USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Los Angeles from the mountains to the sea : with selected biography of actors and witnesses to the period of growth and achievement, Volume I > Part 13
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August 22, 1883, ordinance passed creating Elysian Park. The citrus industry, which meant and still means so much to Southern California and Los Angeles, developed steadily up to the middle '80s, when scale troubles developed to such an alarming extent that the whole industry took a slump. Science had failed to find a remedy for the devastating scale, and hope of the survival of the industry was almost given up until the importation in 1889 of the insect commonly known as the "lady-bug." This effective little enemy of the scale was brought from Australia under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture, and after being cultivated
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in the laboratories and distributed to the ranchies, so quickly and efficiently performed its duty on the scale that hope among the citrus growers quickly revived, and this little insect has proved to be worth millions of dollars to Southern California, and is today one of the best friends of the Southwest.
One of the institutions at this time having its effect on the physical and social life of the city was the Los Angeles Ath- letic Club, first organized in 1879, and now a fast growing in- stitution.
In 1884 Los Angeles installed its first street car line un- der the cable system, and in 1885 showed further progress by initiating the first electric street car line. About the same time the first ostrich farm was opened in the neighbor- hood or what is now Tropico. But the birds were kept more as a show and amusement feature than for the raising of feathers. However, in 1887, Edwin Cawston started a really commercial venture in the growing of ostrich plumes, import- ing his birds from South Africa. And though many of the birds were lost by death on the long journey, he contrived to land some forty in Los Angeles which formed the nucleus of the well-known Cawston Ostrich Farm, which was located at various places in the city from time to time and finally set- tled permanently at a site between Los Angeles and Pasadena.
On November 25, 1885, the Santa Fe Railroad ran its first train into the City of Los Angeles. Its own line was not then completed, but it made temporary arrangements to use the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad from San Bernardino. This gave Los Angeles two direct railroad connections with the East, and competition becoming keen, a rate war devel- oped as a natural consequence. This rate war was far reach- ing in its consequence. In the struggle for passenger busi- ness in 1886-87 the competing roads bid against one another so keenly for passenger business that round trip tickets from Chicago and Missouri River points to Los Angeles could be bought for as low as $15, and many tales by residents of the city of that date lead to the belief that still deeper cuts were made, and it has even been reported that at the high tide of the war passengers were persuaded to make the journey on one or the other of the roads without paying anything at all
CAWSTON'S OSTRICH FARM IN STILL LIFE
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for the privilege. Some reports went so far as to say that the railroads in a few instances paid a slight bonus to obtain such passengers.
The result of all this competition for business was that large numbers of eastern people took advantage of the low rates to visit this district and were impressed with the country, its climate and possibilities, and looked round for an opportunity to make a temporary investment of a large or small amount.
This started what is generally known as the "Big Boom" of Southern California, which developed into a veritable craze -- a mania of speculation. It made of staid business men spec- tacular promoters, created millionaires by the dozen, and gen- erally created fictitious values which, after the bursting of the bubble, left a train of disastrous conditions which it took many a long year to correct. It was not only Los Angeles, but all of Southern California, that was affected by this real estate boom. Acreage was bought by the promoter, subdi- vided and laid out over night in lots irrespective of any natural demand for a town or community at that particular place, and when the lots were placed on the market they were eagerly snapped up by the so-called investor and by the man who depended on the boom conditions to give him a large profit by a re-sale of his lot within a short time.
Relics of these old boom subdivisions are to be met with all over Southern California. Some of the communities were entirely abandoned and have gone back into wheat and barley fields, some still existing as little villages for whose existence there is no particular necessity, and where lots can be bought today for less than the price at which they changed hands in the boom days of 1887.
