An illustrated history of Los Angeles County, California. Containing a history of Los Angeles County from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospective future and biographical mention of many of its pioneers and also of prominent citizens of to-day, Part 50

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1092

USA > California > Los Angeles County > An illustrated history of Los Angeles County, California. Containing a history of Los Angeles County from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospective future and biographical mention of many of its pioneers and also of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 50

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when Governor Gaspar de Portoloa, returning southward with the first land expedition sent ont from Loreto in search of Monterey, having missed the trail along the coast, entered tlie San Fernando Valley through the Simi Pass; and moving on, having crossed the Verdugo Hills, mistook the Arroyo Seco, then a full stream, swollen by winter rains, for the Porci- únculla, or Los Angeles River. The hungry and travel-worn soldiers found the hospitable natives ready to share their simple stores of dried meat and acorns; and the Capitan, filling his long-stemined pipe with leaves of the wild tobacco, presented it to the Spanish officer, whose supply of the foreign weed had been long exhausted. Thus the consoling " Pespihuta," the Indian name of this plant, became the foundation of a lively traffic between the abo- rigines and Spaniards, who paid for it in trinkets and beads.

Ere long a well-broken trail through the ter- ritory connected the parent missions of San Diego and Monterey, and was known as Cam- ino del Rey, over which all the dispatches were sent northward from Mexico and Guatemala.

According to the earlier records, this Indian Capitan was baptized at Old Mission San Ga- briel by the name of Pascual. It is uncertain whether this circumstance gave the locality its name, or the subsequent grant through the in- fluence of Father Sanchez, of the San Gabriel Mission, of three and a half leagnes of its lands

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HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

to Eulalia Perez, in consideration of her serv- ices as nurse and midwife; and also in teaching the Indians the arts of civilized life, an event which occurred on the day of San Pascual.

The Indian name of the region was Acnr- angna, signifying " where streams meet."

After the removal of Mission San Gabriel to its present site, the San Pascual Indians were employed as herders; the "bell mare," fleetest and most beautiful of the padres stock, ranged in the glades and led the band of wild horses to crop the grasses of the Altadena uplands.

La Sabanellas de San Pascual was the name given by Spanish sailors to the vast fields of poppies seen far out at sea, the same glo- rious " altar cloth," or bridal veil, which adorns the foothills of North Pasadena with the re- turn of every spring.

It was the wooded slopes of the Arroyo Seco which furnished timber for the dwellings of the "City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels," and there also the bears were lassoed for the rude sports which entertained her people in primitive times. The removal of the San Ga- briel Mission to its present site greatly affected the destiny of the San Pascual Indians.

California, one of their number, was held in great esteem by the padres and the intend- ants of the Mission. During the intendency of Juan Bandini he was major domo, and he gave Mr. Coronel many interesting reminiscences of primitive conditions; of the discovery of silver in the San Gabriel Mountains, and penances imposed upon the discoverers.

Ile died about 1840 more than a century old; and with his dark-skinned fellow laborers had built all the houses in the country and planted all its fields and vineyards. In the report of B. D. Wilson to the United States Government in 1852 he said: "Under the missions the wild Indians liad become masons, carpenters, plaster- ers, soap-makers, tanners, shoemakers, black- sinithe, carters and cart-makers, weavers and spinners, saddlers, shepherds, vignerons and vaqueros; in a word, they filled all the occupa- tions known to civilized society; all of which

marvelous changes had fallen under the eyes of old California.

A " Mexican grant" carried with it the obli- gation to occupy and improve the sa.ne, and as Eulalia Perez, devoted to hier beneficent labors, failed to comply with this requirement, it came to pass that Manual Garfias, a gay and popular soldier, received from his friend Governor Micheltorena, the title to the Rancho San Pas- cnal. A house of considerable pretension for the time, delightfully placed among the spread- ing oaks on the banks of the Arroyo Seco, was the scene of much rural hospitality during several years, when the Garfias family suddenly abandoned it for a home in Mexico. Thence- forth it swiftly lapsed to ruin, and Nature bad effaced nearly every trace of human occupancy when the California colony, of Indiana, in Au- gust, 1873, sent out from Indianapolis a com- mittee to select the most favorable spot for a settlement, and for the culture of oranges and other fruit.

