USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume I > Part 53
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In 1904 that portion of the sand strip not included in Santa Monica, with other lands, was incorporated as the City of Ocean Park. It has had a wonderful growth, as in 1914 it contained property valued at $6,000,000.
VENICE CANAL
In 1904, the southern end of this tract was sold to Abbot Kinney for the purpose of building the Venice of America, with its canals, arcades and handsome bridges. Hence it will be seen that Ocean Park is bounded on the north by Santa Monica, on the south by Del Rey and on the west by the boundless Pacific Ocean.
The first city officers in Ocean Park were: Dana Burks, G. M. Jones, W. R. Robinson, Force Parker and W. T. Gibbon. Nearly all held over in 1906. At this date the government of Santa Monica and Ocean Park are one. The city is to California what Atlantic City is to New Jersey. It must be visited in order to be appreciated.
Venice, with a population of nearly 10,000 people, lies just south of and adjoining Ocean Park. It is a wonder for a resort place along the famous beach, the coast line of which takes in Santa Monica, as well as Ocean Park and Venice. Here one finds himself midst the canals, fine piers, great surf line and bath houses, excellent hotels and fine restaurants, in one of the most popular beaches on the Southern California coast line. It has near a score of first-class hotels, theatres, banks, good stores and many
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small shops, club-rooms, public library, excellent churches, a $250,000 high school building, a daily paper and a Chamber of Commerce. Its business center has arcaded streets, while the entire city is circled by a miniature railroad operated daily. There is a fine bath house, dance halls, capacious pavilions, and one of the finest of aquariums, with its collection of Pacific coast marine life. Venice is also headquarters for the Marine Biological station of the University of Southern California.
The libraries are the Venice Branch of the Los Angeles County Library and Villa City Library and Reading Room. The churches include the Congregational, Baptist and Methodist Episcopal denominations. The present officers of the Chamber of Commerce are: C. H. Bouman, presi- dent; John Stein, vice president ; Herbert Keel, secretary.
Venice was first incorporated on February 17, 1904, as a sixth class city. There are no town or city records extant to tell who the various officers have been. The present, or 1922 officials, are: Trustees, E. A. Gerty (president or mayor), J. G. Harrah, A. E. Coles, W. G. Lutz, and C. W. Holbrook; auditor, J. T. Peasgood, Jr .; attorney, C. W. Lyon; building superintendent, W. G. Ball; city clerk, T. H. Hanna; city treas- urer, J. T. Peasgood ; health officer, Dr. I. L. Magee; chief of police, W. A. Loomis ; recorder, A. K. Hancock ; street superintendent, W. F. Crawford ; police judge, A. K. Hancock.
CHAPTER XXXVIII SAN PEDRO AND WILMINGTON
San Pedro is the chief harbor of Los Angeles County, and in many ways the greatest of any along the California coast. While San Pedro has for a number of years been within the corporate limits of Los Angeles, it should be treated separately in this connection because of its age and early, as well as later importance, as a seaport. Outside of its municipal government (annexed to Los Angeles in 1909) it is a city by itself. It is situated between 33 and 34 degrees of latitude north, and longitude between 116 and 118 degrees west of Greenwich. It is twenty-three miles south of the city of Los Angeles, proper. It now has a population of 15,028, and has five large banking institutions, of which mention is made in detail in the Banking chapter of this volume. The newspapers of today are the Daily News and Daily Pilot. The altitude above sea level is fifty feet.
What was, prior to annexation, known as San Pedro is now the "Port of Los Angeles." In order to properly improve this port Los Angeles City found it necessary to include in its municipal limits both Wilmington and San Pedro, which was effected in 1909. As much concerning this won- derful harbor has already been treated in the section of this history relating to the City of Los Angeles, it will not be necessary to expand on the topic at this point. In passing, it may be stated, however, that the port contains a total of more than six miles of wharves. The water front measured by the government harbor lines aggregates more than twenty miles. Los Angeles is now easily the greatest importing port for lumber in the world, its lumber trade in 1912 amounted to 720,000,000 feet and has nearly doubled since that date.
