USA > California > California of the South: Being a Complete Guide Book to Southern California > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30
The Los Angeles County Medical Society was organized January 31, 1871, with Dr. John S. Griffin as president. The presidents since then have been Drs. R. H. Dalton, Joseph P. Widney, Henry Sayre Orme, Joseph Kurtz, Walter Lindley, H. Nadeau, W. G. Cochrane, F. A. Sey- mour, Andrew McFarland, and F. T. Bicknell.
The membership includes nearly all of the regular school of physicians. The meetings are held the first Fri- day evening in each month in the parlors of Hollenbeck Block, corner of Spring and Second Streets. Dr. J. S. Griffin, the first president, is still a Los Angeles practitioner. He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1837, entered the United States Army as assistant surgeon, and, after serving in Florida and New Mexico, came to Los Angeles as chief surgeon of General Kearny's forces.
The doctor is now past seventy years of age, the Nestor of the medical profession of Southern California. His fam- ily was noted in Virginia, his native State. One of his sis- ters was the wife of the late General Albert Sidney John- ston, and now lives in Los Angeles with her two sons and one daughter.
There is also a Homeopathic Society of more recent or- ganization, of which Dr. Dorothea Lummis is president.
Manufactures in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is not what would be called a manufactur- ing city, yet there are a large number of extensive manu- factories. Among these are nine iron-foundries, with sev-
111
LOS ANGELES.
eral hundred employés ; three flour and feed mills, turning out about five hundred barrels of flour daily ; a dozen planing-mills, employing from twenty to sixty men each ; several brick-kilns, turning out an aggregate of a quarter of a million of brick daily ; an extensive pottery ; several factories for the manufacture of iron irrigating-pipes, em- ploying several hundred men ; several carriage and wagon factories ; cigar-factories, employing one hundred and fifty men ; six soap-factories, with about fifty employés ; one ice-factory, two broom-factories, and one cracker-factory ; there are six granite-works, employing a large number of stone-cutters ; at least two hundred men are constantly en- gaged in manufacturing artificial stone for sidewalks and water-pipes ; two factories for the manufacture of soda and mineral waters ; an establishment for the purpose of pulling wool by steam from sheep skins ; a hair-factory, where hair and moss is prepared for mattress-makers and upholsterers ; several mattress-factories ; very large furni- ture-factories ; two breweries, that use twenty thousand sacks of barley and three hundred bales of hops per year ; several wineries and brandy-stills ; one woolen-mill ; can- neries and fruit-crystallizing works ; eight candy-factories, one very extensive ; one wholesale ice-cream factory ; two vinegar and pickle works ; several cooper-shops ; shirt-fac- tories ; box-factories, for making boxes for oranges and other fruits ; several coffee and spice mills ; a bone-dust factory ; and several establishments for the manufacture of tin-ware. There are car-shops, where the cars on our street railways are made. The car and locomotive repair- shops of the Southern Pacific Company are also located in Los Angeles. There are jewelry-works, electric works, straw-works, lithographic works, hat-factories, tanneries, fruit-drying establishments, and a pork-packing cold- storage company, with a capital of three hundred thousand dollars.
112
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Los Angeles, and in fact all Southern California towns, present great advantages for manufacturing enterprises, owing to the cheapness of crude petroleum. The flouring- mills, electric-light works, electric street-car engine, pressed- brick company, and a number of smaller establishments burn petroleum exclusively. The streets of Los Angeles are lighted by electricity, but there are two complete sys- tems of gas-works-one coal-gas, the other water-gas-and, at the present writing, the price of water-gas is one dollar per thousand feet.
Trade and Commerce of Los Angeles.
There are a Board of Trade and a Produce Exchange. Both are located in Baker Block, corner of Arcadia and Main Streets. Mr. A. M. Lawrence is the secretary of each of these organizations, and visitors desiring detailed infor- mation about business will find him in his office ever ready to impart information.
There are now either completed or in course of con- struction fifteen lines of railroad coming into Los Angeles. There are, as will be learned in the chapter on harbors, two harbors - one thirteen miles and the other twenty miles from the city limits. Trains go to and from these seaports every hour in the day. Los Angeles is the central com- mercial point for Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. There are numerous wholesale grocery-houses, dry-goods stores, notion-houses, boot and shoe houses, cloth- ing-houses, and liquor-stores. The Los Angeles drummer is abroad in the land, and the grass groweth not under his feet. In fact, all lines of business are represented here by wholesale houses except that of drugs, there being no whole- sale drug-store. Los Angeles is probably the only city in America with over sixty thousand people that can truthfully boast of having no wholesale drug-house.
