USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Pomona Valley, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the valley who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 12
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In concluding this brief character sketch, and before considering the begin- nings of Pomona, it is appropriate to introduce some verses from a poem written by P. C. Tonner, on the occasion of a visit to the San José Hills, perhaps in 1869, and certainly before there was any Pomona, any churches or stores or orange groves. Of the twenty-one verses composing the poem, the six pertaining especially to San José are selected for reproduction here :
SWEET SAN JOSÉ But fairer yet shall bloom our fields, And grander orchards grow, And sweeter music than the birds These pleasant vales shall know. For Science here shall rear her seats, And, versed in arts of peace, Our public schools shall emulate The shrines of ancient Greece. But San José, sweet San José, Thou mountain valley fair, Begirt by half a hundred hills, Enthroned 'mid beauty rare, Shall see thy towering domes arise Where Phillips herds his sheep, And orange orchards yet shall stand Where Vejar's mustangs sweep. The flocks of Palomares Must seek some distant land,
His hog-trod rich cienegas The golden wheat shall yield. And all those glorious uplands. Where rabbits burrow now, Shall thrill heneath the Saxon's trod, Behind a Yankee plow.
The Indian for a thousand years That lovely vale possessed, The Spaniard for a century The native race oppressed. But now the blue-eved Saxon. From o'er the distant main. With steady step is driving back The dark-eyed race of Spain.
I see a thousand vineyards. All o'er that lovely plain ; I see the fair-haired Saxon Where dwelt the sons of Spain. I hear the laboring engine. Where once carretas crawled : I hear the songs of children Where Spanish oxen bawled.
I see the lovely cottage Where rancheria stood. I hear our country's music From out the distant wood. And where base superstition Was once the people's guide, I see arise the public school- The freeman's hope and pride.
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"THE LOOP AND MESERVE" AND OTHER EARLY TRACTS OF THE SAN JOSÉ DE ARIBA
Earlier chapters have narrated how the San José de Abajo, or lower half of the San José Rancho, passed from the possession of the Vejars and came into the hands of Louis Phillips, and a few hundred acres were sold by him to the earlier settlers of Spadra previous to 1870; but in the San José de Ariba, or upper half (which is also the northern part), there was practically no transfer of property until toward the end of the year 1873, except as a few of the homesteads, long occupied by friends and relatives of the first grantees, were formally deeded to heads of families then holding them. The land remained for the most part legally in possession of Ygnacio Palomares, and then as the undivided estate of his wife, Concepcion, and the children. As before stated, most of these families had occu- pied their places for years without formal title, and some continued to do so for years later. Before the death of Ygnacio Palomares, in 1864, deeds had been given to Mariano Alvarado in 1858 for 229 acres ; to Josefa Palomares de Arenas in 1858 for seventeen and a half acres by the Huaje ; to Saturnino Carrion in 1862 for their place south of La Verne; to José Maria Valdez in 1863 for a generous home place; and to Ygnacio Alvarado in May, 1864, for their home place. During the ten years following the death of Ygnacio Palomares other lots of various size, from two or three acres to 200 acres, were deeded by his wife, Concepcion, or by her son and attorney, Francisco, to friends and relatives,-the Lopez place of fifty acres to José Lopez ; the Tomas Palomares place of eighty- eight acres north of the hills, and the 188 acres to Francisco Palomares northeast of the hills ; the large estates on the Lordsburg Road to Josefa Palomares de Yorba and to Teresa Palomares de Vejar, and later still the 600-acre tract to Concepcion Palomares de Soto.
