Chapter XXXIII: Los Angeles & Independence Railroad

1876

Once Santa Monica's boom had been launched, the town developed as had few other suburbs of Los Angeles. Within nine or ten months a thousand inhabitants pointed with satisfaction to one hundred and sixty houses and perhaps half as many tents. Senator Jones built a wharf and pushed to completion the Los Angeles & Independence Railroad; and the road was opened to the public on Wednesday, December 1st, 1875, with a depot on San Pedro Street near Wolfskill Lane. Two trains a day were run--one leaving Los Angeles for Santa Monica at half-past nine in the morning and another at a quarter after four in the afternoon; the trains from Santa Monica for Los Angeles departing at half-past seven in the morning and half-past two in the afternoon. On January 5th, 1876, the Railroad Company offered sixty single commutation tickets for ten dollars; and a few days later, the conductor and other train employees appeared in uniform, each wearing on his cap what was then considered an innovation, the badge of his office. Captain Joseph U. Crawford was Superintendent and Chief Engineer.

From the start the Road did a thriving freight business, although passenger traffic was often interfered with. Early in January, 1876, for instance, the train from Santa Monica failed to make its appearance, the engineer having spied a bit of ground suspiciously soft in the _ciénaga_--locally spelled _ciénega_--refused, despite the protests of passengers, to proceed!

There were also inconveniences of travel by steamer such as arose from the uncertainty whether a vessel running between San Francisco and San Diego would put in at San Pedro or Santa Monica. According to conditions, or perhaps through the desire to throw a little trade one way or the other, the captain might insist on stopping at one port, while friends had assembled to greet the traveler at the other. A single car, with such objects of wonder as air brakes and Miller couplers drew Sunday crowds; and when, about the middle of January, the Company carried down ten car-loads of people on a single day and brought them back safely, substantial progress, it was generally felt, had been made.

In February, the Santa Monica Land Company was pushing its sales of real estate, and one of its announcements began with the headlines:

SANTA MONICA!
The Wonderful Young City and Seaport of
Southern California!
The Future Terminus of the Union & Texas Pacific Railroad!

the advertisement winding up with the declaration that several hundred vessels, including the largest boats of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, had already loaded and discharged at the wharf in all weathers!

My memory is obscure as to just when Senator Jones built his splendid mansion at the corner of Ocean and Nevada avenues, but I think it was about 1890. I certainly recollect that it was then considered the most extensive and elaborate home in the vicinity of Los Angeles.

Rather late in January, H. Newmark & Company had their first experience with burglars who scaled the wall behind the store one Saturday night, cut away enough brick to enable them to throw back the bolt of the door, then barricaded the front doors by means of crowbars and proceeded to open the safe, which was of the old Tilton & McFarland pattern. The face was forced off, but the eight hundred dollars in the safe remained intact and undisturbed, the burglars making a total haul of only five dollars. Other merchants also suffered at this time from the depredations of cracksmen.

Following this futile attack, we sent for a new safe of the Hall type. Scarcely had a month elapsed, however, when a second attempt was made in much the same way. Then the burglars went to work in real earnest and soon effected an entrance into the money-drawers. But, alas! the entire contents secured would not have provided half a dozen _tamales_! This fact, probably, aroused the ire of the rascals, for they mutilated the front of the prettily-decorated safe before leaving, and tried to destroy the combination. The best excuse--and perhaps not such a bad one--that the police had to offer for not furnishing Los Angeles Street better protection, was that the night was dark, the street and sidewalks flooded and that a policeman, who had tried the beat, had been nearly drowned!

In February, trains on the Los Angeles & Independence Railroad began to leave Los Angeles at ten o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the afternoon, and Santa Monica at eight and four o'clock, the Company deeming it a sufficient inducement to allow excursionists five or six hours to bathe, fish or picnic. Round-trip tickets, good for the day and date only, were sold at a dollar each; and the management reserved the right, on steamer days, to change the schedule to fit the sailings. When a fourth passenger coach was added to the equipment, the Company declared that the accommodations between this city and Santa Monica were "equal to those on any road along the entire Coast;" but the high-water mark of effort was reached when it was announced that the "splendid palace car dubbed _Santa Monica_, which had carried Senator Jones to Washington," was then being sent south from San Francisco for the convenience of the Company's patrons. In March, while the San Pedro Street Railway was being built, another official announcement said that "in the course of a few days the people of this city will have the _honor_ and delight of seeing a _palace_ car standing on a railroad track near the Pico House;" and about the end of March printer's ink displayed this appeal to the expectant public:

Go, by all means, to the grand seaside excursion to Santa
Monica on Friday, for among the objects of interest will be
Senator Jones's magnificent new palace-car now being
completed by the tailors (_sic_) which will have three
_salons_, supplied with tables and all the usual comforts,
and two private compartments, the whole sumptuously
furnished and partly upholstered with crimson velvet!

