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 67

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

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Long Beach has recently increased her area by annexing the whole of the territory to the' west, including a part of the harbor of San Pedro. Besides her western extension she has annexed the territory to the eastward down to Devil's Gate, giving her an ocean front of nine miles. The territory back to Signal Hill four miles inland has also been added to her mu- nicipal area. A recent attempt to extend her limits to the Orange county line was defeated by an adverse vote in the district sought to be an- nexed.

Building has kept pace with her expansion in area. In the past two years over three million dollars has been expended in the construction of new buildings. In 1905 a pier 1,800 feet long, costing $100,000, was built out beyond the break- ers. The Auditorium adjoining the pier, with a seating capacity of six thousand persons, cost $40,000. On the western side of the pier a bath-house has been erected at a cost of $100,000. Long Beach's school properties represent an ex- penditure of $380,000. There are ninety teach- ers employed. The census children in 1906 num- bered 4,123. A sewer system and a fire service have been added to her municipal equipment.

The Cosmopolitan, a men's club house, was completed in 1906. The Hotel Bixby, the most capacious hotel on the southern coast of Califor- nia, was begun in 1905. It is built of reinforced cement. As it was approaching completion a terrible catastrophe happened. On the 8th of November (1906), without warning, the sup- ports of the fourth floor of the central wing of the building gave way, crashing down on the third floor, and so on to the ground floor. Ten

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workmen were killed in the wreck and a number injured. The first estimate of the cost of the building was $500,000. After the disaster a second issue of bonds was made to the amount of $250,000. This issue will complete and fur- nish the building. Long Beach has an excellent free public library established in 1895 and made free in 1901. Its annual income from taxation amounts to about $8,000. The volumes on its shelves number 7.500.

No city in California has made such phenome- nal growth pro rata in the past five years, not only in population, but also in wealth, as has Long Beach. The assessed value of the taxable property of Long Beach in 1901 was $1.556.562, in 1906 it was $11,715,530. A part of the increase in 1906 was due to the annexation to the city of new territory, but by far the larger portion came through the rapid increase in real estate values and the investment of capital in new buildings.

Lots that conid be bought five years ago ad-

joining what was then the business section in the neighborhood of Pine avenue and First and Second streets for $500 to $1,000 could not now be purchased for those amounts per front foot.

Long Beach has eight banks, with a combined capital of $850,000 and carrying deposits of nearly five million dollars. The new home of the First National Bank, now in the course of construction, will be, when completed, one of the largest and most commodious banking houses on the Pacific coast.

Long Beach has three daily newspapers, the Press, the Telegram and the Tribune. Its high school ranks among the best in the county. It was organized in 1896. When it was opened there were but two teachers and twenty-eight pupils. In 1906 there were twelve teachers em- ployed and 340 pupils enrolled. All the leading religious denominations are represented in Long Beach. Fifteen of these own their own build- ings. The present value of church property is estimated at $300,000.

CHAPTER LIX CITIES AND TOWNS BY THE SEASIDE.

SAN PEDRO.

T WVO hundred and twenty-seven years be- fore the bay of San Francisco was dis- covered the ships of Cabrillo sailed into the bay of San Pedro. Sixty years passed and the keels of Sebastian Viscaino's ships cut its waters. Then nearly two centuries passed before commerce found it. There is no record (or at least I have found none) of when the mission supply ships landed the first cargo at San Pedro. Before the end of the eighteenth century the port had become known as the embarcadero of San Gabriel. Very early in the last century the American fur traders and smugglers had found that it was a good place to do business in.

Just when the first house was built at San Pedro I have been unable to ascertain definitely. In the proceedings of the ayuntamiento for 1835, a house is spoken of as having been built there

"long ago" by the Mission Fathers of San Ga- briel. Long ago for past time is as indefinite as poco tiempo for future. I think the house was built during the Spanish era, probably be- tween 1815 and 1820. It was a warehouse for the storing of hides, and was located on the bluff about half way between Point Firmin and Timm's Point. The ruins are still extant. Dana, in his "Two Years before the Mast," describes it as a building with one room containing a fire- place, cooking apparatus, and the rest of it 1111- furnished, and used as a place to store goods. Dana was not favorably impressed with San Pedro. He says: "I also learned, to my sur- prise, that the desolate looking place we were in furnished more hides than any other place on the coast. * * * We all agreed that it was the worst place we had seen yet, especially for getting off of hides; and our lying off at so

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great a distance looked as though it was bad for southeasters."

