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 58
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"Central Park has been a public common- since the days of King Charles II of Spain, that monarch having deeded the plot of ground to the pueblo of Los Angeles in 1781."
Our historian continues : "After the park, one of the oldest pieces of ground devoted to park purposes in America, had been given the public by King Charles II it deteriorated to such an extent that in 1870 a committee of Los Angeles citizens composed of J. M. Grif- fith, O. W. Childs, Andrew Glassell and P. Beaudry was appointed to improve it."
Another of our leading newspapers advocated the naming of the park for King Carlos II, its donor.
Now all this is quite romantic, but in the light of the true history of the park it is ludi- crously absurd. King Charles II died in the year 1700-sixty-nine years before the first set- tlement was made in California and eighty-one years before King Charles III authorized the founding of the pueblo of Los Angeles and granted it four square leagues of land from the public domain ; and he, too, had been dead sev-
enty-eight years before that rectangular piece of land-block 15 of Ord's Survey-containing about five acres-and now known as Central Park, was dedicated by the City Council "for a public square or plaza for the use and benefit of the citizens in common of said city of Los Angeles."
The following historical sketch of Central Park has been compiled from official records, and it also contains the author's reminiscences and observations of it covering a period of forty-six years.
There is a tradition which crops out periodi- cally that the man who donated the park grounds to the city died in the poorhouse. It is true that the alleged donor, George Lehman, "Roundhouse George," died in the county hos- pital, but he did not donate the park site, for the very good reason that it never was his to donate.
It is one of the few pieces or parcels of the vast municipal domain known as pueblo lands that we inherited from Spain, or, to speak more in accordance with facts, that we wrested by conquest from Mexico, which has never been sold or given away. King Carlos III of Spain was the donor of the park in about the way that the president of the United States is when gov- ernment land is sold or given away. Under Spanish rule in America, a pueblo was a legally crganized form of settlement entitled to a tract of land (usually four square leagues) for va- rious community uses.
The pueblo plan of colonization was used in Spanish-American countries two centuries be- fore the time of King Carlos III. Pueblo lands were transferred by municipal authorities, not by a king. Both Westlake and Elysian parks, as well as Central Park, are parts of the pueblo lands that have never been alienated from mu- nicipal ownership.
After the conquest of California by the Amer- icans, a portion of the pueblo lands lying be- tween First and Twelfth streets, Main and Grasshopper (now Figueroa) streets, was sub- divided into lots and blocks by Lieutenant Ord : Central Park is block 15 of Ord's Survey.
This survey was made in 1849 and a number of the lots fronting on Main, Spring and Fort streets were put on sale. The maximum price for Ord Survey lots, 120x165 feet, in the "days of '49" was $50 each. With the decadence of
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mining and the decreased demand for cattle- the chief product of the South-the city be- came a case of arrested development.
Ord's Survey lots on Main, Spring and Fort streets could be bought in the early '60s at the price of ten years before, namely, thirty to fifty cents per front foot. There was no temptation to invest in lots beyond the settled portion of the city ; consequently the blocks west of Hill street remained practically intact.
There was another reason why settlers did not locate on lots on Olive and Charity (Grand avenue) streets near the base of the western hills. The Arroyo de Los Reyes, rising in the northwestern part of the city, debouched into the plain at the base of the hill on which the old Normal School stood. It crossed Olive street north of Sixth and cut a corner off the prospective park, then it zigzagged in a deep channel through the blocks between Hill, Olive and Charity streets down to Washington street.
In the spring of the year there was consider- able water in it and innumerable frogs nightly held concerts along its reedy brink. As the season advanced, millions of mosquitoes hatched in the stagnant pools of the arroyo of the kings and made night a horror to the dwell- ers on its banks. These appurtenances to real estate in that locality made it undesirable for first-class residences.
The Camino viejo (old road) that developed along the trail that Portola's explorers made in 1769 cut a triangle off the corner of block 15 at Olive and Fifth streets. This old road made nearly a century and a half ago, of which North Spring street is the last remnant, cut diagonally across the blocks between First and Third, Spring and Broadway. It crossed Hill street at Fourth, and Olive at Fifth. It passed out of the old pueblo limits near Ninth street, where it forked, one branch leading to the Ca- huenga Pass and the other to the brea beds on the Rancho La Brea, where the inhabitants of the old pueblo obtained their roofing material (crude asphaltum).
