Chapter XXXIX: Proposed State Division

1888-1891

By agreement among property owners, the widening of Fort Street from Second to Ninth began in February, 1888. This was not accomplished without serious opposition, many persons objecting to the change on the ground that it would ruin the appearance of their bordering lots. I was one of those, I am frank to say, who looked with disfavor on the innovation; but time has shown that it was an improvement, the widened street (now known as Broadway), being perhaps the only fine business avenue of which Los Angeles can boast.

Booth and Barrett, the famous tragedians, visited Los Angeles together this winter, giving a notable performance in Child's Opera House, their combined genius showing to greatest advantage in the presentation of _Julius Cæsar_ and _Othello_.

Toward the end of the seventies, I dipped into an amusing volume, _The Rise and Fall of the Mustache_, by Robert J. Burdette--then associated with the _Burlington Hawkeye_--little thinking that a decade later would find the author famous and a permanent resident of Southern California.[42] His wife, Clara Bradley Burdette, whom he married in 1899 and who is well known as a clubwoman, has been associated with him in many local activities.

George Wharton James, an Englishman, also took up his residence in Southern California in 1888, finally settling in Pasadena, although seven years previously he had been an interested visitor in Los Angeles. James has traveled much in the Southwest; and besides lecturing, he has written ten or twelve volumes dealing in a popular manner with the Spanish Missions and kindred subjects.

Through the publication by D. Appleton & Company of one of the early books of value dealing with our section of the State, progress was made, in the late eighties, in durably advertising the Coast. This volume was entitled, _California of the South_; and as a scientifically-prepared guide was written by two fellow-townsmen, Drs. Walter Lindley and J. P. Widney.

Very shortly after their coming to Los Angeles, in April, 1888, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. and Mrs. Tomás Lorenzo Duque with whom I have since been on terms of intimacy. Mr. Duque, a Cuban by birth, is a broad-minded, educated gentleman of the old school.

Frederick William Braun established on May 1st, at 127 New High Street, the first exclusively wholesale drug house in Southern California, later removing to 287 North Main Street, once the site of the adobe in which I was married.

The same season my brother, whose health had become precarious, was again compelled to take a European trip; and it was upon his return in September, 1890, that he settled in Los Angeles, building his home at 1043 South Grand Avenue, but a few doors from mine.

The coast-line branch of the Santa Fé Railroad was opened in August between Los Angeles and San Diego.

W. E. Hughes has been credited with suggesting the second and present Chamber of Commerce, and J. F. Humphreys is said to have christened it when it was organized on October 15th. E. W. Jones was the first President and Thomas A. Lewis the first Secretary. In addition to these, S. B. Lewis, Colonel H. G. Otis, J. V. Wachtel (a son-in-law of L. J. Rose), Colonel I. R. Dunkelberger and William H. Workman are entitled to a great deal of credit for the movement. So well known is this institution, even internationally, and so much has been written about it, that I need hardly speak of its remarkable and honorable part in developing Southern California and all of the Southland's most valuable resources.

Late in the fall the Los Angeles Theater, a neat brick edifice, was opened on Spring Street, between Second and Third. At that time, other places of amusement were the Childs or Grand Opera House, Mott Hall, over Mott Market--an unassuming room without stage facilities, where Adelina Patti once sang, and where Charles Dickens, Jr., gave a reading from his father's books--and Hazard's Pavilion at Fifth and Olive, built on the present site of the Temple Auditorium by Mayor H. T. Hazard and his associate, George H. Pike. During the Boom especially and for a few years thereafter (as when in 1889, Evangelist Moody held forth), this latter place was very popular; and among celebrities who lectured there was Thomas Nast, _Harpers'_ great cartoonist, who had so much to do with bringing Boss Tweed to justice. As Nast lectured, he gave interesting exhibitions of his genius to illustrate what he had to say; and many of his sketches were very effective. Doubtless alluding to the large audience gathered to do him honor, the artist said: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I will now show you how to draw a big house," whereupon he rapidly sketched one.