As an example of the rapid advance in rents caused by the demand for real estate offices during the boom, this ex- tract taken from Guinn's "History of California" will serve as an illustration :
"An old one story wooden building on Spring street, south of First, that before the boom might have brought its owner a rental of $50 per month, was subdivided into stalls after the usual method and rented at from $75 to $150 per month
MAIN STREET IN THE '80s LOOKING NORTH AND NORTHEAST
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for each stall, prices varying as you receded from the front entrance. The rental of the building paid the landlord an income of about $1,000 a month. The building was so out of repair that the enterprising boomers who occupied it during a rain storm were compelled to hold umbrellas over them- selves and their customers while negotiating a deal in climate and corner lots."
Such a boom had to run its. course and quickly attain its inevitable end, and by 1888 the real estate speculator for the buying end of a deal was a raris avis. Many were the pre- dictions of dire disaster as to the future of the city from the pessimistically inclined. However, more than the burst- ing of the boom was necessary to kill a city of destiny, and although the city and the whole surrounding country suffered for many a long year from the results of ill-advised specula- tion, the injury was in no way permanent. In fact, one good resulted. In 1888-9 building materials being cheap, the own- ers of real estate in the city who had bought during the boom at high prices, conceived it to be their best business policy to build on their investments in order to create an income, and this resulted in a building boom, in those years, of con- siderable magnitude.
During the railroad rate war, freight rates tumbled as well as passenger rates and there are authentic instances of ship- ments from Chicago of coal at $1 per ton. A carload of willow ware from New York with a freight bill for the car of $8.35. Of a train of Liverpool salt shipped from New York at 60 cents a ton.
Prof. T. S. C. Lowe, later a well-known figure in Los An- geles and formerly with the balloon section of the Union Army during the Civil war, startled the city in the late '80s by making the claim that he could manufacture gas from water at a cost said to be about 10 cents per 1,000 cubic feet, and distribute the same at a cost to the merchants and house- holders of a dollar per thousand or less. Although the exist- ing gas company had by that time reduced its price to $1.50 per thousand feet, the prospective price of $1 and the profits to be made at that figure was a temptation not to be resisted, and a franchise was obtained, pipes laid, and a manufacturing
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BUNGALOW COURT
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plant established and gas produced. But the cost of produc- tion turned out to be more than a dollar per thousand, the advertised selling price. This company and its business were eventually absorbed by the Los Angeles Gas Company.
Also in the late '80s Senator Stanford and the Southern Pacific officials completed with the city the long-discussed details of the promised Central Southern Pacific Station, and built what was then and afterwards known as the Arcade Sta- tion, on a part of the Wolfskill tract facing on Alameda, be- tween Fourth and Fifth streets, on practically the site now occupied by that company's main station.
In 1887 the original Occidental College was established by a group of Presbyterian clergymen on donated land; the main college building being completed in the following year and destroyed by fire in 1896. At this period of the city's history there seemed to have been great liberality on the part of citizens in the matter of donating lands for any worthy object. In the same year Santa Catalina Island was sold to an English syndicate to be developed for its minerals, but min- eral values failing to develop, as anticipated, the English syndicate refused to complete the deal, and in 1892 finally dropped any claim to the island.
Further contributing factors to the 1887 "Boom," now famous in history, was the wide advertising of Southern Cali- fornia, its climate and products at the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia, and the continued advertising efforts of the Board of Trade and the Chamber of Commerce.
Office hours of the boom real estate agents were by no means confined to daylight, but offices were open and busy far into the night. Properties frequently changed hands at advanced prices several times in twenty-four hours.
It is not to be supposed that all the mushroom towns laid out by the promoters in this period were failures, as many of the now prosperous smaller towns in Southern California are the result of locations planted in that year. But many of the centers that were started utterly collapsed and the companies operating them failed miserably. Where such companies had issued clear titles to lots bought for cash and the large acreage eventually reverted to its original owners
Vol. I-9
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because of failure of the company, these small deeded lots scattered through the acreage remained for many years a matter hard to clear up. In many instances a cement con- tractor had got in touch with a lot owner and persuaded him to have a cement sidewalk laid in front of his lot as an added feature to his holdings. When the acreage reverted to farm land again a 25 or 50 foot section of cement sidewalk was not an uncommon sight in the middle of a wheatfield.
