USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > The Herald's history of Los Angeles City > Part 15
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
But to return to Los Angeles and its mag- nificent patrimony of broad acres. After the
259
The City Takes Shape.
original settlers had received all that their contracts called for-given them not by the pueblo, but by the governor-then the city began giving away building sites to all that asked them for actual use, and small tracts, rarely exceeding ten acres, to those that wished to carry on agriculture. No written title passed, nor was there any definite marking of limits. Probably no record was kept of these transactions-certainly none has descended to us. A man's title to his property lay in his oc- cupancy of it, either by actual residence or by tilling. If he moved off, or ceased to cultivate it, any one could take possession by "denuncia- tion." This prevented the holding of land for mere speculative purposes, and tended to con- centrate the city in a limited area. The out- lying districts were left intact in the hands of the city. The time came presently when the necessity for definite boundaries and written titles to ownership dawned on the people of Los Angeles, and, as has been related earlier in this work, the ayuntamiento required all owners to present their claims for ratification by that body. This was the beginning of mod- ern land titles in Los Angeles, for the titles granted to the original settlers by the governor had all been lost by this time, and the owner- ship of the ill-defined building lots and agri- cultural fields had passed into other hands, either by inheritance or through the process of denunciation. The only case in which a writ- ten title had been given by the ayuntamiento
260
History of Los Angeles.
was that of J. A. Carrillo, in 1821, who peti- tioned for "a parcel of land containing forty varas (III feet) front and sixty (166 feet) deep, bounded with Dona Encarnacion Urqui- dez, Don Francisco Sepulveda, and near the new church which is now in course of erec- tion." The tract referred to is the one where the Pico house (National hotel) now stands, near the plaza. Note the vague character of the description. No consideration is men- tioned in the deed. The regular practice of granting titles by the ayuntamiento did not be- gin until more than ten years later, and by that time property began to have some money val- ue-but not much. For ordinary building lots -such as those along Main street or Aliso, the price charged by the ayuntamiento was "dos reales per front vara." A real was 121/2 cents and a vara 33 I-3 inches, which would make the value of the property about 8 cents a front foot. A building site usually had about 100 feet of frontage, and it would not be diffi- cult to locate many pieces that sold in the 4os for $8, and are now worth more than $100,- 000.
The phraseology used in defining the city in the original regulation was a little vague, as to whether it was to be four leagues square or four square leagues. The former meant twelve by twelve miles, or 144 square miles, the latter six by six, or thirty-six square miles. Up to the time of the American occupation, no one had raised the question of the exact boun-
MISSION OF SAN MIGUEL
261
The City Takes Shape.
dary, but it came up now at the same time with the general question of land titles all over the territory. The Americans were not satisfied with the hap-hazard forms of title customary among the easy-going Californians. They fore- saw the time when land would have a definite and an increasing value. No survey of the state had ever been made by the Spanish or Mexican authorities, although all grants of land, outside the pueblos, were supposed to emanate from the governor. When a Califor- nian had obtained his grant of land he went to the alcalde nearest the tract, who, on the payment of a small fee, provided a man who called himself a surveyor, but whose only tools were a rope 50 varas long (140 feet) and a couple of pins which could be stuck in the ground without dismounting from horseback. The rope sagged and stretched, and was given direction merely by a careless sighting. The deed required that landmarks should be set up, but that formality was often waived. When the measurement was completed, the alcalde signed the deed, and the title was then regard- ed as complete.
In 1851 an act passed the congress of the United States, providing for a board of three commissioners, with a secretary and a law agent, the latter skilled in Spanish, to pass on all matters of title in the new acquisitions. The board began its sessions in San Francisco De- cember, 1851, and continued for five years. It held one brief session in Los Angeles, in the
262
History of Los Angeles.
autumn of 1852. Of the 813 claims presented to this body, 591 were finally confirmed and 203 rejected. The board did not complete the work of settling all land claims, but it settled a large number of them, and it gathered the material by which they could be finally settled in the district courts.