On the morning of October 21st, the _Los Angeles Times_ created one of the most noted surprises in the history of American politics, making public the so-called Murchison letters, through which the British diplomat Lord Sackville West, caught strangely napping, was recalled in disgrace from his eminent post as British Minister to Washington. In 1882, George Osgoodby located at Pomona. Though of English grandparents, Osgoodby possessed a strong Republican bias; and wishing to test the attitude of the Administration toward Great Britain, he formed the scheme of fathoming Cleveland's purpose even at the British Minister's expense. Accordingly, on September 4th, 1888--in the midst of the Presidential campaign--he addressed Lord West, signing himself Charles F. Murchison and pretending that he was still a loyal though naturalized Englishman needing advice as to how to vote. "Murchison" reminded his lordship that, just as a small State had defeated Tilden, so "a mere handful of naturalized countrymen might easily carry California." The British Minister was betrayed by the plausible words; and on September 13th he answered the Pomona farmer, at the same time indicating his high regard for Cleveland as a friend of England. Osgoodby gave the correspondence publicity through the _Times_; and instantly the letters were telegraphed throughout America and to England, where they made as painful an impression as they had caused jubilation or anger in this country. How, as a consequence, diplomatic relations between America and England were for a while broken off, is familiar history.

During the winter of 1888-89, Alfred H. and Albert K. Smiley, twin brothers who had amassed a fortune through successful hotel management at summer-resorts in the mountains of New York, came to California and purchased about two hundred acres near Redlands, situated on a ridge commanding a fine view of San Timoteo Cañon; and there they laid out the celebrated Cañon Crest Park, more popularly known as Smiley Heights. They also gave the community a public library. On account of their connections, they were able to attract well-to-do settlers and tourists to their neighborhood and so contribute, in an important way, to the development and fame of Redlands.

The City Hall was erected, during the years 1888-89, on the east side of Broadway between Second and Third streets on property once belonging to L. H. Titus. As a detail indicating the industrial conditions of that period, I may note that John Hanlon, the contractor, looked with pride upon the fact that he employed as many as thirty to forty workmen and all at one time!

Another effort in the direction of separating this part of California from the northern section was made in December, 1888 and here received enthusiastic support. General William Vandever, then a representative in Congress from the Sixth District, introduced into that body a resolution providing for a State to be called South California. Soon after, a mass meeting was held in Hazard's Pavilion, and a campaign was opened with an Executive Committee to further the movement; but--California is still, and I hope will long continue to be, a splendid undivided territory.

On January 1st, 1889, Pasadena held her first Rose Tournament. There were chariot races and other sports, but the principal event was a parade of vehicles of every description which, moving along under the graceful burden of their beautiful floral decorations, presented a magnificent and typically Southern California winter sight. The tournament was so successful that it has become an annual event participated in by many and attracting visitors from near and far. It is managed by a permanent organization, the Tournament of Roses Association, whose members in 1904 presented Tournament Park, one of the City's pleasure-grounds, to Pasadena.

Once outdistanced by both Main and Spring streets, and yet more and more rising to importance as the city grew, Fort Street--a name with an historical significance--in 1889 was officially called Broadway.

Fred L. Baker, who reached Los Angeles with his father, Milo Baker in 1874, designed in 1889, and when he was but twenty-four years of age, the first locomotive built in Los Angeles. It was constructed at the Baker Iron Works for the Los Angeles County Railroad, and was dubbed the _Providencia_; and when completed it weighed fifteen tons.

On February 16th, Jean Louis Sainsevain, everywhere pleasantly known as Don Louis, died here, aged seventy-three years.

