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 14
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The fundamental spirit which actuated the management of the Pomona Land and Water Company from the first was that of cooperation in the development and control of the land and water in this vicinity to the end that the individual landowners might proportionately participate, in the spirit of democracy, in main- taining the highest degree of development consistent with the valuable water supply and productive capacity of the land, uniting at all times in the defense against any encroachment on the part of adjacent communities and discouraging, so far as possible, development which might result in waste or exportation of the water supply, so vital to the successful maintenance of such purpose. The suc- cessful completion and fulfilment of this plan and purpose were marked by the action of the company a few years ago when, having sold the greater part of its irrigated lands and having largely performed its mission in the development of this section, it divided among its stockholders the remaining unsold portions of its holdings, retaining only certain reserve water, water rights and development rights in the company, which still maintains its corporate existence and organization.
The life of the company was at first Dr. C. T. Mills. He had come to Cali- fornia in 1858, after some years spent as a missionary in the Hawaiian Islands and India. In the North he and his wife were especially known and beloved as the
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founders of Mills Seminary (now Mills College): When he died, in April, 1884, lie was eulogized as "the frail, nervous, tireless, genial, generous, large-hearted planner and organizer, who has made the sleepy, unknown town of Pomona waken and grow and bloom and blossom, and waft the perfume of its orange blossoms throughout all the state."* The treasurer of the company then, and for many years. was Frank L. Palmer, later manager of the great Richards grove, whose high worth is known to all. A number of Pomona's substantial business men were then, or have been at some time, connected with the Pomona Land and Water Company. John P. Storrs, cashier of the American National Bank, and Charles M. Stone, president of the First National Bank, were secretaries ; H. J. Nichols, now presi- dent of the company, has been from the first the expert director of its water inter- ests, and A. P. Nichols was for some time its attorney, the first attorney being Warren Olney, Sr., of San Francisco. Dr. B. S. Nichols, father of H. J. and A. P., was long its president. With the Nichols, Stone and Storrs families came a number of others from Burlington, Vt.,-Brodie and Morgan and E. P. Shaw, the genial field agent, and Harry A. Storrs, brother of Mr. John Storrs, and since consulting engineer in the reclamation of arid lands for the Government. James T. Taylor was the company's surveyor for a time before H. A. Storrs, and be- fore he became city engineer and opened an office for himself ; also H. E. Stod- dard. After him followed W. H. Sanders, later a consulting engineer in Los Angeles. P. C. Tonner, retained by the company for his rare professional skill, sometimes won important law cases for them, and sometimes plunged them into hot water. A. H. Smith of Honolulu, who built a block on Second Street for the post office in 1885, was a member of the company.
Those were busy days in the company's forces, with draftsmen and clerks in the office, surveyors in the field, gangs of men plowing and grading, other crews at work boring wells, and still others laying pipe. And this activity was reflected in a new life in the town and valley. Numbers of those who had lots began to build residences upon them, five and ten-acre lots began to be set out to citrus and deciduous fruits. "On the Street," which meant for the most part Second Street, new stores were opened in frame buildings. Visitors to the town saw everywhere unfinished buildings going up, ranchers busy with laying out new groves, and here and there artesian wells flowing abundant streams of pure, sparkling water. There was a tonic in the air, a contagious atmosphere of push and progress, as well as the natural invigorating freshness of this rare climate. Who that has known the experience of coming from an Eastern winter, from the blizzards and flatness of the Middle West or from the less favorable sections of the North- from anywhere in the world almost-into this valley of paradise with the per- petual miracle of perfect climate, of unbounded growth, can ever forget the inspiring impressions of his first mornings and evenings-the thrilling sunrise and the more gorgeous sunsets, the meadow larks and the roses, the golden oranges and the ragged, towering rows of eucalyptus-the very joy of living in such a world? Add to this the peculiar sense of satisfaction of ownership in a piece of ground, be it large or small, and of playing at husbandman with such a lavish Nature ; then the persuasive representations of the promoter pointing out everywhere the evidences of prosperity and progress, and one understands a little the spirit of the times. In fact, the boom was on. It may be dated, perhaps, from the time when the Pomona Land and Water Company struck the first fine flow of artesian water in 1882. Early in 1883 the papers record "an unparalleled boom for
*Memorial Sermon by Rev. O. C. Weller.
