USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > The Herald's history of Los Angeles City > Part 18
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understanding was reached between represen- tatives of the railroad and the city that, if the people would vote to ratify the plan, the city and county would give the stock that they held in the San Pedro line, and donate the necessary sixty acres, and also issue 7 per cent twenty-year bonds in the sum of $377,000, making a total of $610,000 of subsidy; and in return for this the railroad was to build down through the Soledad canyon into the city and out to the east to San Bernardino, to connect ultimately with the Texas Pacific at Yuma. To win the concurrence of the people of the southeastern part of the county, the region since set off to make Orange county, it was
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MCLEOD COLLECTION OF INDIAN BASKETS
Photo by Austin
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agreed that a branch line should be construct- ed to Anaheim.
The matter was put to a vote, after a year's active discussion, in November, 1872, and it carried by a good majority. There were many intelligent men and large taxpayers who de- clared that the county was hazarding all its future in this enormous obligation, but the dismal alternative of being left out of the rail- way development of the state compelled them to vote in favor of the bonds. Before half the period for which the securities were to run had elapsed, the county assessment had in- creased from $12,000,000 to $35,000,000, and at the end of the twenty years the valuation was nearly $100,000,000. The burden, there- fore, did not prove to be very serious.
The construction of a railway over the great Tehachapi pass, and through the moun- tains of San Fernando was a slow and labori- ous undertaking, and it was not until four years after the proposition carried that the trains began running between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The ceremony of driving the golden spike was held at Soledad, Septem- ber 6, 1876. Three hundred and fifty citizens of Los Angeles went up from the pueblo to meet fifty residents of San Francisco, who came down to celebrate the union of the two cities. San Francisco was than a little larger than Los Angeles is at present, while Los An- geles was about the size of Pomona. There were speeches full of hope and good fellow-
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ship, and then the whole party repaired to Los Angeles, where a banquet was given at Union hall in the Jones block, at which a con- siderable amount of wine was consumed. The old Spanish pueblo was at last in touch with the great American system of progress and activity.
Scarcely was one road out into the world completed, when agitation was begun for a second. This was to be known as the Los An- geles and Independence railroad, with one terminus at Santa Monica, where it was be- lieved a good harbor could be constructed, and the other at the town of Independence in Inyo county, the center of a district which was then believed to be of great promise, but which has never attained the expected development because of a lack of transportation facilities. It was confidently hoped that after this much of the road was built, it would go on to Salt Lake City. The largest stockholder was J. P. Jones, who afterwards became United States senator from Nevada. Local capital was interested to some extent The line from Santa Monica was constructed in 1875, and a substantial wharf was built at its ocean ter- minus. The hard times that swept over the country after the failure of Jay Cooke and the Black Friday episode made it impossible to secure funds to carry out the extension to the north, and the plan was abandoned. The Santa Monica branch was sold in 1878 to the Southern Pacific company, which proceeded
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to take down the wharf, as it interfered with business at San Pedro.
The immediate effect of all this railway projection and construction, from the San Pe- dro line in 1869 through to the Southern Pa- cific connections and the Santa Monica line in 1875 and 1876, was to produce considerable activity in all forms of industrial development. As is usual in such cases, anticipation ran rather ahead of the actual event and was fol- lowed by depression when the extravagant hopes were not realized. The dry years and the unfavorable money conditions in the east helped to complicate matters. By the year 1875 the bank panic which had been spreading across the country struck Los Angeles. One of the banks-the Temple & Workman-was in an unsound condition, owing to the reckless and extravagant policy of its chief owner, F. P. F. Temple, who was a younger brother of John Temple. The other two were on a solid basis, but as the railway connection to San Francisco had not been established, and as it would take about a week to get word to the city and bring money back, it was agreed that all three should close their doors for a time. For two of the banks this suspension was of brief duration, but for the Temple & Workman bank it was permanent, and the loss of the depositors was complete. This bad failure wrought serious demoralization to the development that was just beginning in Los Angeles, turning confidence and hope into
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doubt and discouragement. Nearly half a score of years passed before the evil effects of the disaster were entirely dispelled.
