USA > California > Los Angeles County > Pasadena > History of Pasadena, comprising an account of the native Indian, the early Spanish, the Mexican, the American, the colony, and the incorporated city, occupancies of the Rancho San Pasqual, and its adjacent mountains, canyons, waterfalls and other objects of interest: being a complete and comprehensive histo-cyclopedia of all matters pertaining to this region > Part 57
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WAKELEY'S NOVELTY WORKS .- W. H. Wakeley came to Pasadena in 1881, a mere youth, with his father, Capt. A. Wakeley, who had served as a soldier in the Mexican war and also in the war of the rebellion. The young man was an enthusiastic naturalist, especially in the study of birds ; and he at once commenced collecting, preserving, mounting, studying and classifying the native birds of this region. And these pursuits, at first merely for his own pleasure, gradually grew into a sort of taxidermy busi- ness-the first ever done in Pasadena. In 1883 he started a small hardware and tin store, with plumbing business attached under Robert Hentig's man- agement, and mixed in some taxidermy work withal. In August, 1886, he advertised for one thousand horned toads, for taxidermic mounting as Cali- fornia curios, and this set dozens of bright boys at work earning their own pocket money by catching pocketfulls of the curious little reptiles. In January, 1886, Mr. Wakeley started the Pasadena " Natural History Store," devoted entirely to the business of collecting, manufacturing and dealing in California curios, both by wholesale and retail. The business grew upon his hands so that in a few months he sold the store to Thomas W. Furlong, and devoted himself specially to the manufacture and wholesale trade in the same line, this amounting the first year to a business of $12,000, and giving employment more or less to from ten to twenty persons. The Star of Octo- ber II, 1892, speaking of the District Fair at Los Angeles, said : "The Wakeley Novelty works of this city make a splendid display of articles in California woods, shells, etc., and Wm. H. Wakeley has two lathes in opera- tion, with a force of three men in attendance. Last evening they gave away 1000 pin-cushions turned out from yucca."
During 1893 he sold between 5,000 and 6,000 horned toads, 100 dozen tarantulas, 100 dozen scorpions, besides large numbers of centipedes, trap- door spider nests, etc. And his goods were the only ones of their class from Southern California in the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. The factory and store are now located in a two-story brick block on North Fair Oaks Avenue. The machinery is run by a gas engine, and comprises ma- chines for coarse and fine sawing, boring, turning, scroll work, carving, polishing, friction coloring and burnishing. A great variety of California woods are made into cups, vases, dishes, buckets, napkin rings, match safes, gavels, paper knives, canes, portierre and curtain rings, placques, and many souvenir forms.
BRICK MAKING .- The first brick building erected in Pasadena was B. F. Ball's original home place on North Fair Oaks Avenue ; but these bricks were not made here - were all hauled by wagon up from Los Angeles - 1878-9. The first business block built of brick, was by Craig & Hubbard, grocers, on East Colorado street - the same now known as the Brunswick
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billiard hall. It was commenced in August, 1885, and they moved their grocery into it in October. The bricks were obtained from an old brickyard on Rose's ranch, east side of Santa Anita Avenue ; and the walls were laid up by Irvin Wilson. The second brick store was the Frost Block, built by E. S. Frost, about 100 feet east of the other - commenced in September and completed in November, 1885 ; these bricks were also hauled from the old yard on Rose's ranch.
The first brickyard ever started here was by Gass, Simons & Hubbard of the City Brick Company at Los Angeles, in February and March, 1884. They had the contract for brick foundation of the Raymond Hotel, and decided to make their bricks here instead of hauling them up from Los Angeles. Their yard and kilns for this job were just across the roadway east from the Raymond barn. Then after completing this job they moved their works to a site on Euclid Avenue just north of Maine street. In a year or two the clay gave out here, and they moved over onto Gen. Edwin Ward's land, on Madeline Drive west of Fair Oaks Avenue. They operated here until "the boom busted," and then retired from the Pasadena field. This first brick company furnished the bricks for four of our historic buildings : I-The Raymond hotel foundations, which took over half a million. 2 - The Ward Bro.'s block, just north of Williams Hall. 3-The first National Bank building. 4-The Carlton Hotel block. The Mr. Simons of this company was a cousin of the Simons Bros. who now own the steam brick works, but they never had any connection in the brick business.
