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 56
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The Terminal Company changed the uncanny name of the island to the unmeaning one of Terminal Island, a name it still bears, although the company long since disposed of its road and the island. The island was given its warn- ing name, Isla de culebra de cascabel (Isle of the rattlesnake) on account of the great number of the genus crotalus horridas on the island in the early times. The natural increase of the reptile was occasionally augmented by immi- gration. The winter freshets sometimes wash- ed the rattlers out of their lairs in the moun- tains and the rush of the current of the San
*Report of the Harbor Commissioners, November 1. 1913.
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Gabriel river brought them down to the ocean and landed them at the island. As this branch of the ophidian family is not given to naviga- tion they remained on the island.
The Terminal railroad was transferred to a new corporation called the San Pedro, Los An- geles & Salt Lake road. The ostensible pur- pose of this organization was, as it was some- times tersely put, "to unite the City of the Angels with the City of the Saints." Senator Clark of Montana was the head of and the principal financial backer of the movement. The line of the road was via Riverside, the Cajon pass and the old emigrant trail to Salt Lake City.
While it was building there were various conjectures as to what it was to be-the ocean terminal of the Union Pacific, the Denver & Rio Grande or possibly of a new transcontinen- tal line. After many delays and disasters by flood the road was completed in 1905. It was then found that it was not a competing line. The Southern Pacific Company owned a con- trolling interest in it and the isle of the ophidian had passed to Huntington with all its harbor frontage. The harbor war that had been waged with virulence but without bloodshed for seven years ended as many another war has ended without victory to either contestant.
CHAPTER XLIX
THE PORT OF LOS ANGELES
Throughout the Spanish and Mexican re- gimes Los Angeles was the only municipality in California that ranked as a city. Being an inland town, it never received the notice from travelers (nearly all of whom came to the territory by sea) that San Diego and Mon- terey did, and consequently figured but little in the accounts of travels and voyages.
After the discovery of gold, San Francisco, but little known before, came to the front and soon became the largest city on the coast. As we have learned previously from the state- ment of revenue collectors and from the re- ports of United States Engineers Bache, Davidson and others, under American rule San Pedro held second place in the commerce of the coast, but Los Angeles, which fur- nished the commerce, did not receive the credit for that commerce. In reports it was credited to the local port, San Pedro, or more likely to San Diego and way ports. This practice of the steamship companies, in their reports published in the San Francisco pa- pers, called forth a vigorous protest from the old Chamber of Commerce. In the Los An- geles Herald of October, 1873, it published a series of resolutions vigorously protesting against the San Francisco papers accrediting all freight and passengers carried on steamers from the south "to San Diego and way ports."
In their resolutions the members of the Chamber demanded that the pursers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's boats fur- nish the San Francisco papers with freight and passenger lists headed from Los Angeles "instead of San Pedro, which is merely the port where the freight and passengers are transferred to the steamer."
The protest was not heeded and San Diego and way ports were still credited with the commerce of Los Angeles. In 1873, and for years before and afterwards, all steamers anchored out beyond Deadman's Island and tickets from San Francisco to passengers bound for Los Angeles read "to anchorage at San Pedro." This often led to misunder- standings and stormy protests from passen- gers on their first trip down who did not know the lay of the land. I have a very dis- tinct recollection of a heated discussion be- tween an Irish passenger and the captain of the old Senator on which I arrived at San Pedro October 10, 1869.
Banning's little tug, the Cricket, had come alongside the steamer and the gangplank had been run out. The passengers were ordered aboard the tug and each one assessed $1.50 for the voyage up the slough to Wilmington. The Exile of Erin was very vehement in his protest against "the robbery," as he termed it.
TIMMS & CO. COMMISSION & FORWARDING BUSINESS, SAN PEDRO.
5535
Los Angeles Harbor, 1915
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
"Yez agreed to land me ashore, and I'll stay on the boat till yez does." The captain cut the interview short with a peremptory order, "Get off my boat or I will have you thrown overboard." Muttering maledictions against the captain, the company and their system of robbery, the subdued passenger walked the plank.