There was some agricultural advance dur- ing the decade, for the growing of wheat be- gan on a considerable scale in the San Fernan- do, and the acreage in corn increased greatly. There was some planting of fruit trees, but the mistaken idea still prevailed that enormous quantities of water must be applied to the tree to make it bear in the dry climate, and only those nearest to the streams ventured into hor- ticulture. In 1877 J. De Barth Shorb declared that he had sold his orange crop from seven acres for $7000. These went chiefly to the San Francisco market. In 1877 Wm. Wolf- skill shipped the first carload of oranges to the eastern market. They were landed in St. Louis in good condition after a month in transit. The carrying charge was $500. The chief product of the region was now wine, of which 1,329,000 gallons were shipped in 1875. In 1874 fruit drying began on a small scale. In 1878 a pavilion for the holding of horticul- tural fairs was built on Temple street.
The growing confidence in the future of the city showed in the establishment in 1873 of a chamber of commerce. The first meeting was held in the courthouse August I, with Governor Downey presiding and J. M. Griffith acting as secretary. One hundred names were enrolled. Among the first directors chosen
MODERN SAN CARLOS ÁT MONTEREY
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was M. J. Newmark, who recently served a term as president of the modern chamber of commerce. The organization started out briskly, but was discouraged by the bank fail- ure and the dry years, and about 1877 it gave up the ghost. One piece of work to which it particularly applied itself dur- ing its existence was the securing of
the first appropriation for the improve- ment of San Pedro harbor-the sum of $150,000-which was used toward a project devised by Col. G. H. Mendell of the United States army engineering corps. The indefat- igable Banning included the building of a harbor at San Pedro among the labors he had allotted to himself to accomplish for Los An- geles, and by long agitation had succeeded in getting the matter in shape to be acted upon in congress. The project called for a total expenditure of $425,000, and contemplated getting about fifteen feet of water at low tide on the bar. The appropriation was afterward doubled, and a total of sixteen feet gained. Toward the end of this decade the harbor be- gan to be serviceable for vessels of light draft.
The subdivision of the large Mexican land grants in the vicinity of Los Angeles contin- ued actively, and hundreds of small ranches from forty to two hundred acres in extent were established in the county. Settlements began to spring up. One of the most notable of these was the Indiana colony, which came
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to be known as Pasadena a year or two after its founding. Another was Pomona, which, as its name indicates, was designed as a fruit- growing colony. The popularity of Santa Monica as an ocean resort began shortly after the building of the Los Angeles and Independ- ence road. The population of the county as a whole increased from 15,309 to 33,881 in the ten years from 1870 to 1880, which was even a larger rate of growth than was shown by the city. Its assessed valuation went up from $7,000,000 to $18,000,000.
The doubling of population in the city led to the developing of new residence districts, and the increase of business brought some ac- tivity in building. In 1873 East Los Angeles was laid out and a year or two later was placed on the market and settled up with homes. In 1876 a similar development began in Boyle Heights. Small bridges were built down in the river bottom, one at Downey avenue, opposite East Los Angeles, and one at Aliso street, opposite Boyle Heights. Dur- ing this decade Prudent Beaudry and J. W. Potts spent nearly $175,000 in improving the western hill section, grading streets and put- ting in an extensive water system. The dis- trict they improved was chiefly along Temple and Second streets, and is now given up for the most part to oil derricks, but it was, dur- ing the '7os and '8os, one of the best resi- dence districts of the city. In 1874 the first
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city railroad was built, the "Sixth and Spring street" line, about two and a half miles in length. A year later the Main street line was constructed, and that was followed presently by the line to East Los Angeles.