SECOND STREET, LOOKING WEST FROM THOMAS STREET, POMONA, 1884.
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the past four months," so that it was almost impossible to find houses ; and this was only the beginning. Kerckhoff and Cuzner, from the branch lumber yard already established, were receiving sometimes twelve carloads of lumber in a day. Seven contractors and their gangs of workmen had all the work they could do. In this year the Land and Water Company completed its cement pipe line, replacing the open ditch from San Antonio Canyon, at a cost of $63,000. Other agents were busy as well as those of the Land and Water Company. Mr. J. E. McComas, who had returned to Pomona at the beginning of the year, sold to J. E. Packard, in March, the eighty acres on Towne and San Antonio avenues on which the vine- yard was planted. He also sold a good many smaller tracts, which were the orchard homes of permanent residents.
The long strides by which the town marched forward during the boom are · clearly marked by the contrast between two pictures, one early in 1882 and the other three years later, in 1885. Since no good photographs can be found of these scenes, one must attempt to draw them in his imagination. In 1882 we must picture a village of 150 or 200 people, all told, clustered chiefly about the few stores on Second Street, with a few outlying homes and orchards, especially between the village and the Spanish settlement about the San José Hills. Just off Second Street on Main was the new hotel which Louis Brosseau had opened the previous Christmas. Here, until in 1883 he sold out to Morris Keller, the genial French-Canadian dispensed hospitality, rejoicing in the better times. after five years of fruit-growing following the earlier boom of 1876. His livery stable was farther west on Second Street. Theodore Ruth, whose father was the veteran pastor of the little Episcopal mission, had a general merchandise and drug store just below on Main Street, and there was another, kept by Jackson and then by Henry Sattler, on the corner of Main and Second, and one on Thomas and Second by L. Alexander and H. McComas. There was G. W. Farrington's grocery and two hardware stores-T. D. Holladay's, where the Pomona Bank is now, and E. J. Votter's, later bought out by his clerk, Richard N. Loucks, who has now been identified with the town for nearly forty years, sharing in all its vicissitudes and contributing greatly to its advancement. Two blacksmiths shod horses and mended wagons-W. D. Smith on Main Street and Wright and Holladay, where E. B. Smith was later. George Young was the barber and watchmaker ; A. R. Johnson made and repaired shoes ; Garthside, Reed and Conner, architects, planned the new buildings ; the Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill and Lumber Company furnished the lumber and John Whyte the brick and stone to build them. For those who were not satisfied with the best water in the world there were already two or three saloons, one at First and Main and one in the O'Conner Building. For those who were in business trouble there was P. C. Tonner, the lawyer (John J. Mills having just died) ; and for those in bodily trouble there were two doctors, Dr. C. W. Brown, at Third and Main, and Dr. Fairchild, whose quarter-section of govern- ment land north of Claremont was so conspicuously marked by its huge stone wall. If we except Dr. Kirkpatrick, who lived for a short time at the west end of the settlement on Orange Grove Avenue, Dr. Brown was the first physician in town and lived to be one of the oldest.
The only houses south of the village were those of Rev. P. S. Ruth, the Epis- copal rector ; P. C. Tonner, the lawyer ; H. L. Strong, an orange grower ; S. Gates, the nurseryman, and John Whyte, the brick and stone mason and dealer, on his ten-acre tract. There was nothing on Second Street west of Kessler's on the north and Brosseau's livery on the south. North and east there were only the little
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houses of C. E. White and L. D. Conner opposite on Holt Avenue, till one came to the open country, with its scattered ranches. Such are the outlines of the picture in 1882.
