now San Pedro-formed the principal highway running southward to the embarcadero of San Pedro.
Of the historic streets of Los Angeles that have disappeared before the march of improve- ments none perhaps was so widely known in early days as the one called Calle de Los Negros in Castilian Spanish, but Nigger alley in vulgar United States. Whether its ill-omened name was given from the dark hue of the dwellers on it or from the blackness of the deeds done in it the records do not tell. Before the American conquest it was a respectable street, and some of the wealthy rancheros dwelt on it, but it was not then known as Nigger alley. It gained its unsavory reputation and name in the flush days of gold mining, between 1849 and 1856. It was a short, narrow street or alley, extending from the upper end of Los Angeles street at Arcadia to the plaza. It was at that time the only street except Main entering the plaza from the south. In length it did not exceed 500 feet, but in wick- edness it was unlimited. On either side it was lined with saloons, gambling hells, dance houses and disreputable dives. It was a cosmopolitan street. Representatives of different races and many nations frequented it. Here the ignoble red man, crazed with aguardiente, fought his battles, the swarthy Sonoran plied his stealthy dagger and the click of the revolver mingled
with the clink of gold at the gaming table when some chivalric American felt that his word of "honah" has been impugned.
The Calle de Los Negros in the early '50S, when the deaths from violence in Los Angeles were of almost daily occurrence, was the central point from which the wickedness of the city radiated.
With the decadence of gold mining the char- acter of the street changed, but its morals were not improved by the change. It ceased to be the rendezvous of the gambler and the des- perado and became the center of the Chinese quarter of the city. Carlyle says the eighteenth century blew its brains out in the French Revo- lution. Nigger alley might be said to have blown its brains out, if it had any, in the Chinese massacre of 1871. That dark tragedy of our city's history, in which eighteen Chinamen were hanged by a mob, occurred on this street. It was the last of the many tragedies of the Calle de Los Negros; the extension of Los Angeles street, in 1886, wiped it out of existence, or so nearly that there is not enough of it left to be wicked.
The Calle del Toro was another historic street with a mixed reputation. Adjoining this street, near where the French hospital now stands, was located the Plaza de Los Toros. Here on fete days the sport-loving inhabitants of Los An- geles and the neighborhood round about gath- ered to witness that national amusement of Mexico and old Spain-the corida de toros (bull fights). And here, too, when a grizzly bear could be obtained from the neighboring moun- tains, were witnessed those combats so greatly enjoyed by the native Californians-bull and bear baiting. There were no humanitarian soci- eties in those days to prohibit this cruel pastime. Macauley says the Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because of the pleasure it gave tlie spectators-all pleas- ure, from their ascetic standpoint, being con- sidered sinful. The bear had no friends among the Californians to take his part from any mo- tive. It was death to poor bruin, whether he was victor or vanquished ; but the bull sometimes made it uncomfortable for his tormentors. The Los Angeles Star of December 18, 1858, de-
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scribes this occurrence at one of these bull fights on the Calle del Toro: "An infuriated bull broke through the inclosure and rushed at the af- frighted spectators. A wild panic ensued. Don Felipe Lugo spurred his horse in front of the furious bull. The long horns of the maddened animal were plunged into the horse. The gallant steed and his daring rider went down in the dust. The horse was instantly killed, but the rider escaped unhurt. Before the bull could rally for another charge half a dozen bullets from the ready revolvers of the spectators put an end to his existence."
The Plaza de Los Toros has long since been obliterated, and Bull street became Castelar more than a third of a century ago.
Previous to 1847 there was but one street opening out from the plaza to the northward, and that was the narrow street known to old residents as Bath street, since widened and ex- tended, and now called North Main street. The committee that had charge of the "squaring of the plaza" projected the opening of another street to the north. It was the street known as Upper Main, now called San Fernando. This street was cut through the old cuartel or guard- house, built in 1785, which stood on the south- eastern side of the Plaza vieja, or old Plaza, laid out by Governor Felipe de Neve when he founded the pueblo. Upper Main street opened into the Calle Real, or Main street, which was one of de Neve's original streets opening out from the old plaza to the northeast.
