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 53

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

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In 1865 light began to penetrate the financial gloom that hung over the old city. The Civil war came to an end. The defenders of the Union of States and its would-be destroyers sheathed their weapons and ceased hostilities. There had been no active hostilties between them. It had been principally a war of words. The Confederate sympathizers, who were largely in the majority, were loud in their denunciations of the govern- ment and flag under which they were living and had lived all their lives. However, beyond a few arrests for outspoken disloyalty they were not harmed-a marked contrast to the way the Union men were treated in the South, where a man endangered his life whenever he uttered a word in favor of the United States government. Los Angeles furnished but one representative to the Union army-that is, one who was an actual resident of the city at the beginning of the war -Charles M. Jenkins, a member of the Califor- nia battalion, which was incorporated into the Second Massachusetts Cavalry. There was a company of native Californians recruited in

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Los Angeles in 1864 which did service against the Indians in Arizona.

Plentiful rainfalls in 1865-66 restored confi- dence in Southern California, but the passing of the cattle barons had begun. There was abund- ant feed on the ranchos, but the owners were in no condition financially to replenish their depleted herds. The growth of the city was dependent upon the prosperity of the country adjacent. Its growth was slow. Rates of interest had been reduced, but it was hard to secure a loan at less than two per cent a month. The first of the modern improvements that we now deem so necessary to our existence introduced into the city was the granting to James Walsh, May 5, 1866, the exclusive right to lay gas mains in the city. He was to expend at least $5,000 in a plant and pipes and to furnish free gas for a lamp at a few of the principal street crossings on Main street, and also for the mayor's office. The price of gas at first was $10 a thou- sand cubic feet. When it was reduced to $7.50 a thousand it was considered quite a reasonable price, and people clamored for more street lamps. In September, 1868, the construction of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad was begun. It was completed to Wilmington, October 26, 1869. The city had bonded itself to the amount of $75,000 and the county had invested $150,000 in it. There was bitter opposition to the bonding in certain quar- ters, but the bonds carried by a majority of thirty-nine votes. It was contended that the railroad would destroy freighting by teams, con- sequently there would be no use for horses and mules and no sale for barley. The pessimists wailed in vain; the progressive citizens pre- vailed. The road reduced the fare from the city to steamer anchorage from $5 to $2.50, cut the price of lumber $7.50. on the thousand feet, and reduced the freight on grain $5 a ton.

The first ice factory was started in 1868. It was conducted by Martin & Beath, where the city water works building now stands, on the corner of Alameda and. Marchessault streets. The capacity of the plant was a ton and a half a day. The retail price of ice was five cents a pound ; wholesale rates, $4 a hundred pounds. About the same time the first soda fountain was set up

by Stevens & Wood near the postoffice on North Spring street. The novelty of phiz for a time attracted customers, but soda water was not strenuous enough for throats accustomed to aguardiente; after the novelty wore off the siz- zling liquid ceased to attract.

The first bank in Los Angeles was organized in 1868 by Alvinza Hayward and John G. Downey under the firm name of Hayward & Co., capital $100,000. It was located in the Downey block.

The first strect railroad franchise was granted June 1, 1869, to R. M. Widney for a period of twenty years. The privilege was granted over the following named streets: Beginning at the junction of Main and Spring streets, thence along Spring to First, First to Fort, Fort to Fourth, Fourth to Hill, Hill to Fifth, Fifth to Olive, Olive to Sixth, Sixth to Pearl (now Figueroa). The road was completed in 1872. The next car line was built on Main street from its junction with Spring to Washington street. The motive power of the cars was the mule. Single fare, ten cents-the smallest coin in circulation in Cali- fornia. The car made a trip every half hour with the consent of the mule; otherwise the service might be irregular. Sometimes when the mules bucked it became necessary for the passengers to assist as motors.

