1870-1880 (1869)(1875)(1860-1870)(1880-1890) Table of Contents
Carolyn Elayne Alexander Images of America: Venice, Arcadia: San Francisco, CA 2004 (1999), 128pp., 1870s See Text
Reyner Banham Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, Pelican: NY, 1971(1976), 256 pp., 1976, 1971, 1949, 1885, 1870s, 1860s, 1848, See Text
Fred E. Basten Santa Monica Bay: The First 100 Years, A pictorial history of Santa Monica, Venice, Ocean Park, Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu, Douglas-West Publishers: Los Angeles, CA, 1974, 227 pp., 1878, 1876, 1875, 1874, 1872 See Text
Harry Carr Los Angeles City of Dreams (Illustrated by E.H. Suydam), D. Appleton-Century Co.: NY, 1935, 402 pp., 1935 See Text
Donald M. Cleland A History of the Santa Monica Schools 1876-1951, Santa Monica Unified School District, February 1952 (Copied for the Santa Monica Library, July 22, 1963). 140 pp., 1870s See Text
Mark E. Kann Middle Class Radicalism in Santa Monica, Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1986. 322pp., 1986, 1970s, 1950s, 1878, 1877, 1875, 1874, 1873, 1872, 1870s, 1868, 1850 1849 See Text
Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts) 1870s 1839, See Text
Gordon Newell and Joe Williamson Pacific Coastal Liners, Superior Publishing Co.: Seattle, WA, (Bonanza Books, Crown Publishing: NY), 1959, 192 pp., 1870s, 1860s See Text
Grant H. Smith The History of the Comstock Lode 1850-1920, Geology and Mining Series No. 37, University of Nevada Bulletin: Reno, Nevada, vol. XXXVII. 1 July 1943, no. 3, (revised 1966), Ninth printing, 1980. 305pp. 1870s, 1860s, See Text
Jeffrey Stanton* Founding of Ocean Park, Web Document, April 6, 1998, 1891, 1870s See Text
Jeffrey Stanton Santa Monica Pier A History from 1875 to 1990, Donahue Publishing: Los Angeles, CA, 1990, 1879, 1878, 1877, 1876, 1875, 1874, 1873, 1872, 1864, 1862, 1850s, 1828, See Text
Betty Lou Young Our First Century: The Los Angeles Athletic Club 1880-1980, LAAC Press: Los Angeles, California 1979, 176pp., 1870s See Text
Betty Lou Young and Randy Young Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History Casa Vieja Press: Pacific Palisades, CA, 1997, 182pp., 1871, 1870s See Text
Notes:
1872-On March 1, President Ulysses Grant signed into existence the world's first national park, Yellowstone National Park. The 2.2 million acres of wilderness was "set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people."
Documents
Carolyn Elayne Alexander Images of America: Venice, Arcadia: San Francisco, CA 2004 (1999), 128pp., 1870s
Introduction:
Abbot Kinney* (1850-1920), son of Franklin Kinney and Mary Cogswell, attended Columbia University, and then the University of Heidelberg, the Sorbonne, and various Swiss schools, all the while suffering from asthma. He formed the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company in his mid-twenties with his brother, Francis, using his multi-linguistic skills as foreign buyer. On one such trip he docked in San Francisco (1880) and traveled south to Los Angeles and from there to East Pasadena and the Sierra Madre Villa Hotel, a hotel and sanitarium.
Reyner Banham Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, Pelican: NY, 1971(1976), 256 pp., 1976, 1971, 1949, 1885, 1870s, 1860s, 1848,
" . . . the importance of Santa Monica Canyon is that it is the point where Los Angeles first came to the Beaches. From the garden of Charles [and Ray] Eames's house in Pacific Palisades, one can look down on a collection of roofs and roads that cover the old camp-site to which Angelenos started to come for long weekend picnics under canvas from the beginning of the 1870s. The journey from downtown could take two days, so it was not an excursion to lightly undertaken, but there was soon enough traffic to justify a regular stage-run, and a semi-permanent big tent that served as a dance -hall and could sleep thirty people overnight. " p. 44, 45.
". . . Within a few years of the discovery of the canyon mouth as a picnic beach, the railway had hit the shore at Santa Monica, but on the southern side of the flat-topped mesa on which most of the present Santa Monica stands. Along the top of the bluff where the mesa meets the sea is the splendid cliff-top park of Santa Monica Palisades, and behind it there have always been high-class hotels as long as there has been a Santa Monica. pp. 45 and 46.
{pp. 44 and 45 have photos of c. 1870 SM Canyon and the View from the Eames House.}
Fred E. Basten Santa Monica Bay: The First 100 Years, A pictorial history of Santa Monica, Venice, Ocean Park, Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu, Douglas-West Publishers: Los Angeles, CA, 1974, 227 pp., 1878, 1876, 1875, 1874, 1872
" . . . On the mesa itself, site of the unborn town of Santa Monica, a trail crossed the grass-covered prairie to the foot of what is now Colorado Avenue. Colonel R. S. Baker, a cattleman who had come to San Francisco from Rhode Island, made a trip to the area in 1872. He looked over the flat expanse and, deciding it would make a good sheep ranch, went to the Sepulveda heirs and paid them $55,000 for their rancho. Later, he bought part of the Reyes-Marquez property adjoining on the northwest, plus a portion of Rancho La Ballona adjoining San Vicente on the southeast.
"Senator John Percival Jones of Nevada, a Comstock millionaire, appeared on the scene in 1874 and bought three-fourths interest in Colonel Baker's ranch for $162,500. Together they planned a railroad, a wharf and a town.
"On July 10, 1875, a map of 'Santa Monica' was recorded in the office of the County Recorder in Los Angeles. The town site fronted on the ocean and was bounded on the northwest by Montana Avenue, on the southeast by Railroad Avenue (now Colorado) and on the northeast by 26th Street. . . .
"Within nine months, Santa Monica had 1,000 people, 160 houses and half as many tents. Tracks for the Los Angeles & Independence Railroad, sponsored by Senator Jones, had been laid from the ocean to Los Angeles and a wharf was in operation. That same year saw a school district organized, a church established, the beginnings of a public library, a bathhouse, a hotel and a newspaper." p. 5
[Santa Monica's first wharf, "Shoo Fly Pier, was completed in April, 1875 at the foot of Colorado Avenue. Steamers arrived from San Francisco with passengers for the first land sale. It was a loading point of tar from the La Brea pits and was condemned in 1878 by the Southern Pacific Railroad.]
[On page 9 is a reproduction of an illustration of Santa Monica in 1876, identifying 6th Street as a carriage throughway from the south to the north over Railroad Avenue Bridge with Ocean Park buildings indicated.]
Harry Carr Los Angeles City of Dreams (Illustrated by E.H. Suydam), D. Appleton-Century Co.: NY, 1935, 402 pp., 1935
Chapter XVIII The East A-Calling
"[p. 223] [San Pedro] Its real career as a harbor started only after a knock-down and drag-out fight between the Southern Pacific Railroad, whch political combat is still remembered in the halls of Congress for its ferocious quality. It was the beginning of the end of corporation control in California.
"I am not going to dig up the details of this old battle now. Only this: Senator Jones of Nevada really lived in Santa Monica but held office by virtue of a technical voting residence in Nevada. He had an ambitious plan to make Santa Monica a seaport and built a wharf. Collis P. Huntington, the ruthless old boss of the Southern Pacific, who held the politics of California in a strangling fist, rushed at him like a watch-dog over a tramp. He had the Jones wharf condemned as unsafe. Shipping would stay at San Pedro, what there was of it."
Donald M. Cleland A History of the Santa Monica Schools 1876-1951, Santa Monica Unified School District, February 1952 (Copied for the Santa Monica Library, July 22, 1963). 140 pp., 1870s
Chapter II traces the development of the very early schools in Santa Monica [1875], starting with the organization of the first Board of Trustees [1876], who called a special election to form a new school district, and concluding with the founding of the first high school in 1884. The first school in Santa Monica, known as McKusick's School after the first teacher hired in the district, was opened on March 6, 1876.
" . . .
Formation of the District
The Santa Monica School District was organized as a political unit of the state in 1875, eleven years before the town was first incorporated. The school district originally included the vast stretch of valleys, plains, and mountains, embracing La Ballona Rancho on the southwest and the Malibu Rancho on the northwest and everything in between. Out of this broad domain numerous other school districts were formed from time to time, and it has only been in recent years that the geographical boundaries of the Santa Monica School District have been reduced to the area of the city, with the addition still of a stretch of twenty-six miles of seashore and mountains lying between Topanga Canyon and the Ventura County Line, with the exception of the Decker Elementary School District which is only a part of the Santa Monica High School District. [1. School District Organization in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles: Office of the County Superintendent, 1937, p. 47.]
" . . .
