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 64

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 1897-98 the association inaugurated an ac- tive movement for the purpose of securing from the citizens the patronizing of home products. It labors to encourage the establishment and suc- cessful prosecution of manufacturing industries in our city and to assist merchants and the mer- cantile community in general in devising and recommending such trade regulations as may seem desirable and expedient.

The presidents of the association have been as follows :

H. W. Frank 1896-97

Fred L. Baker 1897-98

R. L. Craig 1898-1900

C. C. Reynolds 1900-02

Niles Pease 1902-06

J. M. Schneider 1006-07

The secretaries :

William H. Knight 1896-97

F. J. Zeehandelaar 1897

CHAPTER LVI.

PASADENA.

F EW cities of Southern California have been so fortunate as Pasadena in the preservation of their early history. The citizens of the Crown City owe a deep and last- ing debt of gratitude to the late Dr. Hiram A.

Reid for his labors in collecting and preserving in book form the early history of Pasadena. But for him much valuable historical data would have been lost. The only criticism that I have to make on Dr. Reid's work is that he sometimes relied

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on people's "say so" without investigating whether the report given of an event was based on fact, or rumor, or on pure romance.

Dr. Reid devotes considerable space in dis- cussing the origin of the name of the rancho on which Pasadena is located and its early owners. It may be possible that the baptismal name, "Pascual," of old Hahamovic, chief of the Ha- hamog-na tribe of Indians, was applied to the region where these aborigines dwelt, but I have found nothing in my researches to confirm the statement and I doubt whether the story is founded on facts. Doña Eulalia Perez de Guil- len's title to the rancho San Pasqual seems to me to be rather mythical. There is more of romance than reality in it. The story runs that Padre José Maria Zalvidea, after his removal to San Juan Capistrano, prepared a deed to three and one-half square leagues of land for Eulalia Perez de Guillen and sent it to his friend and successor, Father Sanchez, at San Gabriel, who approved and ratified it on Easter Day (called "San Pascual in the Spanish language"). Un- fortunately facts do not confirm this romantic story of the origin of the name nor do they con- firm Doña Eulalia's title either,

At the head of the list of twenty-four ranchos named by Hugo Reid as belonging to the Mis- sion San Gabriel when Padre Zalvidea was in charge of that mission, appears the rancho San Pasqual. It was certainly so named before Father Zalvidea was transferred to San Juan Capistrano. And again Padre Sanchez was not the successor of Zalvidea, but his contemporary at the mission from 1821 to 1828. If Zalvidea had wished to provide for Doña Eulalia he could have made the deed while at the mission and secured the signature of Father Sanchez if it had been worth while securing it ; but the mis- sionaries had no power to deed away the mission lands. These lands belonged to the government and in theory at least were held in trust for the Indians. In 1826, when this deed was sup- posed to have been made, the Mission San Gabriel was flourishing and the fear of seculari- zation was not imminent.

I think it is extremely doubtful whether Doña Eulalia Perez de Guillen ever had any claim whatever to the rancho San Pasqual; and con-

sequently could not have given it to Juan Marine, her discarded husband, in exchange for his house and land in San Gabriel.

Dr. Reid in a note written, as he tells us, after his chapter on the Pre-Pasadenian was in type, gets on the trail of the first private owner of the rancho. Had he found the following entry in the proceedings of the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles, dated December 27, 1833, it would have saved him a great many "unsuccessful trips hunt- ing for documents," and possibly some romancing about the origin of the name. "An espediente was read wherein Don Juan Marine asks possession of the place known as 'Rincon de San Pascual.' The gefe politico asks for a report in conformity with the law in the matter."

After discussion, "it was decided to report that Don Juan Marine is possessed with the necessary qualifications to make that petition. and the land he solicits is not within the twenty leagues constituting the neighboring grant ; that it has temporary irrigable lands and a watering place for cattle and belongs to the San Gabriel Mission." Marine's application was made after the decree of secularization had been promul- gated, but before it had been enforced. Gov- ernor Figueroa granted the rancho San Pasqual to Don Juan Marine in February. 1835.

