Politics enlivened the situation somewhat in the fall of this year of depression. In September, the troops were withdrawn from Catalina Island, and the following month most of the guard was brought in from Fort Tejón; and this, creating possibly a feeling of security, paved the way for still larger Union meetings in October and November. Toward the end of October, Francisco P. Ramirez, formerly editor of El Clamor Público, was made Postmaster, succeeding William G. Still, upon whose life an attempt had been made while he was in office.
As an illustration of how a fortunate plunger acquired property now worth millions, through the disinclination on the part of most people here to add to their taxes in this time of drought, I may mention two pieces of land included in the early Ord survey, one hundred and twenty by one hundred and sixty-five feet in size—one at the southwest corner of Spring and Fourth streets, the other at the southeast corner of Fort and Fourth—which were sold on December 12th, 1864, for two dollars and fifty-two cents, delinquent taxes. The tax on each lot was but one dollar and twenty-six cents, yet only one purchaser appeared!
About that very time, there was another and noteworthy movement in favor of the establishment of a railroad between Los Angeles and San Pedro. In December, committees from outside towns met here with our citizens to debate the subject; but by the end of the several days' conference, no real progress had been made.
The year 1865 gave scant promise, at least in its opening, of better times to come. To be sure, Northern arms were more and more victorious, and with the approach of Lincoln's second inauguration the conviction grew that under the leadership of such a man national prosperity might return. Little did we dream that the most dramatic of all tragedies in our history was soon to be enacted. In Southern California the effects of the long drought continued, and the certainty that the cattle-industry, once so vast and flourishing, was now but a memory, discouraged a people to whom the vision of a far more profitable use of the land had not yet been revealed.
For several years my family, including three children, had been shifting from pillar to post owing to the lack of residences such as are now built to sell or lease, and I could not postpone any longer the necessity of obtaining larger quarters. We had occupied, at various times, a little shanty on Franklin Street, owned by a carpenter named Wilson; a small, one-story brick on Main Street near First, owned by Henne, the brewer; and once we lived with the Kremers in a one-story house, none too large, on Fort Street. Again we dwelt on Fort Street in a little brick house that stood on the site of the present Chamber of Commerce building, next door to Governor Downey's, before he moved to Main Street. The nearest approach to convenience was afforded by our occupancy of Henry Dalton's two-story brick on Main Street near Second. One day a friend told me that Jim Easton had an adobe on Main Street near Third, which he wished to sell; and on inquiry, I bought the place, paying him a thousand dollars for fifty-four feet, the entire frontage being occupied by the house. Main Street, beyond First, was practically in the same condition as at the time of my arrival, no streets running east having been opened south of First.
After moving in, we were inconvenienced because there was no driveway, and everything needed for housekeeping had to be carried, in consequence, through the front door of the dwelling. I therefore interviewed my friend and neighbor, Ygnácio Garcia, who owned a hundred feet adjoining me, and asked him if he would sell or rent me twenty feet of his property; whereupon he permitted me the free use of twenty feet, thus supplying me with access to the rear of my house. A few months later, Alfred B. Chapman, Garcia's legal adviser (who, by the way, is still alive)[25] brought me a deed to the twenty feet of land, the only expense being a fee of twenty-five dollars to Chapman for making out the document; and later Garcia sold his remaining eighty feet to Tom Mott for five dollars a foot. This lot is still in my possession. In due time, I put up a large, old-fashioned wooden barn with a roomy hay-loft, stalls for a couple of horses or mules, and space for a large flat-truck, the first of the kind for years in Los Angeles. John Simmons had his room in the barn and was one of my first porters. I had no regular driver for the truck, but John usually served in that capacity.
Incidentally to this story of my selecting a street on which to live, I may say that during the sixties Main and San Pedro streets were among the chief residential sections, and Spring Street was only beginning to be popular for homes. The fact that some people living on the west side of Main Street built their stables in back-yards connecting with Spring Street, retarded the latter's growth.
Here I may well repeat the story of the naming of Spring Street, particularly as it exemplifies the influence that romance sometimes has upon affairs usually prosaic. Ord, the surveyor, was then more than prepossessed in favor of the delightful Señorita Trinidad de la Guerra, for whose hand he was, in fact, a suitor and to whom he always referred as Mi Primavera—"My Springtime;" and when asked to name the new thoroughfare, he gallantly replied, "Primavera, of course! Primavera!"
On February 3d, a wind-storm, the like of which the proverbial "oldest inhabitant" could scarcely recall, struck Los Angeles amidships, unroofing many houses and blowing down orchards. Wolfskill lost heavily, and Banning & Company's large barn at the northeast corner of Fort and Second streets, near the old schoolhouse, was demolished, scarcely a post remaining upright. A curious sight, soon after the storm began to blow, was that of many citizens weighing down and lashing fast their roofs, just as they do in Sweden, Norway and Switzerland, to keep them from being carried to unexpected, not to say inconvenient, locations.
In early days, steamers plying up and down the Pacific Coast, as I have pointed out, were so poor in every respect that it was necessary to make frequent changes in their names, to induce passengers to travel on them at all. As far back as 1860, one frequently heard the expression, "the old tubs;" and in 1865, even the best-known boat on the Southern run was publicly discussed as "the rotten old Senator," "the old hulk" and "the floating coffin." At this time, there was a strong feeling against the Steam Navigation Company for its arbitrary treatment of the public, its steamers sometimes leaving a whole day before the date on which they were advertised to depart; and this criticism and dissatisfaction finally resulted in the putting on of the opposition steamer Pacific which for the time became popular.