Ingersoll's Century History Santa Monica Bay Cities (Being Book Number Two of Ingersoll's Century Series of California Local History Annals), 1908, 1908a, 1870s
Up to 1870 the Santa Monica bay region had scarcely felt the stirrings of the new spirit brought into the country by the American occupation. The original ranchos were still intact and occupied chiefly as grazing land, and very few Americans had obtained land holdings. Santa Monica Cañon was ont of the attractions of the entire coast at that time. Here a few American families each year camped under the sycamores. In 1871 Mr. B, L. Peel erected a large tent "to accomodate 25 to 30 families" and over 300 visitors are reported for one Sunday in August, drawn by a dance that "lasted all night." With 1872, Santa Monica Cañon suddenly became famous. The Express found it of enough importance to publish the following: "Santa Monica, the Long Branch of California, or Camp Haywood. Seventeen years ago Santa Monica was selected as a summer resort by Dr. Hayward and until the last five years he and his family were the only ones who availed themselves of its delights and benefits. Santa Monica proper is a farm house located on the ridge one and a half miles from where the camp is located. At this lone house the road descends into a deep ravine or cañon, at the foot of which, near the confluence with the ocean, is a thick growth of old sycamores. Here is the camp. Beyond stretches the Malaga ranch the rendezvous of horse thieves. The beach between the camp and the point affords a magnificient drive as does the shore in a southerly direction toward "Shoo Fly Landing," a mile or better distant. It is at the latter place that the greater part of the asphaltum sent to San Francisco from La Brea rancho is shipped."
In the summer of 1872 a hotel was opened at the cañon and the proprietor advertises, "Come and enjoy yourself. A week at the beach will add ten years to your life." Mr. John Reynolds announces in July that he will "dispatch coaches to Santa Monica every Wednesday and Saturday a.m." A small skiff was brougt round from San Pedro this summer and added to the attractions of surf bathing, drives and picnics along the beach and up the many beautiful cañons and dancing in the "big tent." Among the diversions was the excitement of prospecting, as it was rumored that a rich ledge of quartz rock existed on the beach, at a point only exposed for a few moments at low tide. The belief was founded on the fact that some of the native Californians of the district exhibited rich rock which they claimed to have obtained from the ledge.
[p. 142] In September, 1872 an event took place which marks a new era in the history of this vicinity. This was the sale of the San Vicente and Santa Monica y San Vicente ranchos by José del Carmen Sepulveda, and others, to Robert S. Baker. The first sale included 38,409 acres of land and the price was reported as $54,000.
" . . .
Colonel Baker at once proceeded to perfect his title to all the Sepulveda holdings by subsequent purchases, thus obtaining possession of a magnificent tract of land, with a mile and a half of ocena frontage and including the San Vicente and numerous other springs, as well as several small mountain streams. With characteristic enterprise he began efforts to utilize his domain for something beside a sheep pasture. He interested his friend, General E.F. Beale, who was one of the earliest and most successful promoters known in California history-so successful that President Lincoln remarked of him when he was surveyor-general of the state in 1861, that "Beale had, indeed, become monarch of all he surveyed." The Express of December 22nd, 1873, announces, "General Beale has arrived here with an eastern capitalist who contemplates the purchase of the San Vicente ranch with the view to the construction of a wharf at Shoo Fly Landing and building a narrow-gauge road from there to the city." This eastern capitalist seems to have fallen down, however, for in 1874 it is stated, "Col. Baker has connected with himself several wealthy Englishmen [p. 143] and a well-known and distinguished Californian (Beale). They contemplate constructing a road to Los Angeles, a branch of the Southern Transcontinental line. Wharves are to be built and Pacific Mail steamships will land here. The name of this embryo metropolis at the southern coast is to be Truxton." The San Francisco Post of September, 1874, contains a glowing description of the "Truxton Scheme" which ends by saying: "Why the Los Angeles people ever adopted the Wilmington road to shoal water is one of those things no fellow can find out. At two-thirds the distance they can reach deep water at the place called Truxton, on a bay right north of Wilmington. Here, at a comparatively light expense, for wharves, they can bring ship and cars together." The plans for Truxton include beside wharf and railway, a magnificent seaside hotel and a townsite; but they never seem to have gotten beyond the paper state.
" . . .
Southern Califronia was a hotbed of rairoad schemes. Already the iron hand of the Central Pacific monopoly was being felt, although the little road to San Pedro was then the only railroad in this end of the state. A transcontinental line south of the Central Pacific was considered absoutely certain, at this time; but who would build it and where it woud reach the coast were matters of the wildest speculation. San Diego was making frantic efforts to secure railway connection of some sort and was looking hopefully forward to the magnificent promises held out by Tom Scott, the brilliant promoter of the Atlantic and Pacific railway scheme, of the early seventies.
The Southern Pacific was building its branch from Los Angeles eastward and had decided to leave San Bernardino, the oldest and most important town east of Los Angeles, off the line. Naturally she was bitter against the Southern Pacific and was casting about for any relief in the way of transportation facilities. Los Angeles was eagerly watching for any movement in her direction which gave promise of a competing line, although the Southern Pacific was not yet fairly built and there was no railroad connection with San Francisco, or with the east.
" . . .
Many other [once the Southern Pacific bought the LA & I and tore down the wharf] projects were discussed. The first one to show any signs of materializing was the building of a wharf by Juan Bernard, an old resident of Los Angeles, who had beome one of the most prominent citizens. He had married a daughter of Augustin Machado and was thus interested in South Santa Monica property. This wharf which was built from the foot of Strand street was intended to be fifteen hundred feet, but was not completed. A large warehouse was built, which was planned to be complete for commercial purposes, but the S.P. forbade the steamers to land here, and the fiat was obeyed. No boat ever unloaded there, and the wharf was finally carried out by a severe storm about 1883 and the timber used for other purposes.
Only a few very stout hearted citizens still had faith that Santa Monica would ever again reach its former prosperity. But there were those who had become attached to the place and who felt confident that the great natural advantages afforded by the climate, the situation and the fertility of the soil, would eventually make up for the loss of shipping facilities. And so long as the people of Los Angeles and the interior would escape to Santa Monica during torrid days of summer and tourists and healthseekers could find here their ideal resting spot and homes, the place would still prosper. These few remained throgh the darkest days and gradually newcomers discovered the advantages here which could not be obtained elsewhere, and began to fill up the vacant houses and to purchase and improve other property.
" . . .
[p. 159 ] Senator [J.P.] Jones has been intimately associated with the history of Santa Monica since its inception. In 1874, he purchased an interest in the San Vicente rancho and, with Col. R.S. Baker, laid out the townsite of Santa Monica. During the next two or three years, he spent a million dollars in Southern California, in building up Santa Monica and in building and carrying on the Los Angeles and Independence railway, which was intended to reach to his Panamint mines and possibly be the terminus of another great transcontinental line.
" . . .
[p. 161] As the town commenced to grow he [W.D. Vawter] established lumber yards and soon built a planing mill, which proved a boon to home builders.
" . . .
[p. 244] Chapter VI South Santa Monica and Ocean Park
Her [ Mrs. Nancy A. Lucas] sons farmed on a large scale, raising fine crops of barley on the place. Two of them opened a lumber yard in Santa Monica and they were prominently connected with affairs in the early days of the community.
" . . .
[p. 248] Early in the seventies an Englishman, Col. Hutchinson, loaned money to the Machados, taking mortgages upon various pieces of land as security. One of these was a narrow strip of beach frontage extending from Strand street to the southern limits of La Ballona grant. This strip of sand was supposed to be worthless for any purpose, unless a wharf for commercial purposes could be build upon it. Apparently the belief was general that the only thing needed to make a commercial city of Santa Monica was a wharf where vessels might land.
" . . .
[p. 288] Chapter VIII Churches and Societies: Methodist Church
[p. 288] The oldest record of the Methodist church of Santa Monica reads: "Minutes of the First Quarterly Conference for Santa Monica, held October 26th, 1875, . . . members of the Methodist Episcopal church, being present, proceeded to organize a society . . .[p. 289] . . . to incorporate and secure lots from the Santa Monica Land Company and erect a church building thereon, Margaret Atkinson and Mrs. M.J.D. Baker were appointed a committee to secure subscriptions to aid in the erection of a church."
[p. 288] The Reverand Crum preached for the first time in Santa Monica, October 15th, 1875, in an upper room of the building, then occupied as a hardware store, on the corner of Oregon and Fifth street. On October 29th, Rev. Hough preached.
" . . .
[p. 288] The society continued to use this room until January 13th, 1876, when the pastor gave notice that there wold be no service on the next Sabbath, but that he hoped they would worship in a building of their own on the second Sunday. And this was done. The Santa Monica Land Company donated two lots for the use of the church on the corner of Sixth street and Arizona avenue; the people of the little town, still largely a tent city, donated money and labor. . . The church when completed . . . This building, after being removed to the corner of Fourth and Arizona, enlarged several times, was finally [in the 1890s] removed to South Santa Monica to house the new M,E. church there.