On the day when a new subdivision was to be put on the market the promoters would organize processions headed by bands of doubtful quality, and would arrange an immense barbecue on the lands to which all were invited, and every method of advertising, honest and dishonest, were employed, to make a quick clean-up sale of the subdivision. When the opening sale of what was considered a particularly desirable subdivision was announced, lines would frequently be formed in front of the office two or three days in advance of the opening day, so eager was the rush to obtain choice locations and desirable corners. The men paid to hold the places in these lines often received large fees for their services, it being cited that $100 as a fee for such service was not un- common.
So greedy for large profits were many of the operating syndicates that frequently chances for large fortunes were turned down in the expectation of larger offers.
. The schemes evolved to boost the selling of the various tracts were so numerous and so shady that there is hardly any scheme that the mind of man can conceive that was not broached and put into operation at that time. As an instance of what the boom was doing on three separate days near its crest the real estate transfers were valued at $660,000, $730,- 000 and $930,000.
Mental poise was conspicuous by its absence; capitalists on paper were as thick as bees; millionaires of a day were mixing with the crowds in ever-increasing numbers. Boom values do not seem to have increased in anything like the same proportions in the business and near-in sections of town as they did in the outlying districts, and many investments
H :
PLES STORE
LOS ANGELES VIEWS IN THE EARLY '80s Upper : South on Olive. Lower : First and Spring Streets, Looking Toward Temple Street
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made at that time on inside property have since proved highly profitable to investors.
The Southern Pacific Railroad had formally inaugurated its through service on Angust 20, 1887, the first through trains in both directions meeting at Santa Barbara, where a fete was held.
In this year the first regular street was paved on Main Street. Prior to that time streets had been natural dirt tracks.
In November of this year public-spirited citizens donated to the United States Government some 600 acres between the city and the seat which was accepted by the Government as a site for a National Home for disabled volunteer soldiers. The grounds were at once laid out, and the first unit directed of what is not the Old Soldiers Home at Sawtelle. In May of 1888, a commission was chosen to draw up a new charter for the City of Los Angeles, and the result was finally con- firmed by the Legislature of the state early in 1889.
Although the boom had been disastrous to the city in many ways, one cannot escape the conviction that it was the turning point between the existence of a village gone to sleep again and the beginning of a progressive, bustling city.
From 1888-90 building was active, paving of streets pro- gressing, sewer systems extended all over the business district and out to Tenth Street, and then through large bond issues, was projected to cover the whole residence sections of the city. The new City Hall on South Broadway and the County Courthouse on the hill on North Broadway were both started at this time. The street car railways were con- solidated and a cable system covering a large area of the city inaugurated. In 1890 an electric street car system was built which was eventually to gobble up the cable system and give the city an entirely electric service. However, the last horse car did not disappear from the city until 1897.
In 1888 people were buoyed up by the prospect of a new transcontinental railroad from Salt Lake City, supposed to be in connection with the Union Pacific. A franchise was secured and the railroad was built south from Salt Lake City through Utah, but connection was never completed. The
LOS ANGELES THIRTY YEARS AGO AND TODAY Upper View : West on Sixth Street from Main, in the late '80s. Lower: Same View in 1920
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unused franchise along the east bank of the Los Angeles River was taken up by other parties and a system completed in 1891 between Pasadena and San Pedro through Los An- geles, the system being called the Terminal. This system was bought in 1900 by Senator W. A. Clark, who used it as the nucleus for the now existing "Salt Lake Railroad."
In 1889-90 the moral aspects of the city seem to have been more carefully considered-gambling houses were closed, saloons compelled by ordinance to close on Sunday, and it
THE A. W. FRANCISCO PLACE AT NINTH AND FIGUEROA STREET
generally came to be recognized that the future prosperity of the city and decent moral standards must run hand in hand.