The assessment of the city's property in- creased from $2,000,000 to $7,000,000 during this period. In 1871 the Downey block was built, and in 1872 the northern portion of the Temple block, to be used as the Temple and Workman bank. It was afterward used by the Los Angeles County bank. In 1874 about $300,000 was expended for business buildings. In 1876 the Baker block was built, the most elegant structure of its time not only for Los Angeles, but for all the state outside of San Francisco. This was a period of frequent fires, but an efficient fire department was finally organized, with a good steam fire en- gine.
The newspapers of the city that now ex- ist began publication during this epoch, the Evening Express in 1871, with Ben C. Tru- man and H. C. Austin as its earliest editors, and the Herald in 1873, under the manage- ment of C. A. Storke, who now lives in Santa Barbara. Both of these papers presently came to be owned and edited by J. D. Lynch, with whom J. J. Ayres was afterwards asso- ciated as a partner. In 1875 the Mirror, which was the weekly edition of the Times daily,
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was founded. The Times came into existence in 1881.
The mayors of this period were C. Agui- lar, 1871-72 ; J. R. Toberman, 1873-74, 1879-82 ; P. Beaudry, 1875-76; A. F. McDougal, 1877- 78. The county continued to be democratic in politics, giving, in 1872, Greeley 1227 and O'Connor 650 against Grant 1312. In 1876 the vote stood Tilden 3616 to Hayes 3040.
In 1873 the high school building was con- structed on the hill where the courthouse now stands. The first teachers' institute was held in 1870. The percentage of school attend- ance, which was only 6 per cent in 1865, and only 20 per cent in 1870, rose to 37 per cent in 1880. In 1890 it was 63. In 1873 the Li- brary association raised, by subscription, funds enough to open a small library and reading room in the Downey block, which was supported in its running expenses by a small city tax. Books were either donated or were purchased with funds from entertain- ments and other semi-public sources of reve- nue.
A considerable moral improvement took place during this epoch, influenced to some ex- tent by a reaction after the wild excesses that culminated in the Chinese riot in 1871. In 1870 there were IIo drinking places in the city -to 5000 population. Now, thirty-five years later, there are 200 drinking places to over 100,000 population. This was the time of the
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greatness of Vasquez, California's most fa- mous bandit, who ranged the state with his band from 1863 to 1874, making his headquar- ters generally in the southern region. His record of murders and robberies exceeds that of Jack Shepard or Dick Turpin. He was cap- tured in the Cahuenga in 1874 and hanged the next year.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE EPOCH OF THE BOOM.
HE word "boom" is a convenient bit of slang that arrived at the opportune moment to supply a lack in the lan- guage, and, having proved its useful- ness, it is likely to win a permanent position-just as many other expressions of similar origin have done, whose dignified place in the language is now above question. The word was first used to imitate the sound of an explosion, then it came to mean an ex- plosion, and in the later 70's it began to be used to describe any state of sudden and ex- traordinary activity in a business or, more often, in a town. It superseded the word "bubble," which had done service since the days of John Law.
While there is no other expression in the language that is available to describe the pe- culiar phenomenon that took place in Los Angeles and Southern California in the years from 1885 to 1888, still there is a secondary meaning to "boom" that does not apply to the case of Los Angeles city. The word car- ries with it inevitably a conception of some form of utter collapse that must follow. An explosion is supposed to leave ruin in its wake. No such catastrophe occurred in the
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The Epoch of the Boom.
case of Los Angeles. There was a cessation of the unnatural activity, but no general disaster and no permanent injury to the city. Eastern people frequently ask the question: "Has Los Angeles recovered from its boom yet?" as though the event had been something in the nature of a misfortune or a disease. There were many residents of the city who, during the boom and immediately afterward, were dis- posed to take this same view of it; but now, fourteen years after the close of the affair, they are able to see it in a better perspective, balanc- ing the small amount of evil it wrought against the large amount of good, and they generally admit that the violent shaking up was just what was needed to bring the old pueblo out of its natural lethargy, and to recognize it as a vigorous, progressive and thoroughly Amer- ican city.