A report published in the Pasadena Union said that the S. G. V. railroad in the first seven months of its operation had hauled 76 car loads or 7,000,000 bricks up from Los Angeles to Pasadena. This was " boom " time.
During the winter of 1885-6 Joseph Simons, the head of the Simons Bros. Brick Co., came here from Hamburg, Iowa, and formed a business connection with John S. Mills and Dr. S. Rosenberger to start a brickyard, which he located and put in operation in the spring of 1886, on Mills's land on Raymond Avenue below the Gas Works. This yard was run one season and then abandoned. Simons went hunting for more clay, and finally found the valuable deposit where the steam works now stand, on Glenarm street between Moline and Lake Avenues. Here he started a hand yard in the spring of 1888 and made a success of it, so that in the spring of 1894, having been joined by his father and younger brothers, he put in a steam plant. The company now [1895] consists of Joseph Simons, manager ; E. O. Simons, secretary ; Walter R. Simons, ass't secretary. Their plant com- prises a 40-horse power steam engine, and a Potts patent brick machine which is entirely automatic, from the raw unwet clay to moulded bricks ready for the dry-yard ; and has a capacity of 45,000 bricks per day. The yard has 40,000 pallets or drying trays. They have about six acres of land ; own the cottages for their workmen, and employ forty-five hands -no
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
Chinamen. They also have a machine for making pressed brick, for smooth- finish work. This factory has furnished 90 per cent of all the brick used in Pasadena since 1889. The company's entire property is estimated at $20,000.
HOULAHAN & GRIFFITH's brickyard was started in 1894; but I have no data of it.
FERTILIZER WORKS. - The California Commercial Co. was incorpor- . porated November 15, 1888, by Belle M. Jewett, T. F. O'Riley, P. M. Jew- ett, J. D. Bicknell, Mrs. E. C. Bangs, S. P. Jewett. Prior to this Mrs. Jewett had erected a long brick building on Glenarm street and the Santa Fe railroad, having leased it in advance for a term of years to F. L. Rockwell, who engaged to carry on an ice factory and cold storage business there. The collapse of the "boom " froze out the zeal of the ice-maker, and his promised refrigerating plant was never put in. The Commercial Co. was then organ- ized to utilize the building for storage, commission, forwarding, and other lines; and also as the business office for their fertilizer works at Chapman station on the Santa Fe railroad, east of Lamanda Park. These works manufacture bones and all kinds of slaughter-house refuse into fertilizing material, and have a capacity to manufacture 3,000 tons per year. S. P. Jewett, president ; J. D. Bicknell, vice president ; G. A. Herdeg, secretary ; First National Bank of Pasadena, treasurer ; L. E. Jordan, superintendent.
LIGHTING AND POWER WORKS.
PASADENA GAS AND ELECTRIC LIGHT CO .- Early in 1886 the proj- ect of establishing electric light works began to be discussed, and resulted in a list being made of persons who thought they would be willing to sub- scribe something for such an enterprise. These subscribers met in Williams hall March 25. Col. O. S. Picher, chairman ; Frank M. Ward, secretary. It was voted to place the capital stock at $40,000, in 1,600 shares of $25 each, and incorporate as the "Pasadena Gas and Electric Light Co." The Union reported $16,000 subscribed in Pasadena, and that Dr. E. Mellis would place $8,000 of the stock in San Francisco. April 9 there was an- other report of progress. Then on May 10 the Union says :
"The Pasadena Gas and Electric Co. held a stockholders' meeting at Williams hall yesterday afternoon, and elected the following officers: C. T. Hopkins, Emmons Raymond, P. M. Green, R. Williams, G. A. Swartwout, B. S. Eaton, and S. W. Bugbee, directors ; president, Hopkins ; vice presi- dent, Swartwout; treasurer, Green; secretary, Williams : 545 shares of stock were represented, Mr. Raymond having taken 160 shares."
