Harris Newmark

“ His weary brain is ever filled with the phantoms of great inventions and billion-dollar corporations, as his pocketful of maps and diagrams shows; one day launching an aerial navigation company to explore the moon and the next day covering California with railroad lines as thick as are automobiles in the streets of Los Angeles.
On September 21st, my brother, J. P. Newmark, to whom I am so indebted, and who was the cause of my coming to California, died at his home, in the sixty-ninth year of his age; his demise being rather sudden. ”

“ Nor was Armour the only one who was so carried away by the phenomena of the times: San Francisco watched Los Angeles with wonder and interest, marveling at all she heard of the magic changes south of the Teháchepi, and asking herself if Los Angeles might not be able to point the way to better methods of city-building?
I have thus endeavored to give a slight idea of the lack of mental poise displayed by our good people in the year 1887, when the crop of millionaires was so great that to be one was no distinction at all. ”

“ It is, beyond any reasonable comparison, the most characteristic and accurate composite picture we have ever had of an old, brave, human, free, and distinctive life that has changed incredibly to the veneers of modern society. It is the very mirror of who and what the people were that laid the real foundations for a community which is now the wonder of the historian. ”

“ To be sure, Northern arms were more and more victorious, and with the approach of Lincoln's second inauguration the conviction grew that under the leadership of such a man national prosperity might return. Little did we dream that the most dramatic of all tragedies in our history was soon to be enacted. In Southern California the effects of the long drought continued, and the certainty that the cattle-industry, once so vast and flourishing, was now but a memory, discouraged a people to whom the vision of a far more profitable use of the land had not yet been revealed. ”

“ So, too, like the thrill sent through the nation at the firing on Fort Sumter, the startling intelligence of the destruction of the United States battleship Maine electrified and united the people. Along the Coast, intense excitement scarcely permitted Westerners to keep themselves within bounds; and instant was the display of patriotic fervor, Southern Californians willingly shouldering their share of the unavoidable war burdens.
On January 22d, John G. Nichols, several times Mayor of Los Angeles and always a welcome figure on the streets, died here at the age of eighty-five years. ”

“ This characteristic seized upon a vast wilderness—the same which Daniel Webster declared, in the Senate of the United States, unworthy of membership in the sisterhood of States; and within this extensive area it builded great cities, joined its various parts with steel and iron, made great highways out of the once well-nigh impassable cattle-paths, and from an elemental existence developed a complex civilization. Nor is there to-day in all this region a greater or finer city than fair Los Angeles.
Many of us saw it grow; none of us foresaw that growth, even from decade to decade. ”

“ Don Juan had come to California far back in the early twenties, and to Los Angeles so soon thereafter that he was a familiar and welcome figure here many years before I arrived.
It is natural that I should look back with pleasure and satisfaction to my association with a gentleman so typically Californian, warm-hearted, genial and social in the extreme; and one who dispensed so large and generous a hospitality. He came with his father—who eventually died here and was buried at the old San Gabriel Mission—and at one time possessed the Jurupa rancho, where he lived. ”

“ Jackson selected the Del Valle ranchhouse at the Camulos, as the best-preserved and most typical place for a background; although, disappointed in not finding the Del Valles at home, and consequently seeing the imagined headquarters of Ramona for but an hour or two, she was compelled to rely upon her Los Angeles hostess for many of the interesting and singularly accurate details. On departing from Southern California, Mrs. Jackson wrote for the Century Magazine a charming description of life at the old Coronel adobe, whence she never departed without a carriageful of luscious fruit. ”

“ Californians, if they were patient, would yet witness a railroad through the North, another by the Southern route, still another by the Thirty-fifth parallel, a fourth by the central route, and lastly, as the old plantation song goes, one "down the middle!" California needed more population, and railroads were the means by which to get people.
Finally, Mr. Seward spoke of the future prospects of the United States, saying much of peculiar interest in the light of later developments. We were already great, he affirmed; but a nation satisfied with its greatness is a nation without a future. ”

“ As competition waxed keener, dishonest methods were more and more resorted to; thus schemers worked on the public's credulity and so attracted many a wagon-load of people to mass-meetings, called ostensibly for the purpose of advancing some worthy cause but really arranged to make possible an ordinary sale of real estate. An endless chain of free lunches, sources of delight to the hobo element in particular, drew not only these chronic idlers but made a victim of many a worthier man. ”