113
LOS ANGELES.
The city assessment-roll amounted, in 1886, to $46,000,- 000, and the tax-rate is $1.30. Property is assessed for about forty per cent of its real value.
The chief exports to the East from Los Angeles are dried and green fruits, wool, wine, brandy, hides, vegetables, and potatoes. During the six months' orange season it is nothing unusual for twenty-five cars loaded with oranges to leave the city daily.
There were filed with the Recorder of Los Angeles dur- ing the first six months of 1887, 15,077 transfers with con- sideration amounting to $41,993,569-$14,000,000 more than the total transfers for the twelve months of 1886.
The fact that, during the month of May, 1887, there were 352,882 separate pieces of mail-matter handled in the Los Angeles post-office, gives some idea of the busy population. There are eight banks-all financially solid-with deposits amounting to about ten million dollars, and a proportionate capital. The usual rate of interest is eight per cent. In 1875 the common rate of interest was eighteen per cent.
The center of business is at First and Main Streets and First and Spring Streets, and the daily crowd of vehicles and people hurrying to and fro is equal to the living mass that is always to be seen surging through Broadway, New York. The observer will soon realize that here is a great commercial metropolis. An idea of the amount of building can be gained from a knowledge of the number of extensive brick-kilns, and from the fact that over sixty-five million feet of lumber were sold in Los Angeles during the first six months of 1887.
Wine Interests of Los Angeles.
The following extract, from a letter from Major B. C. Truman to the "New York Times," gives an idea of the wine interests of Los Angeles :
114
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
" Los Angeles County has an area of 22,005 acres of wine-making grapes, from which nearly five million gallons of brandy and wine were made in 1886. The first California wines known in the East were from Los Angeles County, and some choice varieties, made from thirty-year-old vines, found their way into Eastern cellars thirty years ago, as there are a number of vineyards in the county known to be from seventy to eighty years old, and which are still in ex- cellent bearing order. There are about 3,500 acres of vines from tive to fifty years old, 5,000 acres of four-year-olds, 8,000 acres of three-year-olds, 3,500 acres of two-year-olds, and 2,000 acres of one- year-olds. There are also 2,700 acres of table-grapes, and 1,000 acres of grapes used for making raisins-25,705 acres of grape-vines in all. Los Angeles County contains about 4,812 square miles, or 3,080,000 acres. A great deal of this land is watered from three rivers, and lies between the Coast Range and the Pacific Ocean, and is mainly devoted to vineyards and the production of citrus and other fruits. The city of Los Angeles is 482 miles by rail from San Francisco. It contains about fifty-five thousand inhabitants, and has one of the most delightful and equable temperatures in the world, and has already been visited by ten thousand valetudinarians since the 1st of December last. Besides its superior climate and prodigality of soil, and its railroads running in nine or ten directions, and a good steamship service to and from San Francisco, the city has a public library, Board of Trade, eight banks, twenty churches, one fine opera-house and one or two theatres, a great number of institutions of learning, four eight-page daily newspapers, twenty- nine miles of street- and cable-roads, and many other evidences of prosperity and civilization. It is lighted by both gas and electricity, and has a splendid water system. a good, paid fire department, and efficient police. In and about this pretty city are the thousands of acres of grape-vines I have enumerated above, and a great many wineries, some of which are as complete and extensive as the most perfect ones in Europe. Of course, I did not visit all these vine- yards and wineries, but made the rounds of some of the leading and most important ones. Among the oldest and best-known vineyards in the city is the Beaudry vineyard, which has vines twenty, thirty, and forty years old. Mr. Beaudry has an immense winery, and some fine old red and white wines in hard-wood tanks, which have never been put on the market. Kohler and Froeling, who make a
115
LOS ANGELES.