This old warehouse was the cause of a bitter controversy that split the population of the pueblo into factions. While the secularization of the missions was in progress, during 1834 and 1835, Don Abel Stearns bought the old building from the Mission Fathers of San Ga- briel. He obtained permission from Governor Figueroa to bring water from a spring a league distant from the embarcadero, and also to build additional buildings; his object being to found a commercial settlement at the landing and to enlarge the commerce of the port. His laudable efforts met with opposition from the anti-expan- sionists of that day. They feared smuggling and cited an old Spanish law that prohibited the building of a house on the beach of any port where there was no custom house. The captain of the port protested to the governor against Stearns' contemplated improvements, and de- manded that the warehouse be demolished. Ships, he said, would pass in the night from Santa Catalina, where they lay hid in the day time, to San Pedro and load and unload at Stearns' warehouse, and "skip out" before he, the captain, could come down from his home at the pueblo, ten leagues away, to collect the reve- nue. Then a number of calamity howlers joined the captain of the port in bemoaning the ills that would follow from the building of warehouses. The governor referred the matter to the ayunta- miento, and that municipal body appointed a committee of three sensible and public-spirited men to examine into the charges and report. The committee reported that the interests of the community needed a commercial settlement at the embarcadero; that if the captain of the port feared smuggling he should station a guard on the beach. This settled the controversy and the calamity howlers, too, but Stearns built no ware- houses at the embarcadero.

Freight passed from ship to shore and vice versa by means of the ship's boats. As the hide droghers kept their department stores on board ship, and lay at anchor until all their customers were supplied, or until they had spent all their money, there was ample time to bring from the ranchos the hides and tallow which were the me-

dium of exchange in those days, consequently there was but little need of warehouses at the embarcadero in those days.

At the time of the American conquest of Cali- fornia, San Pedro was still a port of one house- no wharves stretched out over the waters of the great bay, no boats swung with the tide; na- ture's works were unchanged by the hand of man. Three hundred and five years before, Ca- brillo, the discoverer of California, sailed into the bay he named Bahia de los Humos-the Bay of Smokes. Through all the centuries of Span- ish domination no change had come over San Pedro. But with its new masters came new manners, new customs, new men. Commerce drifted in upon its waters unrestricted. The hide drogher gave place to the steamship, the carreta to the freight wagon, and the mustang caballada to the Concord stage.

Banning, the man of expedients, did business on the bluff at the old warehouse; Tomlinson, the man of iron nerve and will, had his com- mercial establishment at the point below on the inner bay. Banning and Tomlinson were rivals in staging, freighting, lightering, warehousing and indeed in everything that pertained to ship- ping and transportation.

In 1871 the government began improving the inner harbor, and the work was continued for a number of years. A breakwater was built be- tween Rattlesnake Island (now Terminal Isl- and) and Deadman's Island. By closing the gap between the two islands the full current was forced through the narrow channel between Deadman's Island and the main land. When the work was begun the depth of water in the chan- nel was but two feet, while now it has been in- creased to eighteen. In 1880 the railroad was extended down to the old shipping point known as Timm's landing. The new town of San Pedro was located partly on the bluff and partly on the low land bordering the bay. Wharves were built, where all but the largest vessels unload their cargoes. During the boom the city of San Pedro spread over a large area. The securing of the appropriation of $3.900,000 for the free harbor gave the town a fresh start on the road to prosperity.

The larger portion of the lumber trade from

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the northwest passing through Los Angeles and into Southern California and Arizona goes by way of San Pedro. The lumber vessels dis- charge their cargoes at the wharves of the inner harbor. Free Harbor Jubilce, celebrated at San Pedro on the 27th of April, 1899, was one of the memorable events in the history of the town. Work on the harbor was inaugurated on that day by the dumping of a load of rock from the Catalina quarries on the site of the breakwater. President Mckinley, in his library at Washing- ton, touched the electric button connected with the wires that were to start the machinery for tilting the barge load of rock into the bay. The tilt was not a complete success, and part of the barge load of rock had to be unloaded by hand, but this did not at all dampen the enthusiasm of the thirty thousand spectators nor spoil their ap- petites for the viands of the barbecue. The cele- bration was completed at Los Angeles next day with procession, speeches and fireworks.

