Chapter XXXIV: The Southern Pacific

1876

Before the completion of the San Fernando tunnel, a journey East from Los Angeles by way of Sacramento was beset with inconveniences. The traveler was lucky if he obtained passage to San Fernando on other than a construction train, and twenty to twenty-four hours, often at night, was required for the trip of the Telegraph Stage Line's creaking, swaying coach over the rough road leading to Caliente--the northern terminal--where the longer stretch of the railroad north was reached. The stage-lines and the Southern Pacific Railroad were operated quite independently, and it was therefore not possible to buy a through-ticket. For a time previously, passengers took the stage at San Fernando and bounced over the mountains to Bakersfield, the point farthest south on the railroad line. When the Southern Pacific was subsequently built to Lang's Station, the stages stopped there; and for quite a while a stage started from each side of the mountain, the two conveyances meeting at the top and exchanging passengers. Once I made the journey north by stage to Tipton in Tulare County, and from Tipton by rail to San Francisco. The Coast Line and the Telegraph Line stage companies carried passengers part of the way. The Coast Line Stage Company coaches left Los Angeles every morning at five o'clock and proceeded _via_ Pleasant Valley, San Buenaventura, Santa Bárbara, Guadalupe, San Luis Obispo and Paso de Robles Hot Springs, and connected at Soledad with the Southern Pacific Railroad bound for San Francisco by way of Salinas City, Gilroy and San José; and this line made a speciality of daylight travel, thus offering unusual inducements to tourists. There was no limit as to time; and passengers were enabled to stop over at any point and to reserve seats in the stage-coaches by giving some little notice in advance.

In 1876, I visited New York City for medical attention and for the purpose of meeting my son, Maurice, upon his return from Paris. I left Los Angeles on the twenty-ninth of April by the Telegraph Stage Line, traveling to San Francisco and thence east by the Central Pacific Railroad; and I arrived in New York on the eighth of May. My son returned, June 29th, on the steamer _Abyssinia_; and a few days later we started for home. While in Brooklyn, on June 4th, I attended Plymouth Church and heard Henry Ward Beecher preach on "Serve Thy Master with a Will." His rapid transition from the pathetic to the humorous, and back to the pathetic, was most effective.

Our itinerary brought us to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, on the Fourth of July; and aside from the peculiar satisfaction at being present on historic ground upon that anniversary, I recall, with pleasure, many experiences and impressions new and interesting, notwithstanding the inconvenience caused by the great crowds. At the Exhibition, which had a circumference of only three and a half miles, I saw California's small but very creditable display; and I remember my astonishment at seeing a man seated before an apparatus, apparently in the act of printing letters. He was demonstrating an early typewriter, and I dictated to my wife half a dozen lines which he rapidly typed upon paper. Of the various nations, the Japanese and the Chinese attracted me most. Machinery Hall, with its twelve hundred machines all run by one huge Corliss engine, was as noisy as it was interesting. The New York _Herald_ and the _Times_ were printed there daily. In the Art Gallery there was one marble figure so beautifully draped that a young lady, passing by, said: "Father, why don't they remove that lace shawl from the statue?" During the evening, on the balconies of the Union League Club, we enjoyed a torchlight parade never to be forgotten.

On our way West we stopped at Salt Lake City; and as we had been informed that Brigham Young would be at the Opera House that evening, we attended the performance. I have forgotten the name of the play, but Rose Eytinge was the star. Brigham sat in his private box with two of his wives; and as it was a very hot night in July and the building was packed with people, his wives were both fanning him assiduously and otherwise contributing to his comfort. The following day we called at his residence to see him, expecting to renew an acquaintanceship established years before; but to our regret he was ill and could not receive us. A few months later, he died.

Leaving Salt Lake City early in August, we traveled by the Central Pacific to San Francisco where several days were very pleasantly spent with my brother and his family, and from there we left for Los Angeles, taking the Southern Pacific to its terminus at Lang's Station. Proceeding over the mountain by stage, we arrived at what is now the south end of the long tunnel and there boarded the train for this city.