“ Some thirty-five thousand dollars were spent in furnishing the eighty-odd rooms, and no little splurge was made that guests could there enjoy the luxuries of both gas and baths! In its palmy days, the Pico House welcomed from time to time travelers of wide distinction; while many a pioneer, among them not a few newly-wedded couples now permanently identified with Los Angeles or the Southland, look back to the hostelry as the one surviving building fondly associated with the olden days. ”

“ At midnight, on April 17th, Don António Franco Coronel died at his home in Los Angeles, aged seventy-seven years. In less than four months, his life-long friend, Don Pio Pico died here—on September 11th, aged ninety-three years.
The Belgian hare aberration was a spasmodic craze of the nineties and when I remember what the little rabbit did to our judgment then, it brings to mind the black-tulip bubble of Holland though, in point of genuine foolishness, I should award the prize to the former. ”

“ We have all seen the good-natured, rather stout old gentleman, whose claim to dignity is his old-fashioned Prince Albert and rather battered-looking silk hat, but who, although he boasts many friends, is never successful in the acquisition of this world's goods. We have seen, too, the vender of ice-cream, tamales or similar commodity, who in his youth had been an opera singer or actor, but whose too intensive thirst rendered him impossible in his profession and brought him far down in the world. ”

“ At the age of nineteen, I came to Los Angeles; and after a lapse of exactly sixty years—that is, on October 21st, 1913—I find myself completing these reminiscences, ruminating on the past, and attempting a prophecy for the future.
A battle of eighty years with the world cannot, in the nature of human affairs, leave any man or woman unscarred ”

“ As I have intimated, the principal industry throughout Los Angeles County, and indeed throughout Southern California, up to the sixties, was the raising of cattle and horses—an undertaking favored by a people particularly fond of leisure and knowing little of the latent possibilities in the land; so that this entire area of magnificent soil supported herds which provided the whole population in turn, directly or indirectly, with a livelihood. ”

“ Late in August, the paving of Main Street, the first thoroughfare of Los Angeles to be so improved, was begun, much to the relief of our townspeople who had too long borne the inconvenience of dusty and muddy roadways, and who, after heavy rains the winter before, had in no uncertain fashion given utterance to their disgust at the backward conditions. ”

“ Southern California was now prospering; in fact, the whole State was enjoying wonderful advantages. The great Comstock mines were at the height of their prosperity; the natural resources of this part of the country were being developed; land once hard to sell, at even five dollars an acre, was being cut up into small tracts; new hamlets and towns were starting up; money was plentiful and everybody was happy.
About this time my brother, J. P. Newmark, and I made a little tour, visiting Lake Tahoe—an unusual trip in that day—as well as the mines of Nevada. ”

“ On Friday, June 18th, 1865, I was seated in my little office, when a Los Angeles merchant named David Solomon, whose store was in the Arcadia Block, called upon me and, with much feeling, related that while returning by steamer from the North, Prudent Beaudry had made the senseless boast that he would drive every Jew in Los Angeles out of business. Beaudry, then a man of large means, conducted in his one-story adobe building on the northeast corner of Aliso and Los Angeles streets the largest general merchandise establishment this side of San Francisco. ”

“ Speaking of the social life of those early days, when warm, stimulating friendships and the lack of all foolish caste distinctions rendered the occasions delightfully pleasant, may it not be well to ask whether the contrast between those simple, inexpensive pleasures, and the elaborate and extravagant demands of modern society, is not worth sober thought? To be sure, Los Angeles then was exceedingly small, and pioneers here were much like a large family in plain, unpretentious circumstances. ”

“ At the time of my arrival, the Plaza, long the nucleus of the original settlement, was the center of life in the little community, and around it clustered the homes of many of those who were uppermost in the social scale, although some of the descendants of the finest Spanish families were living in other parts of the city. This was particularly so in the case of José Andrés Sepúlveda, who had a beautiful old adobe on some acreage that he owned northwest of Sonora Town, near the place where he constructed a stone reservoir to supply his house with water. ”

“ As I have already remarked, the coming of the Santa Fé—as well as the ensuing railroad war—was a very potent factor in this temporary growth and advance in values; and soon after the railroad's advent, a dozen towns had been laid out on the line between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, the number doubling within a few months. Indeed, had the plan of the boomers succeeded, the whole stretch between the two cities would have been solidly built up with what in the end proved, alas! to be but castles in the air. ”