In 1888 the subject of state division was again raised, but enthusiasm seemed to have died down and it received little support in the southern end of the state. It was in 1888 that the widening of Fort Street from Second to Ninth streets was inaugurated, causing the change of name of that street to Broadway. Much opposition was shown at the time to widening the street because of the lack of vision of the re- quirements of the future city.
The Santa Fe Railroad branch connecting Los Angeles with San Diego was completed and opened in 1891.
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On January 1, 1889, the first annual Pasadena Rose Tour- nament was held.
In 1889 the southern half of Los Angeles County was authorized to split from the mother country and Orange County founded. This split had been advocated for many years chiefly on the ground that Los Angeles, the county seat, was too far away from many of the outlying sections of the county.
As a result of the visit to Los Angeles and Southern Cali- fornia in 1890 of Charles Dudley Warner, then editor of Harpers' Magazine, the Harpers later published his book, "Our Italy"-an appreciation of Southern California, its cli- mate, resources, etc., and a well drawn comparison between the Southern California country and countries with similar climatic conditions in Southern Europe. The book caused much comment, especially in the East, and turned many eyes in the direction of Southern California.
In 1890-91 Hollenbeck Park was donated to the city by William H. Workman and Mrs. J. E. Hollenbeck in the pro- portion respectively of two-thirds and one-third. It was first suggested that the park be named the Workman-Hollenbeck Park, but the modesty of Mr. Workman insisted on the elimi- nation of his name. About the same time Mrs. Hollenbeck donated ground and created a liberal endowment for the Hol- lenbeck Home for Aged People, almost adjoining the park on the west.
The Friday Morning Club, a women's organization and since a social force in the city, was organized in 1891, building its present club house in 1899.
In 1892 E. L. Doheny and others, prospecting for oil in the western residence section of the city at a depth of some 150 feet, struck the black fluid and started an oil excitement in the city which attained considerable proportions. Between then and the year 1900 some 1,300 oil wells were drilled within the city limits, and though none of them were large yielders individually, the aggregate oil output was very con- siderable. Development elsewhere in the state produced an overproduction which, together with other causes, started a rapid decline in the price of oil. In 1900 oil was $1 a barrel,
OIL FIELD IN LOS ANGELES
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and in 1904 it dropped to 15 cents a barrel. As is the case wherever oil excitement obtains, Los Angeles was afflicted with an overabundance of incorporated oil companies. Much irresponsible and fraudulent oil stock was sold. Much money was made and much was lost, and the losses largely fell on those least able to support it.
Showing that the general prosperity of the city was not overly affected by the hard times referred to, the following table of bank clearings for the years indicated are instructive : 1892, $39,000,000 (year before the panic) ; 1893, $45,000,000; 1894, $44,000,000; 1895, $57,000,000; 1896, $61,000,000.
In 1894 the Chamber of Commerce moved its headquarters and permanent exhibit to Fourth and Broadway, from which a most active campaign for the building up of Los Angeles and Southern California in general was conducted. Later the Chamber of Commerce moved to its present location on Broadway between First and Second streets in a building specially erected for its use. In 1892-93 the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce was the leading factor in exploiting Southern California at the great Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
1892-96 witnessed a brisk fight for appropriation from Congress to locate and start the harbor.
The Belgian hare craze struck Los Angeles in the late '90s. An impression got abroad that Belgian hare meat was superior to anything else and that it could be turned out at a small proportion of the cost of other meats. As the im- pression grew, everyone started the industry in his back yard. From the growing of hares for meat to the raising of fancy stock for breeding purposes was the next step, and fancy rabbits quoted at $100 to $1,000 each were thick all over town, and a common topic of conversation.
The impression prevailed that it was impossible for the supply to outrun the demand, as there was supposed to be a world market for all that could be produced, but it was only a comparatively short time until the supply was super- abundant and the demand practically nil. Thus the craze dropped from sight and into history.
In 1892 Prof. T. S. C. Lowe, previously referred to in
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connection with gas enterprises, began the building of a rail- road up a mountain back of Pasadena, afterwards and since known as Mount Lowe. The road was formally opened to the public in 1893, and in 1894 the Mount Lowe Astronomical Observatory was built.