On February 14th, General Andrés Pico died at his residence, 203 Main Street, and was buried from his home on the following day.

On March 1st, work was commenced on the San Pedro Street Railway, which in time was extended from the Santa Monica station to the Plaza, _via_ San Pedro, Los Angeles, Arcadia and Sanchez streets. The gauge was that of the Los Angeles & Independence Railway, thus permitting freight cars to be hauled to the center of the city; on which account business men looked upon the new road as a boon. Passenger cars soon ran from the depot to the Pico House; and as the fare was but five cents, or thirty tickets for a dollar, this line was rewarded with a fair patronage. At the end of 1876, four street railways were in operation here.

In March, also, two hundred pleasure-seekers, then considered a generous outpouring, went down to Santa Monica on a single Sunday; and within the first three months of the year, the Land Company there gathered in about seventy-three thousand dollars--selling a lot almost every day. South Santa Monica was then looked upon as the finer part of the growing town, and many of my friends, including Andrew Glassell, Cameron E. Thom, General George Stoneman, E. M. Ross, H. M. Mitchell, J. D. and Dr. Frederick T. Bicknell and Frank Ganahl, bought sites there for summer villas.

Micajah D. Johnson, twice City Treasurer, was a Quaker who came here in 1876. He built at Santa Monica a hotel which was soon burned; and later he became interested in the colony at Whittier, suggesting the name of that community.

In 1876, the City purchased a village hook-and-ladder truck in San Francisco which, drawn by hand in the vigorous old-fashioned way, supplied all our needs until 1881.

In 1876, the Archer Freight and Fare Bill, which sought to regulate railroad transportation, engrossed the attention of commercial leaders, and on March 9th, President S. Lazard called together the Directors of the Chamber of Commerce at the office of Judge Ygnácio Sepúlveda. Besides President Lazard, there were present R. M. Widney, W. J. Brodrick, M. J. Newmark, E. E. Hewitt and I. W. Lord. Little time was lost in the framing of a despatch which indicated to our representatives how they would be expected to vote on the matter. Several speeches were made, that of M. J. Newmark focusing the sentiment of the opposition and contributing much to defeat the measure. Newmark expressed surprise that a bill of such interest to the entire State should have passed the Lower House apparently without discussion, and declared that Southern Californians could never afford to interfere with the further building of railroads here. Our prosperity had commenced with their construction, and it would be suicidal to force them to suspend.

In a previous chapter I have spoken of the rate--ten dollars per thousand--first charged for gas, and the public satisfaction at the further reduction to seven dollars and a half. This price was again reduced to six dollars and seventy-five cents; but lower rates prevailing elsewhere, Los Angeles consumers about the middle of March held a public meeting to combat the gas monopoly. After speeches more lurid, it is to be feared, than any gas flame of that period, a resolution was passed binding those who signed to refrain from using gas for a whole year, if necessary, beginning with the first of April. Charles H. Simpkins, President of the Los Angeles Gas Company, retorted by insisting that, at the price of coal, the Company could not possibly sell gas any cheaper; but a single week's reflection, together with the specter of an oil-lamp city, led the Gas Company, on March 21st, to grant a reduction to six dollars a thousand.

Will Tell was a painter in 1869 and had his shop in Temple Block, opposite the Court House. Early in 1876 he opened a lunch and refreshment house at the corner of Fourth Street and Utah Avenue in Santa Monica, where he catered to excursionists, selling hunting paraphernalia and fishing tackle, and providing "everything, including fluids." Down at what is now Playa del Rey, Tell had conducted, about 1870, a resort on a lagoon covered with flocks of ducks; and there he kept eight or ten boats for the many hunters attracted to the spot, becoming more and more popular and prosperous. In 1884, however, raging tides destroyed Tell's happy hunting grounds; and for fifteen or twenty years, the "King's Beach" was more desert than resort. Tell continued for a while at Santa Monica and was an authority on much that had to do with local sport.