great deal of light red and white wines on their vineyards in Napa and Sonoma Counties, have a large vineyard here, upon which they make their ports and sherries and burgundies and brandies. The Keller vineyard is a well-known one, and has turned out hundreds of thousands of gallons of dry and sweet wines. There are a great many others, too numerous to mention. The largest vineyard in the State, next to Senator Stanford's, in Tehama County (which is the largest in the world), is the Nadeau vineyard, which covers an area of over two thousand acres ; it is three or four years old, and lies between this city and Anaheim. The first year's yield of this immense vineyard was sent to the still, and turned out forty-five thousand gallons of brandy, which Mr. Nadeau warehoused, and then paid the Government $40,500. The three next largest vine- yards are at and near San Gabriel, and are owned respectively by "Lucky ' Baldwin, who has upward of a thousand acres in Mission and other vines; Stern and Rose (Sunny Slope vineyard), over a thousand acres of many varieties ; J. de Barth Shorb (San Gabriel Wine Company), about fifteen hundred acres of Missions, Zinfan- dels, Mataros, Burgers, and other varieties. These parties have as costly and extensive wineries as many of the leading producers in France, and make and age most all kinds of dry and sweet wines and brandies. These three winemakers have European experts in all the different branches, including 'cellar-keepers,' and their wineries are like parlors, while the processes of picking, crushing, fermenting, blending, and aging are as perfect as it seems possible to make them. Now, these men all have houses in New York, and so do Kohler and Froeling, and nothing is sent there by them but wines and brandies that are absolutely pure, and can be de- pended upon."
Few people know that the vignerons of Los Angeles are greatly indebted to the Parisian scientist Pasteur for the excellent character of their wines. All who have lived here ten years remember Don Mateo Keller, at that time the leading wine-manufacturer. IIe corresponded fre- quently with Pasteur as to the best methods of perfect- ing wines, and Pasteur sent him, with the compliments of the author, a work which he wrote on that subject, which
116
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
proved of great use. Don Mateo, of pleasant memory, has been borne to his last resting-place, while Pasteur reached the acme of human glory.
Climate of Los Angeles.
This subject will be but briefly mentioned, as the whole ground has been covered in extenso in another chapter. The following extracts from a paper read before the Kings County Medical Society, Brooklyn, New York, give a general idea of the climate of this city : *
All writers on climatology agree that the first require- ment of a climate for all classes of invalids is that it shall be equable in temperature.
Now let us compare the temperature of Los Angeles, which is no better than the average Southern California climate, with that of Boston, which I believe is no worse than the average New England climate.
From the Signal Service records at Los Angeles for a period of six years I learn that the average temperature of January, the coldest month, was 52° Fahr., while for Au- gust, the warmest month, the average temperature was 69.70°.
The Signal Service records for 1881 of the office at Boston show that the average temperature of January, the coldest month, was 32-60°, while the average temperature of August was 69.90°, thus showing a difference in average temperature of hottest and coldest months in Los Angeles of less than 18°, while the difference between the average temperature of the coldest and the average temperature of the hottest month in Boston is 37.3º. Further, these same records show that the greatest daily range in tempera-
* "Southern California : A Climatic Sketch," by Walter Lindley, M. D., " New York Medical Journal," October 30, 1887.
117
LOS ANGELES.
ture in Los Angeles was 29°, while the greatest daily range in Boston was 69°.
With the month of May the dry season begins. This term "dry season " applies only to the coast valleys. In the mountains there are now and then sharp thunder-storms, and it is at this time that the desert beyond the Sierras has its rainy reason.
I have often from Los Angeles, in the midst of her dry season, witnessed black clouds and vivid lightning, tell- ing me of summer storms east of the mountains. Some- times even in Los Angeles there is a shower during the summer.
There is seldom a year in which there are a half-dozen cloudy days between the middle of May and the middle of November.
I will again refer you to the Signal Service reports of the Los Angeles station, in order that you may have a more positive basis of information than my casual obser- vations :
MONTH.
1879.
1880.
1881.
1882.
1883.
1884.
Average
January
3.59
1.33
1.43
1.01
1.62
3.15
2.02
February
0.97
1.56
0.36
2.66
2.87
13.36
3.58
March.
0.49
1.45
1.66
2.96
2.87
12.36
3.58
April
1.19
5. 08
0.46
1.83
0.15
3.58
2.04
May
9.24
0.04
0.01
0.63
2.02
0.39
0.55
June
0.03
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.03
1.39
0.24
July .
0.00
0.00
0.CO
0.00
0:00
0.02
Trace.
August.
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.02
Trace.
September
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
October
0.93
0.14
0.82
0.05
1.42
0.39
0.62
November
3.44
0.67
0.37
1.82
0.00
...
1.24
December
6.53
8.40
0.52
0.08
2.56
. ..
3.61
Total
17.41
18.65
5.53
10.74
14.14
13.29
Now we will compare these figures with the rainfall in some other well-known place, as recorded in vol. xxiv, "Smithsonian Institution Reports."
118
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Average rainfall in inches.