May 8 appears in the county records as the date of their incorpor- ation. I found no further mention of their progress until October 2, 1886, when the Pasadena Union said : "M. G. Elmore, contractor for building the gas works, has 100 men at work on trenches, pipes, buildings, etc. The Carlton and the Raymond hotels are to be lighted with gas by November I."
.
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DIVISION SIX - BUSINESS.
But meanwhile some change of organization was found necessary ; for the same paper of December 4 made this report :
"The Pasadena Gas and Electric Light Co. was organized Thursday, December 2, with the following officers: O. H. Conger, president ; E. C. Webster, vice president ; P. M. Green, treasurer ; Otto Froelich, secretary. Emmons Raymond and C. S. Martin were added to the board of directors."
This is the company which was finally bought out by Prof. Lowe, and is now operated by him, with A. W. Roche as secretary and treasurer. No statistics furnished. The gas is made from crude petroleum instead of coal.
ELECTRIC LIGHT AND POWER CO .- In March, 1888, the Pasadena Electric Light and Power Co. was organized by C. W. Abbott, J. M. Glass, A. R. Metcalfe, D. Galbraith, J. H. Fleming, and C. M. Skillen. But the articles of incorporation for this company were filed for record at Los An- geles January 31, 1888. There were now two companies in the field, one, "Gas and Electric"; the other, " Electric Light and Power." December 9, 1890, this company voted to increase its bonded indebtedness from $20,000 to $25,000. The power-house is located on Broadway below California street, and comprises, in 1894, three boilers and two engines, with gener- ators. of 110-arc light capacity, and 1,200 incandescent capacity also. The company has a contract for three years from January 1, 1894, to supply the city with sixty-eight arc lights ; and it has thirty miles of wires throughout the city for its arc and incandescent light service. The power-house gives employment to five men ; the number of line men employed varies from time to time. The company's capital stock is $50,000. Its officers in 1894- 95 were : L. C. Torrance, president and manager ; L. P. Hansen, vice presi- dent ; J. S. Torrance, secretary ; San Gabriel Valley Bank, treasurer.
The Star of May 29, 1895, reported an addition 40x50 feet to the power- house, with a new engine of 250-horse power, and a new dynamo of 1, 200- light power, to increase the service.
THE GRAND OPERA HOUSE .- In regard to this most ambitious under- taking of the "boom " period I found great difficulty in getting particulars. It seems to have been projected by E. C. Webster, with Frank M. Ward, Ben E. Ward, L. J. Rose, Dr. G. Roscoe Thomas, and others engaged in booming real estate on Raymond Avenue ; and the " Pasadena Grand Opera House Co." was incorporated March 21, 1887. . The Board of Trade pamphlet of 1888 said : "Among the new buildings that attract attention is an opera house, which, now nearly completed, will cost $125,000." And the Pasadena Standard of February 16, 1889, said :
"The Grand Opera House was duly opened Wednesday evening [Feb- ruary 13, 1889] with a great crowd in attendance. It is the finest and most complete mechanico-symposium of stage devices on the Pacific coast, outside of San Francisco. Mr. Wyatt, the lessee, says there is nothing equal to it in any other town of the same size in the United States. Cost $100,000."
The company became bankrupt ; and in May, 1891, Prof. Lowe bought
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
the building at bankrupt price, and made it headquarters for all his gas patents, gas works, and mountain railroad and hotel enterprises. It is a typical specimen of Moorish architecture. Its theater or opera house part is still continued (1894-95) with Thaddeus Lowe, jr., as manager.