It may be possible that San Pasqual is abbre- viated from "La Sabanilla de San Pasqual" (the altar cloth of Holy Easter). It is more probable that the poppy fields so brilliant at Easter time suggested to the padres the name given the val- ley-Rincon de San Pasqual-and that is all the romance that attaches to the name. From Ma- rine or his heirs the rancho passed to José Perez. It would seem from subsequent proceedings that Perez' claim was abandoned or probably "de- nounced." for November 28, 1843, Governor Micheltorena granted the rancho to Don Manuel Garfias, a young officer of the Mexican army, who had come to California with the governor. Garfias married Luisa Abila, a daughter of Doña Encarnacion Abila.

In 1852-53 he built a costly residence on his rancho. It was a casa grande in those days. He entertained right royally and his hacienda was " one of the famous country places which the city people loved to visit. To complete his house

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Garfias borrowed $3,000, interest at the rate of four per cent a month. The rate of interest was reasonable for those days and no doubt he thought it would be an easy matter to clear off a mort- gage of that amount on a rancho that was meas- ured by leagues.

Garfias had been the first treasurer of Los Angeles county, but he was not a good financier of his own business. As the years went by hard times came, cattle, the staple product of the county, decreased in value. San Pasqual was not a good cattle range and when dry years oc- curred the cattle died of starvation or were sold at ruinous prices. Night and day that cancerous mortgage was eating the value out of the rancho at the rate of forty-eight per cent a year com- pounded monthly.

The original cost of the house did not exceed $6,000. In 1858 the interest added to the prin- cipal had increased the original debt of $3,000 to $8,000. The title near the close of 1858 passed from Garfias and his wife to Dr. J. S. Griffin, .Griffin paying $2,000 above the amount of the mortgage to Garfias for the tools, work-horses, oxen, etc., on the rancho. Garfias had applied for a United States patent for the rancho in 1852, but from some cause, which does not ap- pear on record, the granting of the patent was «lelayed. It was issued April 3, 1863, and bears the signature of Abraham Lincoln, but before it was obtained, Garfias and his wife deeded away all. their "right, title and interest as well in possession as in expectancy."

On December II, 1862, John S. Griffin and his wife, deeded to B. D. Wilson and Margaret S. Wilson his wife, for a consideration of $500, a tract of 640 acres described as being "on the rancho San Pasqual, out of which the herein described lot of land is carved."

On the same day B. D. Wilson and his wife deeded to Mrs. Eliza G. Johnston, 262 acres, "the said tract hereby conveyed being part of the San Pasqual rancho and the southwesterly half of the land this day conveyed by John S. Griffin and Louisa his wife, to the parties of the first part herein." The consideration named in the deed was $1,000. Mrs. Johnston was the wife of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, who was in command of the United States army during the

Mormon war in 1859. In 1861 he was in com- mand of the Department of the Pacific, with headquarters at San Francisco. He was super- seded by General Sumner. He and a number of Confederate sympathizers came to Los Angeles, and from there went east by the Colorado river route and Arizona to join the Confederacy. General Johnston was killed at the battle of Shiloh, while in command of the Confederate forces there.

Mrs. Johnston built a house on her land and named the place "Fair Oaks," after the planta- tion where she was born in Virginia. Her old- est son, Albert Sidney, was killed in the explos- ion of the steamboat Ada Hancock in the Wil- mington slough April 27, 1863. The death of her husband and son, the unpromising outlook for making a living off the land, and the soli- tude of the place caused her to abandon it.

In 1865 Judge B. S. Eaton entered into a con- tract to bring water from Eaton's cañon to a portion of the rancho. He moved his family into the Johnston cottage. He planted 5,000 grape vines as an experiment. As he had no water to irrigate his vines the undertaking was re- garded as a useless waste of time by old vine- yardists, but his vines did so well that the next year he planted 30,000 more. After his vines came into bearing the bears often helped them- selves to grapes, and the coyotes and jack-rab- bits were frequent but unprofitable customers.

In 1865 and for several years following there was a great oil boom in Los Angeles county. It was similar in many respects to the boom of 1899-1900. Immense bodies of land were leased for oil by an organization known as the Los An- geles Pioneer Oil Company. Had this company struck oil on all its holdings it would have out- rivaled the Standard Oil octopus. B. D. Wilson and John S. Griffin, March 27, 1865, conveyed to Phineas Banning, John G. Downey, Mathew Keller, George Hansen and R. W. Heath, trus- tees of the Los Angeles Pioneer Oil Company, "all their right, title and interest to any and all brea, petroleum, rock oil or other oleaginous sub- stances in the rancho San Pasqual." The com- pany was to commence boring or sinking wells for the extraction of oil within six months. Wil- son and Griffin were to receive a royalty of ten

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per cent net of all the crude oil extracted from these lands free of expense to them, they to fur- nish their own casks.