In December, 1868, David L. Hall of San Gabriel bought, or began the pur- chase of, 1,720 acres in the northeast section of the rancho, which he called Hall's Selection and subdivided into forty-acre lots for sale ; but only two sales were made, five lots to one purchaser and one to the other. Five years later the whole property reverted to Concepcion Palomares on the failure of Hall to complete his purchase. But a year later-that is, in November, 1874-the "Loop and Meserve Tract" of nearly 2,000 acres, comprising a large part of "Hall's Selec- tion" and much more to the east, was sold to C. F. Loop and A. R. Meserve for $16,000. This considerable tract included most of the land lying now between the towns of Pomona and Claremont and much of North Pomona, north of the La Verne Road, between La Verne and Claremont. On the Camino Real de San Bernardino, and within the tract, which it crossed, was the San Antonio vineyard and house mentioned in the will of Ygnacio Palomares, and the old adobe in which he lived so long and kept the tavern where the overland stages stopped. Also within its confines, but not included in the deed, was the old cemetery. When the old Palomares house was built and the vineyard of San Antonio planted, a ditch was dug and the water led all the way from the canyon to the upper corner of the place, and thence in a flume to the house. Only a fraction of the water, flowing so far over gravelly soil in an open ditch whose banks were overgrown with weeds, reached the end of the ditch, and sometimes, in the summer time, none at all, except at night. But the deed of the tract conveyed also this ditch and the valuable water right to half the water of San Antonio Canyon, a claim resting upon the implied provision of the Spanish land grant. In 1870 the Palo-
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mares and others interested had sought and secured from the courts judgment for damages against parties who had been diverting water from the ditch; also a perpetual injunction establishing their claim to the water.
Of the two purchasers of the Loop and Meserve Tract, Alvin R. Meserve had come to California from Maine in 1852, when nineteen years old, and had been engaged in business in Sacramento and Santa Cruz for over twenty years before he came to the Valley. Here for twenty years more he was to combine business with horticulture until, in 1896, he became Horticultural Commissioner and moved to Los Angeles. Two of his sons were to follow in his steps as horti- culturists, Harry W. in Imperial County, and Elmore as Park Commissioner in Los Angeles. The second son, E. A. Meserve, was to be a successful and respected attorney in Los Angeles ; and his daughter, Bessie; the wife of the attor- ney. C. E. Sumner, who before his removal to Los Angeles played an important part in the building of Pomona, as will be seen.
The Reverend Charles F. Loop came to California in 1863 as a missionary of the Episcopal Board of New York. Though best known in Southern California for his horticultural pursuits, his early life was spent in active religious work. A graduate in theology of St. Paul's College at Palmyra, Mo., and ordained a min- ister in the Episcopal Church, he was for some years from 1857 rector of Christ Church in St. Louis. For a short time before coming to California he served the church in missionary work in Missouri and Illinois. He had entered upon his ministry rather late, being twenty-eight years old when he entered college. This was due to his having gained his academic training while at home on a farm, and then having spent some years in teaching in order to earn money to carry on his professional study. His first missionary field in California was in the neighbor- hood of Santa Cruz, where he organized the Episcopal Church. It was here that the acquaintance with Mr. Meserve began which was to result in their association together in the development of the "Loop and Meserve Tract" of Pomona. The earnestness and energy with which Mr. Loop conducted his work led to his being sent to Los Angeles to establish churches and to foster the interests of the Episcopal denomination in the South. Coming to Los Angeles in 1868, he organized the Church of St. Paul, and directed its affairs for over a year, at the same time beginning that extensive campaign over the whole field of Southern Cal- ifornia which, continuing for over twenty years, was to result in other churches at Pomona, Ontario, Riverside, San Bernardino and a number of smaller places. To his ministry in the church Mr. Loop had brought not only a religious zeal and good scholarship, but an aesthetic sense and love of art which were to enrich both his church and his home town. In all this he was most heartily supported by his . wife, and indeed it was probably true that in all these qualities, as well as in thrift and sagacity, she was even more strongly equipped than he. Born of good families in New York, the father of Mrs. Sophia ( Loomis) Loop was Thomas Loomis, and her mother a Deferriere. For a time before coming to Pomona they lived at San Gabriel, and there Mrs. Loop became well known and loved as a teacher. Here in the little community by the Mission began the friendship between the Burdicks and Loops which continued throughout their lives, as they became proni- inent in the new town of Pomona.
Soon after coming to Los Angeles the Loops bought 160 acres of land east of San Gabriel and began to plant it in vineyard and orchard. So began their active interest in agriculture while still engaged, both of them, in their other work.
MESERVE ADOBE HOME
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Doubtless it was a revival, rather than a beginning, of a natural instinct, for Mr. Loop was born and reared on a farm. His father, David Loop, had been a farmer as well as a physician in St. Lawrence County, N. Y., where Charles Loop himself was born in 1825. It was probably this fondness for horticulture more than the pursuit of wealth that led him in 1874 to purchase with Mr. Meserve the 2,000-acre tract of land in the San José Valley.
