CHAPTER XXXIX
PROPOSED STATE DIVISION
1888-1891
By agreement among property owners, the widening of Fort Street from Second to Ninth began in February, 1888. This was not accomplished without serious opposition, many persons objecting to the change on the ground that it would ruin the appearance of their bordering lots. I was one of those, I am frank to say, who looked with disfavor on the innovation; but time has shown that it was an improvement, the widened street (now known as Broadway), being perhaps the only fine business avenue of which Los Angeles can boast.
Booth and Barrett, the famous tragedians, visited Los Angeles together this winter, giving a notable performance in Child's Opera House, their combined genius showing to greatest advantage in the presentation of Julius Cæsar and Othello.
Toward the end of the seventies, I dipped into an amusing volume, The Rise and Fall of the Mustache, by Robert J. Burdette—then associated with the Burlington Hawkeye—little thinking that a decade later would find the author famous and a permanent resident of Southern California.[42] His wife, Clara Bradley Burdette, whom he married in 1899 and who is well known as a clubwoman, has been associated with him in many local activities.
George Wharton James, an Englishman, also took up his residence in Southern California in 1888, finally settling in Pasadena, although seven years previously he had been an interested visitor in Los Angeles. James has traveled much in the Southwest; and besides lecturing, he has written ten or twelve volumes dealing in a popular manner with the Spanish Missions and kindred subjects.
Through the publication by D. Appleton & Company of one of the early books of value dealing with our section of the State, progress was made, in the late eighties, in durably advertising the Coast. This volume was entitled, California of the South; and as a scientifically-prepared guide was written by two fellow-townsmen, Drs. Walter Lindley and J. P. Widney.
Very shortly after their coming to Los Angeles, in April, 1888, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. and Mrs. Tomás Lorenzo Duque with whom I have since been on terms of intimacy. Mr. Duque, a Cuban by birth, is a broad-minded, educated gentleman of the old school.
Frederick William Braun established on May 1st, at 127 New High Street, the first exclusively wholesale drug house in Southern California, later removing to 287 North Main Street, once the site of the adobe in which I was married.
The same season my brother, whose health had become precarious, was again compelled to take a European trip; and it was upon his return in September, 1890, that he settled in Los Angeles, building his home at 1043 South Grand Avenue, but a few doors from mine.
The coast-line branch of the Santa Fé Railroad was opened in August between Los Angeles and San Diego.