Postcards From the Past

The Hotel Green, Pasadena

The Bridge

March 15, 2007
South Pasadena

Here’s the Gold Line, its passengers mercifully unaware that they are zipping along to Pasadena in the “Gorge of Eternal Peril” beneath “The Bridge of Death.”

Here’s a close-up of a patch made to fix one of the 1907 cracks in the bridge. And yes, the darn thing is still standing. Hm. Maybe I should call it “The Bridge of Hope” instead.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Forget Bird Flu, This Is Serious

March 7, 1907
Los Angeles

A dreadful disease called acute glanders has been discovered in a horse and veterinarian R.J. Ramage ordered that the animal be destroyed immediately.

In addition to rapidly causing death, acute glanders can be spread from horses to humans and there is no known cure, at least in 1907. Apparently several men in Los Angeles County died of acute glanders in 1893.

Since glanders is often found in horses’ nasal passages, local veterinarians want to ban wooden water troughs from city streets, saying that they are a breeding ground for the disease.

In 1911, Pasadena authorities ordered that 14 horses owned by the Pasadena Ice Co. be shot to death because they had the disease. The county veterinarian also quarantined a stable occupied by a dozen horses and “a number of Chinese” after detecting acute glanders.

“The disease is so infectious that it can be contracted by a horse sneezing in one’s eye,” said county Veterinarian W.B. Rowland.

In 1909, Ramage, of 831 S. Los Angeles St., went on a violent rampage at the Alpine Tavern on Mt. Lowe and it took 11 men to get him under control.

“At the tavern, the man created notice by talking continually to himself and created a disturbance by falling on his knees in the ashes of the fireplace; bowing his head down almost to the embers and offering violent words of prayer,” The Times says.

“Two physicians, formerly of the Southern California Hospital for the Insane at Patton, happened to be present and, taking ropes which were brought, demonstrated that they knew how to handle a crazy man.”

After being taken to Pasadena, Ramage was put in a car for the ride to the county hospital. “All the way to Los Angeles, the unfortunate man screamed and struggled, endeavoring to throw himself from the swiftly moving machine,” The Times says.

Eventually, Ramage recovered and told hospital attendants that he had suffering from mania for years. “He had only a dim recollection of the trouble he went through there.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Soccer Returns

Feb. 23, 1907
Los Angeles

The Scotch Thistles beat the English Victorias 3-2 in Southern California’s first soccer game since the Caledonians and the Pasadena team met at Agricultural Park in 1890, The Times says.

Despite the poor condition of the field, the players displayed excellent skill and teamwork. The Times said the teams were only formed three month before and notes that more teams were expected next year.

“As a good, healthful sport, requiring both athletic training and skill, ‘soccer’ seems to have a place to fill here as elsewhere. Apparently, however, it is even less qualified than rugby to take the place of American football,” The Times says.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Speaking of the Weather

Feb. 22, 1907
Los Angeles

Here’s how The Times weather stories read a century ago:

“For all the daylight hours yesterday, the rain drizzled down, much of the time like a heavy Scotch mist, but toward nightfall the storm deepened and the rain began to fall in earnest. For two hours in the early part of the night there was a constant downpour that soon set the gutters running full and brought about the usual results to the streets near the hill district.

“The wash from the highways intersecting the hills poured down onto the streets of the business section and deposits of sand and gravel caused much inconvenience to electric cars. At several of the intersections on Broadway and Hill streets, men were stationed with shovels to keep the tracks passable for cars.

“The rain disarranged schedules for several of the car lines and much trouble was experienced on both the Belt line and the Brooklyn Avenue line to get the cars around the numerous curves overwashed with gravel.”

“No special damage was done by the storm in Garvanza, although the streets were cut up in some cases. At Highland Park, a swift current flowed down Pasadena Avenue, cutting that street badly in several places.

“Right in the midst of yesterday’s rain, a water pipe on Broadway in front of the Ville de Paris broke and when workmen made excavations to mend the pipe, the water got beyond control and shot up into the air on a level with the fourth story of the building. Hundreds of pedestrians stopped in the rain to watch the great fountain play and it added much to the waters rushing down the street.”

