Once more, in 1866, the Post Office was moved, this time to a building opposite the Bella Union hotel. There it remained until perhaps 1868, when it was transferred to the northwest corner of Main and Market streets.
In the spring of 1866, the Los Angeles Board of Education was petitioned to establish a school where Spanish as well as English should be taught—probably the first step toward the introduction into public courses here of the now much-studied castellano.
In noting the third schoolhouse, at the corner of San Pedro and Washington streets, I should not forget to say that Judge Dryden bought the lot for the City, at a cost of one hundred dollars. When the fourth school was erected, at the corner of Charity and Eighth streets, it was built on property secured for three hundred and fifty dollars by M. Kremer, who served on the School Board for nine years, from 1866, with Henry D. Barrows and William Workman. There, a few years ago, a brick building replaced the original wooden structure. Besides Miss Eliza Madigan, teachers of this period or later were the Misses Hattie and Frankie Scott, daughters of Judge Scott, the Misses Maggie Hamilton, Eula P. Bixby, Emma L. Hawkes, Clara M. Jones, H. K. Saxe and C. H. Kimball; a sister of Governor Downey, soon to become Mrs. Peter Martin, was also a public school teacher.
Piped gas as well as water had been quite generally brought into private use shortly after their introduction, all pipes running along the surface of walls and ceilings, in neither a very judicious nor ornamental arrangement. The first gas-fixtures consisted of the old-fashioned, unornamented drops from the ceiling, connected at right angles to the cross-pipe, with its two plain burners, one at either end, forming an inverted T (
); and years passed before artistic bronzes and globes, such as were displayed in profusion at the Centennial Exposition, were seen to any extent here.
In September, Leon Loeb arrived in Los Angeles and entered the employ of S. Lazard & Company, later becoming a partner. When Eugene Meyer left for San Francisco on the first of January, 1884, resigning his position as French Consular Agent, Loeb succeeded him, both in that capacity and as head of the firm. After fifteen years' service, the French Government conferred upon Mr. Loeb the decoration of an Officer of the Academy. As Past Master of the Odd Fellows, he became in time one of the oldest members of Lodge No. 35. On March 23d, 1879, Loeb married my eldest daughter, Estelle; and on July 22d, 1911, he died. Joseph P. and Edwin J. Loeb, the attorneys and partners of Irving M. Walker, (son-in-law of Tomás Lorenzo Duque),[27] are sons of Leon Loeb.
In the summer there came to Los Angeles from the Northern part of California an educator who had already established there and in Wisconsin an excellent reputation as a teacher. This was George W. Burton, who was accompanied by his wife, a lady educated in France and Italy. With them they brought two assistants, a young man and a young woman, adding another young woman teacher after they arrived. The company of pedagogues made quite a formidable array; and their number permitted the division of the school—then on Main near what is now Second Street—into three departments: one a kind of kindergarten, another for young girls and a third for boys. The school grew and it soon became necessary to move the boys' department to the vestry-room of the little Episcopal Church on the corner of Temple and New High streets.
Not only was Burton an accomplished scholar and experienced teacher, but Mrs. Burton was a linguist of talent and also proficient in both instrumental and vocal music. Our eldest children attended the Burton School, as did also those of many friends such as the Kremers, Whites, Morrises, Griffiths, the Volney Howards, Kewens, Scotts, Nichols, the Schumachers, Joneses and the Bannings.
Daniel Bohen, another watchmaker and jeweler, came after Pyle, establishing himself, on September 11th, on the south side of Commercial Street. He sold watches, clocks, jewelry and spectacles; and he used to advertise with the figure of a huge watch. S. Nordlinger, who arrived here in 1868, bought Bohen out and continued the jewelry business during forty-two years, until his death in 1911, when, as a pioneer jeweler, he was succeeded by Louis S. and Melville Nordlinger, who still use the title of S. Nordlinger & Sons.