After a careful survey of many charming locations in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino counties, the association purchased the interest of Dr. J. S. Griffin, consisting of about 4,000 acres of the rancho San Pascual. One of the incorporators, B. S. Eaton, was already residing in the neighborhood, and ren- dered invaluable services to the new-comers, especially in the management and supervision of the water-works, by which an ample supply of pure mountain water was secured to every homestead.

To Dr. Elliott the colony is indebted for its pleasing name, Pasadena-an Algonquin word, signifying the Crown of the Valley.

Thomas Croft, at a critical moment in the negotiations for the purchase, laid down the re- quired amount, and was for a brief period sole owner of this fair domain.

John II. Baker and D. M. Berry, "the Caleb and Joslina" of the California Colony of Indi- ana, were present on the bright winter morning of Jannary 27, 1874, when the twenty-seven incorporators met for the selection of the indi-

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vidual homesteads. Among them was Calvin Fletcher, a wealthy citizen of Indiana, who was one of the largest stockholders. Many were wealthy, others had brought their careful savings to secure a humble home and summer all the year round. Nearly all had a choice spot in view, and it was an anxions moment when, the lovely landscape at their feet, and the maps out- spread, the bidding was abont to begin. Mr. Fletcher moved that the owners of a single share be first invited to make their selections. And such was the diversity of soil, location and topography, that each of the twenty-seven stock- holders secured his chosen homestead, without interfering with that of his neighbor.

Two years later C. F. Clarkson, of Iowa, at the second anniversary dinner, paid a glowing tribute to the wisdom and foresight which liad selected so rare a location, laid so broad a foun- dation of social prosperity, and predicted a future which the most sanguine of Pasadenians had not conceived of. They had not overestimated their obvious advantages. The elevation of nearly 1,000 feet above the city of Los Angeles, eight miles distant, was a sufficient guaranty of. exemption from malaria; soil, drainage and the . apparently inexhaustible water supply were most satisfactory.' The Arroyo Seeo flowed in perpetual benediction through wooded glens and sylvau openings, game and fish were abundant, the mountain barriers shut out the north winds; the blue Pacific, with Catalina Island in the dis- tanee, enchanted the eye and tempered the mid- day heats. Los Angeles was ten miles distant, and three miles to the east was the Southern Pacific Railroad station of San Gabriel Mission. The great, busy commercial world was near, yet not too near for the purposes of an ideal life in nature's most delightful seelusion.

The original purchase also included mountain lands upon the slopes of the Sierra Madre, Ar- royo lots filled with valuable timber, a magnifi- cent grove of live oaks on the road to Los Angeles, covering 400 acres, making a natural park exactly suited for pienics, camp-meetings and holiday enjoyments of every kind.

But Pasadena was even more favored in the practical encouragement of the great ranches which surround it. Santa Anita and Sunny Slope, the estates of Messrs. Baldwin and Rose, had already become famous for the variety of their products. An orange grove of 16,000 bearing trees; the rosy snow of blossoming almonds; the rich verdure of alfalfa fields, in which fine eattle were feeding; the long avenues of eucalyptus trees, leading to stables where the perfect horse, from colthood to the fullest per- fection of equine power, were but a small part of the attraction of the Santa Anita Ranch. The superb orange orchards of the Duarte were near, and Riverside was making immense strides for pre-eminence in semi-tropic cultures.

The first Pasadena marriage was that of Charles H. Watts to Millie, a daughter of Major Erie Locke, one of the pioneers. The bachelor quarters of Mr. Watts had served also as a place of worship for the Presbyterians, in 1874; the advent of Harvey Watts, the first man-child born in the colony, made it necessary to secure a more suitable place of worship, and the first church edifice was erected in 1875-'76, at a cost of $2,300. To this a parsonage was soon added, costing $1,800 more. The Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society of Pasadena, or- ganized in this church, has been among the most useful institutions.

The first Methodist society was organized in 1875, and their first chapel dedicated January 7,1887.

Both these denominations have long since outgrown their primitive temples; indeed the story of the development of schools and churches reads like a fable to those who have not watehed its growth. While the eleven congregations of Pasadena are all provided with commodious places of worship, those of the Universalists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Method- ists would be objects of interest in any city of the East. With their neatly-kept lawns, ocen- pying commanding sites, they seem to preserve the traditional conseeration of the land, which was made at San Gabriel in the last century.