The subdivision of the great ranchos into small tracts, which began in 1868, brought a migration of home-seekers to Los Angeles. They came by steamer or trecked overland. The city began to show the effect of the influx of more capital and new men. In February, 1870, the houses in the business portion of the city were numbered sys- tematically for the first time. It was not deemed necessary to number the dwelling houses. The first city directory was compiled the same year, . but was not published until 1871. The directory contained seventy pages of names. The federal census of 1870 gave the population of the city 5.614, which was an increase of 1,215 in ten years. There were 110 places where intoxicating liquors were sold, an average of one saloon to every fifty-five inhabitants. The assessed value of all property in the city was $2,108,061.

The railroad bond issue was a live question in 1872. The Southern Pacific Company had made

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an offer to build twenty-five miles north and twenty-five east from Los Angeles city of the transcontinental line that it was building up the San Joaquin valley. The Texas Pacific met this with an offer to build from San Diego (the pros- pective terminus of its transcontinental line) a railroad up the coast to Los Angeles, giving the county sixty miles of railroad. The Southern Pacific countered this offer by agreeing to build, in addition to the fifty miles of its previous offer, a branch to Anaheim making in all seventy-seven miles. The recompense for this liberality on the part of the railroads was that the people should vote bonds equal to five per cent of the total taxable property of the county. The bond ques- tion stirred up the people as no previous issue had done since the Civil war. The contest was a triangular one, Southern Pacific, Texas Pacific, or no railroad. Each company had its agents and advocates abroad enlightening the people on the superior merits of its individual offer. while "Taxpayer" and "Pro Bono Publico," through the newspapers, bewailed the waste of the peo- ple's money and bemoaned the increase of taxes. At the election, November 5, the Southern Pa- cific won.

The city reached the high tide of its pros- perity during the 'zos in 1874. Building was active. It was estimated that over $300,000 was expended in the erection of business houses, and fully that amount in residences.

The year 1875 was one of disasters. The great financial panic of 1873. presaged by that mone- tary cyclone, "Black Friday in Wall Street," had 10 immediate effect upon business in California.

The years 1873 and 1874 were among the most prosperous in our history. The panic reached California in September, 1875, beginning with the suspension of the Bank of California in San Francisco and the tragic death of its president. William C. Ralston. In a few days nearly every bank in California closed its doors. The two in Los Angeles, the Temple & Workman and Hell- man's, closed. The latter resumed business in a few days. The former made an attempt to stem the current of its financial difficulties, failed, and went down forever, carrying with it the fortune of many an unfortunate depositor. One of the bankers, William Workman, an old and highly respected pioneer, from brooding over the failure went insane and committed suicide. Temple died a few years later, a poor man.

The hard times following the bank failures were intensified by the drought of 1877, which brought disaster to the sheep industry of South- ern California. There was no business reaction during the remainder of the decade. The federal census of 1880 gave the city's population at II,- 183, an increase of almost one hundred per cent in ten years. The greater part of the gain was made in the first half of the decade. Railroad con- nection with San Francisco and Sacramento was made in September, 1876, but it opened up no new market for Los Angeles. Times continued hard and money close. The ruling rate of in- terest on mortgages was one and one-half per cent per month. The adoption of the new con- stitution of the state in 1879 did not improve mat- ters. The capitalists were afraid of some of its radical innovations.

CHAPTER XLVI.

LOS ANGELES IN ITS SECOND CENTURY.

L OS ANGELES city rounded out the first century of its existence September 4. 1881. Its population then was estimated at 12,000. It began with 44. Its average yearly increase was 120, a slow growth as western towns grow. Its centennial celebration-a grand affair

for that time-was a quaint mixture of the past and the present, a curious blending of the new with the old. In that procession, largely made up of horsemen, rode the graceful cabellero on his silver-mounted silla de montar (saddle) with jingling spurs and swinging riata. In

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it, too, was the American newcomer astride of a turtle-shell saddle, knees pointing to the zenith and hand gripping the saddle-bow. In a creaking old wooden-wheeled carreta rode Benjamina, an ancient Indian lady, who was the belle of Yangna when Los Angeles was born. Fashionable coupes, newly arrived, and rumbling road wagons that had crossed the plains in '49, pieced out the long line of varied vehicles that wound through the unpaved and unsprinkled streets on that centennial day. There were orations in English, in Spanish and in French. There was feasting and rejoicing in the ancient style and in the modern. The festivi- ties ended with a baili (ball) that was muy grande.