Ord's survey or plan left some of the houses in the old parts of the city in the middle of the streets and others were cut off from frontage. The city council labored long to adjust property lines to the new order of things. Finally, in 1854, an ordinance was passed allowing prop- erty owners to claim frontages to the streets nearest their houses.
Under Mexican domination the transition of Los Angeles from a pueblo to a ciudad had made no change in the laws and customs of its people. For three years and a half following the American conquest the new rulers of Cali-
fornia continued the old forms of government, but a change was coming to the old pueblo. The legislature of California had made it a city and had provided for it a new form of govern- ment. The common council was to supplant the ayuntamiento. For nearly three score years and ten under the rule of Spain and her daughter Mexico the ayuntamiento had been the law- maker of the pueblo. Generations had grown to manhood and had passed out of existence under its domination. Monarchy, empire and repub- lic had ruled the territory, had loosened their hold and lost their power, but through all the ayuntamiento had held its sway. Now, too, it must go. Well might the old-time Angeleño heave a sigh of regret at the downfall of that bulwark of his liberty, "muy illustre ayunta- miento."
The following is a copy of the act of incor- poration passed by the state legislature April 4, 1850:
AN ACT to incorporate the City of Los Angeles.
The People of the State of California, repre- sented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as fol- lows :
Section I. All that tract of land included within the limits of the Pueblo de Los Angeles, as heretofore known and acknowledged, shall henceforth be known as the City of Los Angeles, and the said City is hereby declared to be incor- porated according to the provisions of the Act entitled "An Act to provide for the Incorpora- tion of Cities," approved March 18, 1850. Pro- vided, however, that if such limits include more than four square miles, the Council shall, within three months after they are elected and qualified, fix by ordinance the limits of the City, not to in- clude more than said quantity of land, and the boundaries so determined shall thenceforthi be the boundaries of the City.
Section 2. The number of Councilmen shall be seven; the first election of City officers shall be held on the second Monday of May next.
Section 3. The Corporation created by this Act shall succeed to all the rights, claims, and powers of the Pueblo de Los Angeles in regard to property, and shall be subject to all the liabili- ties incurred and obligations created by the Ayun- tamiento of said Pueblo.
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CHAPTER XL.
LOS ANGELES CITY-Continued.
THE EVOLUTION OF A METROPOLIS.
I N the previous chapter I have quoted in full the act to incorporate Los Angeles as a city. It will be noticed that the act provides that "all that tract of land included within the Pueblo de Los Angeles as heretofore known and ac- knowledged shall henceforth be known as the City of Los Angeles." Section 3 of an "Act to provide for the incorporation of cities," passed March 11, 1850, limited the area of a city to four square miles. Evidently the legislators of the fall of '49 and spring of '50 did not take into con- sideration the possibilities of the growth of Cali- fornia cities.
The Pueblo of Los Angeles had begun busi- ness in 1781 with four square leagues, or about twenty-seven square miles, and, as previously stated, the year (1834) before it was raised to the dignity of a ciudad by the Mexican Congress, the Departmental Assembly had expanded its boundaries to include sixteen square leagues, or over one hundred square miles. A provision in the act of incorporation of 1850 gave the council three months in which to pare down the limits of the city to the standard fixed by the legislature- four square miles.
Two nations by legislative decrees had made a city of Los Angeles. Yet it was not much of a city after all. Within its bounds there was not a graded street, a sidewalk, a water pipe or a public building of any kind belonging to the municipality.
The first city election under its American in- corporation was held July 1, 1850. The officers elected were: A. P. Hodges, mayor (who also held the office of county coroner) ; Francisco Figueroa, treasurer; A. F. Coronel, city asses- sor (also county assessor) ; Samuel Whiting, city marshal (also county jailer).
