A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 51

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

putable character engaged in these doubtful practices and disreputable methods of booming. The men who blew the bubble to greatest in- flation were new importations-fellows of the baser sort who knew little or nothing about the resources or characteristics of the country and cared less. They were here to make money. When the bubble burst they disappeared-those who got away with their gains, chuckling over ill-gotten wealth; those who lost, abusing the country and vilifying the people they had duped. Retributive justice overtook a few of the more unprincipled boomers and they have since done some service to the country in striped uniforms.

"The collapse of our real-estate boom was not the sudden bursting of a financial bubble, like the South Sea bubble or John Law's Mississippi bubble, nor did it end in a financial crash like the monetary panics of 1837 and 1857, or like Black Friday in Wall street. Its collapse was more like the steady contraction of a balloon from the pressure of the heavier atmosphere on the outside. It gradually shriveled up. The considerations named in the recorded trans- fers of the first three months of 1888 ex- .ceeded $20,000,000. After that they decreased rapidly."

CHAPTER XLIV.

LOS ANGELES CITY.

FROM PUEBLO TO CIUDAD. (From Town to City.)

F OR fifty-five years after its founding Los Angeles was officially a pueblo. In 1835, as narrated in a previous chapter, the Mexican congress raised it to the rank of a city. It was only in official records and communica- tions that it was accorded the dignity of a "ciu- dad" (city). The people spoke of it as el pueblo - the town. American writers of the decade previous to the American conquest all speak of it as the pueblo, and one of them, Hast- ings, who came to California overland in 1843 and wrote a book describing the country and telling how to get there, seems not to have heard its real name, but designated it "Poablo below," and San José "Poablo above." Los Angeles was often spoken of as El Pueblo abajo, the town below; and San José, El Pueblo, the town above. Hastings, with his imperfect knowledge of Spanish, seems to have taken these as the real names of the towns.

Its elevation to a ciudad by the Mexican con- gress made no change in its form of government. The ayuntamiento was still the ruling power, and the number of its members was not in- creased. The ayuntamiento was abolished at the

beginning of the year 1840. The Mexican con- gress had enacted a law allowing ayuntamientos only to cities with a population of four thousand and upwards. The ayuntamiento of Los Angeles was re-established in 1844, and continued the governing body of the city until superseded by the common council July 3, 1850.

In the beginning Los Angeles was symmet- rical. The pueblo contained four square leagues (Spanish). In the center was the plaza, 75×100 varas. It was the geographical center of the settlement. One league toward each wind you reached the pueblo's boundary lines. The nar- row streets went out from the plaza at right angles to its sides. The houses faced inward upon it. As the town grew it wandered off from its old center, and became demoralized. The streets crooked to suit the convenience of house builders. The houses stood at different angles to the streets and the house lots were of all geometrical shapes. No man had a written title to his land. Possession was ten points of the law. Indeed, it was all the law he had to pro- tect his title. If he ceased to use his land he might lose it. Anyone was at liberty to denounce unused land, and the ayuntamiento, on proof being made that it was unused, declared the possession forfeited.

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With the fall of the missions a spasm of terri- torial expansion seized the colonists. In 1834 the territorial legislature, by an enactment, fixed the boundaries of the pueblo of Los Angeles at "two leagues to eachi of the four winds, measuring from the center of the plaza." This gave the pueblo an area of sixteen square leagues, or over one hundred square miles. Next year (1835) Los Angeles was made the capital of Alta Cali- fornia by the Mexican congress and raised to the dignity of a city; and then its first real estate boom was on. There was an increased demand for lots and iands, but there were no maps or plats to grant by and no additions or subdivisions of the pueblo lands on the market. All the unoccupied lands belonged to the munici- pality, and when a citizen wanted a house lot to build on he petitioned the ayuntamiento for a lot, and if the piece asked for was vacant he was granted a lot-large or small, deep or shal- low, on the street or off it, just as it happened.

With the growth of the town the confusion and irregularity increased. The disputes arising from overlapping grants, conflicting property lines and indefinite descriptions induced the ayuntamiento of 1836 to appoint a commission to investigate and report upon the manner of granting house lots and agricultural lands. The commissioners reported "that they had con- sulted with several of the founders and with old settlers, who declared that from the founding of the town the concession of lots and lands had been made verbally without any other formality than locating and measuring the extent of the land the fortunate one should occupy."

"In order to present a fuller report your com- mission obtained an 'Instruction' signed by Don José Francisco de Ortega, dated at San Gabriel, February 2, 1782, and we noted that articles 3, 4 and 17 of said 'Instruction' provides that con- cession of said agricultural lands and house lots must be made by the government, which shall issue the respective titles to the grantees. Ac- cording to the opinion of the city's advisers, said 'Instruction,' or at least the three articles re- ferred to, have not been observed, as there is no property owner who can show a legal title to his property.

"The commissioners cannot do otherwise but

call attention of the Most Illustrious Ayunta- miento to the evil consequences which may re- sult by reason of said abuses, and recommend that some means may be devised that they may be avoided. God and Liberty."

"Angeles, March 8, 1836. "ABEL STEARNS, "BACILIO VALDEZ, "JOSE M. HERRERRAS, "Commissioners."