In 1885, instead of a village of less than 200, we see a town of over 2,000. The Kerckhoff-Cuzner Mill and Lumber Company had put in a mill and enlarged their stock; and another lumber yard, opened by Phil Stein, had been bought out by O. T. Brown. Five real estate firms were doing well, J. E. McComas having taken in C. R. Johnson as a partner, and the firm of Brooks and Holladay being strengthened by Colonel Firey, who in 1883 commenced that life of notable and high service for Pomona which has continued ever since. Instead of one grocery store, there were ten to feed the growing population, that of V. de Brunner being conspicuous. The little country merchandise stores had given place to others more specialized. There were four dry goods stores, among them Greenbaum's and that of Converse Howe, who was to be for a time so prominent in Pomona affairs, both in its business and its education. There were three drug stores, two bakeries and two meat markets; also two furniture stores and two boot and shoe shops, Toots Martin's and that of P. J. Tarr, the veteran shoe man and loyal Pomonan, who came in December, 1884. Of confectioners and book stores there were four, in- cluding those of E. T. Palmer and of R. N. Loucks, who also handled insurance and real estate. To Brosseau's livery were added three others, E. Hicklin's among them. Kessler had opened "Tonsorial and Bath Parlors" in his Second Street Block. Three millinery stores and one for jewelry tell of feminine interest in the new population. But there were many homeless citizens as well as visitors and tourists, to whom four restaurants and four or five hotels now catered. Keller's and King's both claimed the name of Pomona Hotel, the first by priority and the second by location near where the old Pomona Hotel had burned down. For a time these had been the only two hotels in town, and both were popular, "Mother King" being much in demand for her nursing. After the first hotel had burned and before Brosseau had built, there had only been a restaurant, kept by a Gov- ernor Mercer of Iowa, who had come here for his health, and a small house on Main Street kept for two or three years by one Garcia, a Mexican, called Saboni. Now there were also the Des Moines and Brown's Hotel, and the Maison Fran- çaise, with a considerable clientéle of French colonists and visitors. M. G. Rogers had opened his feed store at Second and Ellen, and Smith Brothers their flouring mill; Graber was in charge of Phillips' warehouse by the station; and there were now five blacksmiths and two harness shops.
With all this increase in business two banks had been established ; the first, called the Pomona Valley Bank, had been organized in 1883 with J. H. Smith, J. E. McComas and Dr. Thomas Coates as officers, and occupied the new brick block which P. S. Ruth had built in 1882 at Third and Main. The other bank was the Pomona Bank, in the Palmer Block, of which H. A. Palmer was president. James L. Howland, who had come from Massachusetts in 1882, had joined S Gates in the nursery business, and their stock covered forty acres at Cucamonga and Orange Grove avenues, with 100,000 orange trees and 200,000 olives. Two live papers had been established. The Pomona Times, founded by H. N. Short and1 W. D. Morton in October, 1882, had become the Times-Courier, with John H. Lee, who had started the Courier in 1883, in place of Short. The Progress had just begun ( Jan- uary 31, 1885,) its long, unbroken record of service to the town.
Dr. Brown had been joined by Dr. Coates, who also was to continue his suc- cessful practice here to the end of his life; and there were also Dr. Burr and Dr.
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P. E. Howe. Dr. F. DeWitt Crank had come, in the fall of 1884, from Pasadena, where he had married a daughter of Colonel Banbury, that pioneer of the Indiana Colony, who built the first house in Pasadena ; the first of Pomona's early physi- cians to continue to the present time. Dr. Von Bonhurst, the dentist, had now a rival in Dr. J. H. Dunn. In the legal profession Foley and Clark were partners of Tonner ; here Claiborne had entered the field, also the new firm of Joy and Sumner, of whom more is to be written in a later chapter. Though not yet in this profession which he was to follow in Pomona to the present time, U. E. White came to Pomona as a youth of sixteen, with his folks, in 1883, having, in fact, grown up with the town and been interested in all its progress. Such, then, is the picture of Pomona early in 1885-a real town, with a post office of the third class.
Remarkable as was the growth of these three years, that of the next few months was even more striking. Early in 1886 the population had grown from 2,000 to nearly 5,000; ten churches had been established, five of them well housed ; and there were strong lodges of the fraternities I. O. O. F., F. & A. M., K. of P., A. O. U. W., Good Templars and Grand Army. On December 31, 1885, there were counted ninety-eight business concerns in Pomona. Four schoolhouses had been erected, and a good modern hotel. The Land and Water Company alone had now spent $400,000 and had disposed of 4,000 acres of land, with water, at prices from $50 to $200 an acre. Two thousand acres were set out with trees, 60,000 trees having been planted in 1885. Six hundred inches of water was flowing from eighty artesian wells.