Normally, I don’t like to merely copy what ran in The Times, but sometimes it’s impossible to rewrite the stories and preserve the original flavor.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Architectural Ramblings

Feb. 10, 1907
Los Angeles

The Times features a hillside home "near the ostrich farm" in Pasadena. Presumably that was the Cawston farm in South Pasadena. (What, South Pasadena, again?) Unfortunately, many of the homes photographed for The Times in 1907 have been torn down in the city of Los Angeles, replaced by parking lots, warehouses, etc. Not so in suburban South Pasadena.

lmharnisch.com
lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Architectural Ramblings

Feb. 4, 2007
South Pasadena

The Times publishes three architectural drawings of “artistic bungalows” prepared by the firm of Wilson and Barnes. One is being built by W.E. Fox on Columbia near Sunset Boulevard, the second by Dr. T.H. Lowers on Main Street in Alhambra and the third by A.J. Padau on Marengo in South Pasadena “near the Monrovia car line.”

The Times says of Padau’s home: “This, perhaps, is the best located of the three houses, as from its windows can be seen the entire panorama of mountain and valley to the north and east. It is strictly modern in its design. A feature of the exterior is the broad span from corner to corner of the porch, affording an unobstructed view from the large living room in the front of the house. There are five rooms in the little structure. The cost was $2,500 ($51,308.93 USD 2005).”

Here’s the home I found at 1517 Marengo, which is similar to the design (note the front porch) but has many minor differences.

Ps. Jim Draeger of the Wisconsin Historical Society sends along a link to the patent for Ducker Portable Homes, which I wrote about here.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

An Apostle of the Past

Jan. 28, 1907
Los Angeles

William Jennings Bryan stepped from the Owl train to be greeted by a long-waiting crowd.

“In appearance, Mr. Bryan has changed but little since he was last in Los Angeles,” The Times says. “In his manner, also, there has been little, if any, change, and he greeted his friends with the same fervor and showed the same remarkable talent for remembering names.”

From the Arcade Station, Bryan and his wife were transported by auto to the home of Nathan Cole on Pasadena Avenue. They took the Mt. Lowe railway and in the evening, he addressed a capacity audience at Simpson Auditorium in a benefit for the Lark Ellen Home for Boys.

At 47, Bryan was no longer the fiery orator of his youth, The Times says. Instead, he was a gentle idealist who “talked of the thousand little things that had found his favor on five continents, and a packed audience listened with almost breathless attention.”

“They liked the esthetic idealism of this older Bryan,” The Times says of the audience. “All along the many curving rows of seats, there was a leaning forward, as if to catch some word that had been lost, and a whispering sigh of regret.”

“In soft, sweet periods, reminiscent of ‘Gray’s Elegy,’ he lauded the age of belief, the age of dreams. Touchingly, he quoted from John Boyle O’Reilly, ‘For the dreamer lives forever, but the toiler dies in a day.’ ”

“William Jennings Bryan, making a simple discourse of so pretentious a subject as ‘The Old World and Its Ways’ showed himself still, as in the promulgation of strong beliefs that lie near his heart, the apostle of the past.”

The next day, there was a trip to Santa Catalina Island for the Bryans and 100 guests, followed by banquet hosted by local Democrats. Before leaving for Salt Lake City, he addressed the students of Polytechnic High School and attended a reception at the Chamber of Commerce.

Eighteen years later, Bryan and Clarence Darrow met in Dayton, Tenn., for the Scopes Monkey Trial. He died two days after the trial’s conclusion.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

The Floods

Jan. 9-10, 1907

The worst storm in 23 years blew across Southern California with the force of a gale, dumping more than an inch of rain in Pasadena, killing an Orange County rancher, washing out railroad tracks and collapsing tunnels, and leaving nearly every small ship in Santa Barbara sunk, driven ashore or pounded to pieces.

Floodwaters destroyed a railroad bridge under construction near Ventura, cutting off the Southern Pacific’s coastal rail service, and at Summerland, oil rigs along the shore were ripped to pieces. The San Fernando Valley was especially hard hit: The Times reports that a bridge over the Big Tujunga Wash was underwater and that the river was a mile wide and impassible. The roar of water at Pacoima can be heard two miles away, The Times says.

The Arroyo Seco tore out a railroad line and threw freight cars as if they were toys, carrying a torrent of trash and broken trees down from the mountains through Pasadena.

