Random Shots From Our 12-Bore

Nov. 28, 1907
Los Angeles

• Ocean Park banned serving alcohol to soldiers in uniform because drunk Civil War veterans from the soldiers home in Sawtelle “were seen reeling about the saloons.”
  

• A racing team preparing for the upcoming hill climb on the Box Springs Grade hit a horse and buggy at 45 mph. The Times says the horse veered into the path of the auto, which struck the animal broadside, carrying it 40 feet and throwing it into a ditch. The badly injured animal was shot. Neither the buggy driver nor the men in the car were seriously hurt.
  

• Dick Malone, a handicapped man from Sioux City, Iowa, befriended by the Rev. T. Tracy of Church of the Sacred Heart, was arrested at 3rd and Los Angeles on charges of passing forged checks drawn on Tracy’s account.
  

• A noisy rooster on Olive Street has provoked a dispute between two neighbors. Former Indianapolis Police Chief David Powell, 80, complained that a rooster owned by a man named Murphy begins crowing at 3 a.m. Murphy moved his chickens back from the neighbor’s residence, and in revenge has constructed a “spite fence” out of quilts and old clothes that blocks all sunlight going into Powell’s room.

• Miss Godberg, a housekeeper at the home of W.G. Cochran, 1559 W. 2nd St., heard a noise at the front door and upon opening it discovered a man with a handkerchief over his face. She struggled to close the door, but the man forced his way in, so she ripped off his handkerchief and threw him to the floor. The man drew a gun, freed himself from Godberg and fled into the night, The Times says.
  

• George Spence, a solicitor for Collier’s Weekly, was taken to the Receiving Hospital after falling into a hole in the street at 2nd and San Pedro, cutting his head and shoulders and bruising his back.
  

• Workers digging a deep trench at Avalon on Santa Catalina Island discovered prehistoric Indian remains. “Visitors eagerly awaited to snatch every available opportunity and oftentimes even urged the Mexican workers into quicker action so that they could triumphantly carry off as curiosities pieces of the dead and sacred remains of an extinct race,” The Times says.
  

• Walter P. Temple has sued L.F. Lewis over desecration of the family cemetery on the old Workman homestead. The lawsuit says the Workmans, who owned Rancho La Puente, dedicated a portion of the property as a family cemetery, but that Lewis tore down a brick wall, allowing cattle to roam on his ancestors’ graves. Temple’s suit asks that Lewis be barred from any more damage and from plowing over or removing the remains.

An undercover vice investigation went badly wrong when “lady barber” Mary Fisher fled her shop at 451½ S. Main St. clutching a fistful of hair. Police Officer Cook, investigating whether Fisher was offering haircuts and massages as a front for illegal activities, arranged for the full treatment: shave, massage, shoe shine and anything else.

According to The Times, Fisher put steamed towels on Cook’s face, had given him a facial massage and started shaving him when she straightened his hair, only to have his toupee come off in her hand.

“The woman gave one look at the handful of hair sticking to her hand and another at the bald head of her customer and, with a shriek, she dashed for the stairs,” The Times says.

“Hey,” yelled Cook, “give me that hair. I need it!”

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