USA > California > Imperial County > The history of Imperial County, California > Part 21
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MEDICAL HISTORY
however rough, but he could not cross the river. It was necessary there to resort to boats, and then the difficulty of finding any conveyance on the other side was nearly always present. It was at times necessary to walk a number of miles. The river was not always safe to cross. There were times when the ferryman absolutely refused to go out into the swift and swirling stream, and the writer was compelled to take the boat alone and trust to his college practice with the oars to bring him safely across.
This was a year of confusion and of changes. People were compelled to change their plans to co-ordinate with the whims of the New River. Part of Calexico was washed away and practically all of Mexicali went down the stream. It was a period of transition, too, though we knew it not at the time, for the new towns that sprang up on both sides of the line were different. The old towns as well as the old life were things of the past.
In Brawley, for years after the establishment of the town, the only doctor was Dr. J. A. Miller. He was, perhaps, more of a preacher than a doctor, and thus ministered both to the religious and medical wants of the new-born community. He claimed to hold a medical diploma from a Canadian school, though he never secured a California license. He was in many ways a rather whimsical fellow. On one occasion he appeared at Imperial to attend some Methodist conference, his tall, lank figure crowned with a high silk hat-the only silk hat, as far as known, that has ever had the hardihood to venture into Imperial Valley.
On another occasion during the flood, when a cable had been ex- tended across the river and a carriage run back and forth on this some thirty feet above the water, he was asked to cross in it to see some sick person on the other side. He entered the carriage with some hesitation and remarked that he doubted whether it would hold him. He was as- sured that it had carried a horse across. "That is no guarantee that it will hold me," he replied, and intimated that his fee ought to be one commensurate with the apprehension he experienced in riding in the carriage.
As Brawley grew in size and as the area of settlements increased about it, the Imperial doctors were called in more and more to look after the sick of that section, for it was not until 1907 that a regularly
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licensed physician came to Brawley. Dr. A. P. Cook was the first doctor to locate in Brawley. He remained there for three years until his death in 1910.
Dr. F. J. Bold had come to Imperial in the summer of 1904, and had put up what for that time was considered a rather pretentious resi- dence and office on Imperial Avenue, adjoining Dr. Blake's. Unlike the other doctors then in the Valley, he was young and healthy and carried with him an abundance of enthusiasm. It was not long before his prac- tice extended to every part of the Valley. He had two or three saddle horses and changed mounts whenever the one he had been riding was tired. He could pick his way through the desert at all hours of the night, and there were in those days long stretches of desert between the various settlers. He had the happy faculty when through with a case and started on his way home to doze off in the saddle and leave it to the horse to get him home. On one occasion he went to sleep on his way out and awoke at 4 o'clock in the morning in some rancher's back yard, and for the life of him could not tell where he was. He was compelled to wake up the people to inquire his way. Like Dr. Griffith, he enjoyed pioneering, but unlike him he enjoyed it because of the unique experi- ences it gave him and not because of the strange characters it brought him in contact with. He enjoyed a varied and extensive practice and did considerable surgery too. Indeed it is surprising how much he ac- complished along surgical lines considering his limited facilities and the complete absence of hospitals or anything that at all approached them in accommodations, and all with uniform success. He considered the Valley the garden spot of the earth and declared it his intention to make this his permanent home. The tragic death of his sister, who had been his constant companion and invaluable assistant, together with other troubles, dampened his ardor, and he sold his home and practice to Dr. G. M. Bumgarner in the summer of 1906 and went to Whittier where he has been located ever since.
During his two years stay in the Valley he was constantly striving to give to the practice of medicine that dignity and importance to which it was justly entitled, and which it could hardly be said to have pos- sessed hitherto. His efforts were tireless to eliminate the quack and the charlatan and the unlicensed practitioner, of whom a number were finding their way into the Valley at that time.