The first common council met July 3, 1850, and the first record of its doings reads thus :
"Messrs. David W. Alexander, Alexander Bell, Manuel Requena, Juan Temple, Morris L. Good- man, Cristobal Aguilar and Julian Chavez took the oath of office in conformity with Section 3, Article XI, of the state constitution, before Jona- than R. Scott (justice of the peace), and en- tered upon the discharge of their duties as mem- bers of the common council of this city, to which office they had been elected by the people on the first day of this month." David W. Alexander was elected president and Vicente del Campo secretary. The members had been sworn to support the constitution of the State of Califor- nia, and yet there was no state. California had not been admitted as a state of the Union. It had taken upon itself the function of a state. The legislature had made counties and cities and provided for their organization and government, and a governor elected by the people had ap- proved the acts of the legislature. The state government was a political nondescript. It had sloughed off its territorial condition, but it could not become a state until congress admitted it into the Union and the slave-holding faction of that body would not let it in.
The first common council of the city was a patriotic and self-denying body. The first reso- lution passed was as follows: "It having been observed that in other places the council mem- bers were drawing a salary, it was unanimously resolved that the members of this council shall receive neither salary nor fees of whatsoever na- ture for discharging their duties as such." But some of them wearied of serving an ungrateful public and taking their pay in honor. Before six- ty days had passed two had resigned, and at the end of the year only two of the original members, David W. Alexander and Manuel Requena, were left. There had been six resignations in eight months; and the first council had thirteen dif- ferent members during its short existence.
The seven members elected to the first council,
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with the exception of Alexander Bell, had been either native born or naturalized citizens of Mex- ico, but the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made them citizens of the United States. The coun- cil re-enacted many of the ordinances of the old ayuntamiento and enacted some new ones to suit the conditions then existing in the city. I append a few to illustrate the issues with which our first legislators had to contend when Los Angeles became an American city :
Art. Ist. The city's prisoners shall be formed in a chain-gang and occupied in public works.
Art. 2nd. All city prisoners must be sentenced within two days.
Art. 3rd. When the city has no work in which to employ the chain-gang the recorder shall, by means of notices conspicuously posted, notify the public that such and such a number of prisoners will be turned over to the highest bidder for priv- ate service, and in that manner they shall be dis- posed of for a sum which shall not be less than the amount of their fine and for double the time which they were to serve out at hard labor.
Art. 6th. Every citizen of the corporation shall as a duty, sweep in front of his habitation on Saturdays, as far as the middle of the street, or at least eight varas.
Art. 7th. No filth shall be thrown into zanjas (canals) carrying water for common use, nor into the streets of the city, nor shall any cattle be slaughtered in the same.
Art. 9th. Every owner of a store or tavern, and every person that lives in a house of more than two rooms facing to the street shall put a light at the door of said house during the first two hours of every dark night.
Art. 10th. Every shop or tavern shall close in winter at eight o'clock and in summer at nine o'clock at night.
Art. 12th. The washing of clothes in the zan- jas which furnish water for common use is pro- hibited.
Art. 13th. Whosoever shall walk the streets in a scandalous attire or molest the neighbors with yells or in any other manner, shall be taken to jail, if the hour be late for business or the of- fender be intoxicated, and afterwards at the proper hour, or when again sober, the recorder shall impose a fine of not less than ten dollars, nor more than twenty-five, which must be paid on the spot, otherwise the offender shall be sent to the chain-gang, for the space of from ten to twenty-five days.
Art. 14th. The same penalty shall be imposed for playing cards in the street, regardless of the kind of game, likewise for playing any other
game of the kind played in houses that are pay- ing a tax for the privilege. If he be an Indian he shall pay a fine of three to five dollars or be imprisoned eight days in the chain-gang.