There were two distinct phases of the boom-the first a development and the second a craze. The whole movement had its origin in a sudden influx of population brought on by a railway war. The arrival of great numbers of people of a good, industrial class, most of them provided with some money for invest- ment, naturally led to a rapid increase in real estate values, and stimulated building and the general development of the resources of the country. Thus far the activity was legitimate and wholly beneficial. Had the changes been proportioned on a moderate scale, or had they
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come with reasonable speed, all might have gone well to the very end, without even indi- vidual misfortune to cloud the record. But the change was neither moderate nor gradual -it was enormous, and it came with lightning rapidity. Men became dazed and staggered at the sight and many of them completely lost their bearings. They saw improbable things happening, and they went on to expect the impossible. A few of the older residents of the town were bitten with the madness, but it affected, for the most part, only the new- comers. While few men of real wealth or of large business experience were seriously attacked, it took entire possession of many that were of small or imaginary means. This was the secondary phase of the boom-its most interesting and picturesque chapter, perhaps, but not the one that bears on the real history of the city.
When the Southern Pacific railway was completed into Los Angeles, that city had its first transcontinental line to the eastern states; when the Southern Pacific was com- pleted through to Yuma, where it met the Texas Pacific, Los Angeles had its second line to the east. Trains over this new connection began running in 1883, and great things were expected to follow. There was a feeling that the southern line belonged to Los Angeles, as the northern belonged to San Francisco; and that one would develop the southern city as
MISSION OF SAN BUENA VENTURA
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the other had the northern. During the first year of the decade of the 80's there was some increase of population and considerable de- velopment of the farming country tributary to Los Angeles, but the rate of increase was no greater than it had been in the preceding de- cade. The Nadeau was built in 1882, the tall- est and most pretentious structure in the city, but its location on First and Spring was con- sidered too far out of town to make it desir- able for hotel purposes, and it was rented for offices and apartments. In 1883 the stores began to creep along Spring street to Second, and a few went beyond, among the residences. By 1884 business had become fairly brisk, but there was no such influx of new people as had been expected from the building of the sec- ond railway. The passenger fare one way from the Mississippi river country was still in the vicinity of $100, with the round trip at $150. In 1885 the round-trip fell to $125, and early in 1886 to $100. The "personally con- ducted" excursion began to be popular- trainloads made up in eastern cities and taken through Los Angeles, San Diego, San Fran- cisco and the northern points of interest.
In November of 1885 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe company completed its line through the Cajon, and began to operate in- dependently of the Southern Pacific. This is the date usually given for the beginning of the boom. The Santa Fe road began to ad-
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vertise their new territory, and the Southern Pacific, which thus far had not given it spe- cial attention, presently followed suit. The display of Southern California oranges at the Cotton Exposition in New Orleans in 1884 took the premium over Florida fruit, which was an eye-opener to many Californians, as well as to easterners, and a great planting of citrus trees began. In 1886 the shipments of fruit to the east amounted to 150,000 boxes, which would be a little over 400 cars, as or- anges are now measured, or 500 carloads in those days.
Through the winter of 1885-86 the country was filled with tourists as it had never been before, and among them were many who de- cided to remain and make their homes in Los Angeles. This was the beginning of a new element in the population of the city, and one that was destined to play an important part in its sudden advance. These people had come heretofore as isolated specimens, so to speak, but now they came as a class-people of means, who sought a place to live where they could be free from the incessant struggle with the elements. Frequently there was some member of the family who was in feeble health, or who showed a tendency to con- sumption. These newcomers bought property on the hills, or to the southwest of the city, paying prices which seemed preposterous to the old-timers who had seen those dry acres
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go a-begging; and they built pretty homes and planted shade trees and rose gardens and lawns.