The first steamer that ever visited the port was the Goldhunter in 1849-a side-wheel, which made the voyage from San Francisco, touching at two ports only. The next was the boat styled the Ohio. At San Pedro, from 1844 to 1849, the only store of merchandise kept was by Temple & Alexander. The first four wheeled vehicle in Los Angeles County was the old-fashioned Spanish carriage belonging to the Mission priests, and the next was a Rockaway carriage which the firm of Temple & Alexander purchased of Captain Kane, in January, 1849, paying $1,000 for the rig, including two fine American horses. Goods were forwarded to Los Angeles twenty-four miles, in carts, each with two yoke of oxen, yoked by the horns. The regular train was ten carts. Freight was one dollar per hundred weight. This continued to be the freight facilities until after 1850. The first stage line was started by Alexander & Banning in 1852. In 1851 D. W. Alexander bought in Sacramento, ten heavy freight wagons that had been sent from Salt Lake, and in 1853 a whole train, fourteen wagons and 168 mules, that had come through from Chihuahua, paying therefor $23,000. Thus the ox-cart was superseded.
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In 1858 Old San Pedro was abandoned. Wilmington then became the port of entry for Los Angeles commerce. In 1871 the United States Gov- ernment commenced its survey of work looking toward the improvement of the harbor at Wilmington. Until 1873, this port was known as San Pedro, but in that year Congress decided that it should be called Wilming- ton, as the place at the head of the bay was where nearly all of the business was transacted. In 1882, an act of Congress established the Customs district of Wilmington, with that town as the port of entry. Until the extension of the railroad to San Pedro all the business of the port had to be transacted by means of lighters, for the conveyance of merchandise between vessels and landing places. The construction of the railway from Los Angeles, in 1869, gave a fresh impetus to agriculture in the county, as
CITY HALL AT SAN PEDRO AND LOS ANGELES HARBOR
well as business in the city. But changes came again and in 1870 the anchorage of vessels touching this harbor was nearly five miles from Wil- mington, in San Pedro Bay, and only one mile from Dead Man's Island. After the advent of the steam railways and the many changes by Congress concerning the two points-Wilmington and San Pedro-Los Angeles awoke to the situation and the result was that the San Pedro Harbor was greatly improved by the government, so that the largest ocean boats might land safely. There arose a bitter fight between the Southern Pacific Rail- road Company and the people of Los Angeles and San Pedro. This story is told in many publications, including a concise account in the section of this work covering the City of Los Angeles.
Coming down to the present (1922), the compiler of this chapter, through the kindness of the Chamber of Commerce at San Pedro and other official sources, has gleaned the following facts: There are about 100 square miles adjacent to San Pedro suited for farming purposes, in which area grow vegetables, grain, hay and fruits (little of the citrus growths)
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and general farming and stock raising are there conducted. The number of men employed in the various industries of the place is 20,000. The present pay-roll is $2,000,000 per month. Raw materials come from South America and European countries, and lumber, coal and fish are all important articles of commerce. There are now eighteen fish canneries, valued at $5,000,000; packed in 1919, 1,000,000 cans valued at $10,000. It is the largest lumber-importing city in the world. Thirty-six ship lines are found here; two ship-yards and a 12,000 ton dry dock. Lumber is dis- tributed to points in the United States as far as New York and to European cities, as well. San Pedro has five hundred retail stores, but mostly all are small concerns. The industries of the place in June, 1922, include these ; Automobile top building, two bottling works, two creameries, crushed rock works, galvanizing works, radio manufacturing plant, ship-building, bean cleaning machinery, boat building, chemical manufactures and numer- ous other industries, mostly located on the Island.
The city has Federal offices as follows: United States Customs office, United States Immigration service, United States Public Health service, United States Shipping Board, and United States Steamboat Inspection service.
The clubs include : Automobile Club of Southern California, Bachelor's Club, Elks Club, Moose Club, Soldiers and Sailors Club and Woman's Club. Other organizations are : American Bureau of Shipping, Business Men's Association, Girls Hospitality Center, Japanese Association of San Pedro, Lumber Surveyors Association, Chamber of Commerce and Schools of Art.
The library system includes the Christian Science Reading Room, Point Fermin sub-branch, San Pedro Public Library and the Terminal sub- branch.
The public schools of San Pedro are the Barton Hill, East San Pedro, Fifteenth Street, Parental, Point Fermin and Terminal.
The lodges are numerous and well sustained, connected with the Masonic and Odd Fellows orders, with their ladies' auxiliaries. The Knights of Pythias also have a good representation. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks are strong here and own a fine, large building ; also the Young Men's Christian Association.
