On February 14th, General Andrés Pico died at his residence, 203 Main Street, and was buried from his home on the following day.
On March 1st, work was commenced on the San Pedro Street Railway, which in time was extended from the Santa Monica station to the Plaza, via San Pedro, Los Angeles, Arcadia and Sanchez streets. The gauge was that of the Los Angeles & Independence Railway, thus permitting freight cars to be hauled to the center of the city; on which account business men looked upon the new road as a boon. Passenger cars soon ran from the depot to the Pico House; and as the fare was but five cents, or thirty tickets for a dollar, this line was rewarded with a fair patronage. At the end of 1876, four street railways were in operation here.
In March, also, two hundred pleasure-seekers, then considered a generous outpouring, went down to Santa Monica on a single Sunday; and within the first three months of the year, the Land Company there gathered in about seventy-three thousand dollars—selling a lot almost every day. South Santa Monica was then looked upon as the finer part of the growing town, and many of my friends, including Andrew Glassell, Cameron E. Thom, General George Stoneman, E. M. Ross, H. M. Mitchell, J. D. and Dr. Frederick T. Bicknell and Frank Ganahl, bought sites there for summer villas.
Micajah D. Johnson, twice City Treasurer, was a Quaker who came here in 1876. He built at Santa Monica a hotel which was soon burned; and later he became interested in the colony at Whittier, suggesting the name of that community.
In 1876, the City purchased a village hook-and-ladder truck in San Francisco which, drawn by hand in the vigorous old-fashioned way, supplied all our needs until 1881.
In 1876, the Archer Freight and Fare Bill, which sought to regulate railroad transportation, engrossed the attention of commercial leaders, and on March 9th, President S. Lazard called together the Directors of the Chamber of Commerce at the office of Judge Ygnácio Sepúlveda. Besides President Lazard, there were present R. M. Widney, W. J. Brodrick, M. J. Newmark, E. E. Hewitt and I. W. Lord. Little time was lost in the framing of a despatch which indicated to our representatives how they would be expected to vote on the matter. Several speeches were made, that of M. J. Newmark focusing the sentiment of the opposition and contributing much to defeat the measure. Newmark expressed surprise that a bill of such interest to the entire State should have passed the Lower House apparently without discussion, and declared that Southern Californians could never afford to interfere with the further building of railroads here. Our prosperity had commenced with their construction, and it would be suicidal to force them to suspend.
In a previous chapter I have spoken of the rate—ten dollars per thousand—first charged for gas, and the public satisfaction at the further reduction to seven dollars and a half. This price was again reduced to six dollars and seventy-five cents; but lower rates prevailing elsewhere, Los Angeles consumers about the middle of March held a public meeting to combat the gas monopoly. After speeches more lurid, it is to be feared, than any gas flame of that period, a resolution was passed binding those who signed to refrain from using gas for a whole year, if necessary, beginning with the first of April. Charles H. Simpkins, President of the Los Angeles Gas Company, retorted by insisting that, at the price of coal, the Company could not possibly sell gas any cheaper; but a single week's reflection, together with the specter of an oil-lamp city, led the Gas Company, on March 21st, to grant a reduction to six dollars a thousand.
Will Tell was a painter in 1869 and had his shop in Temple Block, opposite the Court House. Early in 1876 he opened a lunch and refreshment house at the corner of Fourth Street and Utah Avenue in Santa Monica, where he catered to excursionists, selling hunting paraphernalia and fishing tackle, and providing "everything, including fluids." Down at what is now Playa del Rey, Tell had conducted, about 1870, a resort on a lagoon covered with flocks of ducks; and there he kept eight or ten boats for the many hunters attracted to the spot, becoming more and more popular and prosperous. In 1884, however, raging tides destroyed Tell's happy hunting grounds; and for fifteen or twenty years, the "King's Beach" was more desert than resort. Tell continued for a while at Santa Monica and was an authority on much that had to do with local sport.
On Sunday, April 9th, the Cathedral of Sancta Vibiana, whose corner-stone had been laid in 1871 on the east side of Main Street south of Second, was opened for public service, its architecture (similar to that of the Puerto de San Miguel in Barcelona, Spain) at once attracting wide attention. As a matter of fact, the first corner-stone had been placed, on October 3d, 1869, on the west side of Main Street between Fifth and Sixth, when it was expected that the Cathedral was to extend to Spring Street. The site, however (and oddly enough,) was soon pronounced, "too far out of town," and a move was undertaken to a point farther north. In more recent years, efforts have been made to relocate the bishop's church in the West End. A feature of the original edifice was a front railing, along the line of the street, composed of blocks of artificial stone made by Busbard & Hamilton who in 1875 started a stone factory, the first of its kind here, in East Los Angeles.
Victor Dol, who arrived here in the Centennial year and became the Delmonico of his day, kept a high-grade restaurant, known as the Commercial in the old Downey Block, about one hundred and fifty feet north of the corner of Spring and Temple streets. The restaurant was reached through a narrow passageway that first led into an open court paved with brick, in the center of which a fountain played. Crossing this court, the interested patron entered the main dining-room, where an excellent French dinner was served daily at a cost of but fifty cents, and where the popular chef furnished many of the notable banquets of his time. Dol also had a number of private dining-rooms, where the epicures of the period were wont to meet, and for the privilege of dining in which there was an additional charge. Dol's Commercial was a popular institution for more than a quarter of a century.