This same company heid a similar grant cover- ing over 2,000 acres of what is now East Los Angeles. Wilson and Griffin were members of the company. If the Pioneer Oil Company bored any wells on the San Pasqual rancho it did not strike "rock oil, petroleum or any other oleaginous substances." Its grant was limited to twenty-five years. During the oil boom of 1899 and 1900 wells were sunk on some of the former holdings of the extinct Pioneer Oil Com- pany and fair returns reccived-but by far the greater part of the lands it had acquired were devoid of any other oleaginous substance than occasional out croppings of crude brea, which to the experts of the company seemed a sure indi- cation of oil below.

During the '6os and early 'zos a number of. transfers were made of parts of the rancho be- tween B. D. Wilson, J. S. Griffin, Phineas Ban- ning, P. Beaudry and others. In April, 1870, the first scheme for planting a fruit-growing colony on it was promulgated. In the Los Angeles Weekly Star, of April 30, 1870, and in subse- quent numbers for several weeks, appears the prospectus of the "San Pasqual Plantation." I quote a portion of it :

"The tract of land selected is a portion of the San Pasqual rancho in Los Angeles County, com- prising 1,750 acres of the finest quality. A ditch which forms the northern boundary of the tract at a cost of $10,000 has also been pur- chased. The ditch furnishes in the driest sea- sons sufficient water to irrigate the entire tract.

"It is proposed to cultivate this land with oranges, lemons, olives, nuts, raisins, grapes, etc., and to commence at once. For this purpose the above company has been formed, with a capi- tal of $200,000, divided into 4,000 shares of $50 cach. Payments to be made in regular and easy installments as follows: $10 per share at date of subscription and $5 each year afterward till the whole amount is paid. All money to be used in paying for the land and cultivating the same." Officers, John Archibald, president ; R. M. Wid- ney, vice-president; W. J. Taylor, secretary ; London and San Francisco Bank, treasurer; J.

A. Eaton, general agent. Subscription books were opened at the office of R. M. Widney in the Hellman Bank building; but evidently the stock did not go off like hot cakes. The scheme fell into a state of "innocuous desuetude" then passed from the memory even of the oldest inhabitant of Pasadena. The tract named in the prospec- tus is the "Widney tract," which Dr. Reid men- tions but does not locate.

The colonization scheme that indirectly brought about the peopling of the San Pasqual had its inception in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the winter 1872-73. It was to have been called the California colony of Indiana ; but the colony did not materialize. The money panic that followed the failure of Jay Cooke and Black Friday in Wall street financially shipwrecked the projectors of the colony and left their committee, that had been sent to spy out land, stranded in Los An- geles.

D. M. Berry, one of the most active promoters of the colony scheme, on the invitation of Judge B. S. Eaton, visited the San Pasqual rancho and was delighted with the valley. After his return to the city, he, J. H. Baker and Calvin Fletcher, all that were left of the projected California colony, went to work to organize an association to buy the San Pasqual lands.

At a meeting held in the real-estate office of Berry & Elliott, that stood on what is now part of the site of the Baker block, of Los Angeles, the following persons were present in person. or represented by proxy : B. S. Eaton, T. F. Croft, D. M. Berry, A. O. Bristol, Jabez Banbury, H. G. Bennett, Calvin Fletcher, E. J. Vawter, H. J. Holmes, J. M. Mathews, Nathan Kimball. Jesse Yarnell, Mrs. C. A. Vawter, N. R. Gibson, T. B. Elliott (by proxy), P. M. Green, A. O. Porter, W. T. Clapp, John H. Baker.

It was decided to incorporate under the name of the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association. The capital stock was fixed at $25,000, divided into 100 shares of $250 each. In December. 1873, the association purchased the interest of Dr. J. S. Griffin in the San Pasqual rancho, con- sisting of about 4,000 acres. Fifteen hundred acres of the choicest land in the tract were sub- divided into lots, varying in size from fifteen to sixty acres. One share of stock was considered

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equivalent to fifteen acres of land; and when the distribution was made, January 27, 1874. each stockholder made his selection according to his interest in the corporation. The one and two share men were allowed first choice, and such was the diversity of the land and the di- versity of taste that when the land was all ap- portioned each one had gotten the piece he wanted .*

The settlement was called the Indiana Col- ony, although the majority of the colonists were not ex-Hoosiers. The colony was a success from the beginning. The colonists were the right men in the right place.