The number of churches is great and are represented by the following : The Baptist, Methodist, Gospel Mission, Japanese Baptist Mission, Mary, Star of the Sea (Catholic), Norwegian Methodist, Norwegian Lutheran, Soldier's Rest Mission, St. Andrews Presbyterian, St. Peter's Episcopal, Seaman's Institute of Los Angeles Harbor, Seventh Day Adventist, Swedish Christian Mission, Swedish Evangelical Church and Union Con- gregational.
At the City Building are found the bureau of power and light, water- works, city clerk and licenses, collector city department of buildings, engi- neers department and health department.
WILMINGTON
The former incorporation (now a portion of the city of Los Angeles ), known as Wilmington, was platted as a village in 1858. Its founder was
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HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
General Phineas Banning, who named the place after his old eastern city, Wilmington, Delaware. It flourished as a village until the Southern Pacific Railroad was completed to San Pedro, and then lost its place among the enterprising centers of the county. In 1920 it had a population of 2,488. Its churches include the Calvary Presbyterian, First Methodist Episcopal, and St. Peters and St. Pauls Catholic churches. It has Masonic and Knights of Pythias lodges and a good public library. Its local news- paper is the Wilmington Journal.
At first, Wilmington was generally called San Pedro New Town. Then it assumed the name New San Pedro, but after a few years was changed, by common community consent, to Wilmington. The Los Angeles Star of. October 2, 1858, had this paragraph: "Wilmington is an extensive city located at the head of the 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 population gets ready to build them."
During the Civil war the United States government expended more than $1,000,000 on Camp Drum at this point. Many soldiers were stationed there watching the immense amount of war supplies stored. In 1873, the government buildings were all sold at public auction and what had cost $1,000,000 only brought the government $10,000. The hospital buildings and the officers' quarters were donated to the Methodist Church (South) for educational purposes. About 1880, when the railroad was extended down to San Pedro, wharves were built, then it was that commerce left Wilmington and drifted back to its old moorings at San Pedro. Again, when the government took up the work of improving the harbor at San Pedro, and eventually designed to make such improvement in the great harbor to extend up to Wilmington Bay, the place took on new life and continues to be a good business point. In 1905, a good bank and a large planing mill were among the improvements of the place.
CHAPTER XXXIX GLENDALE AND ENVIRONS
The history of sprightly Glendale dates back as a town to 1886, when it was platted. In 1887, when the boom was on in this county, it had a good growth. A hotel costing $68,000 was erected, but later was sold to the Battle Creek Sanitarium Company, after which it served as a health resort. A narrow gauge railway was first built to the place, but subsequently this was changed to a broad gauge and absorbed by the old Salt Lake Railroad (now Union Pacific) system. The Pacific Electric Railway was finished to the place in 1904. The place now has banks, churches, schools and a fine public library and reading room, established in 1906.
Glendale is 600 feet above sea-level, has excellent transportation facili- ties, is healthful, pretty and progressive; hence has drawn to its midst many good citizens of the city of Los Angeles, who make their home here in preference to the congested city. All lines of trade are represented here. It had a population in 1914 of 8,000; also at that date had its Chamber of Commerce, daily and two weekly papers, banks, and paved and graded streets. Its chief industry has ever been fruit. Near the place there are numerous poultry farms and truck gardens. The water supply is from Verdugo Canyon. The above is the true account of the city of Glen- dale in 1912-14, but its commercial and social interests are greater in 1922.
To give its municipal setting an incorporation, it may be stated that it first became a city of the sixth class on February 21, 1906, with a board of trustees as follows : Asa Fanset, J. C. Jennings, George N. Moyse, Wilmot Parcher and T. W. Watson. Its first president was J. C. Jennings and first city clerk G. B. Woodbury. Then came, successively, the follow- ing board presidents : 1908, Wilmot Parcher ; 1909, T. W. Watson ; 1911, J. R. White, Jr .; 1912, T. W. Watson; 1915, A. W. Tower; 1916, O. A. Lane; 1917, T. W. Martin, who was the first "city manager ;" 1918, G. B. Woodbury ; 1919, F. L. Muhleman ; 1920, Hartley Shaw ; 1921, Dwight W. Stephenson. On June 29, 1921, Glendale was incorporated as a city under the freeholder's charter, and at present (1922) the officers in charge of the administration of its affairs are these: Mayor, Spencer Robinson; clerk, A. J. Van Wie; treasurer, J. C. Sherer. The trustees, besides Mayor Robinson, are S. A. Davis, A. N. Lapham, C. E. Kinslin and Dwight W. Stephenson; city manager, W. H. Reeves. The City Hall was built in 1912 for which the municipality was bonded. The 1922 assessment shows a valuation of $20,000,000. The bonded indebtedness is general, $116,000; utility bonds, $673,500. The city has two good public parks-one of 104 acres and another of ten acres, neither of which is much improved, but will be very soon. The water supply for the city is obtained from driven wells in part. One third of the supply is obtained by gravity pressure and the
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remainder is pumped from wells direct. There are two public libraries- either being a credit to the municipality.
