Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 27

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366

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nation to exterminate the murderous gang. Sev- eral military companies were organized. The country was scoured, suspicious characters ar- rested and known criminals hanged without judge, jury or the benefit of a priest. Flores was hanged on Fort Hill and Pancho Daniel eighteen months later was found one morning hanging to a beam across the gate of the jail yard. The vigilantes, exasperated at the law's delays, hanged him. Tiburcio Vasquez's gang were the last banditti to terrorize the southern counties. After committing a series of crimes, the leader was captured in a canon of the Caht- enga mountains May 15, 1874, by a sheriff's posse under Deputy Sheriff Albert Johnson. Vasquez was hanged March 19, 1875, at San José for murder committed in Santa Clara County. His band was broken up and disap- peared from the county.

October 24, 1871, occurred one of the most disgraceful affairs that ever occurred in Los An- geles. It is known as the Chinese massacre. It grew out of one of those interminable feuds between rival tongs or companies of highbinders over the possession of a woman. In attempting to quell the disturbance, Robert Thompson was shot and killed by a bullet fired through the door of a Chinese house. A mob soon gathered and attacked the Chinese dens, and dragging forth the wretched occupants, hanged nineteen of them to wagon boxes, awnings and beams of a corral gate. The mob plundered the Chinese quarters, stealing everything of value they could lay their hands on. The rioting had begun about dark and continued until 9:30 in the evening. when the law-abiding citizens, under the lead of Henry T. Hazard, R. M. Widney, H. C. Austin, Sheriff Burns and others, had gathered in suffi- cient force to put a stop to the mob's wild work. Finding determined opposition, the murderous miscreants quickly dispersed. Of the nineteen Chinamen hanged, shot or dragged to death, only one, Ah Choy, was implicated in the high- binder war that gave the mob an excuse for rob- bery and pillage. One hundred and fifty indict- ments were found by the grand jury against per- sons implicated in the riot. Only six were con- victed and these after serving a short time in the state's prison were released on a tech- nicality.

The last execution by a vigilance committee in Los Angeles occurred on the morning of De- cember 17, 1870. The victim was Michael Lach- cnias, a French desperado, who murdered his neighbor, Jacob Bell, an inoffensive little man. without provocation. Lachenias, who had the reputation of having killed five or six men, af- ter shooting Bell rode in from his ranch south of town boasting of his deed. He gave himself up

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and was placed in jail. A vigilance committee, three hundred strong, was formed and, march- ing to the jail in broad daylight, took Lachenias out, then proceeded to Tomlinson's corral on the corner of Temple and New High streets (where the Law Building now stands), and hanged him to the beam over the gate. During the Chinese massacre five Chinamen were hanged to the same beam. No attempt was made to prosecute the vigilantes that executed Lachenias.

PIONEER NEWSPAPERS.

In our American colonization of the Great West the newspaper has kept pace with immigra- tion. It was not so in Spainsh colonization ; in it the newspaper came late if it came at all. There were no newspapers published in California dır- ing the Spanish and Mexican eras.

Seventy years elapsed between the founding of Los Angeles and the founding of its first newspaper. October 16, 1850, Theodore Fos- ter petitioned the city council "for a lot situated at the northerly corner of the jail for the pur- pose of erecting thercon a house to be used as a printing establishment." The council, "taking in consideration the advantages which a print- ing house offers to the advancement of public enlightenment, resolved for this once only that a lot from amongst those that are marked on the city map be given to Mr. Theodore Foster for the purpose of establishing thereon a printing house, and the donation be made in his favor because he is the first to inaugurate this public benefit." Foster selected a lot "back of John- son's fronting on the corral." Thecorral or zanja madre (mother ditch) ran along Los Angeles street. Foster's lot, "forty varas cach way," granted him by the council, was directly in the rear of where the St. Charles now stands. On this lot Foster built a two-story building. The lower story was used for a printing office and the upper for a living room for the proprietors and compositors.