"It was a singular fact," says Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr, "that there was not a professional, and hardly a practical, horticulturist or farmer among them; but the spell of the neighboring orchards and vineyards soon transformed them into enthusiastic culturists of the orange and the vine."

April 22, 1875, the settlement ceased to be the Indiana Colony, and officially became Pasadena. To Dr. T. B. Elliott, the originator of the Cal- ifornia Colony scheme, belongs the credit of con- ferring on Pasadena its euphonious name. The word is of Indian origin (Chippewa dialect), and means crown of the valley.

So rapidly were the Indiana Colony lands ab- sorbed by settlers that in four years after their purchase only a few small tracts were left un- sold. In 1876 B. D. Wilson threw on the mar- ket about 2,500 acres, lying eastward of Fair Oaks avenue. This was the Lake Vineyard Land and Water Company tract. The settlers on this tract were known as "east siders," while the original colonists were the "west siders," Fair Oaks avenue being the division line. Chance more often than design has fixed the location of our American cities, and so it was with the city of Pasadena. The Indiana colonists had planted the nucleus of their town on Orange Grove avenue, near California street, where the first schoolhouse was built and the first churches lo- cated ; but a west sider. L. D. Hollingsworth, built a small building near the corner of Fair Oaks avenue and Colorado street, opened a store and secured the postoffice, which had once been .

discontinued, because no one would serve as post- master at the salary of $1 a month. Then a blacksmith shop and a meat market were located near the store, and B. D. Wilson donated near these five acres for a school site, and the germ of the future city was planted ; but it was of slow growth at first. A correspondent in the Los Angeles Herald, writing June 5. 1880, describes the town as consisting of "a store and postoffice building, a blacksmith shop and a meat market at the cross-roads near the center of the settle- ment."

The Los Angeles Evening Express of January 6, 1882, notes the fact that the Pasadena stage that makes a daily trip to Los Angeles is fre- quently compelled to leave passengers for lack of accommodations, and that the one small hotel in the colony can not accommodate any more guests.

No one had dreamed as yet of a city in the valley. The people were devoted to orange culture, and their pride and ambition was to produce the finest citrus fruits in Southern Cal- ifornia. At the great citrus fair in Los Angeles, in March, 1881, Pasadena was awarded the first premium over all competitors for the largest and best exhibits of the kind ever made in the state.

At the annual fair of the Southern California Horticultural Society held in November, 1881, in the old Horticultural Pavilion which stood on the north side of Temple street between Olive and Grand avenue, Los Angeles, Pasadena out- rivaled all competitors in its display of citrus fruits. Near the front entrance of the pavilion a lofty wooden column had been erected. This was flanked by oranges- and lemons held in place by wire netting. On the top of this pillar, below the word Pasadena, was an immense wooden key. The interpretation of this symbol was Pasadena-key of the valley. The name Pasa- dena had but recently superseded Indiana colony and the inhabitants were rather undecided whether the settlement (for as yet there was no town) should be known as the crown or the key of the valley. Who originated the key myth I do not know.

"In the early 'Sos Helen Hunt Jackson was collecting material for her famous story "Ra- mona," and incidentally writing articles on South- ern California for eastern magazines and news-

*Dr. Reid's History of Pasadena.

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papers. In an article descriptive of the western part of the San Gabriel valley where Pasadena is located, published in the Christian Union, Mrs. Jackson gives credence to and attempts to give authority for the key myth. "In the days when the Franciscan fathers and their converts and proteges, the San Gabriel Indians, were sole owners and occupants of the region they called the uplands at the valley's western end 'La Caye del Valle,' 'Key of the Valley' and the name was literally true, for the view eastward down the valley from these uplands unlocked to the eye all its treasures of beauty and color."

Mrs. Jackson was not a Spanish scholar and when she attempted to use it in her writings her mistakes were rather frequent. There is no such word in Spanish as "caye;" "llave" is the word she should have used. There is no record that either by Spaniard or Indian what is now Pasa- dena was ever called "Key of the Valley." The Indian had no knowledge of a key. There were no locks to the doors of his grass covered hut, and no doors either. This myth seems to have died out; I have not heard it repeated for a dozen years or more. It is strange that it should have died so young. The historic myth is long lived. It cannot be killed by exposure. Like hope, it springs eternal.