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Holtville was established in 1903, and at its very beginning Dr. Green- leaf located there. He had enjoyed a lucrative practice in Chicago and later at Redlands, but his health had failed him at both places, and he came to Holtville hoping the desert air would give him renewed strength. He was the only doctor east of the Alamo for a number of years. He was never able, however, to give proper attention to his prac- tice on account of his health, and in 1908 Dr. Brooks took up the prac- tice of medicine there, having his office in the Alamo Hotel. It was not long after this that Dr. Greenleaf died. By his death the Valley lost the last of its pioneer doctors-for pioneering, at least as far as the practice of medicine was concerned, could hardly be said to extend be- yond the closing of the Colorado River break, in the summer of 1906. After this a new era of prosperity opened for the Valley. A rapid in- flux of settlers to the Valley, the organization of the county, the estab- lishment of roads and bridges were rapid steps in the phenomenal de- velopment of the country. With the growth in the number of settlers there was a corresponding increase in the number of doctors. In 1906 there were only four doctors in the Valley, only two of whom were really in active practice. Two years later there were eleven. Four years later that number was doubled. At the present time there are in the neighborhood of forty, with at least thirty-three in active practice.
The first hospital in the Valley was a small one in Imperial, estab- lished by Dr. E. E. Patten in 1907, soon after he came to the Valley. It was simply a small rooming house converted into a hospital. Dr. Pat- ten was at that time county health officer and he found it necessary to have some establishment in which to house his county patients, as well as the more serious of his private ones. The place was well filled most of the time and remarkably well managed considering the limited facili- ties. A poorly managed gasoline stove, however, made a rapid end of the doctor's hospital. Brief though its existence had been it served to show the imperative need for the Valley of something along that line, and in the spring of 1908, Dr. Virgil McCombs began the construction of a hospital in El Centro. A one-story structure was completed that spring. By the following spring, however, it had proved its entire in- adequacy to meet the growing demands, and the doctor began the erec- tion of an additional story, which was completed by the fall of that year. Soon after the destruction of the Imperial hospital, Dr. Patten
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established another hospital in the southern part of the town and put it under the management of Miss Haymer. This hospital flourished for several years, but proved in the end an unprofitable venture. It was therefore closed and the equipment sold to the El Centro hospital.
In March, 1911, Dr. McCombs sold his hospital in El Centro to the Sisters of Mercy of San Diego. They continued the management of it under the name of St. Thomas Hotel until March, 1918, when they transferred it to Mr. H. G. Thomas. It has, on account of its central location and larger size, remained during its entire existence the lead- ing hospital of the Valley. At Calexico the Jordan Hospital was estab- lished in 1912. It has remained constantly under the management of Mrs. Jordan. While not a large building, it is pleasantly situated and fairly commodious.
At Brawley the Sisters of Mercy established a small hospital in 1910, but soon after they took over the management of the El Centro Hospital they discontinued it, finding it impossible to keep up both. There is, however, and has been for some years, a small and well- managed hospital at this place, as also at Imperial. At Holtville, Dr. D. A. Stevens has been maintaining a small hospital for several years.
There was no attempt made in the first years of the Valley's history on the part of the doctors to get together. There were not enough doc- tors to form any organization, but in the latter part of 1908 a county society was formed, comprising the following doctors: Dr. A. P. Cook of Brawley, Dr. E. E. Patten and Dr. Geo. Bumgarner of Imperial, Dr. Brooks of Holtville, Dr. Henry Richter of Calexico, and Drs. Vir- gil McCombs and F. W. Peterson of El Centro. Dr. Patten was chosen president and Dr. Peterson secretary of the newly formed society. A number of pleasant and profitable meetings were held at the hospital at El Centro during the year. The following year the organization still seemed to have sufficient life to justify an election of new officers, and Dr. McCombs was chosen president and Dr. Richter secretary. The society, however, was more nearly moribund at the time than was sup- posed. It never rallied sufficiently for another meeting.