It will be readily understood that the work of this board could not be carried on without arousing a considerable amount of resentment among the Californians, who found themselves dispossessed of property to which they be- lieved they had a perfectly valid claim. But the situation was one that called for a day of judgment some time, and the inevitable con- sequence of long-continued carelessness in business matters is that the innocent must suf- fer as well as the guilty. There had been no little fraud in the granting of land under the Mexican regime, and an incredible amount of inaccuracy. The verdict of history seems to be that the commissioners were honest men, who performed a very difficult task with shrewdness and painstaking care. More than that; it does not appear that they allowed themselves to be governed by too great a de- votion to technicality, but endeavored in each case to get at the real intention of the author- ity granting the land, and judge the issue on its merits in equity. This, however, is not the estimate of the commission that was formed by most of the Californians. They and their de- scendants, even to this day, will maintain that
263
The City Takes Shape.
the whole proceeding was a deliberate plot to rob them of their lands, to take back into the public domain hundreds of thousands of acres that were owned by individual Californians, many of whom were stripped of their holdings by the commission.
The pueblo of Los Angeles followed the ex- ample of many of the ranch owners, and pro- ceeded to make its claims as wide as possible in the hope of getting the more in the final set- tlement. Its demand was put in with the com- mission for four leagues square, or 144 square miles. The case of Los Angeles, like many others, did not receive final settlement before the board, but when it was at last passed upon by the courts the area was fixed at four square leagues or thirty-six square miles.
At the time of the American occupation, and even down to 1853, more than 80 per cent of all this great expanse belonged to the city itself. Private ownership covered merely the area in the immediate vicinity of the plaza, and along the foothills in a narrow strip from Buena Vista street bridge to First street, and east as far as the river. Today all that re- mains in the possession of the city is a few hundred acres along the river, known as Ely- sian park, and some arroyo and river wash land-tracts that were considered of so little value that they were somehow "left over." Even the pieces that the city has devoted to parks, like Westlake and Eastlake and others, were either purchased by the city or were ben-
264
History of Los Angeles.
efactions-one of the latter being the enor- mous tract of Griffith park, which lies a little way beyond the city's limits to the west. The land in use for school purposes and for public buildings has, with one or two small excep- tions, been acquired by purchase. All the great expanse, where lie now ten thousand homes, and many blocks of business buildings was once city property, and was sold for tri- fling amounts, and much of it actually given away in large tracts-and this outrage was committed not during the administration of the careless Californians, but after the occupation by thrifty Americans.
It is an almost heart-breaking thought- the "what-might-have-been." Great foresight was not required, for the land did not need to be purchased. It was already owned by the city. All that was needed was a small frac- tion of intelligence in the sale of it-the with- holding of pieces here and there, of every oth- er lot in favorable tracts, and of occasional ten- acre divisions for parks. Had this policy been pursued, Los Angeles might be today the rich- est municipality of its size in the Union. That such folly could have been committed as to save practically nothing out of the whole area is almost incredible, but it is true.
The first survey of the city, and the making of a plan of its streets, was accomplished by Lieutenant E. O. C. Ord (afterward, during the Civil War, raised to the rank of a major- general) in August of 1849. Before the Amer-
MISSION OF SANTA CLARA
From an Old Painting
265
The City Takes Shape.
icans came to Los Angeles the need for a sur- vey to lay out streets for future growth was frequently discussed, and the crookedness and irregularity of the city, as far as it had extend- ed, was spoken of with regret. Reforms were attempted at various times, and people were urged to move back from the plaza, and to cease stopping up the embryo streets. But
these good efforts came to naught. There were no competent surveyors in the territory, and the citizen who had once gained possession of a prominent place for his house was loth to move back and surrender it to public use.