Among others who went from Los Angeles to the Philadelphia Centennial was Ben C. Truman. He took with him specimens of choice California plants, and wrote letters, from various stations on the way, to his paper, the _Star_. Governor and Mrs. Downey, whom I met in New York in June, were also at the Exhibition.

Ben Truman's visit recalls the enterprise of preparing a booklet for circulation at the exposition setting forth the advantages of Los Angeles, and the fact that the _Star_ was the first to propose sending copies of the local newspapers to Philadelphia, at the same time agreeing to contribute its share. In that connection, it also referred to a previous, similar experiment, endorsed by Truman, in these words:

This City has never been so prosperous as when the Chamber
of Commerce sent fifty papers each week for one year of the
_Herald_, _Express_ and _Star_, to the leading hotels and
libraries throughout the country, a movement inaugurated
and carried out by Mr. M. J. Newmark. Those few papers,
distributed where they would do the most good, filled our
hotels and boarding houses, and sent joy to the hearts of
the real estate dealers. It's a most trifling thing to do,
and "there's millions in it."

Another interesting experiment in early advertising, by means of the stereopticon, was made in 1876 when the Los Angeles photographer, Henry T. Payne, exhibited at Philadelphia a fine selection of views designed to inform the spectator about Southern California and to attract him hither. Toward the end of May, Payne left for the East, taking with him a first-class stereopticon and nearly a thousand lantern slides of the old wet-plate process, the views being the product of Payne's own skill and labor.

For some time prior to 1876, the suitable observance here of the anniversary of the Nation's independence had been frequently discussed, and when James J. Ayers called a meeting of citizens in the County Court House, on the evening of April 29th, and another on May 6th, it was decided to celebrate the Fourth of July in a manner worthy of the occasion. Committees were appointed to arrange the details; and when the eventful day arrived, the largest throngs in the City's history assembled to give vent to their patriotism.

The procession--led by Grand Marshal H. M. Mitchell, assisted by Marshals Eugene Meyer, Francisco Guirado, John F. Godfrey and Otto von Ploennies, mounted on the best-groomed steeds of the Fashion Stables--formed towards ten o'clock and was half an hour in passing the corner of Temple, Spring and Main streets. The Woods Opera House Band, the Los Angeles Guard and the Los Angeles Rifleros assisted. The parade wended its tortuous way from the Aliso Mills in the northeast to the Round House in the south.

An interesting feature of the march was the division of Mexican War Veterans. Forty-two of these battle-scarred soldiers, a number of whom had become prominent in civic life, lined up, among them General George Stoneman, Captain William Turner, Dr. J. S. Griffin, Major Henry Hancock, S. C. Foster, John Schumacher, L. C. Goodwin, D. W. Alexander and A. W. Timms. Another feature worthy of note was the triumphal chariot of the French Benevolent Society, in which three young ladies represented respectively the Goddess of Liberty, France and America. Fire Engine Company No. 38, Confidence Engine Company No. 2 and the Hook and Ladder Company formed another division, followed by several societies and secret orders. In one float thirteen young ladies represented the thirteen original colonies and in another twenty-five damsels portrayed the rest of the States. There were also the Forty-niners, the butchers and the other tradesmen; while George and Martha Washington accompanied the Philadelphia Brewery!

For this local celebration of the Centennial, streets, public buildings, stores and private residences were beautifully decorated, portraits of Washington being everywhere. Hellman, Haas & Company, S. C. Foy, the Los Angeles Social Club and H. Newmark & Company were among those who especially observed the day. There was a triple arch on Main Street, with a center span thirty feet wide and thirty feet high, and statues of Washington, Grant and others. The railroad depots and trains were also fittingly adorned; and at the residence and grounds of Consular Agent Moerenhaut, the Stars and Stripes, with the French tricolor, were displayed under the legend, "Friends Since One Hundred Years." The Pico House was perhaps the most elegantly adorned, having a column, a flagstaff and a Liberty cap, with the enthusiastic legends:

1776. 1876. Now for 1976!
To the patrons of the Pico House: May you live 100 years!
No North, no South, no East, no West!

