Dol then had in his employ an uncle, who was a rather mysterious individual, and who proved to be a French anarchist. It was said that his pet scheme for regulating the government of Louis Philippe met with such scant approval that, one fine day, he found himself in jail. Escaping in course of time from the anxious and watchful authorities, he made his way to the outside world and finally located here. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, he was supposed to have returned to his native land, where he once more satisfied his peculiar propensity for patriotic activity by tearing down and burning, in company with other so-called Communists, some of the most beautiful buildings in all Paris.
In the spring of 1876, Los Angeles boasted of another French restaurant, a dining place called the Oriental and conducted by a Frenchman, C. Casson and a German, H. Schmitt. It was on Main Street opposite the Pico House, and much ado was made of the claim that everything was "in European style" and that it was "the largest and most commodious restaurant south of San Francisco."
Human nature—at least of the feminine type—was much the same, thirty-five or forty years ago, as it is to-day. Such a conclusion, at least, the reader may reach after scanning an Easter advertisement of Miss Hammond, an 1876 milliner who had a little shop at 7 North Spring Street and who then made the following announcement to those of her fashion-loving sex:
Miss Hammond, who has just received a splendid lot of new styles of hats, bonnets, silks, ribbons, etc., invites the ladies of Los Angeles to call at her place of business before purchasing elsewhere. One glance into her show-window will be enough to project any modern heart into a state of palpitation.
Elsewhere I have mentioned the salt works near Redondo's site. Dr. H. Nadeau (who came here in 1876, had an office in the Grand Central Hotel and was soon elected Coroner) was once called there and started with a constable and an undertaker—the latter carrying with him a rough board coffin for the prospective "subject." Losing their way, the party had to camp for the night on the plains; whereupon the Coroner, opening the coffin, crawled in and "slept like a brick!"
John Edward Hollenbeck, who in 1888 built the Hollenbeck Hotel, returned to Los Angeles in the spring of 1876—having been here in 1874, when he made certain realty investments—secured land on the east side of the Los Angeles River, spent a large sum of money for improvements and soon built a residence exceptionally fine for that time. And in this beautiful home, in close proximity to Boyle Avenue, he lived until his death, on September 2d, 1885, at the age of fifty-six years. Succeeding A. C. Bilicke in 1903, John S. Mitchell, long a prominent Angeleño, is still controlling this busy hostelry.
I have spoken of an adobe on ten acres of land I once purchased to secure water for my flock of sheep. After Hollenbeck had built his home on Boyle heights, he was so disturbed by a company of Mexicans who congregated in this adobe that, in sheer desperation, he asked me in 1882 to sell him the land. I did so, and we agreed upon six hundred and twenty-five dollars as a price for the entire piece.
Hollenbeck then made another noteworthy investment. H. C. Wiley owned a lot, one hundred and twenty feet by one hundred and sixty-five, on the southeast corner of Fort and Second streets, where he lived in a small cottage. He had mortgaged this property for six thousand dollars; but since, under his contract, Wiley was not required to pay interest, the mortgagee tired of the loan. Hollenbeck bought the mortgage and made a further advance of four thousand dollars on the property. He finally foreclosed, but at the same time did the handsome thing when he gave Mrs. Wiley, a daughter of Andrés Pico, a deed for the forty feet on Fort Street upon which the cottage stood. These forty feet are almost directly opposite Coulter's dry goods store.
So many ranchers had again and again unsuccessfully experimented with wheat in this vicinity that when I. N. Van Nuys, in 1876, joined Isaac Lankershim in renting lands from the company in which they were interested, and in planting nearly every acre to that staple grain, failure and even ruin were predicted by the old settlers. Van Nuys, however, selected and prepared his seed with care and the first season rewarded them with a great harvest, which they shipped to Liverpool. Thus was inaugurated the successful cultivation of wheat in Southern California on a large scale. In 1878, the depot of the Southern Pacific at the corner of Alameda and Commercial streets had become too small for the Company's growing business, compelling them to buy on San Fernando Street; and Lankershim and his associates purchased the old structure from the Company for the sum of seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars, and there erected a flour mill which they conducted until the ranch was sold, a few years ago.
One of the very interesting cases in the Los Angeles courts was that which came before Judge H. K. S. O'Melveny on May 15th when Mrs. Eulalia Perez Guillen, one hundred and thirty years old according to the records of the church at San Gabriel, claimed the right to exhibit herself at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia as a California curiosity. She was accompanied to court by a daughter, Mariana and their counsel, F. P. Ramirez; but there was also present another daughter, Mrs. de White, who brought Attorney Stephen M. White to assist in opposing the visionary scheme. Mariana admitted that she had not the means to humor the old lady in her hobby, while Mrs. de White objected that her mother was in her dotage and could not travel as far as Philadelphia. The Judge granted the old lady liberty to live with either daughter, but required of Mariana a bond of five hundred dollars as a guarantee that she would not take her mother out of the county.