Michel Lèvy, an Alsatian, arrived in San Francisco when but seventeen years of age, and after various experiences in California and Nevada towns, he came to Los Angeles in 1868, soon establishing, with Joe Coblentz, the wholesale liquor house of Lèvy & Coblentz. The latter left here in 1879, and Lèvy continued under the firm name of M. Lèvy & Company until his death in 1905.
Anastácio Cárdenas, a dwarf who weighed but one and a half pounds when born, came to Los Angeles in 1867 and soon appeared before the public as a singer and dancer. He carried a sword and was popularly dubbed "General." A brother, Ruperto, long lived here.
When the Canal & Reservoir Company was organized with George Hansen as President and J. J. Warner as Secretary, P. Beaudry contributed heavily to construct a twenty-foot dam across the cañon, below the present site of Echo Park, and a ditch leading down to Pearl Street. This first turned attention to the possibilities in the hill-lands to the West; and in return, the City gave to the company a large amount of land, popularly designated as canal and reservoir property.
In 1868, when there was still not a three-story house in Los Angeles, James Alvinza Hayward, a San Franciscan, joined John G. Downey in providing one hundred thousand dollars with which to open, in the old Downey Block on the site of the Temple adobe, the first bank in Los Angeles, under the firm name of Hayward & Company. The lack of business afforded this enterprise short shrift and they soon retired. In July of the same year, I. W. Hellman, William Workman, F. P. F. Temple and James R. Toberman started a bank, with a capital of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, under the title of Hellman, Temple & Company, Hellman becoming manager.
I do not remember when postal lock-boxes were first brought into use, but I do recollect that in the late sixties Postmaster Clarke had a great deal of trouble collecting quarterly rents, and that he finally gave notice that boxes held by delinquents would thereafter be nailed up.
A year or two after the Burtons had established themselves here, came another pedagogue in the person of W. B. Lawlor, a thick-set, bearded man with a flushed complexion, who opened a day-school called the Lawlor Institute; and after the Burtons left here to settle at Portland, Oregon, where Burton became headmaster of an academy for advanced students, many of his former pupils attended Lawlor's school. The two institutions proved quite different in type: the Burton training had tended strongly to languages and literature, while Lawlor, who was an adept at short-cut methods of calculation, placed more stress on arithmetic and commercial education. Burton, who returned to Los Angeles, has been for years a leading member of the Times editorial staff, and Burton's Book on California and its Sunlit Skies is one of this author's contributions to Pacific Coast literature; his wife, however, died many years ago. Lawlor, who was President of the Common Council in 1880, is also dead.
The most popular piano-teacher of about that time was Professor Van Gilpin.
William Pridham came to Los Angeles in August, having been transferred from the San Francisco office of Wells Fargo & Company, in whose service as pony rider, clerk at Austin, Nevada, and at Sacramento, and cashier in the Northern metropolis he had been for some ten years. Here he succeeded Major J. R. Toberman, when the latter, after long service, resigned; and with a single office-boy, at one time little Joe Binford, he handled all the business committed to the company's charge. John Osborn was the outside expressman. Then most of the heavy express matter from San Francisco was carried by steamers, but letters and limited packages of moment were sent by stage. With the advent of railroads, Pridham was appointed by Wells Fargo & Company Superintendent of the Los Angeles district. On June 12th, 1880, he married Miss Mary Esther, daughter of Colonel John O. Wheeler, and later moved to Alameda. Now, after fifty-one years of association with the express business, Pridham still continues to be officially connected with the Wells Fargo company.
Speaking of that great organization, reminds me that it conducted for years a mail-carrying business. Three-cent stamped envelopes, imprinted with Wells Fargo & Company's name, were sold to their patrons for ten cents each; and to compensate for this bonus, the Company delivered the letters entrusted to them perhaps one to two hours sooner than did the Government.
This recalls to me a familiar experience on the arrival of the mail from the North. Before the inauguration of a stage-line, the best time in the transmission of mail matter between San Francisco and Los Angeles was made by water, and Wells Fargo messengers sailed with the steamers. Immediately upon the arrival of the boat at San Pedro, the messenger boarded the stage, and as soon as he reached Los Angeles, pressed on to the office of the Company, near the Bella Union, where he delivered his bagful of letters. The steamer generally got in by five o'clock in the morning; and many a time, about seven, have I climbed Signal or Pound Cake Hill—higher in those days than now, and affording in clear weather a view of both ocean and the smoke of the steamer—upon whose summit stood a house, used as a signal station, and there watched for the rival stages, the approach of which was indicated by clouds of dust. I would then hurry with many others to the Express Company's office where, as soon as the bag was emptied, we would all help ourselves unceremoniously to the mail.