Los Angeles County, CA History Transcribed by Kathy Sedler This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter. All persons donating to this site retain the rights to their own work. An Illustrated History of Southern California - The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago - 1890 THE GREAT BOOM OF 1886�'87. The great real-estate boom of Los Angeles in 1886�'87, is certainly the most wonderful thing of its kind in the history of the Pacific slope. Of course, nothing has excelled the great gold boom of '49 and '50, but in real-estate booms this is pre-eminent. There had been one, comparatively small, eleven years before. The years 1872�'74 witnessed a general improvement in material matters. Immigration was steady, crops and markets were good, and real estate advanced in price. Its advancement marked it as a good investment for local capital, and in the winter of 1874�'75 a genuine boom began. In 1875 also, immigration was large, and many bought land at the high figures then ruling, while others caught the fever and bought largely, paying part cash and making agreements to convey, or giving mortgages for the balance of purchase price. In the fall of 1875, with the failing of the bank of Temple & Workman, the bubble burst and the usual crisis followed. Men who had bought on credit suddenly found the money market stringent, and the four years that followed were full of the efforts of these luckless landholders to extricate themselves,�complete failure attending only too many of these struggles. In 1876 there was a gradual diminution in the number and value of real estate sales. In 1877 and 1878 it was really unusual to find a piece of property unmortaged. Then came a period in which even the leaders could see no value in real estate; new loans could not be effected; high rates of interest prevailed, and the era of foreclosures began. In 1879 there was no such thing as a market for unimproved property, and even productive real estate could not be sold for an amount on which it was actually yielding a liberal interest. During all this period of depression people worked, economized, pushed new industries, and in 1880 the output of products arrested the downward tendency. The receipts for the crops of grain, wool, wine, honey, and fruit and dairy products distributed among the producing classes an amount of capital, which was circulated with good effect, paying off mortgages, securing new loans, and making money easy. The following is the story of the boom of '87, as told by H. E. Brook: " Rail communication with the north was opened in 1877, but the boom did not really begin until 1881, when the Southern Pacific, which had gone on building east, met the Santa F� at Deming. Then land began to rise, but not rapidly. People did not yet realize the value of land. They had no conception of what was coming. In 1882, when the Southern Pacific was opened to New Orleans, the population increased to about 15,000, and property began to stiffen in price. Values in Los Angeles and vicinity rose about 25 per cent that year, the previous valuation having been very low. People continued to come, and in 1883 values doubled, while the population had increased to 25,000. The progress continued through 1884 and into 1885. The Santa F� road was on the way to Los Angeles, making another direct through road to the East. The Santa F� reached Los Angeles in November, 1885, and after that it is difficult to follow the course of the boom, so rapid and immense was the advance. People poured in by thousands, and prices of land climbed rapidly. Everybody that could find an office went into the real-estate business, either as agents or speculators, or as operators. Tracts of land by the scores were cut up into lots. Auctions, accompanied by brass bands and free lunches, drew their crowds. At private sales lines were formed before daybreak in front of the seller's office, for fear there would not be enough lots to go around. As soon as a man sold out at a profit, in nine cases out of ten he reinvested. There was no lack of faith in the country. Some of the new towns laid out in this period outside of Los Angeles, contained in themselves and their surroundings elements of solid worth, which insured their permanent progress. Others were merely founded on the credulity of the public, and the general scramble for real estate, whatever and wherever it was. The advances in values of real estate were astonishing. The best business property in Los Angeles, a corner on Main street, could have been bought in 1860 for $300 the front foot, in 1870 for $500, in 1880 for $1,000. Now it is valued at $2,500. For a lot on Main and Sixth, that was sold in 1883 for $20 a foot, $800 a foot was offered last year. Acreage property rose in like proportion, and meanwhile population continued to pour in. As Los Angeles city property began to reach prices which were then considered near the top notch, the boom in outside property was started. Great tracts of land were bought by speculators and subdivided and sold in lots to suit purchasers. Some of the speculators were men of large capital, and some had next to none. They took their chances of coming out ahead, and nearly all of them did. New life was put in many small places previously settled, and many new enterprises were launched on land that had never been touched. Some of the land, which only a few years before could hardly have been given away, but which has been shown, with proper cultivation, to he among the best, was bought at extremely low figures, but eligible land soon began to rise, in response to the large demand. Lands four miles outside the city limits of Los Angeles, that were sold for $1 an acre in 1868, rose to $1,000 an acre, in some cases. Some of these lands were divided and sold without