This building was dedicated, free from debt, on February 3rd, 1876. Rev. Crum was pastor of the church most of the time until 1878-79.
" . . .
Rev. Crum was succeeded by Rev. S.S. Russell [1878-79], who only remained a year, and then for three years the church was pastorless and practically disorganized.
" . . .
Mark E. Kann Middle Class Radicalism in Santa Monica, Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1986. 322pp., 1986, 1970s, 1950s, 1878, 1877, 1875, 1874, 1873, 1872, 1870s, 1868, 1850 1849
Chapter 2: The Highest Bidder
ˆ " . . . The Anglicized history begins with Colonel Robert S. Baker and Arcadia Bandini de Baker. Colonel Baker sought his fortune in the 1849 gold rush in Northern California but found it instead in the cattle and sheep trade. He invested in landholdings (Bakersfield, California, is named after him) and in 1872 purchased half of Rancho Boca de Santa Monica. He consolidated his Southern California empire when he married Arcadia Bandini de Stearns, whose deceased husband left her heiress to the largest individual landholdings in California history. Thus one local historian suggests that "Arcadia Bandini de Baker and Colonel Robert Baker were the real mother and father of Santa Monica." Nonetheless, in 1874, the Bakers took on a partner in their Santa Monica Land and Water Company and it is the partner's bust as official city founder that now graces the Santa Monica Mall."
"John P. Jones was a corporate dreamer worthy of the Robber Baron Age. He came to California in 1850 seeking wealth in silver rather than gold and eventually cashed in on Nevada's fabulous Comstock Lode. Jones moved to Nevada in 1868, a man of substantial wealth and influence, and was elected by the state legislature to the U.S. Senate in 1873. Jones "won" his Senate seat "at a reputed cost fo $500,000." With wealth, position, and ambition, he hatched a scheme to make himself one of the most powerful men in America.
"Jones invested heavily in California's Panamint mines knowing that their full profit potential could not be realized until the silver could be easily transported to the ocean and shipped to major markets. His plan was to build an integrated corporate monopoly that would include his own mines, his own railroad to the ocean, his own seaport city, his own deep sea harbor, and thus his own control of West Coast shipping. Jones' major problem was that he would be in competition with the Southern Pacific Railroad, the fabled "Octopus" that wrote the book on integrated corporate monopoly west of the Mississippi River. The Southern Pacific owned the only rail line between Los Angeles and the Wilmington-San Pedro harbor twenty-five miles to the south, controlled the harbor facilities, and dominated regional shipping. It would not look kindly on Jones's competitive bid.
"Jones's strategy was to bypass the Southern Pacific as much as possible. He could build a railroad between the Panamint mines and Los Angeles without raising too much fuss because the Southern Pacific was concentrating its expansion efforts on a line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Once Jones's railroad reached Los Angeles, it would veer west toward the Santa Monica Bay rather than south in direct competition with the Southern Pacific line to the San Pedro harbor. Jones purchased from Colonel Baker a three-quarter interest in his Santa Monica landholdings, intending to transform what was essentially a weekend campsite into a major seaport city. Jones would then build a wharf with docking facilitiies for loading and unloading deep sea vessels off of the Santa Monica coastline; and he would use his political influence in the U.S. Senate to win a federal appropriation for a breakwater that would make Santa Monica the major deep sea harbor for all Southern California.
"In 1875, Jones laid out the town of Santa Monica, registered it with the government, and hired noted auctioneer Colonel Tom Fitch to begin selling lots. He also began construction on his wharf and docking facilities, and on his Los Angeles and Independence Railroad that would link the Santa Monica harbor to Los Angeles and then to the Panamint mines. Before the year was out, his 1,740-foot wharf was operational, complete with warehouse and depot; excursion trains were running between Santa Monica and Los Angeles; and advertisements appeared in newpapers throughout the United States inviting West Coast steamers to dock at the new harbor and businessmen to invest in the new seaport city. The promotional literature called Santa Monica "the Zenith City by the Sunset Sea."
"The sun set on Jones's scheme almost immediately. The Southern Pacific cut its own rates and applied considerable pressure on shipping companies to continue to dock in San Pedro rather than Santa Monica. Jones expected this and confidently predicted that he would "ruin" the other harbor and that Santa Monica would become the "logical metropolitan center of California." Jones was losing money at the moment but figured that the growth of the shipping trade and the town of Santa Monica would convert temporary losses into long-term profits. What he did not figure on, however, was that his Comstock mines would crash, his bank would close, and his financial support would disappear in a statewide depression, or that his Panamint mines would fail and his construction on the railroad from the mines to Los Angeles would be stopped for lack of funds. By 1877, Jones's dream of an integrated corporate monopoly was shattered.
"It was time to salvage his investment. He hoped to safeguard his Santa Monica holdings by selling his wharf and railroad to someone who would build a future for his new seaport city. He approached the county of Los Angeles but it feared offending the powerful Southern Pacific; he approached Jay Gould of the Union Pacific Railroad but Gould was not convinced that investments west of Los Angeles would pay off. Jones had no choice other than to deal with the Southern Pacific, which, having eliminated the threat of Jones's competition, had no particular interest in his wharf and railroad. However, Collis P. Huntington persuaded his Southern Pacific partners that they could get the railroad dirt cheap (at one-fourth of Jones's investment) and simultaneously "keep the Nevada legislator friendly, in view of his influence in the United States Senate." Jones retained his land interests in Santa Monica, eventually acquired a local bank that his son would manage one day, but left the city's future to the Southern Pacific.
"The Southern Pacific had no plans for Santa Monica; its purchase was largely a political one. In 1878, when Southern Pacific engineers determined that the wharf needed expensive repairs, the corporation decided that it was simply cheaper to dismantle the wharf. The Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, whose service had deteriorated during Jones's downfall, now ran on a reduced schedule, bringing weekend campers and beachgoers rather than silver, businessmen, and buyers who were to have made Jones's dream metropolis into a reality. What happened to the individuals who had invested in Santa Monica's future? "A pervasive gloom now settled over Santa Monica, and the town went into a 'slump.' Business failures were common, property values sank, and within a few months the population had dropped from 1000 to 350 citizens." Santa Monica seemed to have become a silver miner's ghost town." pp. 29, 30 and 31
Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts), 1870s, 1839,
"It was part of the former La Ballona Rancho, a land grant deeded to the Machado and Talamantes families by the Mexican government in 1839. Some of it had been used for cattle grazing but the land was too often flooded to provide good forage.
"Colonel R.S. Baker had moored his houseboat Pollywog on the lagoon in the center of the marsh. He entertained visiting dignitaries such as "Bull Run" Russell, the Duke of Sutherland, Charles A. Dans and Governor Dorsheimer of New York aboard his well-provisioned boat.
"Will Tell, a Santa Monica house-painter, had tried to start a hunting resort amond the reeds and swamp grass but . . . was destroyed by high waves. The hunting was excellent and those hardy enough to brave the ooze and mosquitos could expect full game bags at the completion of a day's shooting."
" . . .
Abbot Kinney
"Abbot Kinney* was the founder of Venice . . .
"He was born in 1850 to an influential New Jersey family that claimed kinship with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes and William Henry Harrison. The young Kinney worked for an uncle, Senator James Dixon of Connecticut, and then traveled abroad to complete his education in France, Switzerland, and at Heidelberg University in Germany.
"President Ulysses S. Grant employed the youth on his personal staff. Kinney left that post to speculate in the stock market. Poor investments in a rigged market left him penniless and he had to take a clerking job at a Baltimore dry goods store.
"Kinney's brothers formed a tobacco manufacturing company and Abbot joined the family firm. He traveled throughout the Middle East as a buyer of tobacco in quantity. The cigarette was a relatively new product for smokers but it was cutting into the traditional cigar-dominated smoking market. The Kinney firm blended Virginia "bright" tobacco with imported Turkish varieties. The products they marketed, Egyptian, Cleopatra, Flowers and Sweet Caporal cigarettes were commercially successful and the Kinneys became wealthy men.
[p. 8 photo of Kinneloa, courtesy Helen Kinney Boyle]
"Abbot Kinney suffered ill health and an almost constant state of insomnia. . . .
" . . . He arrived by steamer in San Francisco's harbor in 1880 . . .
p. 27 "During the period between 1870 and 1890 most seacoast communities, from San Diego and Santa Barbara to Gray's Harbor, depended (p. 33) largely on the steamships for their transportation needs. Numerous independent lines, many of them one-ship companies, were formed to serve these secondary ports, but few of them flourished for long. They were in competition with the ubiquitous steam schooners, that breed of small wooden lumber carrier peculiar to the West Coast. These little craft poked their blunt noses into every port and doghole along the coast and most of them carried passengers, usually in doghouse-sized staterooms with three bunks piled one above the other . . .