The ayuntamiento of 1849, which contained several Americans, proposed to Governor Ma- son that he should send down an army engi- neer to survey the pueblo, in order that the titles might be perfected and descriptions made clear before the land commission should begin its work, for by that time the plan for a land commission had been bruited about. Ord was offered $3000 in cash, or his choice of building sites to the number of ten, and about 160 acres of land in the farming districts of the city. He took the cash. The land would now probably be worth several millions of dol- lars. The area covered in his "Plan de la Ciu- dad de Los Angeles" is now bounded by Pico street on the south, by Pearl street and the hills on the west, by the river on the east, and by the San Fernando street depot on the north. He seems to have assumed without question that the natural growth of the city would be in
266
History of Los Angeles.
a southwesterly direction, as the hills shut it off to the west and north, and the river and low lands interfered to the east. Doubtless the older residents explained to him how, prior to 1825, the river had flowed through Alameda street.
The two most ancient streets of the city that are now in existence are Aliso and Spring. The former was the ending of the road from San Gabriel, and originally led out into the Plaza, but was stopped at Los Angeles street by the enterprising house builders early in the century. Spring street was the road into the Cahuenga and to the north, although it did not follow the route of the present Spring street beyond First. At the junction by the Nadeau it started across lots, passing Fourth and Hill, and skirting the foothills until it reached mod- ern Ninth street, where it turned to the west, and then to the north to Cahuenga pass. The line of the old road is sketched upon Ord's map. The part which we now call North Spring was originally called Charity street, because, being far out of town, it was occupied by poor peo- ple, dependent upon others for support. Ord transferred this name to Grand avenue, and that street continued with this title until 1886, when the City Council listened to the plaint of many people who were tired of the incessant joke about their "living on charity," and the name was finally banished from the city's streets.
Broadway was named Fort street, after the
267
The City Takes Shape.
fort built the year before Ord's survey, which looked down the street from the hill to the north. The change of name was made in 1889. Figueroa street appears as the Street of the Grasshoppers. Buena Vista is Eternity street, because of the cemetery. Castelar is the Street of the Bull, for that is where the bullfights were formerly held. What we call Yale was then the Street of the Hornets.
The names are given on the Ord plan both in Spanish and English, and the name Spring is put into Spanish as Primavera, showing that it was for the season, and not for any spring of water. Temple street was not cut through at this time, and, indeed, there was no public thoroughfare running west out of Main and Spring, all the way from the Plaza to Franklin street.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXV .- The exact area of the city as determined by the appeal from the settlement of the commission was 17,172.37 acres. The Spanish league on which the city's claim was based was a variable quantity (as was also the vara) ranging with the lo- cality from 2.634 miles to 4.214 miles. The square league was generally figured at 4,428.4 acres. The author does not attempt to go into the complications of these varying forms of measurement, and the figures given in the text are merely approximations.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE BEGINNING OF THINGS.
A NEW city was now coming into ex- istence in Los Angeles-an Ameri- can growth grafted upon a Spanish stock. Had it been located in an ac- cessible part of the nation, the change from the old order to the new would have been rapid, for the region presented then, as it does now, many natural advantages to attract a de- sirable population. The climate was just as favorable in 1850 as it is today, and the soil just as productive; but between Los Angeles and the eastern states was a great gulf of dis- tance and danger, that only the most intrepid would venture to cross. The discovery of gold, which brought 80,000 people to the north- ern part of the state in one year, affected the southern part only in a reflex way. In the dec- ade from 1850 to 1860, several thousand of the Argonauts drifted down from San Francisco, some of them with a little capital acquired in the diggings, but more of them penniless; and some of both kinds located permanently in Los Angeles. Then there were also those who left the eastern states in the expectation of mining for gold, but were dissuaded by the bitter stor- ies of failure that came to their ears, and they turned their course to the south, where they were told men grew rich quickly in raising stock.
MISSION OF SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA
269
The Beginning of Things.
