But there are other indications of the strength, or perhaps the weakness, of the Boom. In 1887, the total assessment of the young City and County was three million dollars, or about one-third that recorded for the longer-developed City and County of San Francisco. In one day in July, real estate valued at $664,000 was transferred; on another day in the same month, $730,000 worth; and soon after, in one day, property to the value of $930,000 changed hands. From forty million dollars in March, 1886, the wealth of the county jumped, in just two years, to one hundred and three millions. So many, indeed, were the purchasers of real estate in Los Angeles at that time who soon left the town and were seldom or never heard of again, and so many were the sales effected by proxy, that even in August of 1887 one of the newspapers contained over three pages of taxes listed on property whose possessors were unknown.
During this wild excitement, few men of position or reputation who came to town escaped interrogation as to what they thought of the Boom. "Phil" D. Armour, head of the Armour Packing Company, was one who arrived late in July, and whose opinion was immediately sought; and his answer indicated the unbounded confidence inspired in the minds of even outsiders by the unheard-of development of land values. "Boom—will it break soon?" repeated Armour and proceeded to answer his own query. "There is no boom to break! This is merely the preliminary to a boom which will so outclass the present activities that its sound will be as thunder to the cracking of a hickory nut!" Nor was Armour the only one who was so carried away by the phenomena of the times: San Francisco watched Los Angeles with wonder and interest, marveling at all she heard of the magic changes south of the Teháchepi, and asking herself if Los Angeles might not be able to point the way to better methods of city-building?
I have thus endeavored to give a slight idea of the lack of mental poise displayed by our good people in the year 1887, when the crop of millionaires was so great that to be one was no distinction at all. But alas! the inevitable collapse came and values tumbled fully as rapidly as they had advanced, finding many (who but a short period before had based their worth on investments figured at several times their value) loaded with overwhelming debts and mortgages quite impossible of liquidation. Indeed, readjustments took years and years to accomplish; and so it happened that many an imaginary Crœsus then became the bidder, often unsuccessful, for humble employment. Just as is always the case, too, in periods such as I have described, the depression, when it came was correspondingly severe and sudden. Many of our greatest boomers and speculators lost all hope; and more than one poor suicide so paid the price of his inordinate craving for wealth.
To be sure, some level-headed people, acting more conservatively than the majority, in time derived large profits from the steady increase in values. Those who bought judiciously during that period are now the men of wealth in Los Angeles; and this is more particularly true as to ownership in business sections of the city. Even at the height of the Boom but little property on any of the streets south of Fifth was worth more than two hundred dollars a foot. Following the Boom, there was an increase of building, much of it doubtless due to contracts already entered into.
Incidental to the opening of the Southern Pacific Railroad's route between the North and South by way of the coast, on August 20th, a great railway fête was held at Santa Bárbara, the first through trains from San Francisco and Los Angeles meeting at that point. A procession, illustrating the progress in transportation methods from the burro pack and stage coach to the modern train of cars, filed about the streets of the old Spanish town. On the return of the Los Angeles excursion train, however, a defective culvert near the Camulos Ranch caused the cars, with one hundred and fifty passengers, to plunge down an embankment—luckily with but few casualties.
L. E. Mosher, who had much literary ability and is still remembered as the author of the poem, The Stranded Bugle, joined the Times staff in August and became prominently identified with the conduct of that newspaper. Later, he left journalism and entered on a business career in New York; but experiencing reverses, he returned to Los Angeles. Failing here, he at length committed suicide, to the deep regret of a large circle of friends.
Late in August, the paving of Main Street, the first thoroughfare of Los Angeles to be so improved, was begun, much to the relief of our townspeople who had too long borne the inconvenience of dusty and muddy roadways, and who, after heavy rains the winter before, had in no uncertain fashion given utterance to their disgust at the backward conditions. This expression was the result of a carefully and generally organized movement; for one morning it was discovered that all of the principal streets were covered with mounds of earth resembling little graves, into each of which had been thrust imitation tombstones bearing such inscriptions as the following:
BEWARE OF QUICKSAND!
FARE FOR FERRYING ACROSS, 25 CENTS.
NO DUCK-HUNTING ALLOWED IN THIS POND!
BOATS LEAVE THIS LANDING EVERY HALF-HOUR.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE!
This year, the Sued-Californische Post, which had been established in 1874, began to appear as a daily, with a weekly edition, the Germans in Los Angeles in the eighties representing no mean portion of the burgher strength.
In 1887, the Turnverein-Germania sold to L. J. Rose and J. B. Lankershim, for removal and renovation, the frame structure on Spring Street which for so many years had served it as a home, and erected in its place a substantial brick building costing about forty thousand dollars. Six or seven years afterward, the society resold that property—to be used later as the Elks' Hall—for one hundred thousand dollars; then it bought the lot at 319 and 321 South Main Street, and erected there its new stone-fronted Turner Hall. On the occasion of the corner-stone laying, on August 14th, 1887, when the Turnverein-Germania, the Austrian Verein and the Schwabenverein joined hands and voices, the Germans celebrated their advancement by festivities long to be remembered, ex-Mayor Henry T. Hazard making the chief address; but I dare say that the assembly particularly enjoyed the reminiscences of the pioneer President, Jake Kuhrts, who took his hearers back to the olden days of the Round House (that favorite rendezvous which stood on the very spot where the new building was to rise) and pointed out how Time had tenderly and appropriately joined the associations of the Past with those of the Present. Turner Hall, with its restaurant, brought our German citizens into daily and friendly intercourse, and long served their rapidly-developing community.