Misfortune overtook the contractors, Held- maier & Neu, who undertook the building of the breakwaters that were to form the harbor. Neu was killed in a runaway at Los Angeles before the work was begun. Heldmaier failing to push the work, his contract was cancelled by the gov- ernment. His bid was $1,303,198.54. Bids were advertised for and the contract awarded, May 14, 1900, to the California Construction Com- pany of San Francisco for $2,375,546.05, over a million above the bid of the former contractors. Work has been steadily progressing. Rock to build the sea wall is shipped from Declez, in San Bernardino county, and the Chatsworth quarries.

No better index of the wonderful growth of Los Angeles county in the past five years can be found than the increased imports and exports received at the port of San Pedro. For the year ending December 31, 1899, one hundred millions feet of lumber were received. For the year end- ing December 31, 1905. a few hundred feet less than five hundred millions were landed at the port.

The value of the woodstuffs for the past year, figured at an average wholesale price of $25 per thousand feet, amounts to $12.475.850.

The fishing industry's output has increased in five years from 1,500,000 to 4,250,00 lbs.

Among the recent municipal improvements are a city hall costing $8,000, a new high school building costing $50,000 and a modern sewer system on which has already been expended $60,000.

The Carnegie library building, costing $10,- 000, was completed early in 1906. The total number of volumes in the library at the time of removal into the new building was 1,822. The annual income received from taxation is $1,500.

For the dredging of the inner harbor at San Pedro congress in 1904 appropriated $100,000, with the further provision of $150,000 under the continuing contract system. Work was be- gun in 1905. An immense suction dredge, cost- ing $120,000, was completed and installed and has been operated day and night. It is intended to provide a depth of twenty feet at low water from the inner harbor entrance at Deadman's Island to the foot of the wharves and a depth of twenty-four feet from the wharves to the turn- ing basin at Mormon Island.

WILMINGTON.

In 1857 Phineas Banning, to put a greater distance between himself and his rival, Tomlin- son, and at the same time diminish the land transportation to the city of Los Angeles, bought several hundred acres of land at the head of San Pedro slough. Here he laid off a town and built a wharf and warehouses. The Los An- geles Star of October 2, 1858, gives the following account of the inauguration of the new shipping port :

"On Saturday last (September 25, 1858), P. Banning, Esq., commenced operations at San Pedro New Town, by landing, for the first time at that place, freight and passengers. A num- ber of ladies and gentlemen from this city 'as- sisted' on the occasion. The change of loading from San Pedro to the New Town will be a great advantage to those engaged in transport- ing freight from the beach, as by this line the distance is shortened six miles, avoiding the hills on the present road. The land on which it is proposed to build the New Town is a fine flat, with water and wood in abundance, and all the

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facilities for irrigation. An arm of the sea reaches inland, with a channel deep enough to float any barge which may be used in the busi- ness, and the lighters can be brought up to the bank and their cargoes discharged, as at a wharf. By enclosing a portion of the landing the freight can be at once warehoused; thence transported to Los Angeles by a route six miles shorter than the present. To reach this new landing, how- ever, the distance from the anchorage ground is increased, but to obviate this Mr. Banning has, with his usual promptness and enterprise, de- termined to place a steam tug on the station, by which passengers and freight will be transported from the steamer and shipping to the New Town wharf with safety and dispatch. This certainly is a very great advantage, of which the traveling public will no doubt be duly appreciative.