South of downtown, the Los Angeles River was at flood stage and threatening to destroy the 7^th Street Bridge, where pedestrians were warned that they crossed at their own risk.

Many avenues were flooded from curb to curb and churning water threw aside heavy iron manhole covers and flowed from the storm sewers, turning streets (paved and unpaved) into rivers. Streetcars plying the flooded boulevards looked like ships sailing in canals and gallant conductors carried female passengers through the water to the curb.

A 75-year-old Santa Ana rancher was killed when the buggy in which he and his brother were riding was washed away as they tried to trying to cross Santiago Creek. The horse panicked in the raging flood and the buggy overturned. Ralph Williams, who was visiting from the East, was able to grab a willow branch and save himself, but his brother Charles was carried downstream, where his body was eventually found.

“The fording of torrents on the hill streets has seemed fraught with peril,” The Times says, “but the thousands of hardy adventurers, who have braved the currents all live to tell the tale. None has been swept away to a watery death in the many deep lakes which were formed about the city.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

A Cold Dose of Reality

Jan. 8, 1907
Los Angeles

Perhaps Mayor Arthur C. Harper and the incoming slate of officials are focused on how they will divide the spoils of the city and assign patronage jobs, although the mayor says the “last seat at the pie counter” was taken days ago.

The average Angeleno is more worried about getting even a bit of coal for the furnace. Conditions in Pasadena have been so dire that people are going to the coal yards with wheelbarrows in hopes of getting enough to scrape by. The Times notes that throughout the city, people are rummaging through attics and basements looking for anything that might be burned for a little heat.

Today, an anonymous writer provides a humorous look at trying to get some coal.

“I am a prominent citizen of Los Angeles,” he says. “I state the bald fact because my book of press notices has gone. We threw it into the dying stove immediately following the burning of the family photograph album. Unless we get fuel today, the baby’s cradle follows the book of press notices.”

“We breakfasted in furs. We had cold milk and doctor somebody’s breakfast food, which latter is a poor substitute for sofa stuffing.”

Coal was apparently being rationed in Los Angeles, five sacks to a customer, and the buyers had to go down to the coal yard and get it themselves. “Sixty cents a sack and 5 cents apiece for the sacks, and you do your delivering. Best we can do,” says a clerk.

In the rain, the writer says, he found an express man willing to get the coal and bring it to the house. Normally, the deliveryman might charge $1 ($20.52 USD 2005) for a four-hour job, but now he wanted 75 cents an hour.

“I gave him the money to buy the coal and saw him disappear in the drizzle,” the writer says. “I hurried off home as fast as I could to revive the flagging spirits of my family....

“In just a little while, I told them, we would be sitting by the side of a cheery, crackling blaze.”

Hour after hour, and no coal.

Finally the deliveryman arrived. With an empty wagon.

“Say mister,” he said. “Honest I didn’t have the nerve to stay there any longer and use up your money. You won’t never get no coal.”

“No coal,” I echoed.

“Sure not. When I went down there I found nearly 30 wagons lined up there at the yard waiting to get coal. And the fellows shoveling it out weren’t in any hurry, either. When I came away, there were at least 30 or 40 more wagons waiting behind me. The coal yard looked like a country fair.

“I waited four hours and I didn’t seem much nearer the coal than when I started. I thought you might need a little of your money yourself. So I gave it up and came back.”

The writer concludes: “I have paid $3; I have wasted a day telephoning to people who laughed at me. I have probably sacrificed my immortal soul.

“But I haven’t got any coal.”

The precise reasons for the “coal famine” would take a bit too long to track down for today’s post. From late 1906 to early 1907, The Times is full of stories about coal shortages throughout the U.S., complicated by allegations of price fixing, trusts, trade restriction and diversion of coal shipments to other cities, such as San Francisco, that were also out of fuel.

One news story sums it up nicely: “Has the coal famine become widespread? Listen to an old-timer on the market: ‘The only place that hasn’t complained for the lack of coal is hell.’ ”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Alive!