improvement, the work to be done later; some were sold while improvements were going on; some were improved, and then sold. Water was the first great necessity,�the first subject to be broached by purchasers. Such streams as exist were made use of at once: ditches were dug and the water turned in with branch ditches to the various tracts. Dams were built in mountain gulches, and great bodies of water stored. In some places artesian belts were discovered and put under contribution. Some lands were bought by colonies from the Atlantic States, and were improved by them. When a tract was laid out as a town site, the first thing usually done was to build a hotel. Cement sidewalks, brick blocks, a pubic hall and a street railway soon followed. A miniature city appeared, like a scene conjured up by Aladdin's lamp, where a few months ago the jack-rabbit sported and the coyote howled. Such a scene of transformation had never before been witnessed in the world. Old settlers, who had declared that land was dear at $5 an acre, looked aghast to see people tumbling over each other to secure lots at $500 each. New arrivals were charmed with the climate and surroundings, and determined to get a share of it before the shares gave out. Most of the purchases were made on the basis of one-third cash down, the balance in installments on six and twelve months' time. Such was the state of affairs in the spring of 1887. Up to that time the course of the boom, then some three years old, had been accompanied by reasonable restrictions as to future possibilities. The buyer had generally acquired some little idea of what he was purchasing, and had exercised some judgment in making his selections. In the summer of that year a crowd of outside speculators settled down upon Los Angeles like flies upon a bowl of sugar. Many of these came from Kansas City, where they had been through a school of real-estate speculation. These men worked the excitement up to fever heat. They rode a willing horse to death, and crowded what would have been a good, solid advance in prices for three years into as many months. Land at a distance of thirty miles or more from Los Angeles�land which was worthless for cultivation, and possessed no surroundings to make it valuable for any other purpose�was secured by the payment of a small installment, and under the excitement of glowing advertisements, brass bands, and the promise of immense improvements, lots were sold off like hot cakes, by scores and hundreds, to persons who in many cases had not even seen them, had but a vague idea of their location, and no idea at all of doing more with them than to sell them at a high profit before their second payments became due. This was during the summer, when things are unusually quiet in Los Angeles. The buyers were mostly our own people. The great cry of the speculators was that every one should buy as much as he or she possibly could, to sell to the enormous crowd of land-hungry Easterners who would pour in that Winter�the winter of 1887�'88. As a consequence every clerk and waiter and car-driver and servant girl scrimped and saved to make a first payment of one-third on a 50 x 100 lot in "Southwest Boonville," or " East San Giacomo," or " Rosenblatt," or " Paraiso," or one of the other hundred or more paper cities which sprang up like mushrooms during the summer of 1887. Most of these town sites were not very attractive to look at, it is true, but that made small difference, for very few buyers took the trouble to visit them, and they looked remarkably pretty on the lithographic views, with those grand old mountains in the rear, and a still grander three-story hotel in the foreground. From October, 1886, to May, 1887, the monthly real-estate sales had been steadily rising from $2,215,600 to $8,163,327. In June of the latter year they amounted to $11,500,000; in July to $12,000,000; in August to $11,500,000�a total of $35,067,830 in three months, and these what had always been the dullest months of the year, with very few strangers within our gates. This was the culmination of the boom. It had been driven to death. Every one was loaded up with property and was a seller, at 33 1/3 per cent profit, or just double what he had paid. When there are nineteen sellers to one buyer, the result cannot long remain in doubt, whether the commodity be wheat or mining stock, or real estate. Natural causes produce their natural effects, in this instance, as in all others since the Creator established gravitation as the prime law of the material universe. Sales began to fall off. The brass bands ceased to exercise the same charm as of old; the free lunch was looked at askance, and the design of the (proposed) $100,000 hotel was subjected to more careful scrutiny. Some captious purchasers even went so far as to demand information about the town and its water supply, while it is on record that one or two recent arrivals excited the scornful commiseration of the real-estate agents by inquiring what was going to support the town. In September, 1887, sales had dropped nearly a couple of million dollars; in October, to $8,120,486; and in November, just when the real winter boom ought to have been commencing, they went down to $5,819,646. Moreover, the Eastern visitors did not begin to arrive in any such enormous numbers as sanguine prophets had predicted. It is probably well for them that they did not, for if one-third the number had come that some wild-eyed journalists had professed to expect, a vast army would have been forced to camp al fresco. It was also noted, with marked surprise and considerable indignation, that those who did come from the " ice-bound East " were disposed to be hypercritical in their investigation of the resources of " Rosenblatt," " Paraiso," and other coming trade centers, and were