Grant H. Smith The History of the Comstock Lode 1850-1920, Geology and Mining Series No. 37, University of Nevada Bulletin: Reno, Nevada, vol. XXXVII. 1 July 1943, no. 3, (revised 1966), Ninth printing, 1980. 305pp. 1870s, 1860s
[p. 52] "[William M.] Stewart was as able and diligent a United States Senator [from Nevada] as he had been as an attorney and was reelected [by the Nevada legislature] in 1869. One of his early accomplishments was to secure the passage of the first Federal Mining Act, known as "The Law of 1866." He was also the father of the later and more comprehensive mining law known as "The Law of 1872.". . . When his second term expired in 1874 he did not contest with [p. 53] Sharon for reelection, but turned to mining-in Bodie, in the Panamint Range, and elsewhere-always without a success . . .
" . . . .
[p. 137] Chapter XVI The Crown Point-Belcher Bonanza-The Gold to Silver Ratio-The Silver Question.
[p. 142] The Silver Question
[p. 142] "The great flow of gold from California in 1849 and 1850 alarmed the bankers of Europe. Holland and Belgium, in 1850, began to sell their gold and stock up with silver. Other nations followed, especially after the great gold discoveries in Australia, beginning in 1851, and silver rose in price throughout the world. The countries of Europe, with the exception of Great Britain and France, were practically on a silver basis until 1871 when [p. 143] Germany adopted the gold standard after receiving a large amount of gold from France in payment of the war indemnity. Japan and the United States demonetized silver in 1873, and Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France and Holland soon followed. All of those countries threw quantities of silver upon the market, with a resultant decline in price.
" . . .
[p. 58] Chapter VII The Panic of 1865-Comstock Production and Profits from 1859 to 1866-Stock Devilment.
" . . .
[p. 62] "Owing to those unfortunate conditions, and to the vast amount of development work done below the 1,000-foot levels, only five companies, the Con. Virginia, the California, the Kentuck, the Crown Point, and the Belcher eventually paid more in dividends than they collected in assessments. Not less than $50,000,000 was spent in deep mining from 1872 to 1886, when the last pumping shaft, the Combination, closed down.
" . . .
[p. 71] Chapter IX The Comstock Lode-The One-Ledge Theory Prevails-The Ore Bodies
" . . .
[p. 75]The Ore Bodies
[p. 75] ". . . The only great ore body lying on the normal footwall was the Crown Point-Belcher bonanza, which extended on the dip of the Lode from the 1,000 to the 1,600-foot levels. . . .
" . . . Von Richthofen . . . was in error in assuming the ore would be of lower grade and that the recurrence of rich bonanzas like the Ophir and the Gould and Curry must not be expected. The Crown Point and Con. Virginia bonanzas were giants by comparison. They produced one half of the total production of the Lode and paid four fifths of all the dividends.
" . . .
[p. 107] Chapter XII The Sutro Tunnel
" . . .
[p. 111] ". . . The [Sutro] tunnel was all but closed down toward the end of 1870; . . . The Crown Point discovery at the end of that year saved the tunnel as well as the Comstock; now there was no denying that great ore bodies were to be found below the 1000-foot level.
" . . .
"In 1873, after the Crown-Point-Belcher bonanza was yielding millions and the Con. Virginia bonanza had been discovered, Sutro went to London and persuaded McCalmont Brothers & Co. to float a bond issue of $7,500,00 to complete the tunnel.
" . . .
[p. 112] "Sutro became a candidate for the United States Senate from Nevada in every election for that office from 1872 to 1880 and did not receive a vote before any of the legislatures, although the money bags of the various candidates were untied. Tom Fitch was recalled by Sharon to make speeches in his behalf in the campaign of 1874. Fitch abused and ridiculed Sutro as only he could. His closing address, delivered in the Opera House on Octover 23, 1874, was a great oration, interlarded with poetry, historical references and flights into the blue. It fills six closely printed columns of the Enterprise of October 24, under the heading "Sutro Annihilated-His Contracts All Violated-His Robberies Exposed."
" . . .
"[Footnote: Fitch was irrepressible. When a Republican convention failed to nominate him for Congress, he rose and said: "Gentlemen: from the bottom of my heart I can now sympathize with Lazarus-I too have been licked by dogs."]
" . . .
[p. 116] Chapter XIII The Hale & Norcross Venture of Mackay, Fair, Flood, and O'Brien in 1869-They Join the Water Company Which Brings Water from the Sierras
" . . .
[p. 120] ". . . The recent discovery of the Crown Point bonanza led men to believe that other great ore bodies would be found below, and Mackay and his associates decided to try to find one in the Con. Virginia, which had been a failure. That story will be told after the Crown Point bonanza.
" . . .
[p. 120] The Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company
[p. 120] ". . . in the fall of 1869, the new firm bought Sharon's interest in the Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company . . . the [Comstock] camp . . . was then in the midst of a depression. Fortunately, the Lode took on new life following the discovery of the Crown Point-Belcher bonanza at the end of 1870, and the energetic owners of the Water Company dared attack the great problem of bringing a new supply from the tops of the Sierras. . . [p. 121] the water was turned into the pipe, July 29, 1873 . . . August 8, the (water) flow came on again uninterrupted.
" . . .
[p. 126] Chapter XV The Gloomy Year of 1870-The Crown Point Revival in 1871-The Boom of 1872-Sharon-Jones Contest for Senate
[p. 130] "It has been estimated that the Comstock profits of Ralston, Sharon and Mills amounted in all to about $20,000,000, although [p. 131] Ralston's speculations and widespread business enerprises broke him at the very summit of success. Sharon's biography says that "before the year 1875, the Union Mill and Mining Company had netted Mills over $2,000,000, and Ralston and Sharon over $4,000,000 each." Their other dividends and profits couod not have been less than $10,000,000. Sharon said to George T. Marye, Sr., about 1874, that he, Sharon was the second richest man in California; his associate D.O. Mills being the first. [Footnote: The San Francisco Chronicle of January 4, 1875, boasting of the city's rich men, credits the following with fortunes of $5,000,000: "Lick, Latham, Sharon, Hayward, Reese, Mills, Baldwin, Lux, Miller, Jones, Ralston and Stanford." The wealth of some of these men is understated.] When Sarah Althea Hill sued Sharon for divorce, based on a marriage contract, in January 1884, after he had brought suit to have the alleged contract invalidated, she stated his fortune to be $15,000,000. His sworn answer denied that he was worth to exceed $5,000,000, which may be accepted as a coventional denial.]
"The Comstock knew only Sharon and hated him for his ruthless methods and dictatorial manner; yet he was cock-of-the-walk only on the Comstock. During all of the early years he was subordinate to Ralston and never made an important move without consulting him. After the Crown Point-Belcher bonanza had made them all rich beyond their dreams, Sharon became more independent and, when the Bank of California suspended on August 26, 1875, followed immediately by Ralston's tragic death, he took the lead, and, with the aid of sixty-three loyal citizens, restored the Bank's capital and reopened its doors within six weeks.
". . .
[p. 135] "Newly created Comstock millionaires, with the notable exception of Mackay, almost invariably aspired to a seat in the U.S. Senate, and the campaign of Jones in 1872, Sharon in 1874, and that of James G. Fair in 1880, were said to be characterized by "a saturnalia of corruption." [Footnote: Davis' History of Nevada, pp. 421-423 (1913). "The Battle of the Money Bags for Senatorial Honors," it is termed in Thompson & West History of Nevada, p. 92 (1881). Nevada was often characterized as "The Rotten Borough." Sutro was also a candidate, as he was in every senatorial election thereafter up to and including 1880; and each time he failed to receive a single vote in the Legislature.]
" . . .
[p. 137] Chapter XVI The Crown Point-Belcher Bonanza-The Gold to Silver Ratio-The Silver Question.
"From 1870 to 1878, when production practically ceased, the Belcher produced 684,000 tons, yielding $32,118,000, or $47 a ton, and paid $14,876,000 in dividends. Its greatest year was in 1873, when 154,664 tons yielded $10,525,000, or $69 a ton. The dividends that year totaled $6,760,000.
"During the same period, 1870-1878 the Crown Point produced 725,000 tons, yielding $25,877,000, or $35.70 a ton, and paid $10,740,000 in dividends. The mine was at its best during the year ending May 1, 1874, when 145,129 tons yielded $7,307,258, or $51.11 a ton, from which $5,300,000 was paid in dividends.
[p. 138] "That great ore body lasted only four years. By 1877 Belcher ore had fallen to $25 a ton; Crown Point to $18.44. There was [p. 139] no profit to the stockholders from such ore, as mining costs averaged $9.50 a ton and milling $11, in addition to a heavy burden of general expense, including that of deep mining.