In 1874 Congress changed the name of the port from San Pedro to Wilmington, "whereat there was great rejoicing at the harbor," says the Los Angeles Herald of April 10, 1874.
While this brought Wilmington to the front, it did not advertise Los Angeles as a seaport. The free harbor contest with its varying atti- tudes in the long-drawn-out contention be- tween the citizens and a monopoly had em- phasized the necessity of the city of Los An- geles controlling that harbor.
The most potent factor in arousing the people of Los Angeles to the necessity of owning and controlling the harbor of San Pedro was the construction of the Panama Canal. As that dream of the ages-the con- necting of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans- approached realization, the people of Califor- nia felt that there would be a commercial awakening all along the coast and every sea- port in the State would feel it. The attempt of the French government to construct a Pan- ama Canal scarcely caused a ripple of excite- ment on the Pacific coast and its failure was regarded with indifference. The people of California at that time were more interested in railroad building than in ocean commerce. When the United States government took hold of the scheme many an argonaut of '49 and the early '50s shook his head in doubt of the success of the project. He recalled the discomforts of the isthmus journey, the tor- rential rains, the Chagres fevers, the malaria- breeding mosquitoes, and the building of the Panama railroad with its tradition of a dead man to every tie of its fifty miles. The United States government would fail as France had done. To the man conversant with the history of the schemes of govern- ments, kings and corporations in the centuries past to tie two oceans together and sever two continents by a canal this last attempt would result in failure, too.
In the time of Philip II of Spain it was proposed to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Panama for the passage of ships from one ocean to the other, and two French engineers were sent to examine the place with that object in view. However, they found the obstacles insuperable, and the Council of the Indies at the same time represented to the king the injuries which such a canal would occasion to the monarchy, in consequence of which his majesty decreed that no one should in future attempt or even propose such an undertaking under pain of death.
With the downfall of Spain's domination in America, the project of constructing a canal was revived. Not only governments, but pri- vate corporations and capitalists, took an in- terest in it and figured on the possibility of the undertaking.
Alfred Robinson, author of "Life in Califor- nia," who came to the coast in 1829 and made a return trip to Boston via Panama in 1843, writing to his friend, Don Abel Stearns, of Los Angeles, says: "How pleased you would be to make a visit to your native country- your home! What a change you would find- what improvements! You will be enabled to come via Panama, or, rather, I should say, per canal. The Messrs. Baring & Co., of London, have made a contract with the 'Cen- tral Government' and in all probability the contract will be finished in five years; so at last the long-talked-of route through the isth- mus will finally be accomplished."
The Baring & Company's efforts at digging an isthmus canal never materialized beyond the signing of a contract; and seventy years instead of five passed before the first ship passed through the Panama Canal.
The early years of the present century were, in Los Angeles, and indeed largely so all over the coast, years of "frenzied finance." Money was plentiful, rates of interest low and stock-jobbing schemes "thick as leaves in Valambrosa." The Owens river project had been launched. The aqueduct waters would furnish almost unlimited power. All the pub- lic utilities would pass into the possession of the city and that cherishing mother would provide light and heat and water and trans- portation at a modicum of monopoly rates.
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Oil gushers were gushing lakes of petroleum ; oil projectors were projecting on the stock mar- ket oceans of stock in companies that had millions in them; investment companies were busily investing the spare coin of the frugal worker and paying him dividends not from earnings of the company, but from his own coin.
The promise of Los Angeles becoming a great manufacturing center and also a seaport necessitated either the removal of the harbor to the city or the city to the harbor. It was possible to build the city over the twenty miles of country intervening between its southern limits and the northern limits of the inner harbor, but it might take half a century to do it and no progressive people could afford to wait that long.