For nearly a century after the founding of the pueblo of Los Angeles this road was the camino real or main traveled road leading westward out of town. More than sixty years ago the court of sessions decreed it as one of the six caminos reales that led out of the old pueblo.
For years after Ord made his survey the people ignored his streets and came into town across lots. Thirty years ago, at the gate en- trance to the park at the corner of Sixth and Olive and also at the entrance at Fifth and Hill, there were large signs that read "Heavy teams are forbidden to cross the park," but as there was no guard to prevent and no penalty to enforce, heavy teams and light, horseman and footman took the short cut into town through the park.
The setting apart of block 15 for a park dates back nearly fifty years. In 1866 the City Coun- cil passed an ordinance "disposing of certain lots at public auction and reserving others for a public square." Section III of this ordinance reads as follows:
"Lots from Nos. 1 to 10 in block 15 of Ord's Survey of said city are hereby set aside for the use of said city and the residents thereof as a public square, and the same is hereby de- clared to be a public square or plaza for the use and benefit of the citizens in common of said city, remaining under the control of the mayor and council of said city."
The ordinance was approved and signed De- cember 11, 1866, by C. Aguilar, mayor. Cris- tobal Aguilar was the last Spanish-American mayor of Los Angeles.
Four years passed and still the public square was a treeless and grassless common. Times were hard and money was scarce, but there were public spirited citizens then as now, who were willing to devote their time and money to the improvement of the city. Early in 1870 a public meeting was called to discuss the ques- tion of improving the public square. It was decided to raise by subscription funds sufficient to fence it.
In those days the mustang and the bovine were free to roam where fancy or feed attracted them, and the first preliminary was to fence them out. There was no law to compel their owners to fence them in.
At that meeting the square was named Los Angeles Park and it was decided to petition the council to dedicate it for a park and au- thorized a committee appointed at that meet- ing to improve it. The following ordinance was passed by the council.
"Section 1. Whereas the block bounded as follows: On the east by Hill, south by Sixth,
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west by Olive and north by Fifth street, has been reserved for some public purpose, and whereas an association of gentlemen have sub- scribed funds for the purpose of fencing and ornamenting the aforesaid block of which the following gentlemen are the executive com- mittee, J. M. Griffith, O. W. Childs, A. Glas- sell, J. S. Griffin, J. G. Downey and P. Beaudry, be it ordained by these presents, do we ordain that the above-named association be allowed to fence in and ornament with fruit and forest trees the aforesaid block, and be it also or- dained that the aforesaid block be declared a public place forever for the enjoyment of the community in general." The ordinance was passed November 17, 1870.
The committee secured and expended $600 in fencing and improving the park. This did not complete the work. Evidently some had wearied in well doing.
February, 1872, the committee reported to the council that a number of the subscribers had failed to pay their subscriptions and that work on the park had been suspended. The committee recommended that the council vote $1,000 to complete the fence and plant trees. The request was granted and May 28, 1872, a sub-committee consisting of Workman, Beau- dry and Macy, reported the fence completed at a cost of $685. The balance of the appropria- tion would be used in painting the fence and other improvements, but the committee ad- vised that no more work be done on the park at expense to the city.
It is said that George Lehman, "Roundhouse George," planted the first trees in the park and carried water in oil cans to irrigate them. He was one of a committee to collect subscrip- tions. From his activity in improving the park came the tradition that he donated it to the city.
Besides the Garden of Paradise, a suburban pleasure resort just south of Third street and extending from Main through to Spring street, on which was located the roundhouse, he owned the southwest corner of Spring and Sixth street. On this lot back from the street until quite a recent date stood an old brick house on the front of which was painted, "Georgetown, 1859." That suburb of the city then was known as Georgetown.