[p. 139] "The Crown Point paid its last dividend in 1875 and the Belcher in 1876, and both began to levy assessments in excess of $400,000 a year in order to sink their shafts as rapidly as possible in the expectation of finding other ore bodies at greater depths. Again and again floods of hot water all but overcame them, and the difficulty of ventilating the steaming workings was almost as great. The huge pine pump rods broke repeatedly.
[No payable ore was ever found in either mine below the 1600-foot level.]
" . . .
[[p. 142] The Silver Question
[p. 143] "Silver sold at a premium from 1859 until demonetization in 1873, when it would no longer be coined free at $1.29 an ounce, 1/16 the value of gold. The market price was $1.36 an ounce in 1859, from which it declined slowly to $1.32 early in 1873, although the coinage value was $1.2929 an ounce. During 1873, when silver was demonitized, the average market price continued to decline until it reached $1 in 1886. After that the decline was rapid.
[p. 143] "The long and bitter struggle of the silverites to undo "The Crime of '73" and restore the white metal to its old-time parity of 16 to 1 with gold, was begun in 1876 and became a national issue with the defeat of Bryan for president on that platform twenty years later. Meantime, the Democrats, aided by western Senators, succeeded in passing the Bland-Allison bill in 1878, providing for the purchase in the open market and coinage of not less than 2,000,000 nor more than 4,000,000 ounces of silver per month. . . .
" . . .
[p. 207] Chapter XXI 1877: The Bonanza Terminates on the 1550 Level-Warring Brokers and Speculators-Hard Times in 1877-The Decline Begins
" . . .
[p. 208] Warring Brokers and Speculators
[p. 208] "There were three active stock exchanges in San Francisco during the flush '70s, each with a large membership. Able and daring men gravitated to them by instinct. They were the liveliest places on the Coast and the focus of public attention.
"The big speculators, like Sharon, Flood, Hayward, Jones and Skae had their favorite brokers, who in turn usually employed other brokers to buy and sell on the exchanges. These groups were almost constantly at war with one another. Other large dealers, "Lucky" Baldwin for example, played a lone hand against everybody.
" . . .
[p. 232] Chapter XXIII Life on the Comstock in the '70s-Comstock Millionaires-Notable Comstock Mine Superintendents.
[p. 232] "Life on the Comstock had always been full of interest and enjoyment, but the '70s overtopped all that had gone before. People were not only comfortably housed, a bountiful supply of water had been brought in from the tops of the Sierras, the streets were macadamized with refuse from the old mine dumps and lighted with gas, the city had railroad connections both east and west, people traveled far more than in earlier years, social life took on wider aspects, the Opera House presented a constant stream of dramatic productions . . .
" . . .
[p. 234] "The Comstock continued to be Mid-Victorian in dress and manners. To be a gentleman or a lady was the ideal. The good women were held in highest esteem, although more prominently in the life of the community than in earlier years. They even took a hand in politics when striving to bring about social reforms. Upon their insistence State laws were enacted prohibiting minors in saloons, and requiring gambling to be carried on behind closed doors. They labored for years to make gambling unlawful, without success.
"The men foregathered in the clubs and in the halls of the many fraternal and other organizations. Every military and volunteer fire company had its headquarters, the German their Turn Verein , and the Miners' Union its own hall and library. The various races had their gathering places.
[p. 234] "But it was the saloon that contributed most to the good fellowship of the camp. Nothing puts men upon a friendly footing more quickly than to drink together. Views were exchanged and not a little important business transacted at the bar. The reverse of that picture is the fact that heavy drinking was the curse of the Comstock. Some men drank as much as a quart of hard liquor a day, in many small drinks, and carried it off for years. The saloon were of all grades, like the population; from first-class places where the price of a drink or a cigar was a quarter, to the lowest dives. As a rule the various elements sought their own kind. Virginia City was the "good-time town" [p. 235] of the region. Men came from miles around after payday and contributed not a little to the sporting life-to which the many visitors from San Francisco added their share.
[p. 235] "The stock market was the nerve center of the region, and the reports from the San Francisco exchanges, which came morning and afternoon, invariably gathered crowds in front of the brokers' offices. Nearly everybody had stocks and all wanted to know how the market was going. Copies of the reports were posted at the heads of the shafts in the principal mines for the information of men coming off shift. . . .
" . . .
[p. 236] "The Comstock lived well. one looks back upon the '70s with some surprise at the time and thought given to food. those who could afford it, and especially the men about town, lived on the fat of the land. The markets were well supplied as those in San Francisco, and the restaurants equally as good. Thick, juicy steaks and roast beef headed the list in popularity; men often ate steaks for breakfast. Oysters, Eastern and California, were almost a staple. Fish and game were abundant; trout from the Truckee and Lake Tahoe, caught by the Indians.
"All kinds of fish came from the Coast. Sagehens and ducks and grouse were Nevada products in season. California provided the quail, chickens, and turkeys. The restaurants often featured a large live sea turtle. Fruits of all kinds from California were items of daily fare, as well as an abundance of fresh vegetables. There was hardly any kind of food that could not be obtained, even to foreign delicacies. The bakeries wer first class; only a few of the housewives baked their own bread. Milk from the insanitary dairies perhaps helped spread typhoid fever.
" . . .
[p. 237] Comstock Millionaires
[p. 237] "Comstock millionaires were far fewer than is generally supposed, and all were created in the '70s. In the early '60s, the Ophir and Gould & Curry bonanzas did not create a single millionaire. The fortunes of George Hearst, John O. Earl, Robert Morrow, A.E. Head, Andrew B. McCreery, and Charles N. Felton had their beginnings in the Gould & Curry and the Savage, although none of them acquired a million dollars there.
"The Crown Point-Belcher bonanza brought millions to John P. Jones, Alvinza Hayward, William Sharon, William C. Ralston, and D.O. Mills.
"The Con. Virginia bonanza created a longer list: John W. Mackay, James C. Flood, James G. Fair, William S. O'Brien, General Thomas J. Williams, David Bixler, Robert N. Graves, and Edward Barron.
E.J. "Lucky" Baldwin sold his stock int he Ophir to Sharon in November 1874 for $2,500,000. Robert Sherwood and Johnny Skae got rich during the "Sierra Nevada Deal." Sutro's wealth came from the sale of his stock in the Tunnel. Archie Borland and William M. Lent were miners and speculators, and incidently from mines and mills.
[p. 238] "Nearly all of these millionaires retained their wealth, in part at least. During stock excitements prospective millionaires in San Francisco and on the Comstock were as plentiful as blackberries, but the inevitable decline left them as poor as winter.
". . .
[p. 238] Notable Comstock Mine Superintendents 1859-1871 and 1871-1886
"Both Lists include: J.P. Jones-Kentuck; Crown Point.
" . . .
[p. 241] Chapter XXIV Miners' Wages and Hours-Heat and Ventilation-Giant Powder, Burleigh and Diamond Drills-Lumber and Firewood-The V Flume.
"Ten hours was a shift during all of the early years, but, as conditions underground became more intolerable, the hours of men working in such places were reduced to eight. In 1867 the constitution of the newly formed Miners' Union provided that all men working underground should receive $4 for an eight-hour shift. That rule was not enforced, it appears, but became uniform after John P. Jones, then candidate for the U.S. Senate, ordered that on and after April 1, 1872, the eight-hour day should apply to all men working underground in the Crown Point mine. The other mines, most of them were controlled by Sharon, who was also a candidate, quickly adopted the same rule, which thereafter prevailed on the Comstock. [p. 243] "The Miners' Union grew into a benevolent institution.
The mines would not permit any man to work underground who was not a member, and deducted the monthly dues of $2 from each man's pay. In return, the Union cared for sick and disabled miners, although the companies usually contributed. It was the custom when a man was killed for each miner to contribute a day's pay to the family.
[p. 243] "After the first few years the number of foreign-born miners increased steadily. Lord (pp. 383, 384) gives statistics for the year 1880: 1,996 miners, of whom 394 were Americans, 691 Irish, 543 English, 132 Canadians, and the rest from everywhere. The average age was 35, average weight 165 pounds, average height 5 feet 9 inches. The majority were married.
"Shinn overstates the standard of living enjoyed by the miners: "Every observer of the Comstock in its palmy days noted the universally high standard of living. Not only the necessaries, but the luxuries of life formed the daily fare of the miners." That is true of the unmarried miners who boarded at first-class restaurants, but this writer well remembers many hundreds of small homes in which there did not appear to be room for the large families of children. They lived well but simply.
"Death lurked eveywhere in those mines, but there was no fear, only constant watchfulness, coupled with an element of fatalism. At times one man was killed or fatally injured every week and one more or less seriously injured every day. Accidents were deemed risks of the employment, and it does not appear that the companies were sued for damages.