For the next six or seven years no effort was made to reorganize the county society. But an attempt was made by Dr. J. C. King of Banning, in 1914, to incorporate the Imperial county doctors in the Riverside County Medical Society. The plan was partly successful. A number of
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the Valley doctors joined. By 1916 this number had been reduced to three, and Dr. King then conceived the plan of organizing an Imperial County medical society. It was largely through Dr. King's untiring ef- forts that the organization became a reality and the society emerged full fledged and with unbounded enthusiasm in April, 1916. Dr. L. R. Moore of Imperial was chosen president and Dr. L. C. House of El Centro secretary. It had at the time of its organization a membership of fifteen, comprising doctors from every town in the Valley. During its first year a number of lively and profitable meetings were held.
In April, 1917, election of officers was again in order, and Dr. Eugene Le Baron of Brawley was chosen president, with Dr. F. A. Burger of El Centro as vice-president. Dr. L. C. House was re-elected secretary. It is said that the second year of an organization is always the most trying. If it weathers the storm during this period its chances for a long lease of life are good. The history of the second Imperial County medical society has proven no exception to this rule. With the opening of the second year the enthusiasm that had characterized it during the first year began to wane. Though the year is practically at a close there have been no meetings of the organization; no getting together of the members which is so essential to mutual stimulation and inspiration. There is evident need at present of some regenerating influence, some invigorating leaven thrown into it to vitalize it for its third year's ac- tivities.
The climate of the Valley has, in general, been decidedly healthful. In the earlier days it was peculiarly so for tuberculosis patients. Many who came here with the disease in an advanced stage recovered com- pletely. Of late years the climate could hardly be said to be favorable for this class of patients. The increased humidity which is an inevitable result of the increased cultivation and irrigation renders the summer heat much more unbearable. This increased humidity also gives rise to a larger proportion of heat prostrations. There were few, if any, of these before 1905. Of other pulmonary diseases there were at first scarcely any, but these have all been steadily on the increase. Especial- ly is this true of pneumonia. From being almost unheard of in the pioneer days it has come to be quite prevalent during the winter and spring months, and carrying with a rather high mortality even for that disease.
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Scarlet fever and measles were almost unknown before 1906. Since then there have been scattered cases of the former practically every year and a number of epidemics of the latter. There had been no cases of measles in the southern part of the Valley for three years or more when the constable at Calexico, in the latter part of 1906, in taking some prisoners out to San Diego, was exposed to the disease. He was not aware, however, that he had come in contact with it, so when a week or two later he became sick, with many of the symptoms of the grippe, he decided that he was in for a siege of influenza. His friends came to see him and sympathize with him in his distress. The sym- pathizing was continued into the next two or three months and several hundred took part. A fairly general immunity was thus established and no further epidemic occurred for the next two or three years. Much complaint was heard in earlier years about the low altitude and conse- quent heart trouble. Personally this is largely, if not entirely, imagina- tion on the part of the individual affected, for there have been a num- ber of cases of people who found it impossible to live at Calexico, which is about sea level, on account of the low altitude, who found, nevertheless, that their hearts worked in perfect shape at sea level on the coast.
Typhoid fever has been in evidence in the Valley since the first set- tlers arrived. This is, undoubtedly, due almost wholly to the unsanitary condition that prevails almost constantly along the ditches across the line. The water is in most cases already polluted before it crosses the line into American territory. This, of course, is something over which the health authorities of the county have no control. They may guard ever so zealously the water supply within our own borders, but if in- discriminate pollution is permitted to go on unchecked south of the line, the danger will ever be with us.
This should be one of the strongest reasons for eliminating at the earliest possible moment the necessity for securing our water supply from foreign soil, for the health of a community should be of para- mount solicitude. Happily this defect in our water supply now bids fair to be remedied at a no distant date.
ExHours
CHAPTER XII
JOURNALISM
PRESS, STANDARD AND ZANJERO .- The need for publicity was felt at the very beginning of the development of Imperial Valley. L. M. Holt, who in pioneer days, as publisher and editor of the Riverside Press, had forty years ago gained State-wide recognition as the chief news- paper authority on the irrigation and horticultural resources of South- ern California, was publicity agent for the Imperial Land Company and the California Development Company. It was he who had interested George Chaffey, the builder of the irrigation system, in the Valley, and Mr. Holt was also instrumental in interesting Edgar F. Howe, who had come to Southern California in 1884, and had witnessed from a news- paperman's viewpoint the development of practically all Southern Cali- fornia from semi-desert.