Dec. 7, 1906-Dec. 22, 1906,
Bakersfield

Jan. 1, 1907
Los Angeles

For 15 days, miner Lindsay P. Hicks lay trapped by a cave-in that killed his five companions tunneling in a mountain above the Kern River for an Edison hydroelectric project. On the 16th day, crews finally cut through the last of the steel and scraped away rocks and debris to free the man who had been kept alive with gallons of milk poured down a 60-foot iron pipe.

At first, Edison officials assumed that no one survived the collapse of the tunnel. Then someone heard the faint signal tapped on one of the steel rails for the mining cars: the code for “trapped miner.” The iron pipe was driven through the side of the mountain to provide air and food as Hicks lay either under a rail car or next to it, sheltered by a pile of collapsed timbers that prevented him from being crushed.



The painfully slow rescue was hampered by the mountain’s decomposed granite, which collapsed like sand, The Times said. To buoy Hicks’ spirits, a phonograph was placed next to the pipe and records were played for him, interspersed with jokes and stories told by men on the surface. The stench of the dead miners’ decaying bodies wafted up through the tube and Hicks complained of fighting off rats that scampered over him.

Then, at 11:23 p.m. on Dec. 23, Hicks was freed. “The last cut on the second rail was made at 11:12 and no sooner was the section removed and the way left open than Hicks began to scrape away the rocks and dirt and crawl toward the opening,” The Times said.

He stopped because he was out of breath, moved a few more inches and was pulled to freedom. With tears in his eyes, the doctor asked: “Well how are you, old boy?”

“I am feeling fine. I can never thank you, doc, for what you have done.”

On New Year’s Eve, Hicks went into show business at the Elks Hall in Los Angeles, but the subject of the heroic rescue was a terrible disappointment. “The reporter who quoted Hicks as shouting tidbits of Shakespeare up the pipe to his rescuers has an awful lot to answer for in the next world,” The Times said.

“Hicks was planted in front of an enormous cuspidor,” The Times said of his performance. “His broad Kentucky black slouch hat was pulled down dejectedly over his eyes. His overcoat was over his ears. He could find no cheer even in his new store clothes or in the amazing gilt watch chain that dangled from his vest pocket.”

Displayed on stage were Hicks’ well-worn pants from his ordeal, his shoes and a piece of the pipe that was his lifeline. “Hicks occasionally glared resentfully at them out of the corners of his sunken eyes as though he held them responsible for getting him into this.

“When he got the feeling that he couldn’t bear it any longer, he would grab out a dark object approaching the size of an upright piano and take another ‘chew.’ ”



Unwilling to describe his 16 days underground, Hicks answered questions from the audience.

Was he able to shave?

Hicks shook his head.

“What was the best thing that happened to you while you was buried?”

“Phonygraph.”

“What was the first piece they played?”

“Under the Bamboo Tree.”

“Which was the best piece?”

“Same; that was my favoryte.”

“Are you going back to mining?”

“Not to hard work.... But it ain’t because I am afraid. I would just as soon go back to mining as any other job. No more dangerous than any other.”

“Say, pal, are you from Kentucky?”

“You bet I am.”

The fellow Kentuckian invited Hicks to New Year’s dinner.

“Can’t do it pal,” Hicks said, and he “sank back in a dejected heap.” “This here manager, Smith, he won’t let me. I’d like to all right, but I reckon I’ll have to be foolin’ round up here.”

Hicks was displayed at several local theaters, appearing in Pasadena and at Chutes Park. The Times says he threw out bushels of post cards and mash notes from young ladies, some that came in the mail and others that were shoved under the door of his room.

After an appearance in San Jose, where he was kissed by “an elderly and sentimental damsel,” Hicks swore that he was going back to mining.

“Give me my little old $3 a day and a pick and shovel and I’ll be satisfied. I’m going back to Bakersfield—and honest work,” he said.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Architectural Ramblings

Dec. 28, 2006
Los Angeles

As promised, here are some photos of a few neighborhoods I visited recently.

Views of South Pasadena

First, a few shots of South Pasadena taken along Mission and El Centro to contrast with the views from 1907, then a visit to the 4600 block of South Wesley Avenue and the 100 block of West 52nd Street. Note the various states of preservation and decay, along with generous layers of stucco.

Views of Wesley Avenue

I always seem to run across interesting cars, a Corvair on Wesley and an old jalopy in South Pasadena.





