1874(1839)(1871)(1872)(1873)(1875)(1870-1880)Table of Contents
Ingersoll's Century History Santa Monica Bay Cities (Being Book Number Two of Ingersoll's Century Series of California Local History Annals), 1908, 1908a, 1874 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., 1874, 1870s, 1860s, See Text
Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp. 1874 See Text
Betty Lou Young and Randy Young Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History Casa Vieja Press: Pacific Palisades, CA, 1997, 182pp., 1874, See Text
Notes
"The average wage paid to common miners in California in 1874 was $1.50 to $2 per day, says the Mining and Scientific Press of February 2, 1875, which prints a list of all sorts of employees. "No wonder the Comstock miners[at $4 per eight hour day] were the pick of the world."] -Smith, 1943
Documents
Ingersoll's Century History Santa Monica Bay Cities (Being Book Number Two of Ingersoll's Century Series of California Local History Annals), 1908, 1908a, 1874
During the summer of 1874 Santa Monica Cañon continued to be the chief summer resort of the Angeleños. Two hotels, the Morongo House and the Seaside Hotel, kept by Wolf and Steadman, were filled with guests. Many improvements were made in the camping arrangements and the season was a gay one. A new resort, known as "Will Tell's" also flourished this summer on the Ballona lagoon, almost where the Del Rey hotel now stands. This was especially attractive to sportsmen, as the lagoon was famous for its duck and game birds, and a number of prominent Los Angeles men kept boats on the lagoon.
At the same time a road, so narrow that the wheels touched the sides of the bank, had been worn down through the arroyo, about at the foot of the present [p. 144] Colorado street in Santa Monica, and a small landing was built on the shore. Here Major Hancock shipped large quantities of brea, which was hauled by ox teams from his Brea rancho, on small coast vessels to San Francisco. This was the first "commerce" of Santa Monica bay.
In December, 1874, the Los Angeles papers chronicle the first visit of United States Senator John P. Jones of Nevada. Glowing tributes were paid the distinguished guest and much curiosity and enthusiasm over the possible results of his advent into Southern California were indulged in. He was known to be fabuously rich and to have railroad ambitions.
[p. 244] Chapter VI South Santa Monica and Ocean Park
When the town site of Santa Monica was laid out it was surrounded by a very large area of unbroken and unoccupied territory. The great San Vicente ranch was mostly devoted to sheep pasturage. A few native Californians cultivated small tracts on the Boca de Santa Monica; but that tract was also largely devoted to sheep grazing. On La Ballona, Anderson Rose and one or two others had begun to farm and the Machados raised some grain, but the greater portion of the tract was uncultivated.
In 1874 Mrs. Nancy A. Lucas [ -1881], a wealthy widow, with three sons, purchased a tract of 861 acres from the Machados. This joined the San Vicente on the north and extended as far south as the present city limits of the city of Santa Monica, the Santa Monica town line having followed the lines of the Lucas tract. The price paid was $14.00 per acre. Mrs. Lucas at once began to improve her property . . .
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., 1874, 1870s, 1860s
" . . .
p. 80] Chapter X The Early Bonanzas-The Ophir, The Gould & Curry, The Savage, The Chollar-Potosi, The Yellow Jacket, and The Original Gold Hill Bonanzas
" . . .
[p. 82] "The Ophir bonanza was rich but comparatively small . . .
[p. 82] "The control of the Ophir passed into the hands of successive groups of speculators and the stock was one of the most active on the market for many years. In all its history the mine did not create a single millionaire. E.J. Baldwin, who was already rich, was wise as well as "Lucky" when he sold 20,000 shares to Sharon for $2,700,000 in November 1874 during the Con. Virginia boom.
" . . .
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. 135] "The aftermath of the Hayward-Jones friendship, according to the Virginia Evening Chronicle of December 12, 1874, was a quarrel over the Crown Point, in which Jones prevailed. "Now Jones and Hayward are at swords' points. They are even more bitter in their hatred of each other than Sharon and Jones ever were."
". . .
[p. 162] Chapter XVIII Sharon Starts the Boom-A Wild Market-The Consolidated Virginia Boom-The Chronicle Boosts the Bonanza-The Market Reaches the Top-Extravagant Forecasts
[p. 162] "It takes a leader to start a boom. Con. Virginia was expected to do that but the members of the Firm were content to watch their stocks increase in value and collect their regular monthly dividend of $3 a share.