As the years had piled up on Mr. Holt and he had become less active in newspaper work, the especial field he had held in the newspaper field had in large part passed to Mr. Howe. In 1890 he had founded the Redlands Facts, the first daily newspaper in that town, and thence he had gone to Los Angeles, where he had gained recognition as the prin- cipal writer on irrigation, horticulture and the oil industry. He was in 1900 the industrial editor of the Los Angeles Herald when, in October, Mr. Holt induced him to inspect the first work on the great irrigation system, less than a half mile of canal then having been dug.
From the site of the proposed heading on the Colorado River Mr. Howe came to the Valley, being driven by George McCauley, as about the first passenger of that pioneer stage driver, from the main line of the railroad to Blue Lake, near the projected town of Silsbee, and back. On that drive of ninety miles, which led over the town-sites of Braw- ley, Imperial and El Centro, only two persons were seen, Engineer D. L. Russell and an assistant, who were making the first survey.
Because of his experience in watching the developments of other parts of Southern California, Mr. Howe believed he could see in this
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development work a movement of vast potential benefit to the country, and articles from his pen following the visit to the Valley were pub- lished with illustrations in the New York Tribune, New York Times, Scientific American, Philadelphia Press and other leading publications of the East, as well as in the Los Angeles Herald, undoubtedly giving to the Valley colonization its first great impetus.
So beneficial had his work proven that the Imperial Land Company was anxious that he should become identified with the development work. The following May the Imperial Valley Press was founded at Imperial by the Imperial Land Company with H. C. Reed as editor, but in October, 1901, one year from his former trip, Mr. Howe assumed the editorship.
Those pioneer newspaper days were trying ones because there was little to do and there were none of the conveniences of life. The stage came to town three times a week, and a census showed population of 158 persons in what is now Imperial County in the spring of 1902. The following summer, without ice, electricity, fresh meat, vegetables, eggs, milk or butter, life was barely worth living, but it was under these con- ditions that the foundations were laid for the newspaper as well as all the other institutions of the Valley.
After a year of this privation, Mr. Howe thought he had had enough of pioneer life, and he left the Valley, but by April of the next year- 1903-he was induced to return, this time as owner of the newspaper, which he purchased and published for a little more than a year, selling to Charles Gardner.
The new town of El Centro had been founded in 1905, and early in that year Mr. Gardner sold the Press to W. F. Holt, who moved it to El Centro, where it passed successively under the editorial management of F. G. Havens and D. D. Pellett.
Before leaving Imperial the Press had a competitor in the Imperial Standard, started by a stock company with H. C. Reed and later David De Witt Lawrence as editors.
This publication was bought in June, 1905, by Mr. Howe, who came to the Valley for the third time, accompanied by his two sons, Armiger W. and Clinton F., who were associated with him during the second stage of pioneer newspaper work, that of publishing the first daily news- paper. This publication was started while the Colorado River was pour-
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ing its whole volume into Salton Sea, and Mr. Howe says that to this day he has never been able to decide whether the venture was a matter of inspiration or of imbecility.
Then came the struggle over county division, Mr. Howe being the spokesman for Imperial. Mr. Holt sought a strong editorial force for the Imperial Valley Press as an offset to him, and interested Captain Allen Kelley, Louis Havermale and W. L. Hayden in that paper. Cap- tain Kelly had been city editor of the New York Evening Sun and of the Los Angeles Times, and editorial writer for the Philadelphia North American, Boston Globe and San Francisco Examiner. Mr. Havermale was one of the best detail reporters in Los Angeles and Mr. Hayden was a clever business manager. It was a strong aggregation, but it was an overload for the weekly to carry, and after the bitterness of the county seat election had passed, Messrs. Howe, in May, 1911, bought the Press from W. F. Holt and consolidated with it the Imperial Daily Standard, continuing the paper as a daily under the name of the Im- perial Valley Press until September, 1916.