And here’s an interesting mystery from Fedora Street. What’s the purpose of the guard shack/ticket booth? I can’t imagine.

The Mystery of Fedora Street

916 Fedora St., as photographed in December 1907


Behold, the mysterious guard shack



If it's to keep out the stucco crew, it's too late.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

OMG

Dec. 20,1907
Los Angeles

Mr. C.D. Roberts of 1900 E. Main was feeling a bit unwell. He had bad headaches, an irregular appetite, saw dark spots before his eyes and felt as if something in his stomach was alive.

Not sure what to do, Roberts consulted the European Medical Experts at 745 S. Main St., where he was treated with the secret cure of “The Great Fer-Don.” “He was prevailed upon to try it, with the result that his system was quickly relieved of this monster scores of feet in length,” surely the Loch Ness creature of internal parasites.

Mr. Fred Schaffer, 125 W. Colorado in Pasadena; Albert Crist of the Parker House on 5th Street; and others have been similarly cured, the ad in The Times says. The European Medical Experts miraculously used bloodless surgery to treat Mrs. M.J. Brenner of San Gabriel, relieving her of gallstones; removed a tumor from Mrs. Jack Rowell of 303 Central Ave. without an operation and treated half a dozen people for deafness.

One might wonder, since Main Street runs north and south, where “1900 E. Main” might be. More to the point, who is the Great Fer-Don?

One ad says, “He is a man of large build, has dark hair tinged with silver gray. His flow of speech is pleasing and magnetic. In his lecture and demonstration Fer-Don said: ‘I came to your city to introduce my medical compound discovery and bring with me some of the methods of the old world, which will be demonstrated to the public by the staff of European Medical Experts.”

Fer-Don is not a registered doctor with the state of California, but the staff members are, the ad says. And what miracles they worked: little lame children walked again and cancer was removed without a trace. He was a philanthropist too: Not only did the Great Fer-Don treat a poor Pasadena woman without charge, he gave her $50.

Above, Vivian Edwards and his transcontinental goat team.

Among those providing testimonials was Capt. Vivian Edwards, who apparently won fame for crossing the country in a buggy pulled by goats. “I was in so great pain that I would have tried anything,” he said. “I would have suffered being cut open or would have drunk molten lead if I had thought it would bring relief.”

Three doses of medicine from the European Medical Experts was sufficient, however. “Like electricity, it went through my system,” he said. “In five minutes I knew I was going to find an end to pain. With the next dose I felt still better and the next morning with the third and last dose of this medicine I was relieved of a large number of gallstones.”

Before long, the Great Fer-Don was giving free lectures on a lighted platform in the vacant lot at 7th and Spring streets. The Diamond Cluster Band preceded his carriage and performed for 15 minutes before lectures. Eventually, Fer-Don added acts until he had an entire vaudeville show.

The Great Fer-Don said that he would leave Los Angeles on Jan. 1, 1908. But after announcing that he was staying indefinitely, the Great Fer-Don and his medical experts disappeared in May 1908.

When next heard from, James M. Fer-Don and his wife were being sought on a felony warrant from Sacramento. It seems that his $100 medical cure was nothing more than colored water. He appears to have been in Oakland about 1909 before vanishing permanently from the historic record.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

L.A. Rising

Dec. 15, 1905
Los Angeles

Anybody who sets out to study the development of the city’s neighborhoods can expect to do lots of driving. My recent travels have taken me to an obscure area of South Los Angeles to look for 1907-era houses mentioned in the Dec. 8 issue of The Times: one in the vicinity of 4615 Wesley Ave. and another around 124 W. 52nd St. (Bonus fact: Broadway in that area used to be known as Moneta).

I’ll post some pictures later. The buildings on Wesley are a mix of single-family homes and two-story apartments. As for preservation, you might as well call this neighborhood Stucco Heights.

The Dec. 15 issue pays another visit to South Pasadena and as these buildings involve a short walk rather than a long drive and time is short; well, you get the idea.

The Times says: “South Pasadena, just to the northeast, crowded by the bustling life of the great city to the south and penned in by the no less prosperous Pasadena on the north is one of the best examples of a suburban city.... South Pasadena has more handsome homes within the same area, about a mile and a half square, than any other similar place in the country. There are several modern business blocks also being erected, and a new library building.”