"The ceremony of inauguration consisted in .towing a line of barges, containing passengers and freight, to the landing place. In ascending the channel, all hands, the ladies included, as- sisted in hauling the hawser; and when the pas- sengers were landed and the first bale of goods, the company united in wishing prosperity to Captain Banning and the New Town, pledging the same in bumpers of 'sparkling California.' Afterwards, a sumptuous entertainment was provided for the guests; next day was devoted to the pleasing amusements of yachting and fish- ing. This was one of the most agreeable parties of the season; and was conducted with that lib- erality and hospitality for which Captain Ban- ning is so famous. We say, prosperity to New Town and its enterprising proprietor. We may add, that San Pedro will not, for the present, be abandoned."

The new town or port was named New San Pedro, a designation it bore for several years, then it settled down to be Wilmington, named after Captain Banning's birthplace, Wilmington, Del. ; and the slough took the name of the town. That genial humorist, the late J. Ross Browne, who visited Wilmington in 1864, thus portrays that historic seaport: "Banning-the active, en- ergetic, irrepressible Phineas Banning, has built a town on the plain about six miles distant at the head of the slough. He calls it Wilmington, in honor of his birthplace. In order to bring

Wilmington and the steamer as close together as circumstances will permit, he has built a small boat propelled by steam for the purpose of car- rying passengers from steamer to Wilmington, and from Wilmington to steamer. Another small boat of a similar kind burst its boiler a couple of years ago and killed and scalded a num- ber of people, including Captain Seely, the popu- lar and ever-to-be-lamented commander of the Senator. The boiler of the present boat is con- sidered a model of safety. Passengers may lean against it with perfect security. It is constructed after the pattern of a tea kettle, so that when the pressure is unusually great, the cover will rise and let off superabundant steam, and thus allow the crowd a chance to swim ashore.

"Wilmington is an extensive city located at the head of a slough in a pleasant neighborhood of sand banks and marshes. There are not a great many houses in it as yet, but there is a great deal of room for houses when the popula- tion gets ready to build them."

The catastrophe to which J. Ross Browne re- fers in the above extract occurred in the Wil- mington slough April 27, 1863. The tug and passenger boat, Ada Hancock, used for convey- ing passengers between Wilmington and the ocean steamers, blew up. The explosion was one of the most fatal on record. Of the forty- two persons on board only seven escaped unhurt. Twenty-seven men were killed outright and eight wounded. As the vessel was rounding a sharp point in the channel, a sudden gust of wind careened her so far that the water rushed over her port guards onto hier boilers and the explosion followed. Among the killed was Cap- tain Seely of the Senator, the vessel to which the passengers were bound; W. T. B. Sanford, Thomas H. Workman, Dr. Myles, Capt. W. F. Nye and Albert Sidney Johnston, son of the fa- inous Confederate general.

During the Civil war the government estab- lished Camp Drum and Drum Barracks at Wil- mington, and spent over a million dollars in erecting buildings. A considerable force of sol- diers was stationed there and all the army sup- plies for the troops in Southern California, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico passed through the port. The Wilmingtonians waxed fat on gov-

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ernment contracts and their town put on metro- politan airs. It was the great seaport of the south, the toll gatherer of the slough. After the railroad from Los Angeles was completed to Wilmington in 1869, all the trade and travel of the southwest passed through it and they paid well for doing so. It cost the traveler $1.50 to get from ship to shore on one of Banning's tugs and the lighterage charges from Wilmington to anchorage out beyond Deadman's Island made the heart of the shipper sad.

In 1873 the government buildings were sold at public auction to private parties, and what cost Uncle Sam over a million dollars returned him less than ten thousand. The hospital build- ing and officer's quarters were donated to the Methodist Church South for educational pur- poses. Wilson College, named for B. D. Wilson, the donor, was established in the buildings and for a time was well patronized. Having no en- dowment it was found impossible to support it from tuition charges alone and it was closed.

. In 1880, or thereabouts, the railroad was ex- tended down to San Pedro and wharves built there. Then comnierce left Wilmington and drifted back to its old moorings at San Pedro.