Messrs. Howe had had the experience in Imperial of many pioneers in the newspaper business of a hard struggle with little recompense. When they purchased the Press they added considerably to their in- debtedness. Their business in El Centro grew with great rapidity, for- cing heavy purchases of equipment, with added obligations. The earth- quake of June, 1915, wrecked their plant and brought about a loss of business which proved fatal to their enterprise, and they lost the news- paper in September, 1916.
But 400 farmers in mass meeting called on Mr. Howe to re-enter the field, pledging their support, and many of them volunteered financial aid, with the result that within thirty days there was issued the first number of The Zanjero, a weekly paper, but with the intention, avowed from the first, of eventually issuing daily.
The Calexico Chronicle was founded August 12, 1904. It's first home was in a tent house at a point near the Southern Pacific depot. The early days of the paper were the usual early days of a pioneer newspaper- much work and little remuneration for its owner. For several years it had a number of owners, and for a while essayed to be a daily paper, even when Calexico was only a town of something like 500 people.
During those early days of daily newspapering it was the frequent
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boast of its publisher that it was the only daily newspaper in the world in a town with so few people in it, which was about all there was to boast about.
In July, 1912, the Chronicle became the property of the present own- er, Bert Perrin, who, early the next year, took Ray E. Oliver as a part- ner, which partnership continued until November, 1917, when Bert Perrin again became the sole owner.
Beginning in 1913 the great struggle of the Chronicle has been to keep pace with the rapid growth of the town. In 1914 the Chronicle once more began publication as a daily, with Associated Press news service.
The El Centro Progress was established in its present location on Main Street, El Centro, February 3, 1912. First a weekly. In October of the same year it was changed to a morning daily, and as such made its way swiftly to the present place it occupies. Mr. and Mrs. Otis B. Tout were first engaged in publishing the Calexico Chronicle, Mr. Tout hav- ing taken charge of that newspaper in 1907. They sold the business in 1912 to Bert Perrin and purchased the remains of the Daily Free Lance plant in El Centro, on which the present business was founded.
The Free Lance was established in 1908 by A. D. Medhurst. It ran a precarious existence for three years and was finally discontinued on account of financial difficulties.
Mr. and Mrs. Tout, both practical printers, have had the assistance of Mrs. Tout's brothers, both in the mechanical department and the management. O. W. Berneker is advertising manager, W. A. Berneker is foreman of the composing room, E. A. Berneker is Intertype ma- chinist-operator, and A. E. Berneker is in the mailing and stereotyping department. This "family affair" has become quite successful as shown by the patronage accorded the Progress since its establishment. The records show a steady increase in every year's business, 1917 outdis- tancing all the others by a wide margin. The business is a co-partner- ship with Mr. and Mrs. Tout sole owners.
The policy of the Progress has been independent, the editor believing that the selection of the best in all matters is better than blind partisan- ship in any. That this policy has been approved by a large constituency is attested by the fact that the Progress lays undisputed claim to the largest circulation of any newspaper in the county. The paper makes it a point to boost every worthy cause and to flay every unworthy propo-
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ganda that raises its head. Imperial Valley has had seven special, illus- trated editions during the twelve years' work of the publishers of the Progress, and much of the broadcast information that the world has regarding Imperial Valley can be credited to these efforts.
The Progress is the only morning newspaper in the Valley, and is a member of the Associated Press.
CHAPTER XIII
TRANSPORTATION
SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES
THE main line of the Los Angeles division of the Southern Pacific from just north of Bertram to the Colorado River at Yuma, for a dis- tance of about ninety miles, was first operated in the spring of 1877.
From the present station of Niland (originally known as Old Beach and then later called Imperial Junction), a branch line runs south to Calexico on the international boundary line for a distance of 41 miles, first operated to Imperial in the spring of 1903, and thence to Calexico in the summer of 1904.
The above branch line thence continues easterly through the north- ern portion of Lower California and returns to Imperial County at Cantu, thence northerly for a distance of 2.6 miles to a connection with the first above-mentioned main line at Araz Junction.
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