"It fell to William Sharon, an avowed candidate for the United States Senate, to start the boom. He had lived in San Francisco after Jones defeated him for the Senate in 1872, meanwhile growing richer month by month from the Belcher and the Union Milling Company, and nursing his senatorial ambition. When Stewart announced that he would not seek reelection Sharon again entered the lists, this time with full determination to win, whatever the cost. He first bought the Enterprise from editor Goodman who had flayed him in 1872, thereby acquiring a champion, then set out to obtain control of the Ophir in order to use the stock to further his campaign. Besides, the mine itself was promising to develop an extension of the Con. Virginia bonanza which would add to Sharon's prestige and furnish ore for his mills.
"Unfortunately for his plans the control of Ophir was in the hands of E.J. "Lucky" Baldwin, one of the shrewdest men on the Coast, who had been content to let the stock ride along quietly. Sharon found him a hard trader. As the annual meeting of stockholders was to be held on the 13th of December, it became necessary to acquire over one half of the 100,000 shares before that day in order to elect the new board of trustees.
"Sharon began to buy quietly. On August 11, 1874, Ophir stood at $20 a share, Con. Virginia at $80, and California at $40. A month later Ophir reached $52, while the two bonanza stocks had advanced but a few dollars. The sharp rise began toward the end of October, after Sharon bought James R. Keene's block of Ophir stocks and employed him to manipulate the market. "Jim" Keene [p. 163] was a genius but he could not pry Baldwin loose. Sharon not only began to buy but to sell "short" at the same time . . .
[p. 163] "Throughout November the market was in a ferment. Ophir reached $100 a share, Con. Viirginia, $160, California $90, and all of the other stocks rose with them. . . . The wild market that followed was caused not only by Sharon's manipulations, but by the amazing developments on the 1500- and 1550-foot levels of the Con. Virginia.
[p. 163] "Baldwin withstood all of Keene's blandishments, and Sharon was forced to pay his price for the stock, $135 a share for 20,000 shares. Sharon took over control at the Ophir election, but kept boosting the stock until he was elected Senator on January 12, 1875. Meantime the speculators had gone mad: Ophir sold for $315 a share on January 7, Con. Virginia for $710, and California for $780. The inevitable panic started on January 8, and the bottom fell out of the market.
"It was charged that Sharon had "unloaded" at high prices and then "shorted" the stock, thereby recouping all of his expenditures.
" . . .
Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp. 1874
"Already a major land owner, Colonel Baker* in 1874 married Dona Arcadia Bandini de Stearns, widow of Don Abel Steans, an American who had come to California as one of the very earliest American settlers.
"She was also the daughter of Don Juan Bandini, one of the wealthiest and most distinguished of the pioneer citizens of Los Angeles county, and the progenitor of a family very well known to this day . . .
"Then cam Sen. John Percival Jones*, universially regarded as the founder of Santa Monica. Senator Jones, who had made a fortune in mining operations in Nevada, having been one of the developers of the Comstock lode, first visited the area in 1874. . . . there was a small resort at the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon.
"There was also a very small commercial port operating from a wooden pier just west of the present site of the Santa Monica municipal pier. Small coastal vessels put in, when weather permitted, and loaded asphalt mined from the La Brea pits which then were part of the Rancho La Brea which had been acquired by the Hancock family.
"Senator Jones* was impressed with the potential of Sant Monica even though Los Angeles at that time was a small town. Santa Monica, he believed, needed a railroad in order to achieve its destiny."
Betty Lou Young and Randy Young Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History Casa Vieja Press: Pacific Palisades, CA, 1997, 182pp., 1874
"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 in Santa Monica Bay. . . .Wagons and carriages [continued on] the beach to the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon.
"Colonel Rober Baker . . . envisioned a new wharf at Santa Monica and a connecting railroad into Los Angeles.
" . . .
"[Baker] teamed up with the newly arrived senator from Nevada, John P. Jones . . . Jones had made his first fortune in the mines of the Comstock Lode. . . . he invested in mines all over the world. backed a variety of patents and inventions, [making and losing] several fortunes. Appointed to the United States Senate in 1873, he continued to serve for thirty years, maintaining his official residence in Virginia City, . . . When he arrived in Los Angeles in 1874, he was given a royal welcome.
" . . . the two men . . . organize[d] the Los Angeles & Independence Railroad Company to provide a link to Los Angeles and the eastern seaboard, as well as an access to Jones' Panamint mines. They also began work on a new wharf at Shoo Fly Landing . . ."