In the meantime, the town was growing in a leisurely way. The eastern tourist had found that it was a good place to stop at. The great Ray- mond hotel had been built on the top of Raymond hill, where it could be "seen of all men:" and smaller hotels and boarding houses opened their doors for the stranger and health seeker.

The San Gabriel Valley Railroad was opened for travel September 16, 1885, between Los Angeles and Pasadena.

Early in 1886 the first reverberations of the boom began to be heard. The great Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad system was seeking an outlet to the Pacific. Pasadena was destined to be on the main trunk line of this transcon- tinental road. The city was designed for some- thing greater than a business center of the val- ley. The echoes of the boom grew louder. The five-acre school lot that B. D. Wilson had do- nated the San Pasqual district ten years before was cut up into town lots, and on March 12,

1886, offered at auction. When the sale was over it was found that the thirty-five lots carved out of the school site had brought an aggregate of $44,772. Ten years before, when Wilson donated it, $400 would have been considered a big price for it. Such a percentage of gain stag- gered the most enthusiastic Pasadenian ; and the boom grew louder. It paid better to cultivate town lots than citrus fruits. So orange orchards were planted with white stakes, and the ax cut swaths through the groves for prospective streets.

Subdivisions and additions were thick as leaves in Valambrosia. The outlying districts-South Pasadena, Altadena, Lamanda Park, Olivewood- were doing their best to outrival the metropolis of the valley. The whole valley and the foothills of the mountains seemed destined to become a city of vast proportions and magnificent dis- tances. At the acme of the boom, in August, 1887, a single acre in the business center of the city was valued at more than the entire rancho of 13,000 acres was worth fifteen years before. Inflations of values had reached the bursting point, and the bubble burst. Then financial "dis- asters followed fast and followed faster." The "millionaires of a day," the boomers, saw their wealth shrivel and values shrink, until there was nothing left-nothing left on which they could realize.

When the boom was over-when the blare of brass bands and the voice of the auctioneer were no longer heard in the land then the old- timers and the new-comers, or such of them as had not departed with the boom, proceeded to take an account of stock. The exhibit was not encouraging. The real-estate boomer and the cottony scale had devastated the orange groves, once the pride and boast of Pasadena. But the avenging fates, in the shape of unfortunate creditors and victimized purchasers, drove away the boomers, and the cottony scale found its Nemesis in the Australian lady-bug. The in- domitable courage and industry that created the groves rehabilitated them. Perseverance, coupled with intelligence, won. The outlying groves that were not wholly ruined were re- deemed. Corner stakes were plowed under and streets planted with trees. After two years' struggle with debts and discouragements, the

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city, too, freed itself from its incubus. Since 1891 its course has been upward and onward.

After all, the boom was not an evil ummixed with good. Indeed, it is a question whether the good in it did not preponderate. The rapidity with which Pasadena was built in 1886 and 1887 has seldom been paralleled in the history of town building. In 1887 nearly $2,000,000 were in- vested in buildings, and these were mostly sub- stantial and costly structures. After the de- pression was over these found tenants again, and building has gone steadily onward until to-day no other city of its size can show more palatial private residences or finer business blocks than Pasedena-the Crown of the Valley.

The depression from the boom did not last long. There were some who had escaped the financial frost that blighted the fortunes of the sanguine promoters of outside subdivisions. These stood ready to invest in any legitimate enterprise that would build up the city. March 12, 1890, the Los Angeles Terminal Railroad, then known as the "Cross Road," was opened for travel. This gave Pasadena a competing road and greatly increased travel between Los Angeles and the Crown City.

The federal census of 1890 reported the pop- ulation 4,882. This was a disappointment and it was claimed fell below the real number of in- habitants. The project of building a railroad to the top of a mountain peak afterwards named Mt. Lowe had been agitated during the boom and a survey had been made of a route, but the financial depression had delayed it. Work was begun on the great incline in 1892. The mount- ain which was the objective point was named Mt. Lowe after Prof. Thaddeus Lowe, the pro- moter of the railroad scheme. The first car as- cended the great incline on the Mt. Lowe Rail- road July 4, 1893, and the opening of the road for travel was celebrated August 23, 1893. The Mt. Lowe observatory was built in 1894. and in April of that year the Pasadena & Los An- geles Electric, now the Pacific Electric Railway, was incorporated. This road was completed to Pasadena February 19. 1895.

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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 64

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