SOUTHERN OIL COMPANY .- This enterprise was projected and worked up by Geo. H. Coffin, to prospect for oil, sink wells, manufacture or refine petroleum products, etc., and was organized at Pasadena on March 1, 1895. Incorporated March 29th, with the following as its first board of directors and officers : Geo. H. Coffin, president and general manager ; A. H. Palmer, vice-president ; Edwin Stearns, treasurer ; Chas. E. Getchell, sec- retary ; Arthur H. Palmer, S. I. Stearns. Capital stock, $100,000. The company by purchase and lease secured about 1,200 acres of land on the hills south of South Pasadena and Lincoln Park, and have engine, derrick, pumps, and other machinery there, prosecuting their business. But up to time of this chapter going to press, oil had not yet been reached. July 8 their first prospect well was down and cased 400 feet.
POULTRY WORKS.
THE OAK LAWN POULTRY FARM .- This was commenced in September 1885, by F. W. Machin, and was the largest and most heroic venture of the kind ever attempted in South California. The farm was a 20-acre tract on Allen Avenue south from Colorado street, and was a $12,000 enterprise, based on the theory that the high price of poultry and eggs here would make the home production of them a profitable business, in competition with their shipment to Los Angeles from Kansas City, St. Louis, and all that region. I had tried the same business myself in 1884 and failed of success- hence made visits of observation occasionally to this larger and later venture. This farm had or was planned for 100 houses for egg-layers-50 hens to each house with its own yard. Also 1,000 breeders, with yards 25x100 feet, and 50 fowls to each yard. Four incubators, with total capacity of 2,000 eggs. Forty-eight artificial brooder yards for the baby chicks. Hospital yards and coops for sick or injured fowls. The owner was F. W. Machin, a business man of means, from Chicago ; and its manager was C. VonCulin, a life-long worker and expert in this industry ; hence the experiment had all that human interest and skill could furnish to make it a practical success. Yet, at the outset, Ed. C. Clapp, Pasadena's pioneer poultryman, said to me in his droll way, "I'll give them just four months to bust up and go to smash with their whole business." Well, nature abhors a monopoly, as well as a vacuum, and would not tolerate so much chicken life in so small a space - at any rate not in Pasadenaland. In spite of all care, disease got among the fowls ; young chicks by the hundred would be found dead in the morning ; and, to shorten the story, in about six months this chicken " boom " bursted, went out entirely, and left no sign.
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DIVISION SIX- BUSINESS.
OSTRICH FARM .- Early in 1885 an ostrich farm was started on the banks of the Arroyo Seco at the end of Old Fair Oaks Avenue [now called Lincoln Avenue]. A fee of twenty-five cents was charged to see the birds ; but on April 10, 1885, it was announced that the ostrich farm is closed ex- cept on Sunday, and the admission fee is then $1. Stephen Townsend ob- tained a franchise and planned to build a street car line out to it, but finally gave it up. The Daily Star of May 18, 1889, said :
"The nine ostriches at the Gardner ranch above town were disturbed by a dog early this morning, and six of them broke out and scattered on the run. Five of them were soon captured and returned to their quarters, and a sixth was corralled by some of Vore & Hoag's men and run into their back yard. The manipulations of the owner to rope this captive were wit- nessed by a large crowd. The bird was finally led away in limbo."
Ten days later the same paper reported :
" The last of the escaped ostriches was captured the other day by Mr. Gardner. The bird was caught near the Brunk place, apparently on its way to Switzer's to see what could be found to eat in the way of tin cans, etc."
For some reason the business did not succeed well ; and on September 2, 1891, I find this last mention of it :
"The Pasadena ostriches which had been under attachment and in charge of Officer Slater for some weeks, were yesterday released and taken to Los Angeles, their owner, Dennison, having given a bond as security for the payment of the amount claimed."
CEMETERY AND HOSPITAL.