But the total number of all that made their way into this far-off corner of the new terri- tory was not large, and of those who came many returned soon to the east, for they found their hopes of sudden wealth were idle. On a superficial view, the region had but little to offer the new-comer. A small amount of com- merce had sprung up between Los Angeles and Arizona, and later there was trade with the mining camps of Nevada and Utah, and across the mountains to the San Joaquin valley, and over the desert to Inyo county. The old pue- blo was a station on the route from Texas and the southern states into California, and not a few of the gold-seekers came through that way. Except for these small sources of revenue, whatever means the people of Los Angeles en- joyed came out of the territory that immedi- ately surrounded them. The extraordinary producing capacity of the soil under the favor- ing semi-tropic climate had not yet been dis- covered. It was known to the padres and a few others, but rather as a theory than as a practical fact. The first Americans found that the Californians grew almost nothing, and they assumed that the reason must lie in the natural deficiency of the country. It was fit for noth- ing but the raising of stock, they thought- for that was the only use to which the Califor- nians had put it. Now the raising of stock would not employ great numbers of people, nor would it support a considerable population. Hence during the next thirty years of its exist-
270
History of Los Angeles.
ence, from 1850 to 1880, the growth of Los An- geles was slow. This meant that it remained, during most of that period, a Spanish-Ameri- can rather than an American city.
The first American census, taken in 1850, showed the population of the city to be 1610, and of the county 3530. The number was, no doubt, abnormally small, owing to the prev- alence of the gold excitement, which drew hundreds of men away to the mines. But for that, the census would probably have shown over 3000 in the city. The next enumeration by the government, that of 1860, showed 4399 in the city and 11,333 in the county. The gain was made for the most part in the first years of the decade, when the mining excitement had died down, and the gold-seekers came south in search of homes. In the next decade, from 1860 to 1870, there was very little increase. The census of 1870 gave the city a population of 5614, and the county 15,309. This small growth was not due to the Civil War, which added rather than subtracted from the popu- lation. There was but little enlistment from Los Angeles on either side in the great con- flict, so the loss was not great ; and on the oth- er hand, at the close of the war, many ex-Con- federates whose homes had been destroyed made their way to the Pacific coast, that they might begin life anew in happier surroundings. The failure to advance was due to the apparent inability of the country to support a larger population. By this time the Central and Un-
271
The Beginning of Things.
ion Pacific rail connection with the east had been established, but the line was not as yet extended to the southern portion of the state. A regular system of steamers plied between Los Angeles and San Francisco, giving the southern city a part of the advantage of the new opening to the east. Still it did not grow. Twenty years after the American occupation it was in spirit and customs and even in popu- lation largely a Mexican town. It is now a thoroughly American city, with a few faint traces of Spanish origin. The change began in the latter '70s, and was completed within ten years.
In the first period of transition, from 1848 to 1855, many of the institutions that make up the foundation of our American life came into being in Los Angeles-unknown before that time. Of trial by jury, and the equality of all before the law, we have already spoken, as being decreed by the authorities of the state. Schools, newspapers, churches and municipal improvements were purely local matters, for the people of Los Angeles to settle for them- selves. The newcomers attacked them with the traditional energy of Americans; but whether it was due to certain qualities of the climate that it pleases people to term "enervat- ing," or to the doubtful example set them by their predecessors, it must be admitted that the good beginning was but languidly fol-
272
History of Los Angeles.
lowed up, through the period next interven- ing.
Schools were not unknown during the Mex- ican regime in Los Angeles, but in the sixty- six years from the founding of the city to the American occupation, there was a total of about ten years of school. These years were scattered along at irregular intervals, the long- est stretch of continuous instruction being the school maintained from 1838 to 1844 by Don Ignacio Coronel, the father of Mayor Antonio F. Coronel. The teacher usually received a small salary from the ayuntamiento, averag- ing about $15 a month, and in addition was entitled to whatever fees the pupils were will- ing to pay for tuition. Most of the teachers were poorly educated, and their schools at- tracted few pupils. The teacher was occasion- ally summoned before the ayuntamiento, to explain why there had been no school for the past week or so, and his answer usually was that the pupils had all run away. Don Ig- nacio Coronel was a well educated man of ex- cellent family, and his school accomplished good work. His daughter, Soledad, assisted him at times. The location of this school was at the Coronel residence on Los Angeles street, near Arcadia, part of the time, and later at one of the plaza church buildings.