There was no lawn planted in the park for a number of years after it was inclosed. The water was not piped that far down. An open ditch supplied the park with water. This ditch branched off from the Zanja Madre, or mother ditch, near Requena street (East Market) then flowed down between Los Angeles and South Main streets, irrigating the vineyards and vege- table gardens that covered the present sites of business blocks and hotels; it crossed Main street below Fourth street, and passed just south of the Hibernian skyscraper, then zig- zagged across the blocks from Spring to Hill streets, entering the park at the southwest cor- ner of Hill and Fifth street, and running along its Fifth and Olive street fronts, it passed out of the park, at Sixth and Olive streets. Then it meandered out to the rural regions of Figueroa and Adams streets. Up to 1885 this ditch was an open channel, then it was piped and carried underground across the business streets.
In the fifty years of its existence the park has had a number of different names. It was first known as the public square ; later St. Vin- cent Park, Los Angeles Park and Sixth Street Park. On some of the old city maps it is marked "plaza."
When the city began to develop other parks further out, it was officially named Central Park. The first plan of the park was diagonal walks or rather drives along the lines where the present bricked walks are. When the old fence was pulled down and the ditch filled, the park grounds were laid out in serpentine walks, lawns planted, and a bandstand built.
The last transformation of the park took place in 1911-12. The serpentine walks were changed to diagonals. The bandstand was re- moved, many of the trees taken out and the park grounds enclosed by a low cement wall or curbing. This transformation cost about $50,- 000 and is intended to be permanent. The park lias ceased to be the forum of the disaffected and has become a place of rest and quiet for visitors.
About twenty-five years ago a bond election was called to erect a library building in the park. The believers in the tradition of Round- house George's reversionary donation of the Park; the windjammers who at that time in- fested it in great numbers, and wailed over the robbery of the poor man of a public forum in
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which to air his grievances ; and the men-afraid- of-taxes all combined and defeated the bond issue, and our library is still a wanderer and a homeless waif.
ELYSIAN PARK
Elysian Park, which contains 532 acres, is the second largest park owned by the city. It is part of the pueblo lands that we acquired by conquest from Mexico. When successive city councils were giving away, for small compen- sation, the vast domain that was donated to the pueblo at its founding, the lands that form Elysian Park were considered worthless and the councilmen could find no one to take them off their hands. So these refuse lands remained in the city's possession.
As the city grew larger and its landed pos- sessions decreased, some one conceived the idea of making a park of its refuse lands. The lands that constitute the park were set apart for that purpose in 1886. Buena Vista street was extended to the river and trails built over the prospective park lands. In 1896, when the financial stringency following the boom was the most pressing and hundreds of men were out of employment, the business men of the city raised by subscription $20,000 with which to give employment to the unemployed and at the same time to improve the park. The men were paid $1 a day for their labor, and as the cost of living was much less than it is now, this enabled them to keep the wolf from the door.
One rabid reformer who prided himself as being the champion of the down-trodden work- ingman mortgaged his little homestead and began recruiting a Coxey army to march on to Washington. He tried to induce the laborers on the park to strike for higher wages and fail- ing in this he persuaded a few of them to join his army. The great majority, however, pre- ferred to stick to their job. He and his deluded followers set out on their march to Washington. They marched boldly through the Cajon Pass, but the dreary outlook of desert beyond halted them. Two hundred miles between saloons struck terror into their hearts and they retreat- ed to civilization and saloons. The workers who remained built the Fremont road and the Fre- mont gate or entrance to the park.
A tunnel was at one time constructed along the bluff overhanging the river. It was in-
tended to convey water from a hill reservoir to the Zanja Madre (mother ditch) which mean- dered at the base of the hills that border the Southern Pacific Railroad's freight yards. Through defective construction or bad engi- neering or both the tunnel failed to subserve the purpose for which it was built. It cost the city a considerable sum of money. The father of the project was Bernard Cohen, councilman and a promoter, who did much to develop the resources of the city. The Southern Pacific railroad was recently given a strip of land from the point of the bluff at the bridge crossing in exchange for a strip of land widening North Broadway. The cutting away of the face of the bluff eradicated all traces of Cohen's tunnel.