The Times notes 299 building permits in South Pasadena in the last year with a total valuation of $357,036 ($7,327,653.44 USD 2005).



One of the buildings noted is the First National Bank of South Pasadena at Mission and Diamond, now home to an antique store. And then there’s the library, where people are out doing Tai Chi every morning. I’ll post pictures when I get the film developed. We are old school around here....

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Nathan and I

Nov. 30, 2006
Los Angeles

I don’t think anyone who knows both of us will ever confuse me with Nathan Marask; certainly not when it comes to architectural photography. In fact, I don’t really do architectural photography. I take snapshots of buildings—and lousy ones at that. Nor do I have Nathan’s charm in wangling my way into historic structures (see the 1947 Project entry on the “Cafeteria of Doom!” for example)

But I do have a couple of pictures to share.



Here’s the former Calvary Presbyterian Church in South Pasadena, now the Grace Brethren church.



And here is the home of early 20th century developer Daniel T. Althouse, 2125 S. 4th Avenue. Click on the photo to enlarge it. Aren’t these window frames cool?



Here’s where I really blew it. I got to the Rupp home in Monrovia late in the day and since the building faces east, the sun was behind the house, burying it in deep shadows. Obviously I flunked architectural photography 101. That, plus the lavish landscaping, make it difficult to see much of the house. Trust me, it’s cool.



On the other hand, I did find myself behind this incredible car getting off the Ventura Freeway on my way to Fry’s in Burbank. It looked like a stainless steel torpedo. And who’s that driving it? Why it’s Jay Leno, who gave me a big smile and a “V”-sign as we cruised Hollywood Way. This is his “tank car.” Note the serious tailpipes. They are loud.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Slaughter of the Innocent

Nov. 23, 1907
South Pasadena

Warning: This is a grotesque, tragic story with graphic details.

Pasadena Detective Wallace H. Copping is investigating the murder of a young baby boy, whose half-eaten body was found in a pigpen on the Berry ranch in South Pasadena.

Authorities say the boy, weighing about 14 pounds and less than 10 days old (yes, quite a large baby by today's standards), was discovered by Mrs. J.H. Anderson, whose husband leases the ranch. Apparently Mr. Anderson picked up the baby’s body as he made the rounds of about 20 homes gathering garbage to feed his pigs.

After the garbage was dumped into the pigpen, Mrs. Anderson “was surprised at the uproar among the swine and investigated.”

“To her horror, she saw the nude body of a baby, with the legs eaten away above the knees and the right arm torn away.” The Times said: “Mrs. Anderson risked her life to rush in and rescue the body of the infant.” Further investigation showed that the baby boy had been struck in the head with a hatchet.

Police dug through the debris, gathering anything that would identify the source of the garbage, and accompanied Anderson as he retraced his route, making inquiries at each home. The body was put on display at a local mortuary, with police taking the names of the hundreds of people who came in an unsuccessful attempt to identify the boy.

Police theorized that the mother had entrusted the baby to the father, who killed the boy rather than find it a loving home. Given the sensational publicity, they hoped that she would recognize the baby’s description and contact authorities. But unfortunately, The Times has nothing further about this case.

Bonus fact: Wallace H. Copping, a Spanish War veteran, died in 1949, at the age of 75.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) blogspot.com

Religious Recycling

Nov. 18, 1907
South Pasadena

Calvary Presbyterian Church at Center (now El Centro) and Fremont was dedicated in a service featuring prominent local religious leaders, including Dr. John Willis Baer, president of Occidental College.

The Times notes that the original church building was located on Columbia Street, but the location was inconvenient, so the church bought the Nazarene Chapel on Center.

The church, which cost $10,000 ($205,235.70 USD 2005) incorporates much of the old First Presbyterian Church of Pasadena, which was at Worcester Avenue and Colorado Street, The Times says.

Fortunately, this church is still standing and I’ll post some shots once I get the film developed.


In other news, Police Chief Kern talks frankly with The Times about the crime wave that is gripping the city.

Destruction from last year’s San Francisco earthquake has deprived career criminals and hobos of their usual winter quarters, so they are heading to Los Angeles, Kern says. In addition, layoffs across the Southwest have sent waves of the unemployed to Southern California.