The first number of the pioneer paper was issued May 17, 1851. It was named La Estrella de Los Angeles-the Star of Los Angeles, or the Los Angeles Star. It was a four-page, five-col- umin paper ; size of page, 12x18 inches. Two of its pages were printed in English and two in Spanish. The subscription price was $10 a year, payable in advance. Advertisements were in- serted at the rate of $2 per square for the first insertion and $1 for each subsequent insertion. The publishers were John A. Lewis and John McElroy. Foster had transferred his interest in the printing house before the issue of the pa- per. In September, 1853, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the Fresno river.

Between 1851 and 1856 the Star had a number

of different proprietors and publishers. It was not a very profitable investment, so it was passed along from one to another, each proprietor imag- ining that he knew how to run a paper to make it pay. In June, 1856, Henry Hamilton bought it. He continued its publication until October 12, 1864, when, having fallen under the ban of the Federal government for his outspoken sym- pathy with the Southern Confederacy, he was forced to discontinue its publication, and the Star set for a time. May 16, 1868, he resumed its publication. In 1870 the Daily Star was issued by Hamilton & Barter. Barter retired from the firm in a short time and Hamilton con- tinned its publication. Ben. C. Truman leased it in 1873, and continued its publication until, July, 1877, Hamilton sold the paper to Paynter & Co. It passed from one publisher to another until finally the sheriff attached the plant for debt in the latter part of 1879, and the Star of Los An- geles ceased to shine.

The second paper founded in Los Angeles was the Southern Californian. The first issue ap- peared July 20, 1854, C. N. Richards & Co., pub- lishers; William Butts, editor. November 2, 1854, William Butts and John O. Wheeler suc- ceeded Richards & Co. in the proprietorship. The paper was ably conducted and large in size. It died in January, 1856, from insufficient support.

El Clomor Publico was the first Spanish paper published in Los Angeles. The first issue ap- peared June 8, 1855; its last December 31, 1859. Francisco P. Ramirez was the editor and proprie- tor. The Southern Vineyard was founded by Col. J. J. Warner March 20, 1858. It was at first a weekly and later on a semi-weekly. It ceased to exist June 8, 1860.

The Los Angeles News was established by C. R. Conway and Alonzo Waite, January 18, 1860. It was at first a semi-weekly; then changed to a tri-weekly and back again to a semi-weekly January 1, 1869, under the management of King & Offutt it appeared as the Los Angeles Daily News. It was the first daily paper published in Los Angeles. Subscription price was $12 a year, six numbers a week. Its publication ceased in 1873.

These enumerated above were pioneers in the field of journalism. Of the modern papers (those that have appeared since 1860) their number is legion and the journalistic graveyard of unfelt wants is well filled with their remains. I have not space even to enumerate them. The oldest paper now published in Los Angeles is the Evening Express. It was established March 27, 1871.

ANNALS OF THE CITY'S GROWTH AND PROGRESS.

During the first decade (1850 to 1860) of American government of the city it made a

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steady growth. Wood and brick to a consider- able extent had supplanted adobe in building. The first brick were made in 1852 by Jesse Hunter, and the first brick building erected in the city was built on the northwest corner of Main and Third streets.

The population of the city in 1850 was 1,610; in 1860, 4,399. The growth of the city has been irregular, by fits and starts, or booms, as they are now called. In 1849 and 1850 the city had one of its spasms of expansion that astonished the old-timers. Houses already framed for put- ting together were shipped around the Horn from Boston and New York and even from Lon- don. Some of these were sheet-iron buildings. Again in 1858 and 1859 the city had another building boom. The Arcadiablock, on the corner of Arcadia and Los Angeles streets, was built by Don Abel Stearns. It is said to have cost $80,000. The Angeleños pointed to it with pride and claimed that it was the finest business block south of San Francisco. In 1859 Juan Temple erected for a city market the building that was afterward used for a court house. The upper story was designed for and used several years as a theater. It cost $30,000. Ten years later it was sold at $25,000 to the county for a court house. During the year 1859, thirty-one brick buildings and a considerable number of wooden ones were built in the city. It was the biggest building boom in the history of the city up to that time. In January, 1858, the first train of pack camels appeared in Los Angeles. For a year or more afterwards it was no uncommon siglit to see a caravan of these hump-backed burden-bearers solemnly wending their way single file through the city. In 1857, through the efforts of Jefferson Davis, then secretary of war, seventy-five camels were imported from Egypt and Arabia to Texas for army service in the arid plains of the southwest. One detach- ment from the main body was used in packing supplies from Los Angeles to Fort Tejon; others were used in transporting military sup- plies to the forts in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. But the experiment proved a fail- ure. The perversity of the camel and the im- possibility of transforming an American mule whacker into an Arabian camel driver destroyed all hopes of utilizing the camel in America, and these "ships of the desert" were left finally to drift in their native element at will. It is said that some of the survivors of the experiment or their descendants are still running loose in the deserts of Arizona and Northern Mexico.