Portola's explorers, the first white men who trod the soil of Los Angeles, crossed the river near this point or bluff. They encamped on the river August 2, 1769. Father Crespi in his diary says, "After traveling for about a league and a half through an opening found between two low hills we came to a rather wide cañada having a great many cottonwood and syca- more trees. Through it ran a beautiful river toward the north northeast, and curving around the point of a cliff it takes a direction to the south. Toward the north northeast we saw another river bed which must have been a great overflow, but we found it dry. This arm unites with the river and its great floods during the rainy season are clearly demonstrated by the many uprooted trees scattered along the banks. We stopped not very far from this river to which we gave the name of Porciuncula. Here during the evening and night we expe- rienced three consecutive earthquakes." (The dry river is the Arroyo Seco.) "At half past six August 3rd," continues Father Crespi, "we set out and forded the Porciuncula river where it leaves the mountains to enter into the plain." The entrance into Elysian Park should have been named Portola's gate instead of Fremont's gate and not only the gate but the whole park should have been named for the first explorer. Portola Park is as euphonious as Elysian. It would have some historical significance which Elysian has not.
The cliff and the mountains which Father Crespi notes in his diary are part of the park and with the river (which Portola's Expe- dition discovered) are the only landmarks noted
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by the explorers in their march across the site of the future city of Los Angeles.
ECHO PARK
Echo park, containing thirty acres, is another park evolved from the city's refuse lands. In 1868 the city council contracted with the Los Angeles Canal & Reservoir Company, a cor- poration, with a capital of $200.000, of which George Hansen was president and J. J. Warner, secretary, to construct a system of reservoirs and canals in the northwestern part of the city. The reservoirs were to be filled by water from the river conducted in a canal. A dam, twenty feet high, was built across a cañon near the head of the Arroyo de Los Reyes and a ditch following the cañon of this arroyo down to Pearl street, now Figueroa, was constructed. This zanja in later years was known as the Woolen Mill ditch.
Los Angeles had an ambition to become a manufacturing city. The water brought down by the ditch could be used for power to propel machinery and for irrigation. The ditch was extended down to the southern part of the city. For this improvement the company was to re- ceive several thousand acres of hill land in the northwest part of the city. In 1873 a woolen mill was built on the line of this ditch near Figueroa and Fifth streets, and for a decade or so manufactured a fair quality of blankets. Then it was turned into an ice factory. Com- petition froze it out. The Woolen Mill ditch disappeared before the march of improvement and all the city has left for its leagues of land is a pond or reservoir now known as Echo Lake. The other reservoirs that appear on the old maps as reservoirs 1, 2, and 3 were never completed. The land surrounding reservoir No. 4 (Echo Lake) was converted into a park and the land below the dam-about four and one half acres-belonging to the city was con- verted into a children's playground. Echo Lake is the largest body of water in any of the parks. It is a favorite boating resort and a few de- luded fishermen occasionally angle for carp in its turbed waters.
EASTLAKE PARK
For many years there had been a dispute be- tween the Mission padres of San Gabriel and the pobladores of Los Angeles in regard to the
boundary line between the mission lands and those of the pueblo. The Mission padres claimed a large slice off the northeastern cor- ner of the pueblo or rather the Rosa de Cas- tella rancho was floated down on to the pueblo. As the land was hilly and waterless the dis- pute never became acute.
When the United States claims commission was adjudicating disputed land claims Ancilito Lestrades presented a claim for the rancho un- der a grant purporting to be from Governor Victoria given in 1831. The commission in 1855 rejected Lestrades' claim. The Hancock sur- vey made in 1853 had not been extended over this disputed territory. The land inside the city's boundaries became public land. In the famine year of 1864 when cattle, sheep and horses were starving to death on account of no feed, Dr. J. S. Griffin applied to purchase a strip of moist land contiguous to the river from the city council. The members of the council were too shrewd to be caught by such a propo- sition. They required Dr. Griffin to buy about two thousand acres of mesa land lying back from the river in addition to the tract he had asked for. He secured the land at fifty cents an acre and was not enthusiastic over his pur- chase.