not by any means eager to exchange the proceeds of the sale of their Eastern farms for a twenty-five-foot "business lot" in the paper towns. Finally a great many became disgusted with the muddy streets (since paved), the reckless real-estate agents and the greedy lodging house keepers with which the city was at that time especially afflicted, and so left for other places. The great real-estate boom of 1887 collapsed like a balloon, but the country and its great resources and its enterprising people still remained. A majority of the purchasers made their second and third payments, or satisfactorily adjusted their accounts, except, perhaps, in a few cases where investments had been made in " wild-cat " towns. Naturally, the money market became tight, and while many individuals failed, not a bank did. There was an unusual number of cases of suicide and insanity following the collapse, but even the proportion of these was not so large as might have been expected. The boom over, and speculation past, people began to resume legitimate business. The city in 1887�'88 witnessed a remarkable building boom, about $20,000,000 being invested in business blocks and residences during that period. A number of steam-dummy roads were built into the country. Standard-gauge roads were built to Monrovia, Santa Monica, Ballona and Redondo. Direct railroad communication was opened with San Diego. The great cable-road system began operation in 1889. In the country the fields, which had been covered with town-site stakes, were re-sowed, while greater areas than ever were planted with vines and trees. Farms, vineyards, and orchards continued to yield bountiful harvests, which brought profitable prices. The oil wells increased in number. Los Angeles County holds her own, and, although losing a large and valuable slice in Orange County, she is still an imperial county. HENRY DWIGHT BARROWS was born February 23, 1825, in Mansfield, Tolland County, Connecticut, near the Willimantic river, which separates the town of Coventry from Mansfield. His ancestry came from England to Plymouth Colony, and afterward two brothers by the name of Barrows moved from Plymouth to Mansfield, where they settled. From these two brothers, who seem to have been a hardy stock, sprang a great number of descendants, many of whom still remain in Mansfield. The subject of this sketch says he counted over thirty heads of families of that name in his native town in 1845. Indeed, it was the most numerous family name in the town at that time and for years afterward; besides, many married and acquired other names, and many also scattered throughout the United States. His ancestors on his mother's side were Binghams. Mr. Barrows' early years were spent on a farm, and he received a good, thorough English education in the common schools and academies of Tolland County. He also taught school several winters, commencing when only seventeen years old. Early in life he acquired a strong love for music, which he cultivated as he had opportunity, learning to play on any instrument he could get hold of. He took lessons on the organ of a Mr. Monds, an English organist in Hartford, Connecticut. He also became the leader of the local brass band of his native town when he was only eighteen years of age. He was fond of books and devoured all he could get hold of in the neighborhood, which, however, was not very rich in literature of any kind. He read through the Bible and Shakespeare and Byron, including all the prose writings of the latter. A stray copy of Dr. Dick's "Christian Philosopher" he read with delight, and he thinks to this day that it is one of the best books that can be placed in a boy's hands to enlarge his ideas of the worlds around him. He went to New York in 1849 and engaged in clerking; and while there had a touch of the California gold fever which prevailed so generally that year. However, he did not decide to go to the new El Dorado till some years later. In 1850 he went to Boston, where he lived something over two years, being employed as book-keeper in the large jobbing house of J. W. Blodgett & Co., on Pearl street. This firm sold goods in every State in the Union and in Canada, doing an immense business; and the experience and discipline acquired here were invaluable to him in after life. During his residence in Boston he of course enjoyed the lectures, music, etc., of that center of intellectual activity. He says he retains to-day a vivid recollection of Theodore Parker's preaching, the Lowell Institute lectures, the concerts of the Germanians, Jenny Lind, etc. In the spring of 1852 he finally concluded to come to California, and April 1 he left Boston for his home in Connecticut to get ready for the trip, and on the 26th of that month he sailed from New York on the steamer Illinois, with a large number of passengers. The hardships of crossing the Isthmus at that time were great, the railroad having been finished only a few miles out from Aspinwall, the balance of the way being made by row-boat up the Chagres river to Gorgona, and from thence twenty-six miles on mule-back or on foot to Panama. To a Northern man the heat of all seasons seems formidable on the Isthmus. Especially is this true at Aspinwall, where the heat becomes more oppressive on account of the excessive humidity of the atmosphere. It used to be said that it rained there all the time in the " wet season" and twenty hours a day in the "dry season." The connecting steamer of the Illinois on the Pacific was the Golden Gate, Captain Patterson, of the navy, commander. About 1,700 passengers came up on this trip. Soon after arriving in San Francisco, Mr. Barrows started for the Northern Mines above Shasta; but he worked only a short time at mining, as (it being the month of June) the dry season had set in, and he