In 1860 the telegraph line between San Fran- cisco and Los Angeles was completed and the first message over the wires was sent by Henry Mellus, the mayor of Los Angeles, at 10 o'clock

P. M., October 8, to H. F. Teschemacher, presi- dent of the board of supervisors of San Fran- cisco. The Salt Lake trade, begun in 1855, had grown to considerable proportions. In one month as high as sixty wagons had been loaded in Los Angeles for Salt Lake. May 25, 1861, a grand Union demonstration was held in the city. The Civil war had split the citizens into two hostile factions; the larger number were Confederate sympathizers. The Union men, taking advantage of the presence of a company of the First United States Dragoons, got up a grand procession and marched around the plaza, down Main and up Spring to the court house, where the national colors were unfurled. The United States military band struck up the "Star- Spangled Banner," thirty-four guns were fired, one for each state in the Union, and patriotic speeches were made by Gen. Drown, Major Carlton and Capt. (afterwards Gen.) W. S. Han- cock.

January, 1862, was noted for the greatest flood in the history of California. It began raining December 24, 1861, and kept it up almost with- out cessation for a month. New Year's day the valleys were like inland seas and all communica- tion with the city from the south and east was cut off. The Arroyo Seco brought down im- mense rafts of driftwood, but as there were no bridges then across the river these did but little harm. They supplied the poor people of the city with firewood. During the early part of 1862 there were about 4,000 troops at Wilming- ton en route for Arizona and New Mexico. One regiment was stationed at Camp Latham on the La Ballona rancho. This camp was broken up in the summer and the troops removed to Wil- mington.

The year 1863 was one of disasters. Smallpox was raging among the Mexicans and Indians and they were dying so fast that it was difficult to find persons to bury them. The great drouth had set in and cattle on the overstocked ranges were dying by droves. There was a feud be- tween the Unionist and secessionist so bitter that a body of troops had to be stationed in the city to protect the Unionists, who were in the minority. Times were hard and money almost an unknown quantity. The property of several of the richest men in the city was advertised for sale on account of delinquent taxes. No assess- ment for city taxes was made for the fiscal year of 1863-64.

The year 1864 was a continuation of the evil days of 1863. The drouth continued and many of the cattle carried over from the previous year died before grass grew. The secession element was still rampant and a number of arrests were made by the government.

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

In 1865 the war was over and those on both sides who had fought valiantly with their tongues sheathed their weapons and cried peace. April 19, public obsequies were held in respect to the memory of President Lincoln. Rev. Elias Bird- sell delivered the funeral oration. The 4th of July was celebrated for the first time since the beginning of the war. The church of the First Protestant Society, the erection of which had been begun in 1859, under the ministry of Rev. William E. Boardman, a Presbyterian minister, was this year turned over to the Episcopalians in an unfinished condition. It was completed and oc- cupied by Rev. Elias Birdsell, an Episcopal min- ister. It was advertised for sale by the sheriff in 1864, but nobody wanted a church, and so it was not sold. It stood on the southwest corner of Temple and New High streets, where the steps leading up to the court house now are. It was the pioneer Protestant church of the city.