Through somebody's blundering, or possibly to give its first century the full measure of days, the 5th of September was celebrated instead of the 4th, the city's real birthday. Although for nearly half of its first century Los Angeles had been officially entitled to write itself a ciudad (city), yet it had not outgrown many of the characteristics of its pueblo days. When it passed its hundredth year there was not a paved street within its limits. The sidewalks were mostly graveled paths with cobble stones pro- truding. Everybody went to the postoffice for his mail. The telephone and the hello girl were unknown. Beyond the business center darkness brooded over lampless streets.

From Main street to the river, and below East Third street to the city limits was a succession of orange groves and vineyards with an occa- sional walnut orchard interspersed. Looking down from the western hills, which then had a few scattering houses upon them. the observer beheld stretching away to the south for miles a sea of green. Never before or since has the Angel City been so beautiful as she was in the closing years of her first century. The tourist was not much in evidence then. California on wheels had not yet made its pilgrimage of en- lightenment through the eastern states; nor was there a chamber of commerce to tell the story of our wonderful products and salubrious climate. Occasionally a newspaper correspondent or a bookmaker discovered the city and wrote it up or wrote it down as the fancy seized him-

patted himself appreciatively over his discovery if it pleased him, or slandered it maliciously if it did not. One of the very best descriptions ever written of Los Angeles when it was nearing the end of its first century can be found (if you can find a copy of the book) in B. F. Taylor's "Between the Gates." He visited Los Angeles in 1878. I copy a portion of his description :

"Whoever asks where Los Angeles is, to him I shall say : across a desert without wearying, be- yond a mountain without climbing; where heights stand away from it, where ocean winds breathe upon it, where the gold-mounted lime- hedges border it; where the flowers catch fire with beauty; among the orange groves; beside the olive trees; where the pomegranates wear calyx crowns; where the figs of Smyrna are turning ; where the bananas of Honolulu are blossoming ; where the chestnuts of Italy are dropping; where Sicilian lemons are ripening ; where the almond trees are shining; through that Alameda of walnuts and apricots ; through this avenue of willows and poplars; in vine- yards six Sabbath-days' journey across them; in the midst of a garden of thirty-six square miles-there is Los Angeles.

"The city is the product of one era of bar- barism, two or three kinds of civilizations, and an interregnum, and is about as old as Washing- ton's body-servant when he died the last time, for it is in its ninety-seventh year. You meet native Californians, wide-hatted Mexicans, now and then a Spaniard of the old blue stock, a sprinkle of Indians and the trousered man in his shirt and cue. You see the old broad- brimmed, thick-walled adobes that betray the" early day. You hear somebody swearing Span- ish, grumbling German, vociferating Italian, parleving in French, rattling Chinese and talk- ing English.

"Yesterday and today are strangely blended. You stroll among thousands of vines that are ninety years old and yet in full bearing. You pass a garden just redeemed from the dust and ashes of the wilderness. You pluck an orange from a tree that was venerable when Charles the Fourth was king of Spain, and you meet a man who has sat down to wait six years for his first fruit. A drive through the old quarter of the

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city takes you to the heart of Mexico, with the low-eaved fronts, the windows sunk like niches in the walls, the Italic-faced old porticoes, the lazy dogs dozing about in the sun. In ten min- utes you are whirled between two long lines of new-made fragrance, such luxuriance of vegeta- tion, and nothing nearer like the 'waving sword at the Eastward' of the first homestead than the slashed saber-like leaves of the banana that holds up its rich, strange, liver-colored blossoms as if it were proud of them."

"If to one city more than another, of all cities I have seen, belongs the urbs in horto of Chi- cago's seal, Los Angeles is the place. It is not a city in a garden, but a garden in the city. The two are interwoven like the blossoming warp and woof of a Wilton crapet. We visited the vineyard and the wine-presses of Don Mateo Keller. It is in the heart of the city, and con- tains one hundred and thirty-seven acres, and has two hundred and ten varieties of grapes. In the season ten thousand gallons of wine are pro- duced daily, and there were two hundred thou- sand gallons ripening in the vaults."