returned down the valley as far as Tehama, where, about five miles back, he went to work on Thorn's creek for Judge Hall, who had a contract to furnish Hall & Crandall, the stage contractors, some 200 tons of hay. There were great numbers of deer and antelopes roaming over the plains of the Upper Sacramento valley at that time. One day, as Mr. Barrows was walking along Thorn's creek alone, a California lion jumped out from a clump of bushes within a few feet of him and made off out of sight in a few muscular bounds. Coming down the Sacramento valley to Marysville, where he made a brief stop, he arrived in San Francisco the last day of July; and having his system full of chills and fevers, then so prevalent in the neighborhood of Tehama, and the contrast between the heat of the Sacramento valley and the cold of San Francisco being so very great, he found himself very ill with congestive chills, from which he did not entirely recover for nearly a year afterward. When he first arrived in California he knew nothing about the great differences in climate of the different sections of the State. Having suffered much, including an attack of Panama fever, in coming through the tropics, he had an aspiration for a cool climate, which he thought could be found in going 500 miles north from San Francisco; but if, instead, he had come 500 miles south and kept near this coast he would have found the blessed temperature he sought. But he had then never heard of Los Angeles. Finding that he could not get rid of the chills in San Francisco, he went in August to San Jos�. There he staid about a year; and there he met two men who were from this same town from which he came. One of them, Captain Julian Hanks, had come out to this coast many years before, and had married at San Jos�, Lower California, and afterward moved to San Jos�, Upper California, where he was living with his family at this time (1852). He had a vineyard and orchard and also a flouring-mill at his home place not far from the center of the pueblo and he also had a ranch about four miles south of the town. Mr. Barrows went on to this ranch and raised a crop of wheat and barley. He says that the rains were very heavy that winter, and that the house in which he lived was for some time surrounded by water. Flour was very dear, being worth 25 cents per pound. James Lick (since the founder of the magnificent Lick Observatory) was then building very deliberately, and finishing off somewhat elaborately, a line flouring-mill just north of San Jos�, on Alviso creek, where he lived. Citizens urged him to finish it whilst flour was so scarce and high, and grind up some of the wheat which was abundant, and thus benefit the public as well as himself; but he gruffly replied that he was building the mill for Lick and not for the public. Among other eccentricities he insisted on having mahogany railing for the stairway of his flour-mill. Mr. Barrows, in the fall of 1853, went to Jamestown in the Southern mines, where he worked at mining for awhile. Afterward he secured an engagement as teacher of music at the Collegiate Institute in Benicia, where he remained during the greater part of 1854. While there, the late William Wolfskill engaged him to teach a private school in his family in Los Angeles, whither he came in December, 1854. He has made his home in Los Angeles ever since. He taught four years, or until the latter part of 1858. During 1859 and 1860 he cultivated a vineyard that is now owned by Mr. Beaudry, on the east side of the river. In 1861 he was appointed United States Marshal for the Southern District of California, by President Lincoln, which office he held four years. In 1864 he engaged in mercantile pursuits, in which he continued about fifteen years. At present (1889) he is in no regular business. He has been thrice married and has three children living, all grown. Mr. Barrows has made frequent visits to the Atlantic States, once in 1857 by steamer, once in 1860 by the Butterfield stage route, and several times by rail. In 1875 he spent the summer in the East with his family. He has been a member of the city school board many terms, and was county superintendent for one term, and he has always taken a lively interest in educational matters. He has been a frequent writer for the local and other papers on economic and social questions. Besides much that he has written for the public press over his own name during his long residence in Los Angeles, he has said many things and made many arguments that have been admitted into the editorial columns of sundry journals at different periods. For nearly ten years, from 1856 to 1866, he was the regular paid Los Angeles correspondent of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. He has enjoyed the respect and confidence of his neighbors among whom he has lived so many years. He has administered, first and last, several large estates, including those of William Wolfskill, Captain Alex. Bell, and others. Was appointed by the United States District Court one of the commissioners to run the boundary line between the "Providencia Rancho" and that of the "ex-mission of San Fernando." Also, by appointment of the Superior Court, he was one of the commissioners that partitioned the "San Pedro Rancho," which contained about 25,000 acres. For the year 1888 he was the president of the Historical Society of Southern California, of which he has been an active member since its organization. In the publication of the society for 1887, Mr. Barrows explains the theory of rainfall, or of aqueous precipitation generally, whether in the form of rain, hail or snow, and also explains the cause of California's wet and dry seasons. He has written brief sketches of a considerable number of the early pioneers of Los Angeles, many of whom he knew personally.