[p. 243] "The shafts were among the most dangerous places in the mines, notwithstanding skillful timbering and the perfection of hoisting machinery. Individual deaths from falling and otherwise were not infrequent, and more men were killed on the cages at one time than in any other accidents below. Three of the worst occurred within one year.
"On December 2, 1879, when 17 men were being hoisted in the Union Shaft, the engineer pulled the wrong lever, and the cage [p. 244] and the skip containing the men, instead of stopping at the collar of the shaft shot with lightning speed into the sheaves at the top of the 40-foot gallows frame, crushing the cage and spilling the men all over the floor of the hoist house. Two were killed outright and seven permanently injured. The escape of the others from death was little short of miraculous. Luckily none fell down the shaft.
" . . .
[p. 244] Heat and Ventilation
[p. 244] "The problem of ventilating the mine, that men might live and work, became as important as the extraction of the ore. Miles of drifts, crosscuts and raises were driven for no other purpose. The mines were connected on many of their lower levels chiefly to promote the circulation of air. The main shafts became the chief means of ventilation. An automatic circulation was created by the fact that some of them stood at higher elevations than others. Ten of the upper shafts were used as "upcasts," drawing the steaming fetid air from below, while six shafts, standing on a lower line, became "downcasts," carrying great volumes of fresh air to the lower levels. Clouds of steam rose constantly from the mouths of special shafts. Doors were placed at various points underground to regulate air currents. Revolving fans, called blowers, were installed in many places, driving the air forward or sucking it out, while air compressors supplied remote workings.
[p. 244] "Exposure to sharp changes in temperature was another danger [p. 245] when men wer hoisted from stifling levels to perhaps a snow-storm on the surface.
[p. 245] "Miners commonly worked in temperatures ranging from 100 to 125 degrees, but observers agreed that owing to their superiority they accomplished as much as men in other camps working under normal conditions.
[p. 245] "No other mines in the world have encountered such heat and such floods of scalding water. The hightest temperatures of any considerable quantity of water (170 degrees) was recorded by the flood on the 3,000-foot level of the New Yellow Jacket shaft in November 1880.
" . . .
[p. 245] " . . . Water at 150 to 167 degrees termperature will cook food, and men died from a brief submergence.
". . .
[p. 247] Lumber and Firewood-The V-Flume
[p. 247] The Sierra were devastated for a length of nearly 100 miles to provide the 600,000,000 feet of lumber that went into the Comstock mines, and the 2,000,000 cords of firewood consumed by mines and mills up to the year 1880. In the early days, after the piñon pines had been cut on the Virginia and Como Ranges, the supply came from convenient timber on the lower slopes adjacent to Washoe and Carson Valleys. Gradually the lumbermen worked up to the crest of the range, then over to the west side. The magnificent forests surrounding Lake Tahoe constituted the major supply for years. No later visitor could conceive of the majesty and beauty fed into the maws of thos voracious sawmills.
"A large supply came also from the forests on either side of the Central Pacific Railroad after its construction, from what were known as Hobart's mills. The headwaters of the Carson River, 100 miles southward from the Central Pacific provided much of the firewood and some timber, which was floated down the river during the spring freshets.
"The great invention of the V-flume for conveying lumber and firewood down the mountainside was devised by J.W Haines, who was lumbering in Kingsbury Cañon, back of Genoa, in 1866. It occurred to him to float the lumber down, and he made a box-flume for that purpose. The following spring he devised the very simple V-flume by nailing two planks together on their lower edges in V-shape, as men had been doing for centuries in smaller form to carry water. Haines patented the invention in 1871 and brought suit against Sharon and associates for infringement. The court held, however, that the patent was invalid because the device had been in common use for two years prior to the filing of the application.
[p. 247] "These flumes, planed on the inside, half-filled with water, and [p. 247] on a fairly steep grade, carried a large quantity of lumber or firewood-as much as 500 cords of the latter in one day. When wood or lumber was thrown into the flume the water filled to the brim and the load floated free. A large number of such flumes, some of them many miles in length, were in use along the Sierras for years.
[p. 248] "The Bonanza Firm, in a quarrel with the Sharon interest over the price of lumber and firewood, bought a large tract of timber on the east slope of the mountains seven miles south of Steamboar Springs, built sawmills, constructed a V-flume 15 miles long, and supplied its own mines and mills. On the Comstockthe lumber company was known as Mackay & Fair's. The Enterprise of March 31, 1875, reports that "Mackay & Fair's new wood flume at Huffakers on the Truckee Meadows will be completed about July 1." The net profits of that enterprise were only $645,030, but the effect was to reduce substantially the price of lumber and firewood.
"The correspondent of the New York Tribune, [September 16, 1875] told of a visit to the lumber mills and surroundings with Flood and Fair, and of a fearsome thirty-minute ride down the fifteen miles of flume in what was called a "boat," which consisted of two twenty-inch boards nailed together in V-shape to fit into the flume, closed at the back and open in front, with strips of board 2 1/2 feet long nailed across the top for seats. Part of the time the flume was near the ground, but much of it was on the top of high trestle-work in order to keep the flume as a fairly even grade. Water sprayed on them from front to back. There were nothing to cling to but the seat and nothing but the blue sky above. "Flood said he would not make that tripa again for all the silver and gold in the Consolidated Virginia."
" . . .
[p. 249] Chapter XXV Fire in the Stopes-Low-Grade Operations in the Bonanza Mines-The Comstock Milling Monopoly-The Last Washoe Process Mill-Losses in Tailings-Tailings Reworked
[p. 253] The Comstock Milling Monopoly
[p. 253] "The costly and unprofitable mills of the Ophir, the Gould & Curry, the Savage, and the Mexican during the early '60s caused these mines to send much of their lower-grade ore to custom mills. But those mills ran into debt during the lean years, chiefly to the Bank of California. When the time was ripe Sharon's Union Milling Company took them over and a new system was created whereby the productive mines ceased to own their own mills, except in small part, and had their ores reduced in mills belonging to the men in control of the mines. [p. 253] Thereafter, throughout the later history of the Comstock, the example set by Sharon was followed by Jones and by the Bonanza Firm, who controlled the producing mines which were not in Sharon's hands. The latter's milling rates were excessive as a rule, while those of Jones and the Bonanza Firm were moderate. Sharon and Jones, however, were not content to take their toll from profitable ore; when that failed they milled over 700,000 tons of low-grade ore during the '80s and '90s for the sole advantage of their mills. "Everything is arranged to suit the mills," wrote a correspondent. "The abuses are notorious, yet the local papers say nothing. Poor ore is mixed with good ore to increase the tonnage to the mills and there is little or no check on the sampling. Until the same respect is paid for mine stockholders as is now given to the mill stockholders your readers can expect no dividends from the Comstock mines."
[p. 253] "The system of milling ores in the private mills of insiders came to be regarded as a matter of course, if not of right, not only by the participants but by the general public although after the San Francisco Chronicle and Dewey began their attacks there was widespread public criticism. Sharon and Jones took the precaution to have the names of others appear as trustees of their mines and their private milling companies, while Mackay and his associates acted openly and became members of the boards of their concerns.
[p. 253] "The Bonanza Firm adopted the system when it took control of the Hale & Norcross in 1869. Mackay and Fair had two idle mills at the time, which they wanted to put in operation. Additional mills were acquired as more ore was developed, and, when that mine began to fail, the Firm took a gamble on the Con. Virginia, partly in the hope of finding some low-grade ore in the old upper workings for their idle mills That hope was not realized, but [p. 253] the lucky discovery of ore of moderate grade on the 1200 level soon put their mills to work. As the bonanza developed more mills were built or purchased, with the result that all of the bonanza ores were worked by the Firm, chiefly in large low-cost mills.
[p. 254] "The charges for the high-grade ore was so moderate and the recovery so satisfactory that a court, under the rule adopted in the Hale & Nircross case, would have held the contracts reasonable. Nevertheless, the point remains that large profits would have been paid to the stockholders in dividends if the companies had owned their own mills, in which case the firm, as the largest stockholder, would have received not less than one half of such dividends. [Footnote: It may be said that the milling system was merely the exercise of a questionable official prerogative when compared with the iniquitous practice of the railroads in granting secret "rebates" and "drawbacks" to the Standard Oil and other favored shippers in the '60s and '70s, as set forth in Mark Sullivan's Our Times, 1900-1925, Vol. 2, pp. 284-292. The latter "system," he says, was "characteristic of the current philosophy," and "in this state of business ethics of the time lies the chief justification of Rockefeller and his associates in the South Improvement Company."]
[p. 254] "We have an exact statement of those profits in a private memorandum made by J. Minor Taylor, the efficient office manager in Virginia City, to Messrs. Flood and Fair on September 11, 1881, which turned up in the Mackay and Fair files at the Mackay School of Mines. Taylor explains in detail the milling accounts from 1873 to the date of his report, which shows a net profit of $9,070,726.47. Fair was withdrawing from the Firm and they were having a settlement among themselves of the affairs of the Pacific Mine & Milling Company, which had carried on their milling business. Fair wrote back concerning some small items, which Taylor explained in a letter dated September 28. The expense for quicksilver is enormous, and the construction account is charged with $2,260,387.50.