When they came to the Valley to live, the Meserves took and occupied the old Palomares adobe, a building which, with some modifications, served them well as a home till after their children had married and moved away; and the old house is still known best as the "Meserve place." The Loops chose for their home the site of the old adobe farther east, by the "Vineyard of San Antonio," building soon, however, a larger house in which to live, and this remained their home until, in 1882, the ranch was sold to the Land and Water Company. Later the Loops bought the Mueller place in Pomona and moved there to live.
Never was there a greater transformation than that which came over the fields of the Loop and Meserve Tract under their enthusiastic direction. Only a few olive trees, a small orchard of seedling oranges and a slightly larger vineyar.I of Mission grapes remained from the Mexican occupation. Now a large acreage was set out with vines, not only of wine grapes but many kinds of table and raisin grapes, with oranges and lemons of different varieties, and with all sorts of decid- uous fruits. Searching the ranches of the South and levying upon the experi- mental stations of the Department of Agriculture, they soon had a nursery which was at once the marvel of the region for its rare variety, and the main source of supply as orchards were being planted in the new tracts around Pomona. Conducting their experiments in fruit growing on a large scale, with intelligence as well as industry, they became leaders in the great horticultural interests so rapidly developing in the Valley. The olive industry was especially introduced and established by them. Twice Mr. Loop went to Europe and studied the viticul- ture and olive growing of Spain, Italy and other Mediterranean countries, bringing home many choice varieties and new knowledge and inspiration. And when later he encouraged the Howlands in their production of olive oil, which at one time led the state in quality and volume, he brought from Italy skilled workmen to introduce their expert knowledge of the manufacture of oil from the olive, and of the growing of trees from cuttings. Not only in the sale of thousands of young trees from their nursery, but by instruction in private and public, by pub- lished papers and by assisting in the organization of growers, both Mr. Loop and Mr. Meserve were pioneers of large influence in establishing the fruit growing which has become the chief industry of the Southwest.
But all this anticipates by many years the chronological sequence of our story. For it was not long after the Loops and Meserves came to the Valley that the town of Pomona was begun, and this story must now be told.
CHAPTER FIVE BEGINNINGS OF POMONA
COMING OF THE RAILROAD- TONNER-BURDICK-PALOMARES CONTRACTS-LOS ANGELES IMMIGRATION AND LAND COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION-THE NEW TOWN OF POMONA-PUBLIC SCHOOL-COLLAPSE OF THE L. A. I. AND L. C. A. -POMONA LAND AND WATER COMPANY- THE BOOM-POMONA IN 1882 AND 1885-CONSTABLE SLANKER AND OTHER OLD-TIMERS.
It was thirty-five years or more after the grantees of the San José Rancho came to the Valley to live before there were any indications of a community on the site of Pomona. In 1872 Kewen Dorsey was still raising grain there for Louis Phillips and Antonio Perez was tending his cattle as they grazed over the plains.
As usual the first impulse toward the building of a town was given by the prospect of a railroad crossing the Valley. The story of the coming of the rail- road here is naturally a part of the railroad story of the State. This has been so fully told elsewhere that it need not be recounted here. A very good résumé of the early history of the railroads of Southern California was printed in the Pomona Progress of January 6, 1887. The introductory paragraph of this article reads as follows: "The history of the construction of the railroads in Los An- geles forms one of the most interesting chapters in the annals of the county. It illustrates how by determination and a little forethought, a few active minds overcame the many difficulties jealousy, selfishness and ignorance threw in their path and is another * * : instance * * * where the spirit of progress and im - provement triumphed over every obstacle."
