Henri Penelon, in his Studio
Carreta, Earliest Mode of Transportation
Alameda Street Depot and Train, Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad
Supplementing what I have said of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad depot: it was built on a lot fronting three hundred feet on Alameda Street and having a depth of one hundred and twenty feet, its situation being such that, after the extension of Commercial Street, the structure occupied the southwest corner of the two highways. Really, it was more of a freight-shed than anything else, without adequate passenger facilities; a small space at the North end contained a second story in which some of the clerks slept; and in a cramped little cage beneath, tickets were sold. By the way, the engineer of the first train to run through to this depot was James Holmes, although B. W. Colling ran the first train stopping inside the city limits.
About this time the real estate excitement had become still more intense. In anticipation of the erection of this depot, Commercial Street property boomed and the first realty agents of whom I have any recollection appeared on the scene, Judge R. M. Widney being among them. I remember that two lots—one eighty by one hundred and twenty feet in size at the northwest corner of First and Spring streets, and the other having a frontage of only twenty feet on New Commercial Street, adjacent to the station—were offered simultaneously at twelve hundred dollars each. Contrary, no doubt, to what he would do to-day, the purchaser chose the Commercial Street lot, believing that location to have the better future.
Telegraph rates were not very favorable, in 1869, to frequent or verbose communication. Ten words sent from Los Angeles to San Francisco cost one dollar and a half; and fifty cents additional was asked for the next five words. After a while, there was a reduction of twenty-five per cent, in the cost of the first ten words, and fifty per cent, on the second five.