On Sunday, April 9th, the Cathedral of Sancta Vibiana, whose corner-stone had been laid in 1871 on the east side of Main Street south of Second, was opened for public service, its architecture (similar to that of the Puerto de San Miguel in Barcelona, Spain) at once attracting wide attention. As a matter of fact, the first corner-stone had been placed, on October 3d, 1869, on the west side of Main Street between Fifth and Sixth, when it was expected that the Cathedral was to extend to Spring Street. The site, however (and oddly enough,) was soon pronounced, "too far out of town," and a move was undertaken to a point farther north. In more recent years, efforts have been made to relocate the bishop's church in the West End. A feature of the original edifice was a front railing, along the line of the street, composed of blocks of artificial stone made by Busbard & Hamilton who in 1875 started a stone factory, the first of its kind here, in East Los Angeles.

Victor Dol, who arrived here in the Centennial year and became the Delmonico of his day, kept a high-grade restaurant, known as the Commercial in the old Downey Block, about one hundred and fifty feet north of the corner of Spring and Temple streets. The restaurant was reached through a narrow passageway that first led into an open court paved with brick, in the center of which a fountain played. Crossing this court, the interested patron entered the main dining-room, where an excellent French dinner was served daily at a cost of but fifty cents, and where the popular _chef_ furnished many of the notable banquets of his time. Dol also had a number of private dining-rooms, where the epicures of the period were wont to meet, and for the privilege of dining in which there was an additional charge. Dol's Commercial was a popular institution for more than a quarter of a century.

Dol then had in his employ an uncle, who was a rather mysterious individual, and who proved to be a French anarchist. It was said that his pet scheme for regulating the government of Louis Philippe met with such scant approval that, one fine day, he found himself in jail. Escaping in course of time from the anxious and watchful authorities, he made his way to the outside world and finally located here. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, he was supposed to have returned to his native land, where he once more satisfied his peculiar propensity for patriotic activity by tearing down and burning, in company with other so-called Communists, some of the most beautiful buildings in all Paris.

In the spring of 1876, Los Angeles boasted of another French restaurant, a dining place called the Oriental and conducted by a Frenchman, C. Casson and a German, H. Schmitt. It was on Main Street opposite the Pico House, and much ado was made of the claim that everything was "in European style" and that it was "the largest and most commodious restaurant south of San Francisco."

Human nature--at least of the feminine type--was much the same, thirty-five or forty years ago, as it is to-day. Such a conclusion, at least, the reader may reach after scanning an Easter advertisement of Miss Hammond, an 1876 milliner who had a little shop at 7 North Spring Street and who then made the following announcement to those of her fashion-loving sex:

Miss Hammond, who has just received a splendid lot of new
styles of hats, bonnets, silks, ribbons, etc., invites the
ladies of Los Angeles to call at her place of business
before purchasing elsewhere. One glance into her
show-window will be enough to project any modern heart into
a state of palpitation.

Elsewhere I have mentioned the salt works near Redondo's site. Dr. H. Nadeau (who came here in 1876, had an office in the Grand Central Hotel and was soon elected Coroner) was once called there and started with a constable and an undertaker--the latter carrying with him a rough board coffin for the prospective "subject." Losing their way, the party had to camp for the night on the plains; whereupon the Coroner, opening the coffin, crawled in and "slept like a brick!"

John Edward Hollenbeck, who in 1888 built the Hollenbeck Hotel, returned to Los Angeles in the spring of 1876--having been here in 1874, when he made certain realty investments--secured land on the east side of the Los Angeles River, spent a large sum of money for improvements and soon built a residence exceptionally fine for that time. And in this beautiful home, in close proximity to Boyle Avenue, he lived until his death, on September 2d, 1885, at the age of fifty-six years. Succeeding A. C. Bilicke in 1903, John S. Mitchell, long a prominent Angeleño, is still controlling this busy hostelry.

I have spoken of an adobe on ten acres of land I once purchased to secure water for my flock of sheep. After Hollenbeck had built his home on Boyle heights, he was so disturbed by a company of Mexicans who congregated in this adobe that, in sheer desperation, he asked me in 1882 to sell him the land. I did so, and we agreed upon six hundred and twenty-five dollars as a price for the entire piece.