“From the railroad detectives and mining men of large interests I have learned that nearly all of the railroads are discharging men from all their departments. Men are also being thrown out of work at the mines in Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada,” Kern says.”

“It enormously complicates the police problem and makes life in Los Angeles more dangerous,” the chief says. “To a very large extent they are men who are not in the habit of saving money and they arrive here broke and out of work. The next step is crime.

“I learn from the County Jail that many of the vagrants coming there to serve time are mechanics and workmen who have never been arrested before.”

Kern advocates the creation of a state police department charged, among other duties, with searching all trains entering California to clear them of hobos and vagrants.

Now pay attention:

“OWING TO THE ENORMOUS TERRITORY COVERED BY THIS CITY OUR MEN CAN’T BEGIN TO PATROL IT. WE OUGHT TO HAVE MORE POLICEMEN. I KNOW THAT SEEMS TO BE A CONSTANT CRY, BUT THERE ARE ACTUALLY DISTRICTS OF THIS CITY WHERE A POLICEMAN WOULD BE A CURIOSITY.”

I swear, this should be carved over the doors of the new LAPD headquarters.

Read about the history of Pasadena Presbyterian Church here.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Imagining the Future

Nov. 15, 1907
Los Angeles

Architect Charles Mulford Robinson has drafted a proposal for downtown Los Angeles that is stunning in its ambition. One portion calls for broad boulevard leading from a proposed Union Station at Central and 5^th Street toward Grand, ending at a new public library and art gallery. The other, equally elaborate, calls for a grouping of civic buildings and terraced gardens around North Spring Street, including a new City Hall.

“First of all, and most important in his mind because Los Angeles is a leading tourist center and should strive to make a good impression at the very start, the architect suggests an immense union railroad station with an approach a mile long—a wide thoroughfare lined with beautiful buildings, with spacious parkways, rows of flowering trees and ornamental lamp posts, and with driveways for all classes of traffic,” The Times says.

Robinson’s report is lengthy and detailed, so it’s difficult to deal with in a blog. But it is fascinating to see how early the city was grappling with inventing its future. The library on 5^th Street and City Hall on Spring (although on the Temple Block rather than the Bullard Block as Robinson suggested) are quite familiar.

Interestingly enough, Robinson also envisions a network of broad boulevards, including a picturesque drive with elaborate landscaping to Pasadena along the Arroyo Seco.

Search for a copy of “The Improvement of Towns and Cities.”

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

A Bad Way With Horses

Nov.12, 1907
Los Angeles

Half a block from his home at 1131 Westlake, John P. Shumway Jr. was badly injured when the carriage he was driving collided with the 11^th Street trolley. Shumway was thrown about 20 feet, striking the pavement head-first, and the horse ran for the stable, pulling what was left of the smashed carriage, witnesses said.

Shumway was carried to his home, where his father, Dr. John P. Shumway, treated him for a concussion, bruises and cuts. A year later, the family filed a personal injury suit against the Los Angeles Railway, seeking $10,355 ($204,938.83), although The Times failed to report the outcome of the trial.

Whether Shumway was a troublesome sort before is unclear, but his problems continued. In 1909, he was arrested for passing a forged check for $25 at the Pioneer bar on North Main Street. He claimed that he was given the check for work he had performed and was freed when he promised to repay the money.

A few months later, he was fined $60 for cruelty to a horse. Witnesses said Shumway overloaded a three-horse truck in South Pasadena and “tried to drive up the hill near the ostrich farm.”

“The middle horse was a willing beast, but the others were not much good,” The Times said. “Because the middle horse was willing to work, he was beaten so hard to make him work harder that the blood ran down to his hoofs.”

The judge told him: “I only wish, young man, that you could be tied up to something impossible for you to haul and then beaten to make you haul it. It would do you good.”

And after that, the Shumways apparently disappear from the public record. I suppose you’re wondering why a man who had suffered a bad head injury was cashing a $25 ($494.78 USD 2005) check at a bar. At least I am. Was he a reckless, bad-tempered man all along, or did his personality change after the streetcar crash? Alas, we will never know. But the image of a horse being beaten so badly that blood ran down its legs is ugly indeed.

Zillow says the Shumway horse-beating HQ, built in 1894, is still standing.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com