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HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

From the simple meeting-house of the Friends to the spacious Tabernacle, built as an annex to the Methodist Church, every denomination is sustained by large congregations, and the churches and church property represent an in- vestment of more than $400,000.

The public schools are the pride of Pasadena. Beginning in 1874, in a private house, with only two pupils, the San Pascual school soon increased to the capacity of a one-room school-house near a grand old oak which sheltered a lovely play- ground.

In 1878, a large and well furnished school- house in a central location required three teaclı- ers for its crowded rooms; while yet another in South Pasadena was conveniently arranged for fifty-six pupils. Ten years later, it was shown by official reports that " Pasadena had the best ventilated, the best lighted, and handsomest school buildings of all towns of its size in the United States," with an enrollment of 1,354 pupils. The instructional force, besides the superintendent, includes four principals, three vice-principals and seventeen teachers. The school property, valned at $200,000, is the choicest in the city as to pleasantness of loca- tion; and in every case the lands have been do- nated for sites and ample play grounds. From 1874 to 1889, a leading citizen, Hon. Sherman Washburn, has served upon the board of trus- tees; and while ready to adopt every modifica- tion demanded by the spirit of the age, the motto of the faithful guardians of the Pasadena schools has ever been, " Prove all things, hold fast that which is good."

An excellent private seminary for young la- dies, St. Margaret's Hall, is well patronized, and furnished with every facility for the pursuit of musical and art study, and of the modern lan- guages. The Pasadena Academy is yet another flourishing private school, for both sexes.

Professional teachers of music and the fine arts, of high repute, having made their homes in Pasadena from considerations of health, have created opportunities for culture in those dirce- tions. Classes for foreign travel have been

formed, the first being now in attendance upon the French Exposition.

These are among many evidences of the excep- tionally high character of the pioneers of Pasadena.

It was a singular fact 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 trans- formed them into enthusiastic culturists of the orange and the vine. The worn-out physician found the fountain of youth in the pure Cali- fornia sunshine, which turned his grapes into delicious raisins. In the first nine years of the history of the settlement, not a single criminal prosecution occurred among a population of a thousand souls, and quarrels were unknown. Lawyers issued writs of ejectments to gophers and squirrels, of which there was no lack.

In March, 1880, Pasadena held her first citrus fair, in the school building, in which the display of oranges, lemons, limes, raisins, deciduous fruits, fresh or dried and preserved in glass, received the highest praises from hundreds of interested visitors. The public prints abounded in descriptions of the orchard products of the little hamlet, so lately a sheep ranch. A year later the Southern Horticultural Society held its great citrus exhibition, and Pasadena, exhibit- ing a huge pyramid of oranges, lemons and limes, with scores of individual exhibits, bore off the first premium above all competitors, the blue ribbon, and $100, awarded to it as the largest and best exhibit of the kind ever made in the State.

Later in the year, at the annual fair of the Southern California Horticultural Society, Pasa- dena took the first preminms for quality and display of citrus fruits. It is a well-known fact that young trees, growing upon virgin soil, produce the very finest exhibition fruit; but the San Gabriel orange belt was the earliest known in American fruit culture, and trees in the Mis- sion garden, sixty years old, are still producing fruit of excellent quality. A single tree in Pasadena, eleven years old, yielded in one year 3,000 fair-sized, well-flavored oranges.

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HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

What the citrus culture was worth to Sonth- ern California, and what loss its destruction entailed, is a subject beyond the limits of this article. Now that Australia, whence the insect destroyer came, has sent a devouring parasite equal to the task of its extermination, the or- chards are renewing their long lease of life. There seemed no limit to the horticultural pos- sibilities of Pasadena and the adjacent high- lands.

The colony which first incorporated under the nameof the San Gabriel Orange Grove Associa- tion had included in their purchase a dense growth of chaparral high up in the foot-hills for which they gladly accepted $5 an acre. Pur- chasing certain water rights in the adjacent cañons, these far-sighted Iowans proceeded to develop princely estates, which from an altitude 2,000 feet above the sea, command a view of the entire San Gabriel Valley, with a wider stretch of the blue Pacific. Upon a portion of this tract Messrs. Green and MeNally have charm- ing homes, enriched within and without with treasures of art, and the application of instructed taste in the management of grounds. The Al- tadeua Railroad makes several trips daily to this pleasant suburb, starting from the Raymond Hotel depot.