For two decades after the railroad was ex- tended down to San Pedro the town of Wil- mington remained in statu quo. Property de- clined in value. There was still considerable business transacted at the old port. The fishing industry was carried on quite actively. Tribu- tary to the town was a large agricultural district that brought in trade. With the general awak- ening of business that began in Southern Cali- fornia with the first year of the present cen- tury shrewd business men, foreseeing the pos- sibility of making a deep water harbor at Wil- mington, have been investing in real estate in and contiguous to the town. This has aroused the old burg from its lethargy. The maps of the United States survey designate the body of water on which Wilmington is built as the "bay of Wilmington." The work of dredging the inner harbor at San Pedro now in progress under the direction of the United States engineering de- partment will eventually be extended up the bay, or slough as it was once called, to Wilmington. When this is accomplished Wilmington bay will

be a commodious seaport, ranking among the most important harbors on the Pacific coast.

During the year 1905 building was active. The Bank of Wilmington was organized, and a bank building costing $6,000 erected. The Con- solidated Planing Mill gives employment to one hundred men.

SANTA MONICA.

Early in 1875, Senator J. P. Jones and Col. R. S. Baker subdivided a portion of the rancho San Vicente lying on the mesa, adjoining the bay of Santa Monica. The town was named after the bay and was of magnificent proportions on paper. On the 16th of July, 1875, a great sale of lots was held. An excursion steamer came down from San Francisco loaded with lot buyers and the people of Los Angeles and neigh- boring towns rallied in great numbers to the site of the prospective maritime metropolis of the south. Tom Fitch, the silver-tongued orator of the Pacific slope, inaugurated the sale by one of his most brilliant orations. He drew a fasci- nating picture of the "Zenith City by the Sun- set Sea," as he named it, when at a day not far distant the white sails of commerce should fill its harbor, the products of the Occident and the Orient load its wharves and the smoke from its factory chimneys darken the heavens. Lots on the barren mesa sold at prices ranging from $125 to $500. The sale was a grand success.

The town's growth was rapid. In less than nine months after its founding it had one hun- dred and sixty houses and a thousand inhab- itants. A wharf was built by Senator Jones ; and the Los Angeles & Independence Railroad, which he was pushing eastward, was supposed to be the western terminus of a great trans- continental railway system. The railroad reached Los Angeles and there it stopped. A financial blight had fallen on Senator Jones' projects, and the town shared in the misfortunes of its pro- genitor. After a time the railroad fell into the hands of the Southern Pacific Company. That company condemned the wharf, took down the warehouse and transferred the shipping and trade that had grown up at Santa Monica back to Wilmington.

In 1880 the town and its suburb, South Santa

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Monica, had only 350 inhabitants. Its attrac- tions as a seaside resort began to be recognized built. and it took on new life. The boom sent property values away up. The magnificent Arcadia hotel was built in 1887 and the location of the Sol- diers' Home, three miles eastward, stimulated the town's growth. The Los Angeles County Railroad was built from Los Angeles in 1888 along the foothills to Santa Monica. It was not a success and eventually went into the hands of a receiver and was numbered with the enter- prises that have been and are not. The Los Angeles-Pacific Railroad, an electric road, se- cured its right of way and has become a valu- able line of travel. The road was opened in 1896. In 1891-92 the long wharf at Port Los Angeles was built and shipping again returned to the bay of Santa Monica. The Santa Fé Railroad system built a branch line into Santa Monica in 1892. The Santa Monica Outlook, founded in 1876, is one of the oldest newspapers in the county. The population of Santa Monica in 1890 was 1,500, and in 1900, 3,057.

In the summer of 1905 the city trustees or- dered a census of the city. The population was found to be 7,208. This entitled the city to be governed under a freeholders' charter. A com- mittee was appointed and a charter drafted which will be presented to the next legislature for approval. Three new brick school houses, costing $65,000, were completed and occupied early in 1906.

San Vicente boulevard, 130 feet wide, and extending from the Soldiers' Home to the sea, was completed in 1905. A new pleasure pier, costing $30,000, was recently erected at the foot of Hollister avenue. Work has been begun on an electric railway that is to run up the beach through the Malibu rancho and eventually on to San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara. A tract of land, known as the Palisades, has been sub- divided into large building lots. Building re- strictions have been placed so high that only costly residences can be built on the tract.

During the year 1906 six new school houses were erected at a cost of $150,000, the money having been raised by a bond issue. A broad gauge railroad up the beach from Port Los An- geles towards Ventura was begun and five miles

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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 67

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