The towns of Wilmington and San Pedro owned harbor frontage; to control this Los Angeles must annex these, but annexed terri- tory must be contiguous and adjoining the city to which it was to be joined. The prob- lem was finally solved by extending from the southern limits of the city of Wilmington and San Pedro what is known as the "shoe- string strip"-a strip of land half a mile wide. The question of consolidation was solved by Wilmington by a vote of 107 to 61 at an election held August 4, 1909. The next move was to consolidate with San Pedro, which by the vote of Wilmington had become contiguous to Los Angeles. There was op- position to the consolidation. Many of the citizens of the smaller city were averse to being absorbed into the larger city. To lose their municipal identity, to surrender their hold on the harbor, to be governed virtually by a foreign power, was not complimentary to their civic pride.
The statesmen of Los Angeles visited them, pleaded with them, promised the great favors that would be showered upon them and prophesied the era of prosperity that was to come from the union. The election was held August 12, 1909, and the requisite two-thirds vote was cast in favor of consoli- dation, and thus the outer and the inner har- bors, with the swamp lands and the tide sands-Deadman's Island, Mormon Island and more than half of the isle of the ophidian, nee Rattlesnake Island, became a part of the City of the Angels. The vote on consolida-
tion in Los Angeles was practically unani- mous. Long Beach set up a claim for the greater part of Terminal Island, but the courts decided against the claim. Wilming- ton had voted to bond itself to the amount of $100,000 before consolidation to deepen its harbor and at the same time raise the city. For months it was a city on stilts. The houses were raised and the silt and sand from the harbor pumped onto the land. The site of a considerable portion of the city was raised from seven to nine feet, thus securing drainage and sewerage.
In 1910, bonds to the amount of $3,000,000 were voted for harbor improvements. Suits to recover the city's rights on the waterfront and to open thoroughfares to the harbor were filed. Some of these have been fought to a finish in the courts and others are still pend- ing.
The reckless way in which the board of supervisors in early days granted harbor privileges to corporations and private indi- viduals had caused any amount of litigation. One of the most urgent causes of consolida- tion was to take from the town trustees of San Pedro the power to dispose of harbor frontage. When Los Angeles came into pos- session of the harbor it had free of franchises and concessions one hundred and twenty-six acres of submerged lands in the outer harbor.
Among the valuable concessions that had been given away for but little compensation or advantage to the public were the Miner, the Pacific Wharf and Storage Company, the Salt Lake and the Huntington. The most desirable sites for wharves and docks on the outer harbor were in these concessions. The one hundred and twenty-six acres that the city acquired by consolidation with San Pedro were really the refuse of the sub- merged lands. They were difficult of access and their development expensive.
There was one of these concessions, and one of the most valuable, upon which no de- velopment work had been done. This was the Huntington franchise. It had been granted by the city of San Pedro on condi- tion that all dredging and filling should be done by August 5, 1910. The time passed and no attempt had been made to comply with the agreement. The city council de-
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clared the concession forfeited and took pos- session of the land without a contest. Thus Los Angeles secured one of the most valu- able locations for docks and wharves. Among the private concessions that have been devel- oped is the Miner fill. It has a width of eleven hundred and fifty feet and a frontage of over six thousand feet. The Southern Pacific is utilizing its concession lying north of the municipal docks. When completed it will have one of the longest wharves in the world. It is twenty-one hundred feet in length and the depth of water is sufficient to accommodate all ordinary deep-sea vessels.
The Consolidated Lumber Company has established its extensive yards several miles beyond the head of the inner harbor. Its vessels unloading have the appearance at a distance of having navigated the plains-the long, narrow channel by which they come to the yards not being visible. The increase in the lumber trade during the past decade stands unparalleled in the history of any city in the world. For the calendar year of 1912 the total commerce of the port amounted to 1,867,098 tons. Of this 1,282,597 tons was lumber products and 584,501 tons merchan- dise. The lumber imports for several years approximated closely to a billion feet annual- ly before the slump in building came in 1914.