[p. 254] "As they had milled 809,275 tons from the Con. Virginia, 589,196 tons from the California, and 83,836 tons from the Ophir, Union and Sierra Nevada-1,482,307 tons in all-the net profit, including milling and the recovery from tailings, was $6.12 a ton. [footnote: The average milling charge paid by the Con. Virginia was $12 a ton, that of the California, which came into production later, averaged $11.]
[p. 254] "Mackay gave close attention to the mills, which were efficiently managed by D.B. Lyman, one of the ablest millmen on the Comstock. Fair, who was not given to praise, but always to exaggeration, said Lyman, was the only honest millman on the Lode.
[p. 255] "The values left in the tailings have been misrepresented and misunderstood, owing to the Comstock method of reporting mill returns. . . . [There was] high recovery on ore of that grade.
[p. 255] " . . .
[p. 255] "Mackay testified in the Hale & Norcross case in 1892, in which he had no interest, that he had sold a large quantity of bonanza tailings at $5 a ton. He never could be convinced that a stockholder had a right to complain of a milling charge so long as it was reasonable and a proper recovery made. Despite the earlier Dewey suits and criticisms, he again milled the low-grade ores extracted fro the bonanza stopes from 1885 to 1895, in association with James L. Flood and J.P. Jones. Mackay's idea that a director has the right to deal with his compay if the contract was fair is now the law in California, by an Act passed in 1933.
[p. 255] "Lord enters into an elaborate discussion of the Comstock milling system with especial reference to the Bonanza Firm, which includes: "If the managers had the lion's share of the profits, they had also the lion's share of the risk and labor. These facts should be bourne in mind in any fair criticism or censure of their conduct as trustees."
" . . .
[p. 291] Appendix Table of Production of Comstock Mines from 1859 to January 1, 1882. Notes on Table. Comstock Production and Profits from 1859 to 1882. Table of Production of the Comstock Mines from 1882 to 1919, Inclusive.
[p. 293] Crown Point (1864-1878) 842,552 tons; $29,814,507 yield; $35.39 yield per ton; $11,588,000 dividends; $2,623,370 assessments; last dividend, 1875
[p. 294] Notes on Comstock Production from 1859 to 1920
[p. 294] "The foregoing statement of the production of the Comstock mines is as close an estimate as can be made. The production during the '60s and '70s is fairly dependable . . .
" . . .
[p. 295] "The production up to 1871 was approximately 60 percent silver and 40 percent gold. Thereafter the Crown Point and Con. Virginia bonanza changed that by returning a slight excess in favor of gold. After 1880, silver fell rapidly in value and the total value production of the Comstock may be stated at 55 percent silver and 45 percent gold.
" . . .
[p. 295] Comstock Production and Profits from 1859 to 1882.
[p. 295] " . . .
". . . [estimates based on] the sale value which increases the yield of the bonanza mines and of the Crown Point and of the Belcher by about $10,000,000.
". . .[estimates of the value of recovery from tailings] "worked by various private mills" ought to be $23,765.000 . . . The Bonanza Firm alone produced about $12,000,000 from tailings, up to 1881, and Sharon and Jones as much more.
[p. 296] " . . .
"Lord's estimate of private profits is $2,000,000, whereas the Bonanza Firm alone made $9.070,728 from milling contracts, including profits from tailings and Sharon and associates, and Jones and associates in like manner, gathered in an additional $10,000,000. (It was not considered "good form" at that time to refer to private profits.) The total of private profits was not less than $20,000,000. Expenditures by nonboard companies (referred to as "private companies"), and by individuals, from which no returns were had, may be placed at $11,000,000.
" . . .
Jeffrey Stanton* Founding of Ocean Park, Web Document, April 6, 1998, 1891, 1870s
"Kinney* and his partner Francis Ryan* acquired a controlling interest in the Ocean Park Casino (actually a restaurant and tennis club) on June 23, 1891. Several months later they decided to purchase the surrounding tract of land for $175,000 from Captain Hutchinson*, a British Army officer. The man had acquired the beach front property in the late 1870's when he foreclosed on a series of loans made to the Machado* family on parts of their La Ballona Rancho.
"The plot of land which extended 1-1/2 miles south of what is now Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica to Mildred Avenue in Venice, for the most part extended inland only 1000 feet, but curved eastward to a depth of half a mile along the southern end. The northern third located in Santa Monica had development potential, while the remainder in county territory was wetlands consisting of sand dunes and marsh."
Jeffrey Stanton Santa Monica Pier A History from 1875 to 1990, Donahue Publishing: Los Angeles, CA, 1990, 1879, 1878, 1877, 1876, 1875, 1874, 1873, 1872, 1864, 1862, 1850s, 1828,
Chapter 1: Santa Monica's North Beach (1875-1907)
" . . .
"One of the visitors to the Santa Monica area in 1872 was a wealthy San Francisco merchant named Colonel Robert S. Baker*. He made his fortune in the sheep ranching business in Kern County's Tehachapi Mountains and had come south to investigate Southern California's booming wool industry. He arrived by steamer at the Shoo Fly Landing, a small pier several hundred yards south of the present pier, near what is now the foot of Pico Blvd. The pier was used for loading shipments of "asphaltum" that was brought overland by wagon from Henry Hancock's Rancho La Brea tar pits. The tar was bound for San Francisco and its roofing and ship building trades.
"Col. Baker found the nearby grassy mesa of the San Vincente Ranchero perfect for sheep raising. The 30,000 acre tract had been granted to Francisco Sepulveda by the Mexican governor in 1828. It was a large ranch that extended south from Marquez and Reyes property to the La Ballona Rancho marked by the stream bed at Pico Blvd., from the Ocean east to Westwood Village, and into the mountains. Like most ranches at the time, it was virtually unused since the drought of 1862-1864 killed off most of the cattle.
"Baker's business partner, General E. F. Beale arrived at the end of 1873. He had been an army suveyor who helped map out the 35th parallel route that pioneers bound for Los Angeles followed across the Mojave desert. He and Baker developed a scheme for a full blown port near the Shoo Fly Landing. In 1874 they bought the Sepulveda's heir's entire San Vincente Ranchero for $55,000, and a one-half undivided interest in Boca de Santa Monica's 6,500 acre Ranchero from Maria Antonia Villa Reyes, Ysidro's widow.
"Baker and Beale acquired a franchise for a fourteen mile narrow-guage railroad designed to link their port with Los Angeles. They then tried but failed to convince Los Angeles merchants and officials to back the venture. They did manage to secure some financial backing from New York interests and christened their dream the Los Angeles and Truxton Railroad.
"Los Angeles, however, attempted to entice Southern Pacific to build a line into their city with an offer of $602,000. They even offered a twenty-one mile railroad to San Pedro harbor as an inducement. but soon they began to have second thoughts. They were afraid that once Southern Pacific established a railhead on the Tehachapi Pass, the lucrative Inyo County mining trade would be diverted away from Los Angeles to the San Joaquin Valley and hence to San Francisco.
"In 1874 former California governor John C. Downey and the Workman Bank in Los Angeles decided to form their own railroad. The Los Angeles and Independence Railroad would keep the silver ore flowing over Cajon Pass and into Los Angeles to the port at San Pedro.
"Senator John P. Jones was looking for a way to stop high freight rates from cutting into the profits of his Panamint city mines in Inyo. When he heard the Los Angeles & Independence Railroad's plans, he invested $220,000 and became its president. Baker realized that his Los Angeles and Truxton Railroad would be a natural extension to Jones' line so they sought a merger. His port would be seven miles closer to Los Angeles and several hours less sailing time from San Francisco.
"Baker sold Jones a three-quarter interest in his Santa Monica property for $165,000. Together they decided to create the townsite of Santa Monica complete with railroad and pier.
"The new railroad posed a threat to Southern Pacific interests because its Santa Monica terminus could kill their San Pedro faciltiy. there was a rush to claim a route through the Cajon Pass since only one of the competing railroads could fit through the narrow pass. Los Angeles and Indepencence's general manager and chief engineer reached the pass first on January 7, 1885{?} and staked out a claim only one hour before Southern Pacific's surveying crew arrived. Southern Pacific owners then tried to stop them by obtaining an exclusive rail franchise from Congress, but Senator Jones quickly squashed their attempt.
"By February 1875, road gangs of Chinese laborers were cutting through the soft palisade at the end of a Santa Monica arroyo to create rail acccess to a 1,740 foot long wharf. A freighter arrived at the Shoo Fly Landing on April 19th to unload a shipment of Oregon fir logs. Three days later workers, using a steam driven pile driver, began pounding piles for the wharf into the bay's sandy bottom. Construction was also started on the Santa Monica Hotel located on the bluff north of the wharf. It served as lodgings for the railroad workers and later became Santa Monica's first tourist hotel.