At the close of its first century the business district of the city had traveled south as far as First street. The center of retail trade was the Baker block, and the fashionable hotel was the Pico house that looked down upon the old plaza. On the southwest corner of Spring and First streets, where the Hotel Nadeau stands, was a horse corral, and on the southwest corner of Spring and Second streets, where the Hollen- beck now stands, was another. Merchandising and manufacturing were closly associated. On the northwest corner of Main and Second streets and jutting half way across Second street was an iron foundry. On the corresponding corner of Spring and Second streets stood the old brick schoolhouse, built in 1854. On the lot just north of this stood the Mechanics' planing mill.

Lehman's Garden of Paradise, south of Third, fronting on Main street, was still a pleasure re- sort. Adam and Eve had been driven out of Eden and so had Lehman-not hy a fiery sword, but by a mortgage. The cactus hedge that 21

fenced the Spring street front of the garden was still intact, but the tree of knowledge had been cut down, and the old serpent had been scotched. It may be necessary to explain that these deni- zens of Eden before Adam's fall were pieces of statuary that Lehman had placed in his garden to decorate it. George Lehman, better known as "Round House George," had opened his Gar- (len of Paradise as a pleasure resort in the early '50s. It became quite popular. The adobe round house at the Main street entrance, where the Pinney block now stands, was a famous land- mark of early days. It was torn down about 1887. South of Second street, Main, Spring and Fort (now Broadway) were the principal resi- dence streets of the city.

In 1882 the financial depression that began in 1875 with the failure of the Temple & Workman Bank, eased up a little. The Southern Pacific Railroad, building eastward, had penetrated the mining regions of Arizona and New Mexico and had opened a market for the products of South- ern California. Its completion the same year gave Los Angeles direct connection with the east. The new transcontinental road, free from the deep snows in winter that often blockaded the Central road, became the popular winter route to California, and brought into Los An- geles immigrants and capitalists that were not slow to recognize the great possibilities of the country.

The Atlantic & Pacific, with connecting roads-the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé and California Southern-effected an entrance into Los Angeles over a leased track from San Ber- nardino in 1885. This gave Los Angeles another transcontinental road. In the spring of 1886 a disagreement between the roads brought on a rate war. Round-trip tickets from Missouri river points were sold as low as $15. Thousands of eastern people, taking advantage of the low rates, visited Los Angeles. They were delighted with the country, and either remained or went home to sell their possessions and return.

Real estate values went up rapidly in 1886, but in 1887 came that event that marks the turn- ing point in the city's history-the boom. The story of the great real estate boom of 1887 is told in another chapter of this book. That boom

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is usually regarded by historians as an unmiti- income of about $1,000 a month. The building gated evil-a wild craze, a speculative mania, was so out of repair that the enterprising boomers who occupied it during a rain storm were compelled to hold umbrellas over them- selves and their customers while negotiating a deal in climate and corner lots. that deprived people of their senses and wrought their financial ruin. Such a view of it exag- gerates the evil done. While it had its tragic features and its comic as well, while it was the undoing of many plungers and unwise pro- moters, yet with all of its extravagances, its in- flation of values, its unsettling of previous condi- tions, its bursting of bubble fortunes, the good it did far overbalanced the evil.

In a hundred years business had traveled from its first center, the old Plaza, southward to First street, a distance of about four blocks. Between 1881 and 1886 it liad crossed First street on Spring and Main and in a few instances had gone below Second street. The Nadeau hotel, the most imposing structure outside of the old business section, was completed in 1883. While designed for a hotel, it was too large a building for the travel of that time. A large room on the second floor, originally designed for the dining- room, was rented to the Y. M. C. A., and was the first hall of that organization in the city. Another smaller hall was leased for a justice's court, and rooms on the second and third floors were let for lawyers' and doctors' offices. The rapid development of the real estate brokerage business in 1886-87 created a great demand for offices in the district between Temple and Sec- ond street on Spring and Main, and the enor- mous rents that real estate agents were willing to pay for office room in this locality virtually drove merchants to seek new locations further south. Their former storerooms were subdivided into a number of cubby-holes, each one of which rented for more than the entire room had brought before.