MOUNTAIN VIEW CEMETERY .- When the Orange Grove colony settled here, and B. D. Wilson made them a free gift of the land now known as Al- tadena, a man named J. W. Potts owned a considerable tract southwesterly from that, and he offered his also to them if they would pay the delinquent taxes on it. But they did not accept his offer ; and they would not have ac- cepted Mr. Wilson's offer either, only that he assured them that the taxes were paid, and they thought in that case they would "risk it" -so little were these upper slope lands valued in 1874. In 1875, however, Mr. Pott's land was bought by the Giddingses, Col. Banbury, and others, and it was a portion of this tract that was devoted to cemetery uses. The Pasadena Cemetery Association was incorporated December 13, 1882, by E. H. Royce, C. A. Hartwell, J. L. Hartwell, E. W. Giddings, J. R. Giddings, G. L. Giddings, L. W. Giddings- the latter being elected president; J. L. Hart- well, vice president ; Calvin A. Hartwell, secretary and treasurer, which position he still holds - 1895.
From the records of the company I have compiled this table of the number of burials during the successive years :
1883
24
1887 I33
1891. 109
1884
30
1888
146
1892
II6
1885
29
1889
96
1893. I38
1886
33
1890
104
1894. I3I
30
١
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
Total to December 31, 1894- 1,089. The first interment ever made in this cemetery was that of Mrs. Sophronia Johnson, aged forty-two, sister to Samuel and Wm. Pierce; she had died of consumption, and was buried here February 6, 1883. During that year the bodies of Laura C. Giddings, Bartlett Cobb, and C. Morton Banbury were removed from Col. Banbury's original home place on Orange Grove Avenue, and re-interred here ; and eight other transfers were also made from private grounds to the new ceme- tery, or a total of eleven during the year, so that there were only thirteen deaths in Pasadenaland that year. During 1884 there were eight transfers, leaving the local death roll for that year twenty-two. The cemetery com- prises twenty-three acres of land; gets its water supply from Rubio, Millard and Negro canyons ; and its grounds, pipes, reservoirs, buildings, etc., are valued at about $30,000.
CREMATORY .- In 1895 the undertaking firm of Reynolds & Van Nuys built a complete cremation furnace, with all appointments complete, in the Mountain View Cemetery grounds.
HOSPITAL .- As early as 1886-87 the question of having a hospital in Pasadena began to be agitated or talked about, and various plans to this end were from time to time promulgated; but they all came to naught. In 1890-91 the matter was again talked up with renewed interest, and some consideration was given it by the Board of Trade ; and at one time it did seem as if something tangible would be done. James W. Scoville offered to give $10,000 toward founding a hospital, if others would raise an equal amount for it ; and Mr. Scoville even bought some eligible lots for a hospital site. But the additional funds necessary were not raised ; Mr. Scoville died ; and the whole project dropped out of view.
Then, in January, 1895, Dr. Jacob S. Hodge leased rooms 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, in the Masonic Temple, and opened a RECEIVING HOSPITAL AND SURGICAL INSTITUTE there. And this was the first thing in the way of a regular hospital service that ever came into Pasadena history, although there had been "Sanitariums " of many and varied sorts for a score of years before. The first patient put to bed in the " Receiving Hospital " was Ted Dobbins, a young man about 18 years old with a broken leg, who was brought down from the Mountain View cemetery on a litter in a wagon. In August and September, 1895, was built the Torrance & McGilvray block, on northwest corner of Raymond Avenue and Green street, and its second and third stories were planned and built purposely for Dr. Hodge's Receiving Hospital, with every provision in the latest and best style for comfort, con- venience, sanitary safeguard, etc., of patients-even to air and sun baths on the oriental roof-floor, reached by elevator.
PASADENA'S HISTORIC HOTELS.