PLACE.
Period of observa- tion.
Spring.
Summ'r Autumn Winter.
Year.
Los Angeles
5 years.
3.73
0.01
1.91
7.23
12.88
San Francisco.
20
4.80
0.49
2.68
12.32
20.29
Asheville, N. C.
11
40.20
Cincinnati
41
11.17
12.67
6-29
9.83
42.96
New York city.
29
66
11.43
13.08
11.20
10.81
46.52
Jacksonville, Fla.
13
19.01
21.27
13.07
8.66
53.01
I hope you will notice the amount of rainfall in Los Angeles during winter. It was only yesterday that a promi- nent physician of New York city expressed great surprise when I told him that there were only from twelve to twenty rainy days in Los Angelos during the rainy season. He said he thought it rained there continuously during that period.
But your health-resort may have a mild and equable temperature, a proper altitude, a pure atmosphere, and yet, if it has not variegated scenery and pleasant social sur- roundings, the health-seeker will die of ennui.
This is the point in which Los Angeles, as well as many other places in Southern California, is most happily en- dowed. A thriving city of forty-five thousand inhabitants,* with satisfactory hotels, boarding-houses, and restaurants ; excellent schools, ranging from the kindergarten and public school to colleges, a State normal school, and a well-equipped university ; a commercial metropolis with the ocean at its door, and the center from which radiate sevent lines of railroad ; with cable-roads that noiselessly carry people from the busy streets over the hills to the suburbs ; lighted three hundred and forty days in the year by the sun and three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year by elec-
* Now over sixty thousand.
t Now seventeen.
119
LOS ANGELES.
tricity ; elegant churches, in which worship Roundheads and Cavaliers, the Salvation Army and Unitarians ; an opera-house fully equal to any in the city of Brooklyn, in which are to be seen during the year all the leading theatri- cal attractions of America, ranging from the irrepressible New York negro minstrel troupe to that "noblest Roman of them all "-Lawrence Barrett ; from the vivacious Rhea to the histrionic Janauschek ; the home of the rose, where the humblest cottage is surrounded by a perpetual flower- garden ; where heliotropes and fuchsias clamber to the tops of the houses and there bloom in all their beauty the year round ; and where the bright and cheerful geranium, which you care for so tenderly in your conservatories, is frequently used for hedges and reaches a height of several feet.
Add to this the fact that Los Angeles is located in a county which produces annually many millions of bushels of barley, wheat, and corn ; a county in which there are now growing 22,000,000 grape-vines, 1,000,000 orange-trees, and many thousands of olive, apple, apricot, nectarine, fig, and pomegranate trees-and you will realize that there is vari- ety enough to entertain the most fastidious.
Beyond all these points of interest are the two that God put there before man planted the fig-tree or the vine-the mountains and the ocean. Fourteen miles east of Los An- geles are the Sierra Madre Mountains, and fourteen miles west of Los Angeles is the Pacific Ocean.
The point that should be emphasized is that the climate of Los Angeles and all the Southern California cities located within reach of the daily ocean-breeze is delightful both in summer and in winter. Eastern people have an idea that, because it is a warm winter climate, it must be a hot summer climate.
A gentleman just arrived in Los Angeles, August 20, 1887, from Lake Minnetonka, says : "I suffered with heat every day I was at the lake, but here in Los Angeles it is
120
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
delightful. The thermometer may indicate a temperature as high as at Lake Minnetonka, but the daily breeze from the ocean keeps the heat from being oppressive, while at Minnetonka a person swelters in the shade."
The physicians of Los Angeles are agreed that for the average case of incipient phthisis such places as Newhall, San Fernando, La Cañada, Monte Vista, Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Alhambra, Whittier, San Gabriel, Monrovia, Arca- dia, and Glendora, all within a radius of thirty miles from Los Angeles, are superior, as they have altitudes of one thousand feet and upward, and have not the humidity of places nearer the coast.
In conclusion, Los Angeles is a delightful, prosperous city. It has all the commercial activity and phenomenal growth of Kansas City or Minneapolis, a winter climate superior to that of Mentone or Nice, and a summer climate far pleasanter than that of Lake Minnetonka or Bar Harbor.
Such a climatic and metropolitan combination exists nowhere else on earth.
Los Angeles County, Soledad Township.
Los Angeles County is situated in the south western part of California. The center of this county is about one hun- dred miles from the southern boundary of the State, and about eight hundred from the northern boundary. It ex- tends in a sweeping curve for about one hundred miles along the Pacific Ocean.