In the admirable history of The Free Har- bor Contest written by the late Charles Dwight Willard and published in 1899, there is a picture of San Pedro deep water harbor as it will look when completed. It shows three piers extending into the outer harbor from the bluff south of Timm's Point. Dur- ing the long contest for an outer harbor the prevailing idea was that the principal ship- ping would be from the outer harbor. The inner harbor, the Wilmington Slough of olden times, would be used for craft of light draft. Had some optimist foretold that the first merchant ship to pass through the Pan- ama Canal, a canal that was but a dream at the beginning of the present century, would anchor in the inner harbor far up the slough, he would have been regarded as a visionary, a dreamer.
The first vessel to arrive at Los Angeles harbor from New York via the Panama Canal was the Missourian, of the American-
Hawaiian line. It passed through the canal on the 15th of August, 1914, and arrived at Municipal Dock No. 1 August 28, having made the voyage from New York to Los An- geles harbor in twenty-three days. It came into the inner harbor by the main channel between Deadman's Island and the mainland. In 1871, when work began on the breakwater from Rattlesnake Island and Deadman's Island, there were but eighteen inches of water in that channel at low tide. In suc- cessive years since then it has been deepened by dredging until now there are thirty feet on it at low tide.
The following account of the passing of the first ship through the canal becomes of historic interest. It is taken from the Asso- ciated Press dispatches of August 15, 1914: "Panama, Aug. 15 .- The Panama Canal is open to the commerce of the world. Hence- forth ships may pass to and fro through the great waterway which establishes a new ocean highway for trade.
"The steamship Ancon, owned by the United States War Department, with many notable people on board, today made the offi- cial passage which signalized the opening of the canal. She left Cristobal at 7 o'clock this morning and reached Balboa, on the Pacific end, at 4 o'clock this afternoon, hav- ing navigated the waterway in nine hours.
"The Ancon did not anchor at Balboa, but proceeded into deep water in the Pacific be- yond the fortified islands, where she anchored in the channel of the canal until her return to Balboa, when she landed her passengers.
"The Ancon will remain at the Balboa docks for some time, discharging her cargo, this being the first commercial voyage made through the canal.
"The canal having been officially opened, it will be used tomorrow for the transfer of four cargo ships, which will thus shorten their routes. The private yacht Lasata, owned in Los Angeles, will be transferred to the Pacific, homeward bound.
"The trip of the Ancon was the fastest yet made by a large ocean steamer, the locking operations being quicker, owing to greater experience. The steamer went through the Gatun locks in seventy minutes, a speed
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never before equaled. The other lockages were equally rapid.
"Col. George W. Goethals, builder of the canal and governor of the zone, watched the operations closely and was manifestly pleased at the improved handling of the locks. He declared that even this would be made much better with time. Capt. Hugh Rodman, superintendent of transportation, who directed the trip, voiced similar sentiments.
"The decks of the Ancon were crowded with guests of the government and officials of the canal administration and the republic of Panama. The peaceful flag of the Ameri- can Peace Society fluttered from the mast of the Ancon. Beneath her decks, however, were two huge pieces of artillery, which will form part of the defense of the canal.
"With the passage through the Panama Canal today of the War Department liner Ancon the great waterway becomes 'free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war- ships of all nations on terms of entire equal- ity,' in accordance with the provision of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
"Vessels drawing not more than thirty feet of water may now make the passage. It would be possible to put the big American dreadnaughts through at any time."
The realization of the dream of centuries- the opening of the great ocean highway be- tween the Atlantic and the Pacific-did not awaken the authorities at Washington to the importance of the event. It was treated as mere routine business. The following press dispatch tells the story :
"Washington, Aug. 15 .- The completion to- day of the stupendous ten years' task of the United States government at Panama was ignored by the administration here. The passing of the first large ship through the canal was treated in the light of a routine incident.
"'Colonel Goethals had been authorized to put a ship through and open the canal to- day. It was assumed that he would obey his instructions and that the officials here need give no more thought to it,' said Secretary of War Garrison.
"When Colonel Goethals formally reports that he has put a ship through and that the canal is open to commerce, it is probable Sec-
retary Garrison will send him a message of congratulation. It is expected that Colonel Goethals' report will be merely an incident in the daily routine cable dispatch from him."