In 1844 a school was opened under the patronage of Governor Micheltorena, who promised $500 from the state funds to its aid.
273
The Beginning of Things.
It was in charge of Ensign Guadalupe Medina, an officer of the Mexican army, who was said to be expert in the latest educational methods. He introduced a plan by which the older pupils were to teach the younger, and in this way the membership of the school was brought up to over 100, with only one regular this school.
In 1850, after some Americans came into the ayuntamiento, a school committee was ap- pointed out of the membership of that body, but great difficulty was experienced in finding any suitable teacher. This was at the time when the city was in the throes of the gold fever, and men were scarce. Hugh Owens fi- nally agreed to establish a school for $50 a month, on the understanding that not more than six boys were to be sent free by the city. This school continued a few months. In November of 1850 Rev. Henry Weeks proposed to the city coun- cil that he be assisted in establishing a school for both boys and girls by a subsidy of $150 a month. In return for this sum he agreed to give his own and his wife's services, and to provide the necessary school accommodations. This school opened in Jan- uary, 1851, and lasted under that arrange- ment until 1853, when all subsidies ceased, and schools were made free. In August, 1852, a tax of 10 cents per $10 of valuation was lev- ied for school purposes, and the next year three
274
History of Los Angeles.
commissioners of public schools were selected by the council, one of whom, the chairman, was made ex-officio superintendent of schools. In 1855 there were 753 children of school age in the city, but the average daily attendance was only fifty-two. Most of the children of American parentage were sent, but the na- tive Californians either disapproved of the school because it was an American institution, or they were utterly indifferent to the advant- ages of education.
Stephen C. Foster who was elected mayor in 1854, was a graduate of Yale college, and took a lively interest in the education of the youth. He urged that permanent school build- ings be erected, and that a regular system, similar to that used in Eastern cities, be adopted. The council met this suggestion by making him superintendent of schools, as well as mayor, and with his administration the modern educational system of Los Angeles had its beginning. The first schoolhouse was erected in 1855, on the corner of Spring and Second, where the Bryson block now stands. It cost about $6000. The second was on Bath street, a thoroughfare which was afterwards absorbed by the opening of Main street north from the plaza.
When the Americans took possession of Monterey in 1846 they found a font of type which had been used occasionally by the Calı- fornia authorities to print official documents.
275
The Beginning of Things.
Although one letter was lacking in the alpha- bet of the Spaniard the Americans, nothing daunted, seized upon the type and began the publication of a newspaper which they called "The Californian." It was maintained throughout the earlier period of the occupa- tion. The missing letter, W, was produced by putting two V's together.
The first newspaper in Los Angeles was called "La Estrella," "The Star," the first number of which, printed in both Spanish and English, appeared May 17, 1851. In the pre- ceding October Theodore Foster had applied to the city council for a piece of ground suit- able for a newspaper office, and had suggested a location near the city jail, on Main street. He seems to have had a presentiment that a large amount of news was likely to originate in that vicinity. The matter of a donation of a piece of land for such a purpose aroused a good deal of debate. Few of the Califor- nians had ever seen a newspaper, and the de- scription supplied by their American neigh- bors who had enjoyed some experience with the institution in Eastern states was not en- tirely reassuring. Finally the donation was agreed to, but the words "for this once only" were attached to the resolution, and the site selected by Mr. Foster was denied him. He was given instead a piece II0 feet square fronting the zanja on Los Angeles street, be- tween Commercial and Arcadia, on the spot
.
276
History of Los Angeles.
where the Foy harness shop now stands. Here a two-story adobe building was erected and a four-page, five-column weekly paper be- gan to appear, bearing the names of John A. Lewis and John McElroy as publishers. Its subscription price was $10 a year. The press was a Washington Hoe, which had been brought around the Horn in the first days of the gold excitement. This machine was sold to Phineas Banning in 1864, who took it to Wilmington to start a paper there. In 1870 it was sold to the "Anaheim Gazette," and that paper, which is still enjoying a prosper- ous career, was printed from it until 1878, when a fire ended the story of the Star press.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.