The first movement had been the agitation for a railroad between Los An- geles and San Pedro. This was led by Phineas Banning, that prince of trans- portation whose freight wagons had long been running out from Los Angeles to San Francisco, to Yuma and Arizona, and whose steamers were also plying in and out of Los Angeles Harbor. This agitation began in 1861 with a bill intro- duced in the State Senate authorizing the supervisors of Los Angeles County to subscribe $150,000 toward the construction of a railroad between Los Angeles and San Pedro, and culminated at length after much opposition in the campaign of 1868, when an election, called by the supervisors on the petition of ex-Governor Downey, Dr. J. S. Griffin and John King, as directors of the "Los Angeles and San Pedro Railway" to authorize $150,000 bonds for capital stock, and a similar election in the city, resulted in a combined vote of 700 for the measure and 672 against it. This road was completed in October, 1869. On April 4, 1870, the State Legislature passed the "Five Per Cent. Subsidy Act," authorizing counties of the State, through their boards of supervisors, to aid in the construction of railroads. "Then," says the historian of the Progress, "arose another monopoly howl which waxed so loud that no politician in either party dared keep silent." A desperate fight was made to repeal the act of 1870, but it failed through the vigorous oppo- sition of Benito Wilson in the Senate, Asa Ellis in the Assembly, and others. "Had it not been for their timely efforts the grand prosperity which now causes
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'the wilderness to rejoice and blossom as the rose' would have been deferred for many years."
Could the people in 1870 have looked forward thirty or forty years and fore- seen the complete domination of the business and politics of the State by the Southern Pacific and the tremendous struggle which issued to overthrow its power, doubtless the opponents of the railroad would have been delighted and their cause perhaps triumphant. But the opposition to the railway was not all a single-eyed contest against monopoly. There was not a little of selfish interest and of conflicting schemes as well as ignorance and superstition, as there always is in the introduction of modern invention and organization. The struggle for the railroads was in its day essentially a progressive movement, notwithstanding the selfish designs of some of its leaders and the evils of political control which fol- lowed. That the railroad has been indispensable to the development of the country few will question, even though the courage and wisdom of the people and their representatives have not always been adequate to control its political power.
Aided by the Five Per Cent. Subsidy Act, the Southern Pacific had incor- porated and was building its road through the San Joaquin Valley when the people of Southern California began to realize that it was a vital question whether the road would touch Los Angeles or would follow an easier and more direct course to the East. By the way of Los Angeles the road would lead over Soledad Pass by heavy grades and through long tunnels, and the financial problems would be equally difficult. The other way, over the plains to Needles, was smooth going. Then began the campaign of 1872, so all-absorbing and intense that even the presidential contest between Grant and Greeley was forgotten. A mass meeting was held in May at which resolutions were passed urging the construction of the road by way of Los Angeles and promising every possible assistance. A com- mittee of thirty was appointed which, after conference with the Governor, Colonel Leland Stanford, prepared an ordinance for submission to the voters of the county, by which the county should devote the proceeds of bonds amounting to five per cent. of the property valuation, including the $150,000 raised for the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railway and its holdings, "in aid of and for and in con- sideration of the construction of a railroad within its borders," stipulating that the Southern Pacific should build fifty miles of main trunk line through the county and city of Los Angeles, should construct connections with Anaheim and with the railroads of the county; the overland route to be from San Francisco through the city of Los Angeles and east through the San Bernardino Valley to the Colorado River at or near Fort Yuma. The committee of thirty was composed of the most prominent citizens of the city and county, and included Henry Dalton of Azusa, B. D. Wilson, L. J. Rose, George Stoneman and J. de Barth Shorb of San Gabriel, Silas Bennett and F. W. Gibson of El Monte, John Reed of Puente, and Francisco Palomares and Louis Phillips of the San José.
Again there was much opposition and the campaign was even more spirited than that of 1868, but the ordinance was carried in the election of November 5, 1872, by a vote of 1,896 to 724. So the Southern Pacific came to Los Angeles. The first train to run from Los Angeles to Spadra was on April 4, 1874, when also the first train ran to San Fernando.