The Round House gardens having been reached, the literary and musical program began. The band played _Hail Columbia!_ and General Phineas Banning, the presiding officer, introduced the Rev. T. T. Packard who delivered the opening prayer. Banning then made a short patriotic address; _America_ was sung by several church choirs of the city; Professor Thomas A. Saxon read the _Declaration of Independence_; the choirs sang the _Red, White and Blue_; and J. J. Ayers, as poet of the occasion, read an original poem. _Yankee Doodle_ came after that; and then James G. Eastman, as orator of the day, delivered the address, reviewing the civilization and wonders of every age, and tickling the hearers' vanity with perorations such as this:

When the mournful zephyrs, passing the plain where Marathon
once stood, shall find no mound to kiss; when the arch of
Titus shall have been obliterated; the Colosseum crumbled
into antique dust; the greatness of Athens degenerated into
dim tradition; Alexander, Cæsar and Napoleon forgotten; the
memories of Independence Hall shall still bloom in
imperishable freshness!

At the conclusion of the oration, Jacob A. Moerenhout, the venerable French representative, spoke very appropriately of the relation of France to America in our great Revolutionary struggle; after which the Rev. A. W. Edelman concluded the exercises by pronouncing the benediction. The celebration had a soul in it and no doubt compensated in patriotic sincerity for what it may have lacked in classical elegance.

Incidental to this commemoration, the Literary Committee having in charge the exercises had named Don J. J. Warner, Judge Benjamin Hayes and Dr. J. P. Widney a sub-committee to compile the most interesting data about the old town from the Spanish occupancy by the founding of the Mission at San Gabriel; and on the Fourth of July, or within less than two months after their appointment, the historians produced their report--to which I have already referred--a document, known as _An Historical Sketch of Los Angeles County, California_, which, in spite of the errors due to the short period allotted the editors, is still interesting and valuable; portraying, as it does, various characteristics of early life in the Southland and preserving to posterity many names and minor facts.

In the summer of 1875, fifteen hundred men began to dig their way into the San Fernando Mountains; and about the end of the first week in September, 1876, the long tunnel was completed--a bore six thousand nine hundred and forty feet in length, beginning twenty-seven miles from Los Angeles. During the course of construction, vast quantities of candles, generally the best, were employed to furnish light for the workmen, H. Newmark & Company supplying most of the illuminants.

Some of the facts concerning the planning, building and attendant celebration of this now famous tunnel should be peculiarly interesting to the Angeleño of to-day, as also to his descendants, for not only do they possess intrinsic historical importance, but they exemplify as well both the comparative insignificance of Los Angeles at the time when this great engineering feat was so successfully undertaken and the occasional futility of human prophecies, even when such prophecies are voiced by those most fitted at the time to deliver them.

I have already mentioned the interview which Governor Downey and I had with Collis P. Huntington, in San Francisco, when we presented the arguments of Los Angeles for the extension of the Southern Pacific Railroad to this point. The greatest difficulty, from an engineering standpoint, was the boring and finishing of the San Fernando tunnel, and the then small town of Los Angeles was compelled to pass through much discouragement before she became the Southern terminus of the road, a selection of the most vital importance to her future prosperity and growth. In the first place, a Mr. Rice, whose office was in Temple Block, represented the Railroad Company in telling the citizens of Los Angeles that if they did not appropriate toward the undertaking two hundred and fifty thousand dollars--then an enormous sum of money--Los Angeles would be left out of the line of travel and the railroad would be built so as to pass several miles inland, compelling our city to make a choice between putting in a branch to connect with the main line or resigning any claim she might have to become a railroad center. In fact, this is precisely what occurred in the case of Visalia and a number of other towns; that is to say: they are to-day the termini of railroad feeders, instead of a part of the main line as they perhaps might have been.