Hollenbeck then made another noteworthy investment. H. C. Wiley owned a lot, one hundred and twenty feet by one hundred and sixty-five, on the southeast corner of Fort and Second streets, where he lived in a small cottage. He had mortgaged this property for six thousand dollars; but since, under his contract, Wiley was not required to pay interest, the mortgagee tired of the loan. Hollenbeck bought the mortgage and made a further advance of four thousand dollars on the property. He finally foreclosed, but at the same time did the handsome thing when he gave Mrs. Wiley, a daughter of Andrés Pico, a deed for the forty feet on Fort Street upon which the cottage stood. These forty feet are almost directly opposite Coulter's dry goods store.

So many ranchers had again and again unsuccessfully experimented with wheat in this vicinity that when I. N. Van Nuys, in 1876, joined Isaac Lankershim in renting lands from the company in which they were interested, and in planting nearly every acre to that staple grain, failure and even ruin were predicted by the old settlers. Van Nuys, however, selected and prepared his seed with care and the first season rewarded them with a great harvest, which they shipped to Liverpool. Thus was inaugurated the successful cultivation of wheat in Southern California on a large scale. In 1878, the depot of the Southern Pacific at the corner of Alameda and Commercial streets had become too small for the Company's growing business, compelling them to buy on San Fernando Street; and Lankershim and his associates purchased the old structure from the Company for the sum of seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars, and there erected a flour mill which they conducted until the ranch was sold, a few years ago.

One of the very interesting cases in the Los Angeles courts was that which came before Judge H. K. S. O'Melveny on May 15th when Mrs. Eulalia Perez Guillen, one hundred and thirty years old according to the records of the church at San Gabriel, claimed the right to exhibit herself at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia as a California curiosity. She was accompanied to court by a daughter, Mariana and their counsel, F. P. Ramirez; but there was also present another daughter, Mrs. de White, who brought Attorney Stephen M. White to assist in opposing the visionary scheme. Mariana admitted that she had not the means to humor the old lady in her hobby, while Mrs. de White objected that her mother was in her dotage and could not travel as far as Philadelphia. The Judge granted the old lady liberty to live with either daughter, but required of Mariana a bond of five hundred dollars as a guarantee that she would not take her mother out of the county.

On May 17th, William Workman was gathered to his fathers, later being buried near the little chapel at La Puente, side by side with John Rowland, his early comrade and life-long friend.

An early and popular educator here was Miss E. Bengough who, about 1870, had started her "Select School for Young Ladies and Children," and who on June 5th had one of her "commencements" in the Spring Street school house. At the beginning of the eighties, the Bengough school was at No. 3 Third Street. Miss Bengough died, a number of years ago, after having been for some years at the Hollenbeck Home.

Glowing descriptions of the Centennial Exposition first attracted the attention of Madame Helena Modjeska, the Polish lady eventually so famous, and the presence here of a small Polish colony finally induced her and her husband, Charles Bozenta Chlapowski, to make the dubious experiment of abandoning the stimulation of Old World culture and committing themselves to rustic life near the bee ranch of J. E. Pleasants in Santiago Cañon. Heaps of cigarettes, books and musical instruments were laid in to help pass the hours pleasantly; but disaster of one kind or another soon overtook the idealists who found that "roughing it" in primeval California suggested a nightmare rather than a pleasant dream. Forced to take up some more lucrative profession, Madame Modjeska, in July, 1877, made her _début_ in San Francisco as _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ and was soon starring with Booth. This radical departure, however, did not take the gifted lady away for good; her love for California led her to build, near the site of their first encampment and in what they called the Forest of Arden, a charming country home to which she repaired when not before the footlights. Still later, she lived near Newport. More than one public ovation was tendered Madame Modjeska in Los Angeles, the community looking upon her as their own; and I remember a reception to her at O. W. Childs's home when I had a better opportunity for noting her unostentatious and agreeable personality. Modjeska Avenue is a reminder of this artist's sojourn here.

In June, W. W. Creighton started the _Evening Republican_; but during the winter of 1878-79 the paper, for lack of support, ceased to be published.

Andrew W. Ryan, a Kilkenny Irishman commonly called Andy, after footing it from Virginia City to Visalia, reached Los Angeles on horseback and found employment with Banning as one of his drivers. From 1876 to 1879, he was County Assessor, later associating himself with the Los Angeles Water Company until, in 1902, the City came into control of the system.