Still farther toward the Heart of the High- lands the homes of the Giddings are found at the entrance of the Millard Canon, famous for its picturesque waterfall. Numerous other perches have a local interest, while the Gleeson Sanitarium and the eyrie of John Brown's sons, attract visitors from all parts of the country.

The selection of Wilson's Peak, which over- looks Pasadena, for the site of an astronomical observatory which promises to become a point of world wide scientific interest, adds still more to the mysterious charm of the mountains. For this observatory the largest lens yet known is being prepared, through which " the azure sea with golden shores" will be more fully explored. The observatory will soon be accessible by an excellent wagon road, which will no doubt be displaced by one similar to that provided for

tourists to the top of Mount Washington. No one has seen the beauty of the San Gabriel Val- ley who has not stood upon Wilson's Peak; and an alnost unbroken burro train is seen em- ployed in the service of tourists who go up to view the glory of the earth, even more than the wonders of the sky. From Wilson's Peak the whole main range of the Sierras, the lofty crests of San Antonio, San Jacinto and San Bernardino, the brightness of snow-clad peaks intensified by dark forests, and the emerald hues of countless orange groves, and all the de- pendent valleys, make a scene of enchantment which no pen can describe.

Southern California is a land of strange con- trasts, of inexhaustible delights; and the growth of Pasadena from its simple conditions as a model colony, to an almost ideal yonng city, with 10,000 inhabitants, who love it as the Swiss their mountain chalets, is no marvel, when one remembers how through long ages Nature has been weaving the tapestries of hill and plain, and Providence has been preparing a race to inherit this choicest climate, these varied products of all the zones. Pasadena, with its outlying districts of South Pasadena, Olive- wood, Lamanda Park, Sierra Madre, Monk's Hill and Altadena, covers about twenty square miles.

In 1880 Pasadena was served with a tri- weekly stage and mail; now a liveried servant of the Government delivers the mail at every door, while almost honrly trains over the Atchi- son, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad convey the population east or west. Then, the people de- pended wholly upon Los Angeles; now with a manufacturing company which operates one of the largest planing mills in the State; with brick-yards producing 60,000 bricks a day; with twenty miles of horse-car lines running in every direction; with three banks and two daily news- papers; with the peerless Raymond Hotel in its fifty-acre flower garden on the south, and the homelike Painter Hotel on the north, while the opening of a third in the heart of Pasadena is near at hand, and numerous boarding houses

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ready to meet the special requirements of winter guests or birds of passage; with a well fur- nished free library; with society halls and club houses, a fine opera house, at an hour's distance from the ocean beaches, with all their varied delights; within the sound of the mission bells of Old San Gabriel, where in a typical Mexican village the old life of the land may be studied and enjoyed; it is not unlikely that the native Pasadenians prove to be like those who-

" Born in Boston, need no second birth."

The natural advantages of Pasadena which have drawn hither scholars and artists, health- seekers, retired capitalists, and soldiers of fort-

une who ride on the crest of every wave of material progress, creating and dissolving booms, are permanent; and the laws which govern the movement of population and of capital are equally irresistible. Everything points to Los Angeles County as the seat of a dense and choice population called from all nations, cli- mates and zones.

Here the first gold and silver were discovered, and here was the early home of the orange, the olive and vine; and here if anywhere upon the planet is the prophecy of good Bishop Berkeley to be fulfilled.

" Westward the star of empire takes its way."

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HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

POMONA.K

CHAPTER XX.

NE of the prominent and most flourishing among the larger cities of the county is Pomona, thirty-three miles east of Los Angeles and near the county boundary line. The Sierra Madre average an elevation of 9,000 feet above the sea, with snow-capped peaks, and are distant six miles north, and Mt. San Ber- nardino (height 11,000 feet) and Mt. San Jacinto - about the same height-forty and fifty miles eastward. The lower range, called the San José Hills, midway between the Sierra Madre Range and the ocean, terminate at the city, and the great valley widens at this point to twenty-five and thirty miles.