When this threat or warning was delivered, an agitation immediately set in, both to collect the money that the Company demanded and to influence its management to include Los Angeles on the main line. Judge R. M. Widney was one of the prominent figures in the local campaign. The Chamber of Commerce, through its President, Solomon Lazard, also buckled on its armor in behalf of Los Angeles and entered the lists. Notably it sent a telegram to the United States Senate--the railroad, as is well known, having received land-grants of inestimable value from Congress and being considered, therefore, susceptible to influence; and this telegram was penned with such classical eloquence that it poured seventy-five dollars into the coffers of the telegraph company. The net result of the campaign was the decision of the Railroad Company to include Los Angeles among the favored stations.

The politics of the situation having thus been satisfactorily settled, the engineering problems began to cast their shadows. General Stoneman stated that the tunnel bore could not be effected, an opinion which was by no means uncommon at that time. Others again said that people would never be induced to travel through so long a tunnel; still another set of pessimists stated that the winter rains would cause it to cave in, to which Senator Stanford laconically replied that it was "too damned dry in Southern California for any such catastrophe." This railroad and the tunnel, however, were fortunately to become one of those happy instances in which the proposals of man and the disposals of the Lord are identical, for in course of time both found their completion under the able direction of railroad genius, assisted in no small way by the gangs of thousands of Orientals who did the hard road-work.

As in the case with practically every Southern Californian enterprise, the finishing of this great undertaking was accompanied by a rather elaborate celebration. A delegation of San Francisco citizens, one of whom was my brother, met at Newhall a delegation from Los Angeles including S. Lazard[34] and myself, and I thus have the pleasant recollection of having been among the very first who went through the tunnel on that initial trip. Having arrived at Newhall, the citizens of the Northern and Southern cities symbolized, by fraternal handshaking, the completion of this new and strongest bond between them. Amidst general rejoicing, and with thousands of Chinamen lined up on either side of the track, each at full attention and all presenting their--_shovels!_--General D. D. Colton drove the golden spike which bound the rails from the North with the rails from the South. After considerable speech-making and celebrating, most of the company boarded the train for Los Angeles, where the jollification was concluded with a banquet, a ball, illuminations and other festivities. Possibly due to the great increase in Chinese brought to Southern California through railroad work, repeated demonstrations against the Mongolians were made here at meetings during the summer.

Shortly after the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad the people of Los Angeles became very much dissatisfied with the Company's method of handling their business, and especially with the arbitrary rulings of J. C. Stubbs in making freight rates. On one occasion, for example, a shipper approached Stubbs and asked for a rate on a carload of potatoes from San Francisco to Tucson. Stubbs asked him how much he expected to pay for the potatoes and what he would get for them; and having obtained this information, he allowed the shipper a small profit and took the balance for freight. This dissatisfaction on the part of an enterprising community accustomed to some liberality found in time such an open expression that Charles F. Crocker, one of the original promoters of the Central, and one of the owners of the Southern Pacific, who had occasionally visited Los Angeles, came down to confer with the City Council at a public meeting.

Crocker, as President of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, was a very important man, and I felt at the time that he was most discourteously received by those with whom he had come to discuss the situation. The meeting, which I attended, was held in the small Council Room, and I well remember the oppressive closeness. The place was, indeed, packed; people were smoking and chewing tobacco; and the reader may perhaps imagine the extreme condition of both the atmosphere and the floor. This, however, was not all: when one of the Councilmen--out of regard, I suppose, for the railroad President's other engagements--asked that Mr. Crocker be permitted to address the City Fathers, J. S. Thompson, a revolutionary Councilman, stood up and declared that the San Francisco magnate would be heard when his time came and--not before! How this lack of consideration impressed the visitor may be seen from the conclusion of my story.

After a while, Crocker was allowed to speak; and in the course of his remarks he stated that the Southern Pacific Railroad Company had invested a great amount of money, and that it was necessary to realize proper interest on their expenditure. Thereupon, Isaac W. Lord, one of the spectators, after whom Lordsburg was named, arose and begged to tell a little story. An ambitious individual, he said, who had once built a hotel on the desert at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was without a guest until, one day, a lone traveler rode across the burning sands and put up for the night at the hostelry. Next morning, the stranger was handed a bill for seventy-five dollars; and upon inquiring why so much had been charged, the proprietor explained that he had spent one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in building the hotel; that the stranger was, thus far, the first and only guest; and that, therefore, he must pay his part of the interest on the investment.