THE LAKE VINEYARD HOUSE .- This was the first building ever erected in Pasadena intended for use as a hotel, and was built by a Mr. Griswold
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DIVISION SIX - BUSINESS.
during the winter of 1879-80. In a letter written by D. M. Graham, Feb- ruary 23, 1880, to the horticultural paper then published at Riverside, he says : "Mr. Griswold had several applications for rooms in his new hotel before the plaster was dry." This was the only allusion to it that I found in any of the early documents. In 1882, this house with fifteen acres of land was bought by Isaac Banta, but he soon found that it was too far away from the village, or "The Corners," as the business center was then called, to make any success as a hotel-and it was also too small and inconvenient to serve the growing demand for such accommodations. He, therefore, in 1882-83, bought from Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr a 3-acre lot where the First National Bank, the Arcade Building, the City Hall, and other business blocks are now located, and built there the Los Angeles House, on the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado street-the same house which now stands at the corner of Colorado and DeLacy streets. (This new hotel was opened in July, 1883.) Mr. Banta's son-in-law, Wm. T. Pierce, then took the Lake Vineyard House ; and he also soon learned that as a hotel for this enlightened country, its location, style of architecture, etc., foredoomed it to failure. The Union of March 1, 1884, said : "Mr. Butler has sold his interest in the Lake Vineyard House to a Mr. Granger, who will take possession at once." In 1885 the property was sold to Milford Fish ; he altered the house into a dwelling and now resides there, corner of Marengo Avenue and Florence street.
THE RAYMOND HOTEL .- In 1883, Mr. Walter Raymond, who was then engaged in operating the "Raymond Excursions" from Boston to California and return, conceived the project of building a great hotel some- where in South California especially to accommodate the tourist travel, and as a winter resort preferable to Florida, New Orleans, or Cuba. He examined eligible sites at San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Los Angeles and Pasadena ; and finally decided on what was then known as Bacon's hill, on the Marengo ranch at Pasadena, as offering on the whole the best pros- pect for success in such a great enterprise. And accordingly he bought the site, which comprised fifty-five acres of land, including some springs and portions of a brook. Mr. Raymond had no personal experience in the hotel business, but in his excursion business he had gained a pretty good knowledge of what tourists from the colder sections of our country wanted in the way of hotel comforts, and he associated with himself, Mr. Gluck of the International Hotel at Niagara Falls, and J. H. Littlefield, an experi- enced architect of San Francisco, as co-workers on structural details of the great hostelry building. Work was commenced in November, 1883, toward cutting the hill down thirty-four feet lower than its original summit to make a level plateau large enough for the foundation and the necessary driveways and adjunct buildings, which would require a space of about five acres.
The grading contract was let at a given price per cubic yard for re-
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
moving earth, and another price for removing rock. To external appear- ance at first the hill seemed mostly a body of earth that could be worked up with pick and shovel, plow and scraper, and so be done without very great expense. But as the work progressed it was soon found that the main bulk of the hill was composed of a sort of cement rock or conglomerate, and a peculiar formation of brecciable granite, or "bastard granite," as the work- men called it. These were new features in the case ; and the more obdurate material was of such an unusual character that it very soon became an im- portant financial question whether it was in a legal sense "earth" or "rock" material. This was submitted to a commission of experts at Los Angeles, and they decided that it was "rock." This result at once more than doubled the amount of money necessary beyond what was at first sup- posed would accomplish the leveling down of the hill. Drilling and blast- ing had to be resorted to on a large scale, and 1,000 kegs of black powder and over a ton of giant powder were used up before the job was completed. Thomas Banbury of Pasadena had this contract. The number of men and teams employed varied at different times, but at one time as high as seventy- five teams and 250 men were on the pay-roll of this job. Of course there was then no railroad to Pasadena, and the lumber for the great building was delivered by the Southern Pacific R. R. Co. at San Gabriel station, and hauled up from there by teams, Mr. Banbury having this teaming work in hand also. The grading and lumber hauling occupied about four months of actual working time.
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