As an example of the rapid advance in rents caused by the demand for real estate offices, this will serve as an illustration : An old one-story wooden building on Spring street south of First, that before the boom might have brought its owner a rental of $50 per month, was subdivided into stalls after the usual method (a bar of iron between each tenant's holding) and rented at from $75 to $150 per month for a stall, prices varving as you receded from the front entrance. The rental of the building paid the landlord an

At the beginning of the city's second century the selling price of lots on Spring street be- tween First and Second was $50 per front foot ; below Second the value decreased rapidly. In August, 1861, the lot (60x165 feet) on the northwest corner of Spring and Sixth streets sold for $1,500, or $25 per front foot. This was considered a fair price as values ranged then. Five years later, with some cheap improvements added, the lot sold for $22,000. In May, 1883, the northwest corner of Spring and Second, 120X 165 feet (on which the first school house the city owned was built in 1854), was sold by the board of education to the city for $31,000, and a new site just south of Sixth, fronting 120 feet on Spring and the same on Broadway, purchased by the board for $12,500.

The council in 1884 erected the first hall owned by the city, on the rear 60 feet of its purchase, and in 1887 sold the frontage on Spring, with a depth of 105 feet, for $120,000, an increase of over 400 per cent in three years. Such unprecedented rise in values was a source of astonishment to the old-time residents of the city, many of whom had hastened to unload their long-time holdings on the newcomers.

When the depression came in 1888 the pes- simists, who had croaked dire disaster to the city, were disappointed that their prophesies proved false. The land boom of 1886-87 was followed by a building boom in 1888-89. The investors in high priced real estate were compelled to im- prove their property to obtain an income.

In 1884 the first cable railway, starting at Spring street, was built west over Second, Lake- shore avenue and First street to Belmont ave- nue. The projectors of the enterprise received a large bonus from the property holders on the western hills. It aided greatly in the settlement of the hill district, but being cheaply constructed it was frequently out of repair and was finally abandoned.

The first electric street car line was built in

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1885. Its route was along Los Angeles, San The traction (or Hook) system was begun in Pedro and Maple avenue to Pico street, and 1895. westward on that street to the Electric Home- The horse car disappeared from the city streets in the last decade of the 19th century, and was relegated to the category of the carreta and the caballo de silla (saddle horse), the motors of travel in old pueblo days. The bob car and the mule held the right of way on Main street the longest of any of the principal streets. They were pushed off by the trolley in 1895. stead Tract, lying west of the old city boundary. Primarily the road was promoted to sell this tract. A common method of disposing of tracts in the early days was to build half a dozen or more cheap houses on the tract as baits or prizes. Lots were sold at a uniform price, but not located; when all were sold the lots were distributed at a drawing, and the purchaser who drew a prize house paid no more for it than the man who drew a hole in the ground. The Electric Homestead and a number of other tracts were disposed of by this method.

The electric railroad was not a success. The power frequently gave out and the passengers had the choice of waiting an hour or two until enough electricity was generated to move the car, or to walk to the city. The sheriff finally levied on the rolling stock and the road for debt.

The first attempt to introduce the trolley car in Los Angeles was a failure, and the promoter, Howland, died in poverty. Howland had intro- duced the lighting of the city by electricity in December, 1881. Six masts, 150 feet high, were erected at different points in the city between the Plaza and Seventh street and Grand avenue and Main street. The power house was located on the corner of Banning and Alameda streets.

In 1889 work was begun on the cable railway system. A line was extended on Broadway to Seventh and west on Seventh to Westlake Park. Another line extended from Seventh on Grand avenue to Jefferson street. From First and Spring a line ran on East First to Boyle Heights, and from the same point another ran on North Spring, Upper Main and Downey avenue to East Los Angeles. A million and a half dollars were expended in tracks, power houses and ma- chinery. All but the tracks were discarded a few years later. when electricity was substituted for steam and the trolley for the cable. The Los Angeles Electric Railway system was begun in 1892. The first line constructed was that on West Second, Olive, First and other streets to Westlake Park. The people on the line of the road gave a subsidy of $50,000 to the promoters.

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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 53

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