The story, to Mr. Crocker's discomfiture, brought a loud laugh; and it was then, before the laughter had died out, that the famous railroad man, resuming the debate, made his memorable threat:

"If this be the spirit in which Los Angeles proposes to deal with the railroad upon which the town's very vitality must depend, _I will make grass to grow in the streets of your city_!"

And, considering the fate that has befallen more than one community which coldly regarded the proposals of these same California railroads, Crocker's warning was not without significance.

The Crocker incident having left matters in a worse state than before, Colonel Eldridge E. Hewitt, agent for the Southern Pacific, brought Governor Stanford to my office and introduced him. Stanford stated that his road would soon be in operation and expressed the hope that H. Newmark & Company would patronize it. I told Stanford that our relations with the steamship company had always been very pleasant, but that we would be very glad to give his line a share of our business, if rates were made satisfactory. At the same time, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, having secured control of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, issued circulars announcing that steamer freight would henceforth be classified. As this was a violent departure from established precedents, it foreshadowed trouble; and, sure enough, rates moved upward from eight to as high as thirty dollars a ton, according to classification.

H. Newmark & Company and Hellman, Haas & Company, who were the heaviest shippers in Los Angeles, together with a number of other merchants, decided to charter a steamer or sailing vessel. James McFadden, of Santa Ana, owned the tramp steamboat _Newport_ which plied between San Francisco and Newport Landing, in an irregular lumber-trade; and this, after some negotiations, we engaged for three years, on the basis of three dollars per ton. Having made this contract, we entered valiantly into the contest; and, in order suitably to impress the Southern Pacific Railroad Company with our importance, we loaded the vessel, on her initial trip, to the gunwales. Now cargo, on arriving at Wilmington at that time, used to be loaded into cars, brought to Los Angeles and left in the freight shed until we removed it at our convenience; but when the _Newport_ arrived, the vessel was unloaded and the merchandise put into the warehouse at Wilmington, where it was held several days before it was reshipped. On its arrival in Los Angeles, the Railroad Company gave notice that removal must be effected within twenty-four hours, or demurrage would be charged; and since, with the small facilities in those days at our command, so prompt a withdrawal of an entire cargo was a physical impossibility, our expenses were straightway heavily increased.

Subsequent to this first shipment, we adopted a more conservative policy, in spite of which our troubles were to multiply. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company named a rate of three dollars a ton in less than carload lots between San Francisco and way-stations, and this induced many of our country customers to trade in that city. At the same time, the Company carried many lines between San Francisco and Los Angeles free of charge, potatoes and other heavy items being favored. The mask was now discarded, and it became evident that we were engaged in a life-and-death struggle.

Had there been a united front, the moral effect might have sustained us in the unequal contest; but unfortunately, H. Newmark & Company were abandoned by every shipper in Los Angeles except Hellman, Haas & Company, and we soon found that fighting railroad companies recalled the adage, "The game's not worth the candle." At the end of ten months of sacrifices, we invoked the assistance of my former partner and friend, Phineas Banning, who was then associated with the Southern Pacific; and he visited the officials in San Francisco in our behalf. Stanford told him that the Railroad Company, rather than make a single concession, would lose a million dollars in the conflict; but Banning finally induced the Company to buy the _Newport_, which brought to a close the first fight in Los Angeles against a railroad.

In the winter of 1876-77, a drought almost destroyed the sheep industry in Southern California. As a last resort, the ranchers, seeing the exhausted condition of their ranges, started to drive their sheep to Arizona, New Mexico or Utah; but most of them fell by the way.

Again, we had the coincidence of drought and a fatal epidemic of smallpox, not only leaving death in its wake, but incidentally damaging business a good deal. Mrs. Juan Lanfranco was one of those who died; Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Lazard lost a son, and a grocer by the name of Henry Niedecken, who had a little frame store where the Angelus Hotel now stands, as well as many others, succumbed.

FOOTNOTE:

[34] Died, January 13, 1915, in the ninetieth year of his age.