I have spoken of L. J. Rose's love for thoroughbred horses. His most notable possession was _Stamboul_, the celebrated stallion, which he sold for fifty thousand dollars. At Rose Meade, toward the end of the eighties, there were about a hundred and twenty pedigreed horses; and at a sale in 1889 fifty of these brought one hundred and ninety thousand dollars. This reminds me that early in April, the same year, Nicolás Covarrúbias (in whose stable on Los Angeles Street, but a short time before, nearly a hundred horses had perished by fire) sold _Gladstone_ to L. H. Titus for twenty-five hundred dollars.

General Volney E. Howard died in May, aged eighty years, just ten years after he had concluded his last notable public service as a member of the State Constitutional Convention.

One of those who well illustrate the constant search for the ideal is Dr. Joseph Kurtz. In the spring of 1889 he toured Europe to inspect clinics and hospitals; and inspired by what he had seen, he helped, on his return, to more firmly establish the Medical College of Los Angeles, later and now a branch of the University of California.

In 1889, I built another residence at 1051 South Grand Avenue, and there we lived for several years. As in the case of our Fort Street home, in which four of our children died, so here again joy changed to sorrow when, on November 18th, 1890, our youngest daughter, Josephine Rose, was taken from us at the age of eight years.

The Los Angeles Public Library was once more moved in July from the Downey Block to the City Hall where, with some six thousand books and about one hundred and thirty members, it remained until April, 1906, when it was transferred by Librarian Charles F. Lummis to the Annex of the Laughlin Building. It then had over one hundred thousand volumes. In the fall of 1908, it was removed to the new Hamburger Building.

Colonel James G. Eastman, who arrived in Los Angeles during the late sixties, associated himself with Anson Brunson in the practice of law and, as a cultured and aristocratic member of the Bar, became well known. For the centennial celebration here he was chosen to deliver the oration; yet thirteen years later he died in the County Poorhouse, having in the meantime sunk to the lowest depths of degradation. Drinking himself literally into the gutter, he lost his self-respect and finally married a common squaw.

The early attempts to create another county, of which Anaheim was to have been the seat, are known. In 1889, the struggle for division was renewed, but under changed conditions. Santa Ana, now become an important town and nearer the heart of the proposed new county, was the more logical center; but although Anaheim had formerly strongly advocated the separation, she now opposed it. The Legislature, however, authorized the divorce, and the citizens chose Santa Ana as their county seat; and thus on August 1st, Orange County began its independence.

Although the cable lines on Second and Temple streets were not unqualified successes, J. F. Crank and Herman Silver in 1887 obtained a franchise for the construction of a double-track cable railway in Los Angeles, and in 1889 both the Boyle Heights and the Downey Avenue lines were in operation. On August 3d, 1889, the Boyle Heights section of the Los Angeles Cable Railway was inaugurated with a luncheon at the Power House--invitations to which had been sent out by the Boyle Heights Board of Trade, William H. Workman, President--preceded by a parade of cars; and on November 2d, the official opening with its procession of trains on the Downey Avenue line culminated, at noon, with speech-making at the Downey Avenue Bridge, and in the evening with a sham battle and fireworks. Some old-timers took part in the literary exercises, and among others I may mention Mayor Henry T. Hazard, Dr. J. S. Griffin, General R. H. Chapman and the Vice-President and Superintendent of the system, J. C. Robinson. The East Los Angeles line started at Jefferson Street, ran north on Grand Avenue to Seventh, east on Seventh to Broadway, north on Broadway to First, east on First to Spring, north on Spring to the Plaza, down San Fernando Street, then on the viaduct built over the Southern Pacific tracks and thence out Downey Avenue. The Boyle Heights line started on Seventh Street at Alvarado, ran along Seventh to Broadway, up Broadway to First and east on that street to the junction of First and Chicago streets. Quite a million dollars, it is said, was invested in the machinery and tracks--so soon to give way to the more practicable electric trolley trams--to say nothing of the expenditures for rolling stock; and for the time being the local transportation problem seemed solved, although the cars first used were open, without glass windows, and the passengers in bad weather were protected only by curtains sliding up and down. To further celebrate the accomplishment, a banquet was given Colonel J. C. Robinson on December 18th, 1889. Herman Silver, to whom I have just referred, had not only an interesting association as a friend of Lincoln, but was a splendid type of citizen. He achieved distinction in many activities, but especially as President of the City Council.