Moreover, even at the height of the boom, the growth of Pomona was sub- stantial. Materially a better class of construction was now employed. In addition to Ruth's brick block at Third and Main, which contained his store and post office and the Pomona Valley Bank, there were the Palmer and McComas Blocks, and the four brick buildings at Second and Gordon were built during the year. In the year 1885, 1,200,000 brick were used in Pomona. And the substantial character of this growth was not simply material, but there was less inflation of values and con- sequently less loss and suffering here than in many other places following the boom.
In sketching this picture of Pomona in the days of the boom, the writer can only bring out in detail certain features which chanced to form the high lights in the scene as he found or remembered it, and these, of course, might have been quite different from those seen by another from a different point of view. Some of these more noticeable features we may now consider.
The opening of the Hotel Palomares was a notable event. A really modern hotel, attractive in appearance and furnished in good taste, it was conducted at first by Frank Miller, before he had become known to the world as the proprietor of the Glenwood Inn. For the "opening week" in November, 1885, there were dinners and dances and various special functions and a number of distinguished guests who came from a distance, and there were many compliments for the directors, who were also directors in the Land and Water Company. The new hostelry was always crowded with visitors and tourists ; and business men of the town, who could afford it, liked to lunch at its excellent table. So popular, indeed, was the house that a new and larger building was soon projected and the first one moved to one side to make place for it in the center of the block. So long as the good times lasted its prestige brought patronage and it proved a great attraction for the town. Incidentally, these days marked the high tide of the hotel business in the Valley. Opposite the Hotel Palomares Dr. Crank and Dr. Coates built, and Mr. Mueller moved into his new residence, then regarded as quite elegant.
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In the ten and forty-acre tracts adjoining the town, and farther out, new sub- divisions were put on the market, with excursions and auction sales. At such a sale of lots in the Currier Tract, one day in February, 1887, there was a tremen- dous downpour of rain and a man named Carter was struck by lightning. The next month another "grand excursion to the beautiful town of Pomona" was advertised by Easton and Eldridge, with O. F. Giffen as special agent, for the sale of lots in the Palomares Tract. Los Angeles was flooded with pictures and circulars. Seven hundred people came on the excursion train and all were served with luncheon. Lots were sold at from $50 to $250, amounting to $16,400.
A number of outstanding figures not already mentioned in the early history of the town, who were here at the height of the boom in 1887, or before the Santa Fé was built, may well be mentioned here. One of these was Frank Slanker, for thirty-three years now the efficient and faithful constable of the San José Town- ship. When Captain Hutchinson was boring the first artesian wells in the Valley, in 1880 and 1881, Frank Slanker was foreman in charge of the tools, and "Bill" Mulholland, Los Angeles' great engineer, of aqueduct fame, was working for him at $2.25 a day. But Mr. Slanker wanted to be a blacksmith, and so after these four wells were drilled, and one or two for Pancho Palomares, he set about to learn the blacksmith's heavy trade. After six years he had become a master workman and was associated with W. D. Smith, when one day at the close of the year. 1886, J. E. McComas came to the shop and said, "We are going to elect you constable tomorrow," and would listen to no refusal. "I'll buy your stock," lie said. "We want some one to clean up the town," for there were then fourteen saloons in the place. When he was elected the next day, Mr. McComas had a silver star made and came to the blacksmith shop to present it to him. Louis Phillips, who was also there, said to him, "Throw that away and I'll have a gold one made for you." But Frank Slanker has worn his silver star with honor, from the first of January, 1887, when he entered office, to the present time. It was while boring a well for Pancho Palomares and boarding at his home that the latter told him the story of Old Prieto and his money (already narrated), and promised, that, if he should die first, he would come back and tell Slanker where it was buried. This he had also promised to his friend Cyrus Burdick. Tonner, too, who knew the story well and was a friend of the three, had made the same pledge. As constable, Slanker saw much of Tonner in his drunken moods, tak- ing him home literally hundreds of times. At such times Tonner often talked of the hereafter, and so earnestly that Mr. Slanker said once to him, Tonner be- ing sober. "You do not talk of the things when sober that you do when drunk ; I'd like to be able to say that P. C. Tonner has said so-and-so when sober," to which he replied seriously, "I'll come back and tell you about it some day."