In 1894 Los Angeles was suffering from depression caused by the panic depressions of the previous year, and was casting round for a method of overcoming general apathy,
THE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY
and hit upon the plan of holding an annual event in the spring to be known as "La Fiesta de Los Angeles." The Fiesta was in the nature of a general carnival, with processions, decorations and the general carnival spirit in evidence. And, as an annual event, it did much to center attention on the city from the outside and to keep the spirit of co-operation alive within the city itself.
In 1894 the Ebell Club was organized.
In 1896 Gen. M. H. Sherman and E. P. Clark, brothers-in- law, laid the foundation of the present unequaled electric interurban car system enjoyed by Los Angeles. In that year the whole steam railroad was electricized between Los An- geles and Santa Monica and building was started on an elec- tric road to Pasadena. The system of electric interurban
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transportation then started by these men has been increased until it covers points in Southern California as much as eighty miles out from the city.
In this same year Arthur Letts, with only a few hundred dollars, bought a small bankrupt stock of goods, located his store at the corner of Fourth and Broadway and so started the career which has meant so much in the upbuilding of the modern Los Angeles.
In 1896 Griffith Park was presented to the city by Col.
FRAGANSETT
SHER
FAL ELTATE
MAIN STREET LOOKING NORTH IN 1898
Griffith J. Griffith, an expanse of over 3,000 acres, one of the most magnificent gifts ever presented to a city by an indi- vidual.
In 1898-99 came the Spanish-American war, in which citi- zens of Los Angeles bore their full share. Col. Harrison Gray Otis of the Los Angeles Times was appointed brigadier general of the United States Volunteers by President Mc- Kinley and was given an important command in the Philip- pines.
In 1899, after a year or more of negotiation, the city en- tered into an arrangement to buy the plant of the City Water
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Company, and, in August of that year, the question of issuing $2,000,000 worth of bonds for the purchase and extension of the system, when submitted to the vote of the people, was carried overwhelmingly. The water works were taken over by the municipality under a commission of five appointed for its management.
For several years prior to 1908 various mercantile bodies of the city had been in constant dispute with the railroads, chiefly the Southern Pacific, on the matter of equalizing and adjusting rates to and from the San Joaquin Valley and con- tiguous territory, so that Los Angeles would have a fair chance of competing in mutual territory with San Francisco as a point of supply. Through the Railroad Commission very considerable concessions were secured, followed by still fur- ther reductions in 1910 and 1912.
In the first years of the century Henry E. Huntington gradually began transferring his large interests from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and commenced the development of interurban electric systems. In 1902 he completed the road to Long Beach, and in 1903 to Monrovia and Whittier. In latter years he ereeted the building at Sixth and Main streets, known as the Huntington or Pacific Electric Building, the ground floor of which was designed as a Union Terminal for the various electric lines under his management.
In 1901, due to the growth of the western residence dis- tricts of the city, and to the obstacle presented by Bunker Hill, it became necessary to make a connection, and the first of the tunnels was constructed through that hill on Third Street.
In 1902 the first commercial wireless system out of Los Angeles was established between the city and Santa Catalina Island.
In 1903 a Southwest Society was founded as a branch of the Archaeological Institute of America, whose headquarters were in Boston, but rapidly outgrowing the parent organiza- tion in membership, it withdrew its affiliation in 1913 and devoted its entire energy and funds to the furtherance of the Southwest Museum which the society had founded in 1907.
In 1905 public spirited citizens, ashamed of the mean quarters occupied by the postoffice and Federal Building, sub-
LOS ANGELES IN 1900
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scribed funds necessary to the purchase of the site now occupied by the Federal Building on Temple, Main and New High streets, and presented the same to the United States Government. An appropriation of $800,000 by Congress was inadequate for the building designed, and it was not until 1907 that the difficulty was overcome by the sale of the old site at Main and Winston streets.
In 1905 the Los Angeles, San Pedro and Salt Lake Rail- road was completed.
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