On November 4th, Bernard Cohn, one of the originators of Hellman, Haas & Company (now Haas, Baruch & Company, the well-known grocers), and a pioneer of 1856, died. During the late seventies and early eighties, he was a man of much importance, both as a merchant and a City Father, sitting in the Council of 1888 and becoming remarkably well-read in the ordinances and decrees of the Los Angeles of his day.

Like Abbot Kinney, Dr. Norman Bridge, an authority on tuberculosis, came to Sierra Madre in search of health, in 1890; lived for a while after that at Pasadena, and finally settled in Los Angeles. Five or six years after he arrived here, Dr. Bridge began to invest in Californian and Mexican oil and gas properties. Despite his busy life, he has found time to further higher culture, having served as Trustee of the Throop Institute and as President of the Southwest Museum, to both of which institutions he has made valuable contributions; while he has published two scholarly volumes of essays and addresses.

Thomas Edward Gibbon who, since his arrival in 1888, has influenced some of the most important movements for the benefit of Los Angeles, and whose activities have been so diversified, in 1890 bought the _Daily Herald_, becoming for several years the President of its organization and its managing editor. During his incumbency, Gibbon filled the columns with mighty interesting reading.

After living in Los Angeles thirty years and having already achieved much, I. W. Hellman moved to San Francisco on March 2d, 1890, and there reorganized the Nevada Bank. Still a resident of the northern city, he has become a vital part of its life and preëminent in its financial affairs.

Judge Walter Van Dyke was here in the early fifties, although it was some years before I knew him; and I am told that at that time he almost concluded a partnership with Judge Hayes for the practice of law. He was Judge of the Superior Court when the City of Los Angeles claimed title--while I was President of the Temple Block Company--to about nine feet of the north end of Temple Block. The instigator of this suit was Louis Mesmer, who saw the advantage that would accrue to his property, at the corner of Main and Requena streets, if the square should be enlarged; but we won the case. A principal witness for us was José Mascarel, and our attorneys were Stephen M. White and Houghton, Silent & Campbell. My second experience with Judge Van Dyke was in 1899, when I bought a lot from him at Santa Monica. This attempt to enlarge the area at the junction reminds me of the days when the young folks of that neighborhood used to play tag and other games there. Baseball, here called town-ball, was another game indulged in at that place.

Temple Block came to be known as Lawyer's Block because the upper floors were largely given over to members of that profession; and many of the attorneys I have had occasion to speak of as being here after our acquisition of the building had their headquarters there. Thus I became acquainted with Judge Charles Silent who, like his partner, Sherman Otis Houghton, hailed from San José in 1886, or possibly 1885, the two doubtless coming together. Judge Houghton brought with him a reputation for great physical and moral courage; and the two friends formed with Alexander Campbell the law firm of Houghton, Silent & Campbell. Judge Charles Silent, a native of Baden, Germany (born Stumm, a name Englished on naturalization), father of Edward D. Silent and father-in-law of Frank J. Thomas, once served as Supreme Court Judge in Arizona, to which office he was appointed by President Hayes; and since his arrival here, he has occupied a position of prime importance, not only on account of his qualifications as an attorney but also through the invaluable service he has always rendered this community. The judge now possesses a splendid orange orchard near the foothills, where he is passing his declining years. In the same way I had pleasant relations with the barrister, C. White Mortimer, for a long time the popular English Vice-consul, who came from Toronto. Among other attorneys whom it was a pleasure to know were Aurelius W. Hutton; John D. Bicknell (once a partner of Stephen M. White); J. H. Blanchard; Albert M. Stephens; General John Mansfield (who, by the way, was the first Lieutenant-Governor under the Constitution of 1879); Thomas B. Brown, District Attorney from 1880 until 1882; Will D. Gould; Julius Brousseau; J. R. Dupuy, twice District Attorney; and General J. R. McConnell. Most of these gentlemen were here before 1880. On the twentieth of January, 1889, M. L. Graff, a practicing attorney, reached Los Angeles, and until my family broke up housekeeping, he was a regular and welcome visitor in my home.