The year 1868, like that of 1862, was ushered in by a great flood, which left a lasting impress on the physical contour of the county. It formed a new river, or rather an additional channel for the San Gabriel river. Several thousand acres of valuable land were washed away by the San Ga- briel river cutting a new channel to the sea, from three to five miles southeast of the old river. The damage by loss of land was more than offset by the increased facilities for irrigation afforded by having two rivers instead of one. The flood in the Los Angeles river swept away the dam of the water-works and cut off the city's water supply, leaving the inhabitants very much in the condition of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, "Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink." The disastrous years of 1863 and 1864 had stopped all growth and improvement in the city. In 1868 the city began to take on a new growth. The subdivision of some of the large ranchos and their sale in small tracts brought in home-seekers. In the city, old-timers who had been holding on for years to town property took the first opportunity to unload on the new- comers ; and lots that to-day are valued in the hundred thousands each changed hands in 1868 with the thousands left off.

A number of new enterprises were inaugurated this year. Work was begun on the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad. The City Water Com- pany was organized and water piped in iron pipes to the houses. The first bank was organized by Alvinza Hayward and John G. Downey, capi- tal $100,000. The new Masonic Hall on Spring street was dedicated September 29th. The city was lighted with gas.

In 1869 immigration was coming by boatloads. Real estate was advancing in value rapidly. There was a great demand for houses and new

buildings were springing up all over the city. The Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad was completed October 26 and then the old stage coaches that for nearly two decades had raced and rattled over the road between city and port were relegated to obscurity.

In February, 1870, the houses in the business portion of the city were numbered systematically for the first time. The first city directory was compiled this year, but was not published until 1871. There were 110 places where liquor was retailed. The Federal census gave the popula- tion of the city 5,614, which was an increase of 1,215 in ten years. The assessed value of prop- erty in the city was $2,108,061.

The railroad bond issue was the live question of 1872. The Southern Pacific Railroad Con- pany had made an offer to build twenty-five miles north and twenty-five east from Los An- geles city of its trans-continental line that it was building up the San Joaquin valley. The Texas Pacific met this with an offer to build from San Diego (the prospective terminus of its trans- continental line) a railroad up the coast to Los Angeles, giving the county sixty miles of rail- road. The Southern Pacific countered this offer by agreeing to build, in addition to the fifty miles of its previous offer, a branch to Anahein1, making in all seventy-seven miles. The recomi- pense for this liberality on the part of the roads was that the people should vote bonds equal to five per cent of the total taxable property of the county. The bond question stirred up the peo- ple as no previous issue had done since the Civil war. The contest was a triangular one, South- ern Pacific, Texas Pacific or no railroad. Each company had its agents and advocates abroad enlightening the people on the superior merits of its individual offer, while "Taxpayer" and "Pro Bono Publico," through the newspapers, bewailed the waste of the people's money and bemoaned the increase of taxes. At the election, November 5, the Southern Pacific won.

The city reached the high tide of its prosperity during the 'zos in 1874. Building was active. It was estimated that over $300,000 was expended in the erection of business houses and fully that amount in residences. The Spring and Sixth street horse railroad, the first street car line in the city, was completed this year.

The year 1875 was one of disasters. The great financial panic of 1873, presaged by that mone- tary cyclone, "Black Friday in Wall street." had no immediate effect upon business in California. The years 1873 and 1874 were among the most prosperous in our history. The panic reached California in September, 1875, beginning with the suspension of the Bank of California in San Francisco and the tragic death of its president,

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

William C. Ralston. In a few days nearly every bank in California closed its doors. The two in Los Angeles-the Temple & Workman and Hellman's-closed. The latter resumed busi- ness in å few days. The former made an at- tempt to stem the current of its financial diffi- culties, failed, and went down forever, carrying with it the fortune of many an unfortunate de- positor. One of the bankers, William Work- man, an old and highly respected pioneer, from brooding over the failure, went insane and com- mitted suicide. Temple died a few years later, a poor man.

The hard times following the bank failures were intensified by the drought of 1877, which brought disaster to the sheep industry of South- ern California. There was no business reaction during the remainder of the decade. The Fed- eral census of 1880 gave the city's population at 11,183, an increase of almost one hundred per cent in ten years. The greater part of the gain was made in the first half of the decade. Rail- road connection with San Francisco and Sacra- mento was made in September, 1876, but it opened up no new market for Los Angeles. Times continued hard and money close. The adoption of the new constitution of the state in 1879 did not improve matters. The capitalists were afraid of some of its radical innovations.