The possibilities of Southern California as a health resort had been heralded by many newspaper correspondents and magazine writers who had visited the country; and a book published by the Harpers early in the 70's, written by Charles Nordhoff, set forth in glowing terms the benefit that the mild cli- mate wrought in cases of consumption. This volume had a wide circulation all through the Eastern states, and many thousand people af- flicted with that disease were brought to Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Diego in consequence. Most of these were far ad- vanced toward death. The country was ill- provided with hospitals, and its hotels were crude affairs, without heated rooms or other comforts. The invalids who were too far gone for recovery died, but those with whom the disease had merely secured a foothold were, as a rule, saved, and they wrote home advis- ing others situated as they had been to come to Southern California.
In constructing its various lines through Southern California the Santa Fe company had come into the ownership of considerable land, and it was interested-and so were some of its leading officials-in many townsites and development enterprises along the route. It was therefore desirous of bringing immigrants
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History of Los Angeles.
into the country. The settlement of the va- cant lands was needed to produce freight along the line, where there was as yet almost no business to be had. The policy of the com- pany was to put passenger rates as low as practicable, and war between it and the Southern Pacific was not long in beginning. Through 1886 the rates fell constantly, until they reached $25 for one way, around which figure they hovered for nearly a year, and for a short time they went down to $5, and for one day to $1. In 1887 they began to go up again, and in 1888 the war gradually died out, and the modern rates were established.
In the months when the low rates pre- vailed, a great flood of people poured through Southern California. The passenger capacity of the railroads was stretched to the utmost, regular trains being divided into numerous sections, and special excursions running in at the rate of three to five a day. Hotels and boarding houses filled to overflowing, and the demand for houses to rent was far in advance of the supply. Los Angeles was the center of this new activity, and the price of city proper- ty began to go up with great swiftness. Prior to the boom the best business property was not valued over $300 per front foot. A good residence lot could be had for from $400 to $600, although in a few favored sections it might cost $1000. Within a space of three years there was an average permanent ad-
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vance of about 300 per cent. Many blocks changed suddenly from residence to business, and others adjoining them began to have a speculative value as future business property. Thousands of acres of farms within the city limits were laid out in residence tracts, and sold off to people that proposed to make Los Angeles their home. In the beginning such lots were to be had at $200 to $300, which yielded a handsome profit to the owner, as he got five city lots out of an acre of ground that cost him originally perhaps $50. The possi- bilities involved in the subdivision of farming land into residence lots presently began to dawn on the owners of the outer city prop erty, but, although large tracts were thrown on the market, the increase of population was so rapid that the prices steadily advanced.
In addition to the tourists and settlers, the cheap excursions brought another class, to wit, the speculators. Some of these were genuine real estate operators, who had the capital to make improvements in their pur- chases, always, however, with a view to re- tailing at a profit; others-and they consti- tuted the greater number-were entirely im- pecunious, but possessed of unlimited assur- ance, and they had acquired more or less ex- perience through the booming of other towns. Many of these came from Kansas and Iowa, where booms had been in progress for several years; and the tactics that had been used with
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success in the middle west were now employed on the Pacific coast. These were the men who committed, or were the cause of, most of the follies and the frauds of the boom. Few of them achieved any permanent success. The great majority left the city when the episode was over, and are now utterly lost to view.
The opportunity for speculation within the city limits was limited, and there was too much that was solid and tangible in the ac- tual advance of values to make the field at- tractive to the imaginative promoter. The real absurdities of the boom were not perpe- trated in Los Angeles city property, which advanced for the most part in a steady, even ratio and did not fall back perceptibly when the influx of new people was checked. One evidence of this shows in the assessment of the years during and after the boom. In 1886, before the advance had well begun, the city was assessed at $18,000,000. In 1887 it rose to $28,000,000. In 1888 it was $39,000,- 000, in 1889, $46,000,000. By this time the boom was at an end, but the next year the city showed $49,000,000. In 1891 it was $46,- 000,000. A variation of 6 per cent, which is all that shows between the heights of the boom and the lowest year following it, may safely be attributed to a change of assessors. Such variations frequently occur. The ad- vance of values halted for a few years, but there was no "reaction" or falling back.
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