Ferdinand K. Rule came to Southern California in 1890 and soon after associated himself with the old Los Angeles Terminal Railroad. He was a whole-souled, generous man, and was henceforth identified with nearly every movement for the welfare of his adopted city.

Charles Dudley Warner, the distinguished American author, revisited Los Angeles in May, 1890, having first come here in March, three years before, while roughing it on a tour through California described in his book, _On Horseback_, published in 1888. On his second trip, Warner, who was editor of _Harper's Magazine_, came ostensibly in the service of the Harpers, that firm later issuing his appreciative and well-illustrated volume, _Our Italy_, in which he suggested certain comparisons between Southern California and Southern Europe; but the Santa Fé Railroad Company, then particularly desirous of attracting Easterners to the Coast, really sent out the author, footing most if not all of the bills. Mrs. Custer, widow of the General, was another guest of the Santa Fé; and she also wrote about Southern California for periodicals in the East.

News of the death, in New York City, of General John C. Frémont was received here the day after, on July 14th, and caused profound regret.

In the fall, Henry H. Markham stood for the governorship of California and was elected, defeating ex-Mayor Pond of San Francisco by a majority of about eight thousand votes--thereby enabling the Southland to boast of having again supplied the foremost dignitary of the State.

After several years of post-graduate study in higher institutions of learning in Germany, Leo Newmark, son of J. P. Newmark, in 1887 received his degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Strassburg. He then served in leading European hospitals, returning in 1890 to his native city, San Francisco, where he has attained much more than local eminence in his specialty, the diseases of the nerves.

The public pleasure-grounds later known as Hollenbeck Park were given to the City, in 1890-91, by William H. Workman and Mrs. J. E. Hollenbeck, Workman donating two-thirds and Mrs. Hollenbeck one-third of the land. Workman also laid out the walks and built the dam before the transfer to the City authorities. Mrs. Hollenbeck suggested the title, Workman-Hollenbeck Park; but Billy's proverbial modesty led him to omit his own name. At about the same time, Mrs. Hollenbeck, recognizing the need of a refuge for worthy old people, and wishing to create a fitting memorial to her husband (who had died in 1885), endowed the Hollenbeck Home with thirteen and a half acres in the Boyle Heights district; to maintain which, she deeded, in trust to John D. Bicknell, John M. Elliott, Frank A. Gibson, Charles L. Batcheller and J. S. Chapman, several valuable properties, the most notable being the Hollenbeck Hotel and a block on Broadway near Seventh.

More than once I have referred to the Chino Ranch, long the home of pioneer Isaac Williams. In his most extravagant dreams, he could not have foreseen that, in the years 1890-91 there would grow on many of his broad acres the much-needed sugar-beet; nor could he have known that the first factory in the Southland to extract sugar from that source would be erected in a town bearing the name of Chino. The inauguration of this important activity in Southern California was due to Henry T. and Robert Oxnard, the last-named then being engaged in cane-sugar refining in San Francisco. Henry T., who had previously ventured in the beet-sugar field in Nebraska, while on the Coast was impressed with the possibilities in our soil and climate; and after a survey of the State, he reached the conclusion that of all California the South offered the conditions most favorable to his plans. Accordingly, he entered into negotiations with Richard Gird, then the owner of the Chino Ranch, who made some preliminary experiments; and the outcome was the factory started there in the season of 1890-91, under the superintendency of Dr. Portius, a German agricultural chemist. In this initial enterprise the Oxnards met with such success that they extended their operations, in 1898 establishing a second and larger factory in Ventura County, in what soon came to be called Oxnard, Dr. Portius again taking charge.

