Spring Street Entrance to Garden of Paradise
Temple Street, Looking West from Broadway, about 1870
Pico House, soon after Completion
Moses Langley Wicks was a Mississippian who for some years had a law office at Anaheim until, in 1877 or 1878, he removed to Los Angeles and soon became an active operator in real estate. He secured from Jonathan S. Slauson—who organized the Azusa Land and Water Company and helped lay out the town—the Dalton section of the San José Ranch. Wicks was also active in locating the depot of the Santa Fé Railroad, carrying through at private expense the opening of Second Street from Main almost to the river. A brother, Moye Wicks, long an attorney here, later removed to the State of Washington.
Southern California was now prospering; in fact, the whole State was enjoying wonderful advantages. The great Comstock mines were at the height of their prosperity; the natural resources of this part of the country were being developed; land once hard to sell, at even five dollars an acre, was being cut up into small tracts; new hamlets and towns were starting up; money was plentiful and everybody was happy.
About this time my brother, J. P. Newmark, and I made a little tour, visiting Lake Tahoe—an unusual trip in that day—as well as the mines of Nevada. Virginia City, Gold Hill and other mining-camps were the liveliest that I had ever seen. My friend, General Charles Forman, was then Superintendent of the Overman and Caledonia Mines, and was engaged in constructing a beautiful home in Virginia City. After the collapse of the Nevada boom in the early eighties, he transported this house to Los Angeles, at a freight expense of eleven hundred and thirty-five dollars and a total cost of over six thousand, and located it on ten acres of land near the present site of Pico and Figueroa streets, where Mr. and Mrs. Forman, still residents of Los Angeles, for years have enjoyed their home.