Thus these high mountain ranges protect this valley equally from harsh sea winds and the unpleasant dry winds and sand-storms of the desert. The altitude of the city is 860 feet above the sea, the valley rising gradually to 2,000 feet at the foot of the mountains. This immediate locality bears a similar relation to the mountains and the ocean as the celebrated healthı resorts of Mentone and Nice.

The valley is believed to be one of the mildest and healthiest in Southern California, free from ocean dampness or desert heats. The Southern Pacific Railroad, main line from San Francisco to New Orleans and all points south and east, runs through the heart of the city, while the depot of the great Santa Fé Railway is located

in the north part of the city, thus giving ship- pers and passengers the choice of two great over- land routes.

The soil of the Pomona Valley is a gravelly loam in the greater portion, although there ex- ists a large number of acres of moist, adobe land peculiar to the Los Angeles Valley, which requires little or no irrigation. Withont exag- geration it may be said that for richness and capability to produce great quantities to small portions, this soil is unequaled. It has been practically demonstrated that all citrus and de- ciduous fruits may be grown, and when located properly in the right class of soil and elevation (the valley varies from 900 to 2,000 feet in this respect), results even greater than anticipated inay be obtained.

HISTORY OF THE GRANT.

The title to its lands is undoubtedly the best of all the present town sites in Los Angeles County. The rancho San José, on which the town is situated, in early days, under Spanish and Mexican government, constituted a portion of the lands appendant to the old mission of San Gabriel, which was founded in 1771. The first grant of the rancho San José was made on April 19, 1837, by Juan B. Alvarado, Gov- ernor pro tem of Alta California, to Ignacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar, Mexicans by

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birth. The conveyance was afterward approved by the Departinent Assembly, and judicial pos- session given to the grantees on the 3d day of Angust of the same year. Subsequently, on the petition of these two grantees, together with Luis Arenas, the same rancho was re-granted by Governor Alvarado on March 14, 1840, with an extra leagne of land known as the San José addition, which lay on the west next to the mountains of the San Gabriel. Judicial pos- session was given to the grantees, thus eonsti- tnting Ignacio Palomares, Ricardo Vejar and Luis Arenas owners in common of the entire rancho San José and the addition.

Some time afterward Luis Arenas sold his undivided portion of this land to Henry Dalton who, in connection with Vejar, presented a petition to Jnan Gallardo, first alcalde and judge of the first instance of Los Angeles City, pray- ing for a partition of the whole rancho among Dalton, Palomares and Vejar. This partition was decreed and carried into effect on the 12th day of February, 1846, againt the protest of Ignacio Palomares, who declared himself dis- satisfied with the division made by the sur- veyors.

This partition was not, however, recognized in the patent granted by the United States Gov- erminent, for which reason, among others, the Supreme Court of this State had in a recent de- eision, filed Jannary 10, 1884, in the case of the Mound City La, d and Water Association "'s. Phillips et al., confirmed the decision of the Superior Court, setting aside the decision made by Jnan Gallardo, and ordering a new partition. This late decision does not affect the title to any of the lots on the Pomona town-site, or any part of the Pomona traet, inasmuch as this was especially stipulated by the parties to the suit.

On April 30, 1884, the interest in the rancho of Ricardo Vejar, one of the original grantees, was sold for $29,000 to II. Tischler and J. Schles- inger, by whom it was afterward conveyed to Louis Phillips, one of the present owners. The United States Land Commission, created under an Aet of Congress of March 3, 1856, to aseer-

tain and settle private land elaims in California, rendered its decision in favor of the original grantees and those holding under them, which decision was confirmed on appeal by the United States District Court for the District of Southern California, at the December term in 1856.

A patent was on December 4, 1875, duly is- sned by the United States Government to Henry Dalton, Ignacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar, under which the grantees took 22,380.41 acres, embraced in the San José raneho.

It is of course apparent that whatever rights were acquired under the United States patent innred to the benefit of the successors in inter est to every portion of the lands conveyed. The original grantees and those to whom they con- veyed continued to hold and improve the land apportioned to them under the partition made February 12, 1846, by the judge of the first instance.

From the portion allotted to Vejar and through hiin conveyed to Louis Phillips the Pomona traet was pareeled ont, and through mesne con- veyanees were purchased by the Los Angeles Immigration and Land Co-operative Association.

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Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1092

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1092