On July 10, 1873, the Southern Pacific secured of Louis Phillips a contract for right of way across his land, that is, across the lower San José, 100 feet wide and including fifty acres, wherever desired, excepting across the ten acres reserved for the cemetery, and that reserved for the Catholic Church. In September the
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time of the contract was extended to February 11, 1874. With the railroad com- ing to Spadra and surveyors laying out its course across the Valley toward San Bernardino, the conditions were fully ripe for beginning a town. Climate unsur- passed, soil fertile and virgin, water available in cienega and canyon, rail connec- tion assured with the city and an eastern market promised for produce-what more could be desired? Only men with determination and capital. The men were on the ground. During the latter part of 1874 and early in 1875, Cyrus Burdick, the pioneer, P. C. Tonner, the teacher-lawyer-poet, and Francisco Palo- mares, the owner of the land, obtained joint control of some 3,000 acres in what is now the city of Pomona. Most of this was south of the line dividing the Upper and Lower San José and was secured by contract with Louis Phillips, who had acquired it, as we have seen, from the mortgagees of Ricardo Vejar. Some was purchased outright. A part of the land was pooled by the three and subdi- vided in ten or forty acre tracts; 2,000 acres was contracted for by Tonner alone. On the 27th of January, 1875, an important transaction was effected by which Burdick, Tonner and the wife of Pancho Palomares obtained from Concepcion Palomares the right to all water rising and flowing through the water-bearing lands around the base of the San José Hills, together with the right to develop more water and to maintain necessary ditches and reservoirs, reserving to the original owners water sufficient to irrigate not to exceed 100 acres of land, and also reserving the waters of a certain spring for Francisco Palomares. It was the design of the three men to subdivide the tract into orchard plots and place it upon the market, selling water for irrigation with the land; but none of the men had sufficient capital to finance the enterprise properly.
In the meantime there was organized in Los Angeles a company of men who had also seen the possibilities of development in the Valley, which the railroads were unfolding. It was called "The Los Angeles Immigration and Land Cooper- ative Association." (Men used to say they did not like to do business with them because of this interminable designation.) Its articles of incorporation, dated November 27, 1874, state that "the object for which it is formed is to circulate information throughout this and other countries regarding Southern California, and to promote immigration thereto, to buy and sell real estate on commission, and to do any other business incidental to carrying on a real-estate office." Its capital stock was $250,000, half of which was subscribed. The directors were J. E. McComas of Compton, who became later one of Pomona's most prominent citizens, J. T. Gordon of Azusa, T. A. Garey, the horticulturist of Los Angeles (already mentioned in the story of El Monte), George C. Gibbs of the San Gabriel Mission, also Milton Thomas, H. J. Crow and R. M. Town of Los Angeles. T. A. Garey was president of the company and L. M. Holt, mentioned as a stockholder, was secretary. The reader recognizes all the names as they have been perpetuated in the streets and avenues of Pomona. Here were men with capital looking for investment ; on the San José Rancho were men with land and water looking for capital. In a few weeks they came together.
A. L. Tufts and L. M. Holt tell of a prize offer of a town lot for the best name proposed and adopted for the town. Solomon Gates, the nurseryman. familiar with the Pomona of the Grangers, and aware of the mythological char- acter of Pomona, the Goddess of Fruit, proposed this name for the new town and won the prize. Mr. Holt also tells of the making of the old reservoir at the corner of San Antonio and Holt avenues, and how it was so full of squirrel and gopher holes that it would not hold water. This was before the days of cement
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reservoirs. When Mr. Holt saw their predicament he went to Louis Phillips, the rancher, of whom they were purchasing the land, and asked him to lend them liis sheep. "Take them along," said Phillips. So Holt gave his instructions to the borregueros to drive the sheep into the reservoir every night for two weeks. At the end of the time he ordered the water turned in. The tamping of thousands of tiny feet had made it as hard as a rock !
After living in Pomona for a year or two, looking after the affairs of the company, Mr. Holt returned to Los Angeles. Two years later he came out to see what had become of the town and was amazed to find how things had grown. He measured the height of a line of eucalyptus trees which he had planted and found them to be fifty-six feet high!
Among other projects in which Mr. Holt was interested, either as secretary of the company or individually, were the town of Artesia (also promoted by the Los Angeles Immigration and Land Cooperative Association), use of the Colo- rado River in the irrigation of the Imperial Valley, and the Bear Valley Dam, in the interests of which he went abroad as expert adviser.
Early in April, 1875, a contract was drawn up between the three men, Tonner, Burdick and Palomares and the land company with the long name, the former agreeing to secure to the land company a title from Louis Phillips and Palomares to all the land described above and to the water rights which they had secured from Concepcion Palomares, except that land for the railway and its station as well as that for the Catholic Church and cemetery was excluded, and water was especially reserved for the irrigation of the orchards of Burdick and Tonner. For the water rights and for surrendering the land contract held by the three together they were to receive $10,000; the price of the land was set at thirty-five dollars an acre.
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