In 1881 times began to improve. The rail- road had penetrated into the mining regions of Arizona and opened up a market for the prod- ucts of Southern California. Its completion next year gave Los Angeles direct connection with the east and brought in eastern investors. Dur- ing 1883 and 1884 the city grew rapidly. In May, 1883, the school lot on the northwest cor- ner of Spring and Second streets was sold for $31,000; two years before it was valued at $12,000. The board of education purchased from part of the proceeds of that sale the present site of the Spring street school, near Sixth street, for $12,500. The school building was erected in 1884, at a cost of about $40,000. In the spring of 1886 the Atlantic & Pacific and its connecting roads-the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and Southern California-precipitated a rate war with the Southern Pacific. Round-trip tickets from Missouri river points to Los Angeles were sold as low as $15. Thousands of castern peo- ple, taking advantage of the low rates, visited Southern California.

The country was looking its loveliest. East- ern people, shivering in the "bleak winds of March" when they left their homes, in three or four days were in a land where the plains and hills were green with verdure, flowers bloom- ing and the fragrance of orange bloom perfuming the air. The result was that many of the tourists

invested in land and lots and others went home to sell their possessions and return to the prom- ised and promising land. Real-estate values went up rapidly in 1886, but in 1887 came that event that marks the turning point in the city's history-the Boom.

In the historical sketch of Los Angeles county some of the extravagant as well as the ludicrous features of the boom are portrayed. Speculation in city property was mostly legiti- mate, but values were inflated to the bursting point. After a lapse of fifteen years and a popu- lation three times as great as that of 1887, very little of the property that changed hands during the boom, outside of that on three business streets, could be sold to-day at the figures at which it changed hands during the height of the boom; and many of the outlying lots in the east- ern part of the city could not be disposed of for the amount of the commission the real-estate agent received for making the sale fifteen years ago.

In 1889 work was begun on the cable railway system. A line was extended on Broadway to Seventh and west on Seventh to West Lake Park. Another line extended from Seventh on Grand avenue to Jefferson street. From First and Spring a line ran on East First to Boyle Heights and from the same point another ran on North Spring, Upper Main and Downey avenue to East Los Angeles. A million and a half dol- lars were expended in tracks, power houses and machinery. All but the tracks were discarded a few years later, when electricity was substituted for steam and the trolley for the cable. The Los Angeles electric railway system was begun in 1892. The first line constructed was that on West Second, Olive, First and other streets to Westlake Park. The traction system was begun in 1895.

In February, 1892, Messrs. Doheny and Con- non, prospecting for petroleum, dug two wells with pick and shovel on West State street, in the resident portion of the city. At the depth of 150 feet oil was found. From this small begin- ning a profitable industry has grown up. The oil helt extends diagonally across the northwestern part of the city. The total number of wells drilled within the city limits up to June, 1900, was 1,300, and the yield of these from the begin- ning of the oil development was estimated at 7,000,000 barrels, worth in round numbers about $6,000,000.

In the spring of 1900 the oil industry took on some of the wild-cat characteristics of the great real-estate boom. For a time it was no uncom- mon feat to incorporate half a dozen oil com- panies in a day. The capital of some of these ran up into the millions. Oil stocks could be bought

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all the way from one cent up; and later on, when the excitement began to subside, in bunches of five for a cent. Thousands of dollars were invested in oil stock, not wild-cat, from which there will be no return. Many an investor to-day has a nicely lithographed certificate of oil stock that has cost him more than would an oil paint- ing by one of the old masters. At several elec-

tions called at different times between 1896 and 1899 the city area was increased by annexations on the southwest and northeast from twenty- seven to thirty-seven square miles. The popu- lation of the city, according to the census of 1900, was 102,298. The assessed value of city property was $67,576,047.

CHAPTER XXVIII. SANTA BARBARA COUNTY.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME.

W HEN Cabrillo explored the Santa Bar- bara channel in 1542 he named only a few of the prominent points of the main land and the islands that mark the chan- nel; but few of the names he gave have been retained.

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Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 27

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co. Number of Pages: 1366

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366