"Senator Jones travelled to New York City to negotiate with Union Pacific president, Jay Gould, for purchase of rails and rolling stock. Despite pressure by Southern Pacific for Gould not to cooperate, they were too late. By June, the pier was completed and the first ship landed. Rails were laid from Santa Monica to Los Angeles at a rapid pace.
"Colis P. Huntington, who was the pricipal owner of the Southern Pacific, next began to pressure shipping companies to allow only half their ships to dock at Santa Monica. Jones counterattacked by purchasing the Panama Railroad to gain leverage on Atlantic-Pacific trade as it crossed the narrow isthmus. He insisted that the Pacific Mail Steamship Company schedule regular stops at Santa Monica.
"Meanwhile the two partners hired J.E. Jackson, a civil engineer to survey their townsite. It was initially a modest town that stretched eight blocks along the shore atop the bluffs just north of the railroad terminal, and inland twenty five blocks. They filed a subdivision map for their city with the county recorder on July 10, 1875.
"Advertisements announcing a land auction on Thursday July 15th were placed in Los Angeles and San Francisco newspapers. They boasted that Santa Monica was to be the site of two transcontinental railroads. Senator Jones hired Tom Fitch, a former Congressman and persuasive orator as auctioneer. Fitch stirred up enthusiasm in San Francisco and accompanied prospective buyers on one of two side-wheel steamers that left San Francisco in time to arrive at Santa Monica on the morning of the sale. Hundreds more eager investors traveled by carriage and stage over a crude road from Los Angeles to attend the sale.
"The crowd of nearly two thousand bidders converged at the foot of Wilshire Blvd., where Senator Jones had set up bleachers facing the bay. A makeshift tavern called Grand Palace Saloon was set up nearby and stocked with kegs of beer. After denying rumors that the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad was nothing more than a "paper" route and the city's title was in question, Senator Jones opened the bidding.
"The first parcel, now at the corner of Broadway and Ocean Av., started at $250, and sold for $510. Others on that block went for $300, while those further inland sold for as little as $75. By the end of the day $40,000 in lots were sold, and another $43,000 were auctioned off the following day.
"Work continued steadily on the railroad. A brass-trimmed locomotive accompanied by a string of flat cars and gondolas arrived by side-wheel steamer at the town's new pier in late September. It's maiden voyage on October 17, 1875 over ten miles of track took just 19 minutes. Travellers rode in open cars because of a shortage of passenger coaches, but the tremendous improvement over stagecoach times was worth the inconvenience. The train mostly hauled freight at a dollar a ton, but by December they had regular passenger service twice daily for a dollar fare.
"At first, Santa Monica sought to capitalize on its seaside location and blossoom into a commercial port. The new town experienced a building boom. By the end of the year there were more than one hundred buildings completed or under construction. The railroad brought quick prosperity, and weekend visitors spent freely on beach outings.
" . . .
"A thousand lots had been sold by summer 1876 and the town contained more than two hundred buildings, mostly within six or seven blocks of the beach. . . .
"In August 1876 financial panic hit the Comstock securities market when news revealed that the Inyo silver mines were failing. The Workman bank that was involved with the railroad went bankrupt and work stopped only eight miles east of Los Angeles. After the Southern Pacific Railroad completed its route to Northern California in late 1876, much of the freight between San Francisco and Los Angeles was shipped by rail rather than by sea. Passengers also chose the faster rail service rather than risk seasickness, {or their lives} although fares were twice the cost of an ocean passage.
"Although Jones' Los Angeles and Independence Railroad soon began losing money for lack of freight, it was still doing well with its weekend excursion tourist business. . . .
"Senator Jones knew he was licked. He initially tried to sell the railroad to Los Angeles County. In March the presidents of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads visited Santa Monica to look over the property and begin negotiations. On June 4, 1877 Southern Pacific announced that they had purchased the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad for $195,000, less than one fourth the capital originally invested.
"Southern Pacific had no intention of competing with itself in San Pedro harbor. The company immediately raised railroad and steamer rates, and when business in Santa Monica dwindled it announced that only two small steamers, Senator and Ancor would ply the coast. [The Senator last docked in September 1877.]
" . . . The Santa Monica Hotel closed, and even the local newspaper, the Evening Outlook, folded Christmas Day, 1878. When the wharf was ordered removed in 1879, the remaining citizens protested and offered to purchase it. The offer was refused . . .
Betty Lou Young Our First Century: The Los Angeles Athletic Club 1880-1980, LAAC Press: Los Angeles, California 1979, 176pp., 1870s
"During these turbulent years, Los Angeles earned its reputation as the "wickedest town" in the U.S.A. Bandits, wanton killers, and common drunks roamed the narrow streets and frequented the saloons near the Plaza. In the name of frontier justice, the Rangers and other vigilante groups retaliated with lynchings and hangings. . . . after the transcontinental railroad line to Sacramento was completed in 1869 and scores of Chinese laborers from Northern California moved into the adobe huts east of the Plaza. . . . in 1871 . . .nineteen . . . Chinese were massacred by a . . . mob in an alleyway called the Calle de los Negros, between Los Angeles Street and the Plaza.
" . . . homes and businesses . . . toward the south . . . along with commercial nurseries and European wine and beer gardens offering outdoor dancing and games."
" . . . 1871 . . . Turn-Verein Germania . . . built "the Turn Halle, a large frame clubhouse which provided the best gymnasium and concert stage in the city.
" . . .
"The final phase of the Americanization of the city came after the transcontinental railroad line was extended to San Francisco in 1870, and a connection to Los Angeles was completed in 1876. . . .
" . . .
" . . . Washington Gardens at Main and Washington streets, the most elaborate of the private amusement parks, provided year-round fun [band concerts, picnic grounds, games and a menagerie] for the whole family. Santa Monica also learned early to cater to tourists and visitors, accommodating campers and bathers, staging old-time equestrian events, and sponsoring the first polo match played in the Southland.
"Competitive foot-races in the seventies often had a carnival air and were little more than an excuse for betting. Walking, on the other hand seemed to dovetail more naturally with the growing interest of the average man in health and physical culture. Amateur and professional walkers were turned loose in "walkathons"-endurance contests lasting for five or six days.
"Dedicated outdoorsmen began to head for the hills, emulating John Muir who made the first vertical ascent of Mount Wilson from Pasadena in the late 1870s, a three-day venture. Carrying three loaves of bread, half a pound of tea, and a blanket, it took him one full day to reach the mouth of Eaton Canyon; from there it was a stiff climb up a waterfall and through dense brush to reach the summit."
Betty Lou Young and Randy Young Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History Casa Vieja Press: Pacific Palisades, CA, 1997, 182pp., 1871, 1870s
"In 1871 . . . B.L. Peel put up a huge tent to accomodate thirty families . . . one busy Sunday . . . three hundred visitors arrived for the day and remained for an all-night dance. . . . .
" . . . [1872], a real hotel was opened in Santa Monica Canyon . . .
" . . .
" . . . Easteners drifting south from the Sierra Nevada gold fields . . . acquired large tracts of land at bargain prices. The Santa Monica area attracted the attention of Colonel Robert S. Baker, . . . [who had] sold supplies to miners. Later he added to his sizable fortune by raising cattle and sheep in northern California and the the Tejon country in Kern County.
"Baker established himself in Los Angeles and on September 3, 1872, purchased Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica, paying the heirs of Francisco Sepúlveda $55,000 for over thirty thousand acres. A year later, on August 14, 1873, he bought an undivided one-half interest in Rancho Boca de Santa Monica, without patent, for $6,000 from Maria Villa de Reyes. In 1874 Colonel Baker married the widowed Arcadia Bandini de Stearns, a major landholder in her own right . . ."
"By 1874, two canyon hotels kept by Wolf and Steadman, the Morongo House and the Seaside Hotel, were popular . . . A road ran from Los Angeles to the shore at the foot of . . . (Colorado) St. in Santa Monica, where facilities at Shoo Fly Landing were used for shipping asphalt from the La Brea pits to San Francisco, the first sea-borne commerce m Santa Monica Bay. . . Wagons and carriages [continued on] the beach to the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon.
"Colonel Robert Baker . . . envisioned a new wharf at Santa Monica and a connecting railroad into Los Angeles."
" . . .
" . . . the Southern Pacific Railroad, in September 1876, finished its line to Los Angeles . . . absorbing Senator Jones' Los Angeles and Independence Railroad (in 1877)-its Los Angeles depot abandoned, the wharf condemned, and shipping transferred to San Pedro. . . . on December 8, 1878, the Outlook suspended publication . . ." p. 22