The population at various dates has been: In 1910, 2,742; 1915, 7,556; 1920, 13,536; present (July, 1922, estimated), 35,500. In eleven years the population has doubled nearly ten times. No city on the continent has made the actual proportionate increase in population in so short a time. Compared with the progress of the average American community, Glendale is a city of multiplied marvels. The pioneers of the Verdugo foothills recall a rambling and verdured hamlet. For more than a generation there had been a straggling group of rose-embowered homes; but the Greater Glendale -- the Glendale which has aroused the attention of all Americans when seen-is the remarkable accomplishments of the past decade.
STREET SCENE, GLENDALE
The light and water systems of Glendale are among the most valuable assets. Officially, they are valued at $1,021,225.34, and are self-sustaining. There are ninety miles of mains and 300 fire hydrants. So pleasing were these assets to the outside world, that during the last year or two, more than fifty industries have opened plants in the city. Among these may be noted the nationally known soft drinks, washing machines, motion picture producers, potteries, hammered steel and sheet metal works, factories for sundry building materials, planing mills, etc. It should be stated that the manufacturing plants of any considerable importance now number about twenty-five.
The Glendale Sanitarium-after the Battle Creek, Michigan, plan-is an old institution of the place and one of the most completely equipped in the country. More room is needed and a larger institution is already planned.
In its churches, lodges, clubs and schools, the city is richly endowed. The churches include the Episcopal, Baptist, Congregational, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist Episcopal, Seventh Day Adventists and
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HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY,
Christian Scientists. The Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and Elks are well organized. The newspapers include the Daily Press and Evening Daily News. For banking facilities, the reader is referred to the special chapter on Banks and Banking. However, in passing, it might be added that this city has six banks with a total amount in capital resources of $79,083,967. In deposits it has $70,119,681.
The Glendale tax rate is now: County, $2.71; city, $1.30.
The schools fully reach California's high standard and the 5,000 pupils are housed within beautiful, practical and modern buildings, the cost of
GLENDALE SANITARIUM
which, when all are completed, will reach $750,000. The teachers now employed reach nearly 140 of the best. Good street railways obtain here, there being now 295 steam and interurban trains daily in and out of the growing city.
Glendale has been styled the "Playground of the World." The summer temperature is sixty-eight degrees, and in winter months it is sixty degrees. It was among the earliest to adopt the "manager plan" for city government. The city officials, as well as the Chamber of Commerce, of Glendale, are men and women of the greatest fitness for the special duties they are expected to perform.
Vol. I-15
CHAPTER XL
CLAREMONT, LA VERNE AND AZUSA
One of the children of the town boom of 1888-90 in this county was Claremont, where a large tourist hotel was erected, but, not paying, it was converted into a college. This is the seat of the Pomona College-a Con- gregational school. The greater part of the people in the place, for years, have been identified with education, either as teachers or pupils, with the customary business factors of a "school town." Claremont is thirty-six miles east of Los Angeles, on the line of the Santa Fe road. The Clare- mont Citrus Union built one of the most thoroughly equipped fruit packing houses in the State. Nearly, if not quite, a hundred persons find employ- ment in this warehouse in the fruit season. As early as 1906 new buildings were being erected at a cost of $120,000.
These structures included the Claremont Inn and the Carnegie Library. Claremont is 1,200 feet above the sea-level ; has about 2,500 inhabitants ; is the home of Pomona College, attended by 450 students as early as 1914. Further up the foothills is located a preparatory school for boys. (For Claremont's banking facilities see Banking chapter in this work.) Churches and lodges abound in goodly number and are all of the up-to-date type.