In the original draft of the ordinance, Article 2 prohibited "the carrying of firearms or blank arms" within the city limits, and Article 3 pro- hibited the discharge of the same, "except in de- fense of home and property." At a subsequent meeting the committee on police reported that it found "that the second and third articles, al- though they were useful, were difficult to enforce ; it has withdrawn the same and today submits in lieu thereof others which it deems more expe- dient." These are Articles I and 2, quoted above, and relate to the sentencing of prisoners and their sale to the highest bidder. The police evidently found it healthier and more lucrative to capture and sell drunken Indians for revenue than to cap- ture white desperadoes for carrying guns or col- lect fines from them for shooting up the town.
The following "Ordinance Relative to Public Washing," adopted March 27, 1852, illustrates a phase of domestic economy in early days that has long since disappeared. In the early '50S there was no system of water distribution ex- cept the Indian and his water buckets. To have carried enough water from the river to do the family washing would have been a stupendous undertaking for the lazy Indian. So the "wash" instead was carried to the canal that runs from the "little river."
"All persons," so reads the ordinance, "who may find it necessary to wash articles of any kind near the habitable portions of the city will do it in the water canal that runs from the little river, but will be bound to place their board or washer on the outer edge of the border of the canal, by which means, although they use the water, yet the washings from the dirty articles are not per- mitted, under any pretence, to again mix with the water intended for drinking purposes.
"The infraction of this ordinance will subject the delinquent to a fine which shall not pass three dollars, at the discretion of the mayor.
"B. D. WILSON,
"MANUEL REQUENA, Mayor.
"(Pres. of the Common Council.)"
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At the time this ordinance was adopted there was an island of considerable size in the river between the old Aliso road and First street. The portion of the river channel running on the west- ern side of the island was known as the "little river."
The most difficult task the members of that first common council had before them was the Americanizing of the people of the old ciudad. The population of the town and the laws were in a chaotic state. It was an arduous and thankless task that these old-time municipal legislators had to perform-that of evolving order out of the chaos that had been brought about by the change of nations as rulers. The native population nei- ther understood the language, the laws nor the customs of their rulers, and the newcomers among the Americans had very little toleration for the slow-going Mexican ways and methods they found prevailing in the city. To keep peace be- tween the various factions required more tact than knowledge of law or lawmaking in the legislator. Fortunately, the first council was made up of level-headed men.
The Indian was one of the disturbing elements that worried the city fathers; not the wild ones of the mountains who raided the ranchos and stole the rancheros' horses and cattle and were shot on sight, but the ex-neophytes of the mis- sions. The mission Indians constituted the labor element of the city and country. When sober they were harmless and were fairly good labor- ers, but in their drunken orgies they became veritable fiends, and the usual result of their Sat- urday night revels was a dead Indian or two on Sunday morning; and all the others, old and young, male and female, were dead drunk. They were gathered up on Sunday after their carousal and carted off to a corral. On Monday they were sentenced to hard labor for varying terms. At first they worked in the city chain gang on the streets, but the supply became too great and the council passed an ordinance (given else- where in this chapter), authorizing the auction- ing of them off to private parties for double the amount of their fine. Evidently auctioning In- dians to the highest bidders paid the city quite a revenue, for at a subsequent meeting, after
the passing of the above-named ordinance, the recorder or police judge was authorized to pay the Indian alcaldes or chiefs the sum of one real (twelve and a half cents) out of every fine collected from Indians the said alcaldes may bring to the recorder for trial. A month or so later the recorder presented a bill of $15, the amount of money he had paid the alcaldes out of fines. At the rate of eight Indians to the dol- lar the alcaldes had evidently gathered up a hun- dred and twenty poor Los.
The whipping post was used to instill lessons of honesty and morality into the Indian. One court record reads: "Chino Valencia (Indian) was fined $50 and twenty-five lashes for stealing a pair of shears; the latter fine (the lashes) was paid in full; for the former he stands committed to the chain-gang for two months." At the same session of the court Vicente Guero, a white man, was fined $30 for selling liquor to the Indians- "fine paid and defendant discharged." Drunken- ness, immorality and epidemics, civilization's gift to the aborigines, settled the Indian question in the old pueblo-settled it by exterminating the In- dian.
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