Acting on the report of the commissioners, the ayuntamiento required all holders of property to apply for written titles. But the poco tiempo ways of the pobladores could not be altogether overcome. We find from the records that in 1847 the land of Mrs. Carmen Navarro, one of the founders of the town, was denounced (filed on) because she could not show a written title to it. The ayuntamiento decided "that as she had always been allowed to hold it, her claim should be respected because she was one of the founders," "which makes her entitled to a lot on which to live."

March 17. 1836, "a commission on streets, plazas and alleys was appointed to report a plan for repairing the monstrous irregularity of the streets brought about by ceding house lots and erecting houses in this pueblo."

The commission reported in favor of "formu- lating a plat of the city as it actually exists, on which shall be marked the names of the streets, allevs and plazas, also the house lots and com- mon lands of the pueblo." But nothing came of the report, no plat 'was made, and the ayunta- miento went on in the same old way, granting lots of all shapes and fornis.

In March, 1846, another commission was ap- pointed to locate the bounds of the pueblo lands. All that was done was to measure two leagues "in the direction of the four winds from the plaza church," and set stakes to mark the boundary lines. Then came the American con- quest of California, and the days of poco tiempo were numbered. In 1847, after the conquest, another attempt was made to straighten and widen the streets. Some of the Yankee spirit of fixing up things seems to have pervaded the ayuntamiento. A street commission was ap-

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pointed to try to bring order out of the chaos into which the streets had fallen. The commis- sioners reported July 22, 1847, as follows : "Your commissioners could not but be amazed seeing the disorder and the manner how the streets run. More particularly the street which leads to the cemetery, whose width is out of proportion to its length, and whose aspect of- fends the sense of the beautiful which should prevail in the city." When discussing this state of affairs with the sindico (city attorney) he in- formed us that on receiving his instructions from the ayuntamiento he was ordered to give the streets a width of fifteen varas (about forty- one feet). This he found to be in conflict with the statutes. Tlie law referred to is in Book IV, Chapter 7, Statute 10 (probably a compilation of the "laws of the Indies," two or three cen- turies old, and brought from Spain). The law reads : "In cold countries the streets shall be wide, and in warm countries narrow; and when there are horses it would be convenient to have wide streets for purpose of an occasional de- fense or to widen them in the form above men- tioned, care being taken that nothing is done to spoil the looks of the buildings, weaken the points of defense or encroach upon the comfort of the people."

"The instructions given the sindico by the ayuntamiento are absolutely opposed to this law, and therefore illegal." It probably never oc- curred to the commission to question the wisdom of so senseless a law; it had been a law in Spanish America for centuries and therefore must be venerated for its antiquity. A blind, un- reasoning faith in the wisdom of church and state has been the undoing of the Spanish people. Apparently the commission did nothing more than report. California being a warm country, the streets perforce must be narrow.

The same year a commission was appointed to "square the plaza." Through carelessness some of the houses fronting on the square had been allowed to encroach upon it; others were set back so that the boundary lines of the plaza zigzagged back and forth like a Virginia rail fence. The neighborhood of the plaza was the aristocratic residence quarter of the city then, and a plaza front was considered high-toned. The

commission found the squaring of the plaza as difficult a problem as the squaring of a circle. After many trials and tribulations the commis- sioners succeeded in overcoming most of the irregularities by reducing the area of the plaza. The houses that intruded were not torn down, but the property line was moved forward. The north, south and west lines were each fixed at 134 varas and the east line 112 varas. The ayuntamiento attempted to open a street from the plaza north of the church, but Pedro Cabrera, who had been granted a lot which fell in the line of the street, refused to give up his plaza front for a better lot without that aristocratic appendage which the council offered him. Then the city authorities offered him as compensation for the difference a certain number of days' labor of the chain gang (the treasury was in the usual state of collapse), but Pedro could not be traded out of his plaza front, so the street took a twist around Pedro's lot-a twist that sixty years has not straightened out. The irregularities in grant- ing portions of the unapportioned city lands still continued and the confusion of titles increased.

In May. 1849, the territorial governor, Gen- eral Bennett Riley, sent a request to the ayunta- miento for a city map and information in regard to the manner of granting lots. The ayunta- miento replied that there was no map of the city in existence and no surveyor here who could make one. The governor was asked to send a surveyor to make a plan or plat of the city. He was also informed that in making land grants within "the perimeter of two leagnes square the city acted in the belief that it is entitled to that much land as a pueblo."

Lieut. E. O. C. Ord, of the United States army, was sent down by the governor to plat the city. On the 18th of July, 1849. he sub- mitted this proposition to the ayuntamiento: "He would make a map of the city, marking boundary lines and points of the municipal lands for $1,500, coin, ten lots selected from among the defined lots on the map and vacant lands to the extent of 1,000 varas to be selected in sec- tions of 200 varas wherever he may choose it, or he would make a map for $3,000 in coin."

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 monthi, 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 hy 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 timcs) ; 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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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

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 the 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 ensned. 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 denomination. 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 1. 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 thenceforth be the boundaries of the City.

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A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 51

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1184

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184