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LA VERNE (ORIGINALLY LORDSBURG)
Lordsburg was laid out by I. W. Lord in the boom days of this part of the State-in the late 'SOs-and did not meet the sanguine expectations of its founders. The original expensive hotel erected was soon sold to the German Baptists (Dunkards) for college purposes. Hence a Dunker settlement grew up around the place. In 1917 the name was changed to La Verne. It is a station on the Santa Fe Railroad, thirty-three miles from Los Angeles. It is in San Jose township and, with Pomona and Claremont, the population is 20,000. Orange and lemon growing is the principal resource of the place.
AZUSA MUNICIPALITY
Azusa is situated twenty-three miles to the east of the city of Los Angeles, on the Santa Fe and Pacific Electric roads, with numerous excel- lent country roads to and from the place. The elevation above the sea is 620 feet and its population is about 2,000. Here one finds the usual number of good mercantile places for towns of its size, and churches, banks, hotels, etc. The sidewalks are owned by the municipality, as are the water and lighting plants. The water supply is derived from wells and from the San Gabriel River, municipally and community owned and supplied at actual cost. Nearly a decade ago there were three fruit packing houses
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from which were being shipped annually about 1,500 cars of oranges and lemons. Surrounding the town is a tract of fertile fruit lands containing more than 3,500 acres, suitable for both oranges and lemons. The place is thirty miles from the ocean and near the end of the beautiful San Gabriel Valley, and the base of the Sierra Madre Range.
Azusa was founded by a company of Los Angeles capitalists, with J. S. Slauson as president, who purchased the town site, consisting of eighty blocks, on April 1, 1887. Prior to 1890 the town had constructed 1,600 feet of cement sidewalks, costing $15,000. The first newspaper started there was the News. Among the first good school houses of the place was a four room building costing $10,000. Fruit and Irish potatoes are raised in great abundance in and around Azusa. The locality was known a quarter of a century ago for its large shipments of strawberries and its citrus fruits. Among its public buildings is the City Hall, erected in 1904 at a cost of $10,000. The town is the chief stopping place for thousands of tourists visiting the near-by San Gabriel cañon, a real pleasure and beauty spot.
CHAPTER XLI
THE CITY OF MONTEBELLO
This is among one of the youngest corporations in Los Angeles County. It was still designated as the Montebello Tract in 1900, and was soon there- after subdivided into town lots, or patches containing five acres each. The business portion is only about twenty years old, when things started in a small way. It is situated eight miles from First and Main streets, Los Angeles City. Sentiment probably named the place, for Montebello means "beautiful hills." It is on either side of the great State Highway leading from Los Angeles to Whittier and other points. The highway is excellent and is well traveled by thousands of automobiles daily. A line of 'busses now runs from Los Angeles to Montebello. Near the place is the Roy F. Wilcox Company's nursery-two acres of roses under glass and forty acres of palms and ornamentals. The Standard Oil "Tank Farm" looks like a public park ; capacity thousands of barrels daily. Another nursery is near the new city-the Howard & Smith thirty-five acre home of the inter- national prize-winning rose, "Los Angeles." In and surrounding this place for many years there have been fine gardens for the richest of flowers and shrubs and, in fact, it has been noted as the place "where beautiful flowers grow." But besides these features it has within a few years come to be the center of one of the most wonderful oil fields in the world. It was in January, 1916, that the first oil well in the Montebello field was brought in by the Standard Oil Company. The well was finished and put on the pump at a depth of 2,350 feet. After the oil sand had no more than been tapped, it produced at the start, and continues to produce, between five and six hundred barrels daily of the twenty-three gravity grade of oil. This well was put down on land owned by Mrs. Anita Baldwin, who leased to the company her mineral rights. Others immediately followed. Among the more important pioneer well companies were: The Union Oil Company, the Red Star Petroleum Company, the Midway Company, the Mrs. Clara Baldwin Stocker Company, the Pan-American, the Amal- gamated Oil Company, the San Gabriel Petroleum, the California Star Oil Company, the McGinley Oil Company, and the Interstate Oil Company. Within fifteen months after oil was struck, seventy-five wells had been drilled, many miles of pipes were laid to refineries at El Segundo, and oil storage tanks of several hundred thousand barrels capacity were con- structed and kept filled. Two years after the first well was "shot," 20,000 barrels of oil were being produced daily. Now it is hard to get accurate figures, but the annual output is vast. The first well known as a "gusher" in this tract, was Baldwin No. 3, and it belonged to the Standard Oil Com- pany. It began to spout in October, 1917, at a depth of 3,700 feet, a good grade of oil amounting in round numbers to 5,000 barrels per day. Since then many others equally as strong have shot up, and it became a question
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