Five or six years after the Oxnards opened their Chino factory, J. Ross Clark and his brother, Senator William A. Clark, commenced the erection of a plant at Alamitos; and in the summer of 1897, the first beets there were sliced, under the superintendency of G. S. Dyer, now in Honolulu. Since then, under a protective policy, several more refineries have started up in the neighborhood of Los Angeles.

In January, 1891, the Home of Peace Society was organized by the Hebrew ladies of Los Angeles, largely through the exertions of Mrs. M. Kremer, who was the first to conceive the idea of uniting Jewish women for the purpose of properly caring for and beautifying the last resting-place of their dead.

Amos G. Throop, of Chicago, more familiarly known among his friends and fellow-citizens as Father Throop, founded at Pasadena in 1891 the institution at first called Throop University and now known as the Throop College of Technology, giving it two hundred thousand dollars and becoming its first President. The next year, when it was decided to specialize in manual training and polytechnic subjects, the name was again changed--remaining, until 1913, Throop Polytechnic Institute.

The Southern California Science Association, later called the Southern California Academy of Science, was organized in 1891 with Dr. A. Davidson as its first President, and Mrs. Mary E. Hart as Secretary. For five years, it struggled for existence; but having been reorganized and incorporated in 1896, it has steadily become a factor for intellectual progress.

The Friday Morning Club began its existence in April, 1891, as one of the social forces in the city, many of the leading lecturers of the country finding a place on its platform; and in 1899 the Club built its present attractive home on Figueroa Street.

As far as I was familiar with the facts, I have endeavored in these recollections to emphasize the careers of those who from little have builded much, and quite naturally think of William Dennison Stephens whom I came to know through his association as a salesman from 1891 until 1902 with M. A. Newmark & Company, after which he engaged with J. E. Carr on Broadway, between Sixth and Seventh streets, in the retail grocery business. Much of his success I attribute to honest, steady purpose and a winning geniality. By leaps and bounds, Stephens has advanced--in 1907 to the presidency of the Chamber of Commerce; in 1908 to the grand commandership of Knights Templars in California; in 1909 to the mayoralty of Los Angeles; and in 1910 to one of the advisory committee for the building of the aqueduct. At present, he is the Congressman from the Tenth Congressional District.

Three years before Congressman Stephens entered the employ of the Newmarks, Robert L. Craig had just severed his relations with them to form, with R. H. Howell of Louisiana, the third wholesale grocery house to come to Los Angeles. In the course of a few years, Howell & Craig sold out; but Craig, being young and ambitious, was not long in organizing another wholesale grocery known as Craig & Stuart, which was succeeded by R. L. Craig & Company. At Craig's untimely death, Mrs. Craig, a woman of unusual mental talent, took the reins and, as one of the few women wholesale grocers in the country, has since guided the destinies of the concern; still finding time, in her arduous life, to serve the public as a very wide-awake member of the Board of Education.

Four other names of those once associated with my successors and who have been instrumental in establishing important commercial houses here are, P. A., a brother of M. A. Newmark; E. J. Levy; Frank Humphreys, now deceased; and D. Wiebers. The first-named, for some years connected with Brownstein, Newmark & Louis--now Brownstein & Louis--inaugurated and is at the head of P. A. Newmark & Company; while Levy, Humphreys and Wiebers incorporated the Standard Wooden Ware Company.

In 1891, the Terminal Railroad was completed from Los Angeles to East San Pedro, and rapid connection was thus established between Pasadena and the ocean, the accomplishment being celebrated, on November 14th, by an excursion. The road ran _via_ Long Beach and Rattlesnake, later known as Terminal Island--a place that might become, it was hoped, the terminus of one of the great transcontinental railroads; and since the island is now the end of the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad, that hope has been realized. It was in connection with this railway enterprise that Long Beach made the great mistake of giving away the right of thoroughfare along her ocean front.

FOOTNOTE:

[42] Dr. Burdette died on November 19th, 1914.