In 1874, when the Southern Pacific Railroad was projecting its line through Los Angeles, among its demands for a bonus was fifty acres for shops. The citizens, recognizing the great benefit that railroad shops employing a large number of men would be to the city, purchased a body of land containing fifty acres along the projected line of the railroad from Dr. J. S. Griffin, paying $200 per acre for it. This was included in the $600,000 subsidy given the rail- road for building its line through the county of Los Angeles. The road was built through to its eastern terminus, but no shops material- ized. Time passed-years lengthened into decades-but no shops were built. The people grew impatient. Forbearance had ceased to be a virtue. In 1889, when Henry Hazard was mayor, backed by the city council and the peo- ple, he made an insistent demand on the rail- road company to build the shops or deed the land back to the city.
The company finally deeded it to the city for a park. It was at first called East Los Angeles Park, but when Westlake Park be-
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came an attractive resort it was named East- lake, which was considered shorter and more euphonious than its original name. A menag- erie was located in it, but was afterwards moved to Griffith Park.
WESTLAKE PARK
Westlake Park, like Elysian, was evolved from refuse pueblo land. In early days the city council could find no one who would buy it at any price. It was formerly designated as Lot 1, Block 25 of Hancock's Survey of the Pueblo lands. It contains thirty-five acres.
In 1865 the city's finances were at a low ebb. The famine years of 1863-64 had destroyed the cattle by the thousands. In the fall of 1864, all of Don Abel Stearns ranchos and city prop- erty were advertised for sale on a judgment for delinquent taxes and he was the richest man in the city.
To raise funds the council offered a number of the best blocks of the Hancock survey for sale at auction. The uniform price for the best lands was $10 an acre, a price that scarce would buy a square foot in some of them now. In the course of the sale the auctioneer and his pa- trons came to the site of the future park. It was a most unpromising piece of real estate. In the center of it was a basin or pond which during the rainy season filled with water. During the dry season this evaporated. The bottom of the lake then was covered with a thick coating of alkali, giving it the appearance of having had a snow storm.
Noyes, the old-time auctioneer, undertook to sell it. "Who will give me $10 an acre for Lot 1?" No response. "Who will give $9, $8, $7, $6? He ran the gamut to $1. No response. "Who will give me two-bits?" No answer. Its absolute worthlessness saved it to the city and to future generations for a breathing place. It was then beyond the settled portion of the city. In 1886-7 a number of the Hancock thirty-five- acre lots were subdivided into town lots. Pop- ulation began to drift out into the western part of the city. In 1887 William H. Workman was mayor of the city. A number of the leading men of that section who had bought land for subdivision came to Mayor Workman with a proposition to give $5,000 towards converting Lot 1 into a park if the city council would give a similar amount. The proposition was ac-
cepted and the money expended on developing the park. Work has gone steadily on year after year until the refuse land of fifty years ago that no one would invest twenty-five cents an acre in, has been made one of the most at- tractive spots in the city.
HOLLENBECK PARK
Hollenbeck Park is the gift of Mrs. Hollen- beck and Hon. William H. Workman. Mrs. Hollenbeck gave eight acres of the land and Mr. Workman gave sixteen. It is a favorite resort for picnic parties and is the only park of any size east of the river.
EXPOSITION PARK
Exposition Park is a part of the Pueblo lands granted to Los Angeles by the Diputacion or Departmental Assembly of California in 1834, when the Pueblo's area was extended to six- teen square leagues. No survey of these lands was made during Mexican domination.
In 1853 Henry Hancock was given a contract to survey thirty-seven thousand acres of these lands lying south of Pico street and west of the old Pueblo limits and divide them into thirty- five-acre lots. The United States claims com- mission in 1855 rejected the city's claim to all lands lying beyond the original pueblo lines. The lands outside became government land and the government survey was extended over them. The streets beginning with Washington and running parallel with that street in the annexed area were named for the presidents. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams and Jackson exhausted the ter- ritory and Old Hickory's street collided with the boundaries of the rancho Los Cuervos. When this land became government land it was bought up by settlers. The original Agricul- tural Park is the North West quarter of Section 7, Township 2, Range 13, San Bernardino Meridian. In 1872 James Thompson sold it to a syndicate, the purchase price being $6,000. July 3, 1872, this syndicate deeded the land to a corporation known as the Southern District Agricultural Society.
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