The county contains over 5,600 square miles, or 3,600,000 acres, being two thirds the size of the State of Massachu- setts. Its assessed valuation for 1887 is $92,000,000. It is bounded on the south by the Pacific Ocean and San Diego County ; on the north by Kern and Ventura Counties ; on the east by San Bernardino County ; and on the west by Ventura County and the Pacific Ocean. A more irregu-
121
SOLEDAD TOWNSHIP.
larly-shaped territory could scarcely be plotted. Its great- est length is one hundred and twenty miles, and its greatest breadth seventy-two miles. It is divided into two almost equal parts by the thirty-fourth parallel.
The Coast Range of mountains extends through the county from the northwest to the southeast corner. The traveler will rarely hear the term "Coast Range," however, as these mountains have local names by which residents always designate them. There are the following names given to different portions of this range in Los Angeles County : Santa Monica Mountains, Verdugo Mountains, Cahuenga Mountains, Zujunga Mountains, San Fernan- do Mountains, Sierra Madre Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains, San Gabriel Mountains, San José Mountains, Cucamonga Mountains, and Santa Ana Mountains. The highest mountain in this county is Wilson's Peak, about six thousand feet high.
According to the "Rural Californian," the various fruits grown in Los Angeles County may be found in the markets during the following portions of the year :
Oranges Christmas to July.
Lemons
All the year.
Limes All the year.
Figs. July to Christmas.
Almonds . October.
Apples July to November.
Pears July to November.
Grapes July 15th to December. Raisins
.October 20th (new).
Peaches
June 15th to Christmas. Apricots June 15th to September.
Plums and prunes June 1st to November.
Cherries. .June.
Japanese persimmons. November.
Guavas
.Nearly all the year.
May 15th to June 15th. Loquats 6
122
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Straw berries Nearly all the year round.
Raspberries .June 15th to January.
Blackberries June 15th to September.
Currants. May 15th to June 15th.
Gooseberries June.
Water-melons
July to October.
Musk-melons
July to October.
Mulberries
July to December.
Nectarines
August.
Olives
December to January.
Pomegranates
.September to December.
Quinces
October to December.
In the most northerly part of the county-that is, north of the San Fernando Mountains-is a large body of land known as Soledad Township. This township includes 1,200,000 acres, or one third of the whole county. Be- cause of its position it has a climate quite different from the portion of the county lying south of them.
The average altitude is 2,500 feet. Newhall, thirty miles from Los Angeles, the principal town, the lowest point, has an elevation of 1,265 feet. The winters are cooler than in the southern part of the county, and the summers are somewhat warmer. While this region is not so gen- erally known as the southern part, yet it is very healthful, and should be particularly sought by persons suffering from lung-diseases. The atmosphere is so dry that vast quantities of fruit are brought here by rail to sun-dry. The busy camp at Newhall, where the fruit-drying was most extensively carried on during the summer of 1887, looked like the barracks of a fair-sized army. This feature of the atmosphere has led raisin-grape growers to look to- ward Soledad Township with hopeful eyes. Grapes are suc- cessfully raised throughout this section, and there is little doubt but that it will ultimately become a raisin-grape pro- ducing county. Ten acres of raisin - grapes will yield a larger profit per year than sixty acres of wheat. With this
123
NEWHALL.
as a basis, it is easy to calculate the population that Soledad township may in time contain.
In the vicinity of Newhall, and particularly at Ravenna, a few miles from Newhall, asthmatics almost invariably derive great benefit. In fact, the residents in this sparsely- settled territory are many of them asthmatics, living there because it is the only place they can live and be free from their tormentor.
There are good hotel accommodations at Newhall, and comfortable quarters for a limited number at Ravenna. In the western part of this township is Elizabeth Lake, a body of water covering about six hundred acres. There are also in this vicinity five smaller lakes, their elevation being about 3,700 feet. They are surrounded by a fertile, inter- esting country.
The northeastern part of this township comprises what is known as the Mojave Desert. The soil of this desert is highly nutritious, and it is a desert only because of the lack of moisture. Water is now being conveyed upon this land, and in a few years it will be a desert no longer.
Antelope Valley is a large tract of land in this town- ship, traversed by the Southern Pacific Railroad. This valley is being rapidly occupied by settlers. Artesian wells have been sunk, and deciduous fruit, berries, and all the cereals are profitably grown. To the farmerwho is poor in pocket but rich in energy, this section presents many op- portunities.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.