Deadman's Island, that once stood out soli- tary and alone, a sentinel guarding the en- trance to the inner bay, is slowly vanishing. Its gruesome name has already vanished. The United States government in September, 1914, changed its name to Reservation point. It is to be leveled down and the area ex- tended to five or six acres by a fill. It will be made a Castle Garden for the detention of immigrants. Now that this historic island is to disappear from the bay a brief review of its history may be interesting to future gen- erations.
For many years it was the cemetery of the port. Dana in his "Two Years Before the Mast" tells the story of an English sea cap- tain who died in port and was buried on "this small, dreary looking island, the only. thing which broke the surface of the bay." Dana says, "It was the only spot that im- pressed me with anything like a poetic inter- est. Then, too, the man died far from home, without a friend near him and without funeral rites, the mate (as I was told) glad to have him out of the way, hurrying him up the hill and into the ground without a word or a prayer."
The island bore its gruesome name when Dana was on the coast in 1835; how long before that time there is no record. There are several legends of how the island came by its uncanny name. Nearly fifty years ago an old Californian who had been a sailor on a hide drogher years before Dana's time gave me this version: "In the early years of the last century some fishermen found the dead body of an unknown white man on the island. There was evidence that he had reached it alive, but probably too weak to attempt the crossing of the narrow channel to the mainland, he had clung to the deso- late island, vainly hoping for succor until hunger, thirst and exposure ended his exist- ence. He was supposed to have fallen over- board at night from some smuggling craft and to have been carried in by the tide. From the finding of the body on the island the Spaniards named it Isla del Muerto-the
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island of the dead, or the Isle of the Corpse." The desire for brevity doubtless gave it its gruesome name. Euphony was sacrificed by the time-saving Americans.
From the most authentic records I can find, there were ten persons in all buried on the island. The lost sailor, the English sea captain, six of the Savannah's crew killed or mortally wounded at Mervine's defeat, a pas- senger on a Panama ship in 1851 and the last a Mrs. Parker in 1858. Mrs. Parker was the wife of Captain Parker of the schooner Laura Bevan. Once when a fierce southeaster was threatening and the harbor bar was moaning Captain Parker sailed out of San Pedro bay. His fate was that of the three fishermen as told in Charles Kingsley's beau- tiful poem. Nothing was ever heard of the Laura Bevan from that day to this. The ship and its crew lie at the bottom of the ocean. The captain's wife, who was stopping at the landing, was slowly dying of consumption. Her husband's fate hastened her death. Rough but kindly hands performed the last
offices for her, and she was buried on Dead- man's Island. The sea has not given up its dead, but the land has. The vanishing island slowly disappearing exposed the bones of some of the dead. The bodies of all that could be found were removed-the sailors to the cemetery at the Presidio at San Fran- cisco and the others to the local cemetery at the bay.
Rattlesnake Island lost its ominous name during the closing years of the last century. The gruesome title of Deadman has but re- cently vanished from the little island at the entrance to the inner harbor. Senator Frye's sneer during the Free Harbor Contest as he read from the map, "Rattlesnake Island, Deadman's Island, I should think it would scare a mariner to death to come into such a place!" has lost its significance. Senator Stanford's reply to him was prophetic: "You let us have a large enough appropriation and we will change the names to something less horrifying." Mormon Island is the only one of the three that retains its original name.
CHAPTER L
PLAZAS, PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS
Los Angeles city has twenty parks varying principal churches. Like the forum of old in area from 1.17 acres to 3,015 acres. The Rome it is a place where questions of state are discussed and where sometimes revolution- ary plots are hatched. It is a meeting place of the people to exchange gossip and to retail the day's doings. Plaza, the oldest, is one of the smallest, and Griffith Park, which came into the city by an- nexation, is the largest and youngest. The total area of all the parks is 3,759 acres. Their value is estimated at $10,000,000. Central Park, with an area of but 4.41 acres, is valued at $5,000,000, equal to the aggregated value of all the others. The history of the accession and development of these parks forms an in- teresting chapter in the annals of our city.
I shall give their history in the order of their creation.
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