How modest was the status of the Post Office in 1869 may be gathered from the fact that the Postmaster had only one assistant, a boy, both together receiving fourteen hundred dollars in greenbacks, worth but a thousand dollars in gold.
Henry Hammel, for years connected with the Bella Union, and a partner named Bremerman leased the United States Hotel on February 1st from Louis Mesmer; and in March, John King succeeded Winston & King as manager of the Bella Union. King died in December, 1871.
In the winter of 1868-69, when heavy rains seriously interfered with bringing in the small supply of lumber at San Pedro, a coöperative society was proposed, to insure the importation each summer of enough supplies to tide the community over during the wintry weather. Over one hundred persons, it was then estimated, had abandoned building, and many others were waiting for material to complete fences and repairs.
Thanks to Contractor H. B. Tichenor's vigor in constructing the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, public interest in the venture, by the beginning of 1869, had materially increased. In January, a vessel arrived with a locomotive and a steam pile-driver; and a few days later a schooner sailed into San Pedro with ties, sleepers and rails enough for three miles of the track. Soon, also, the locomotive was running part of the way. The wet winter made muddy roads, and this led to the proposal to lay the tracks some eight or ten miles in the direction of Los Angeles, and there to transfer the freight to wagons.
Stearns Hall and the Plaza were amusement places in 1869. At the latter, in January, the so-called Paris Exposition Circus held forth; while Joe Murphy and Maggie Moore, who had just favored the passengers on the Orizaba, on coming south from San Francisco, with a show, trod the hall's more classic boards.
Ice a quarter of an inch thick was formed here for several days during the third week in January, and butchers found it so difficult to secure fat cattle that good beef advanced to sixteen and a quarter cents a pound.
On January 20th, I purchased from Eugene Meyer the southern half of lots three and four in block five, fronting on Fort Street between Second and Third, formerly owned by William Buffum and J. F. Burns. Meyer had paid one thousand dollars for one hundred and twenty feet front and three hundred and thirty feet depth; and when I bought half of this piece for one thousand dollars, it was generally admitted that I had paid all that it was worth.
Isaac Lankershim—father of J. B. Lankershim and Mrs. I. N. Van Nuys—who first visited California in 1854, came from San Francisco in 1869 and bought, for one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, part of Andrés Pico's San Fernando rancho, which he stocked with sheep. Levi Strauss & Company, Scholle Brothers, L. and M. Sachs & Company of San Francisco and others, were interested in this partnership, then known as the San Fernando Farm Association; but Lankershim was in control until about one year later, when Isaac Newton Van Nuys arrived from Monticello, where he had been merchandising, and was put permanently in charge of the ranch. At this period Lankershim lived there, for he had not yet undertaken milling in Los Angeles. A little later, Lankershim and Van Nuys successfully engaged in the raising of wheat, cultivating nearly sixty thousand acres, and consigning some of their harvests to Liverpool. This fact recalls a heavy loss in the spring of 1881, when the Parisian, which left Wilmington under Captain Reaume, foundered at sea with nearly two hundred and fifty tons of wheat and about seventy-five tons of flour belonging to them.
J. B. Lankershim, owner of the well-known hotel bearing his name, after the death of his father made some very important investments in Los Angeles real estate, including the northwest corner of Broadway and Seventh Street, now occupied by the building devoted to Bullock's department store.
M. N. Newmark, a nephew of mine and President of the Newmark Grain Company, arrived in 1869, and clerked for H. Newmark & Company until 1871, in which year he established a partnership with S. Grand in Compton, selling general merchandise. This partnership lasted until 1878, when Newmark bought out Grand. He finally disposed of the business in 1889 and, with D. K. Edwards, organized the firm of Newmark & Edwards. In 1895 Edwards sold out his interest.