“ The rapidly-increasing demand for lots and houses caused hundreds of men and women to enter the local real-estate field, most of whom were inexperienced and without much responsibility. When, 570 therefore, the news of their phenomenal activity got abroad, as was sure to be the case, hordes of would-be speculators—some with, but more without knowledge of land-manipulation, and many none too scrupulous—rushed to the Southland to invest, wager or swindle. Thousands upon thousands of Easterners swelled the number already here; dealers in realty sprang up like mushrooms. ”

“ At half-past eight o'clock on the morning of January 9th, a tremor shook the earth from North to South; the first shocks being light, the quake grew in power until houses were deserted, men, women and children sought refuge in the streets, and horses and cattle broke loose in wild alarm. For perhaps two, or two and a half minutes, the temblor continued and much damage was done. Los Angeles felt the disturbance far less than many other places, although five to six shocks were noted and twenty times during the week people were frightened from their homes ”

“ Indeed, chief among the surprises greeting me during my first few weeks upon the Coast, the many and flourishing gambling dens caused me the greatest astonishment.
Through the most popular of these districts, a newly-found friend escorted me on the evening of my arrival in Los Angeles. The quarter was known by the euphonious title of Calle de los Negros—Nigger Alley; and this alley was a thoroughfare not over forty feet wide which led from Aliso Street to the Plaza, an extent of just one unbroken block. ”

“ Having in mind the sojourn in Los Angeles for years of these representative Americans, the following editorial from the Los Angeles Star on the departure of the future General and Presidential nominee, seems to me now of more than passing significance:
While resident here, Captain Hancock took great interest in our citizens, the development of our resources, and the welfare of this section of the country; and as a public-spirited, enterprising gentleman, he will be missed from among us, and his most estimable lady will long live in the hearts of her many friends. ”

“ John Strother Griffin, for nearly fifty years one of the most efficient and honored residents of Los Angeles, died here.
A career such as should inspire American youth is that of Henry T. Gage (long in partnership with the well-known bibliophile, W. I. Foley,) a native of New York who in 1877, at the age of twenty-four, began the practice of law in Los Angeles, to be elected, twenty-one years later, Governor of California. A handsome man, of splendid physique—acquired, perhaps, when he started as a sheep-dealer—he is also genial in temperament, and powerful and persuasive in oratory ”

“ He engaged in indiscriminate speculation, for a time legitimatizing illegitimacy, and people were so incited by his example that they plunged without heed. All of Nevada's treasure was shipped to San Francisco, whose prosperity was phenomenal. From San Francisco the excitement spread 478 throughout the State; but these conditions, from the nature of things, could not endure. From Bull to Bear is but a short step when the public is concerned, and it happened accordingly, as it so frequently does, that the cry of "Save yourself, if you can!" involved California in a general demoralization. ”

“ Just about the time when I first gazed upon the scattered houses of our little pueblo, the Pacific Railway Expedition, sent out from Washington, prepared and published a tinted lithograph sketch of Los Angeles, now rather rare. In 1867, Stephen A. Rendall, an Englishman of Angora goat fame, who had been here, off and on, as a photographer, devised one of the first large panoramas of Los Angeles, which he sold by advance subscription. It was made in sections; and as the only view of that year extant, it also has become notable as an historical souvenir. ”

“ Here it may be interesting to add that on our way across the Isthmus, we met a crowd of disappointed travelers returning from the Golden Gate, on their way toward New York. They were a discouraged lot and loudly declared that California was nothing short of a fiasco; but, fortunately, there prevailed that weakness of human nature which impels every man to earn his own experience, else, following the advice of these discomfited people, some of us might have retraced our steps and thus completely altered our destinies. ”

“ From forty million dollars in March, 1886, the wealth of the county jumped, in just two years, to one hundred and three millions. So many, indeed, were the purchasers of real estate in Los Angeles at that time who soon left the town and were seldom or never heard of again, and so many were the sales effected by proxy, that even in August of 1887 one of the newspapers contained over three pages of taxes listed on property whose possessors were unknown.
During this wild excitement, few men of position or reputation who came to town escaped interrogation as to what they thought of the Boom. ”

“ The mention of these names recalls the auction of past decades, such a familiar feature of Los Angeles life. In few respects were the methods of early days at all like those of our own: there were no catalogues, no neatly-arranged store-rooms and but little expert service; noise and bluff constituted a good, even important portion of the necessary auctioneering talent; household effects were usually offered at homes; horses—and these constituted the objects of most early auctioneering activities—were trotted up and down Los Angeles Street for display and sale. ”