In the early days of his office there was still a rancheria of Indians by the Arenas Springs, also called the Huaje, an ever-shifting crowd whose men were mostly sheepshearers. Sometimes they were troublesome, gambling and fighting among themselves and cutting each other, though not doing much shooting, and he was obliged to straighten them out. There was a very red, one-eyed Indian in camp called "Dan," whom he asked one day, "Dan, how long have you been here ?" Slowly the old man answered, "When I came here Old Baldy was a little hill like that," holding his hand only a little above the ground.
One might fill a volume with stories of this constable's adventures, if only he were willing to tell them, for with all his modesty he has seen much service, espe- cially in the earlier, wilder days. But there are two, already on record among the
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court and legal documents, which illustrate his shrewdness and his courage. In the days of the saloon there was, of course, much drinking, carousing and gam- bling. The streets were full of drunken Mexicans. Sheepherders and miners came in from the plains and mountains after pay-day with their pockets full of money and would carouse for a couple of days till they were "broke" again. Into the back yards of saloons-and every saloon had its back yard-the men were rolled when full. Often two or three might be seen lying in a back yard dead drunk. At one time there was much complaint among the tipplers that they had lost large sums of money, "and it didn't all go to the saloonkeepers, either." The thieves could not at first be located and there was much speculation as to who they were. Finally Constable Slanker determined to find out. Dressed as an old miner, with full beard, flannel shirt and trousers tucked in his big boots, he went the rounds of the saloons. Soon he discovered that two men were following him about. He recognized them as two painters who had been in town for some time, and not always busy. So, entering a saloon north of where Armour's store now is, and observing that the two men had followed him in, he bought a pint of whiskey. The price then was 50 cents, and he offered a five-dollar gold piece in payment, dropping part of the change. One of the men jumped to pick it up and hand it to him. Slanker then went out and down the alley and lay down against the fence as if drunk. After about twenty minutes these two men came up to him. One in front and one behind, they rolled him over, cut his pocket and took $3 which they found. (This is what was called "rolling" in the parlance of the day.) The other $1.50, in quarters, he had dropped into one of his boots. "Is that all? He must have more," said one of them, and the saloonkeeper called out to them, "How much did you get?" "Only three dollars." "He must have a dollar and a half more" (!) So they rolled him over again and the money in his boot was heard to clink. "He's got it in his boots," they cried, and were about to pull them off. But the Constable had a "forty-four" in the other boot, so he pretended to wake up a little, getting up on his hands and knees, and they decided to "let him go." The next day he got out a warrant for the men, arrested them and locked them up. They were convicted, of course, and sent to jail for several months. But an interesting incident occurred at the preliminary hearing. A brother of one of the men came to Constable Slanker and said, "You don't want to send E- to jail. For the sake of the family let's fix it up. When you go to get him from jail, just let him go. He'll run and you shoot after him, but don't hit him. We'll lave a conveyance ready to take him away. Just as soon as he escapes I will give you $500." To which Frank Slanker quietly replied, "Tell your brother, if by any chance he should get loose, not to run, for I'll shoot to kill, and I'll get him."
The other story is about the celebrated bandit, Silva, who was captured finally in 1897. But the San Francisco papers which then published thrilling accounts of his career had forgotten, or did not know of, an earlier capture of the desperado by Constable Slanker, when he was known by his true name of Lugo. A comparison of photographs taken at both times leaves no room for doubt as to their identity. The sheriff of Chino had learned that Lugo was wanted by officers in the north, and not knowing where to find him, came to Slanker to see if he knew anything about him. The Chino sheriff would not tell by whom or for what he was wanted, but Slanker told him, nevertheless, where he was at work shearing sheep, and just how he could get him. So Lugo was caught, but on the way back, passing his home on Hamilton Avenue, he asked to be allowed to go in to get some clean clothes. The sheriff let him go in by himself and waited some time for him to
7
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come out ; then, going inside, he asked where Lugo was. An old woman answered, "No sais, quisas se fue,"-I don't know, perhaps he has gone. Of course he had- gone straight through the house and escaped the back way. When the constable saw the sheriff again, this conversation took place :
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