This second Fiesta brought into the local field two men then unknown, but each destined to play an important part in the affairs of Los Angeles. J. O. Koepfli, President of the Merchants' Association, and M. H. Newmark, Chairman of the Finance Committee, selected Felix J. Zeehandelaar (a reporter for the Los Angeles Herald during the short ownership of John Bradbury) as financial and publicity agent; with the result that more than thirty thousand dollars was collected and valuable advertising was secured. At that time, the Finance Committee also discovered the undeveloped talent of Lynden Ellsworth Behymer, since so well known as the impresario, who, in managing with wonderful success the sale of tickets for the various events, laid the foundation for his subsequent career. Commencing with Adelina Patti, there have been few celebrities in the musical world that Behymer's enterprise has not succeeded in bringing to Los Angeles; his greatest accomplishment in recent seasons being the booking of the Chicago Grand Opera Company, in February, 1913, under a guarantee of eighty-eight thousand dollars.
Second in chronological order among the larger societies of women, and doubtless equal to any in the importance of its varied activities, the Ebell Club was organized in 1894, due time providing itself with a serviceable and ornate home, within which for years broad courses of departmental study have been prosecuted with vigor.
After worshiping for more than fifteen years in the old Synagogue on Fort Street, and five years more after that name was changed to Broadway (during which period, from 1881 until I started, in 1887, on my second European trip, it was my privilege to serve as President of the Congregation), the reformed Jews of Los Angeles built, in 1894, the Temple B'nai B'rith on the corner of Hope and Ninth streets. In the meantime, following the resignation of Dr. A. W. Edelman, in 1886, Dr. Emanuel Schreiber for two years occupied the pulpit; and then Reverend A. Blum came from Galveston to succeed him. From the early part of 1895, Rabbi M. G. Solomon held the office until 1899. It was during his administration, it may be interesting to observe, and while Herman W. Hellman was President, that the present Temple was consecrated.
In 1894, Homer Laughlin, of Ohio, during a visit purchased from Mrs. Mary A. Briggs the property on Broadway between Third and Fourth streets, where she had lived. Three years later, he moved to Los Angeles and began the erection of the Homer Laughlin fire-proof building, adding to the same, in 1905, a reinforced concrete annex.
At midnight, on April 17th, Don António Franco Coronel died at his home in Los Angeles, aged seventy-seven years. In less than four months, his life-long friend, Don Pio Pico died here—on September 11th, aged ninety-three years.
The Belgian hare aberration was a spasmodic craze of the nineties and when I remember what the little rabbit did to our judgment then, it brings to mind the black-tulip bubble of Holland though, in point of genuine foolishness, I should award the prize to the former. A widely-copied newspaper article, claiming for the flesh of the timid Belgian rodent extraordinary qualities and merit, led first hundreds, then thousands, to rig up hare-coops for the breeding of the animal, expecting to supply the world with its much-lauded meat. Before long, people abandoned profitable work in order to venture into the new field, and many were those who invested thousands of dollars in Belgian hare companies. During the wild excitement attention was also given to the raising of hares for exhibition, and fancy prices were paid for the choicest specimens. At last, the bubble burst: the supply far exceeded the now-diminishing demand and the whole enterprise collapsed.
A lively election in 1895 was that which decided the immediate future of a suburb of Los Angeles where, on April 27th of the same year, Don Juan Warner, who had lived there with his daughter, Mrs. Rúbio, went to his rest. This was University Place, in 1880 a mere hamlet, though three years later it had a post office of its own. In 1895, an effort was made to annex the community, with Vernon, Rosedale and Pico Heights; but the measure was defeated, and only on June 12th, 1899 was the college district annexed to Los Angeles. For some years, the boundary line of the town at that point followed such a course through house-lots that residents there, still at home, often ate in the county and slept within the city!
The early nineties were full of the spirit of accomplishment, and notwithstanding the failure of the Electric Homestead Tract Association and its street car line, already described, a successful electric railway system for Los Angeles was at length installed. In 1892, a route was laid out to Westlake Park, the company having been encouraged by a subsidy of fifty thousand dollars pledged by owners of property most likely to be affected by the service; and by 1895 the electric traction system was so general that even the bob-tailed cars on Main Street gave way to the new order of things. At this early stage in the application of electricity to street cars, some of the equipment was rather primitive. Wooden poles, for example, were a part of the trolley; and as they were easily broken, conductors were fined a dollar for any accident to the rod with which they might have to do! Electricity—when it was forthcoming at all—was only harnessed to impel the vehicle; but there were no devices for using the current to warm the car, and instead of an electric light, an oil lamp, hung onto the dashboard, faintly illuminated the soft roadbed of the irregular tracks. The most active promoters of the improvements of 1895 were the two brothers, William Spencer and Thomas J. Hook, who operated mainly in the southwestern part of the city, developing that rather sparsely-settled district and introducing what was the best and most handsome rolling stock seen here up to that time.
B. F. Coulter, who from 1881 to 1884 had preached here as a clergyman of the Christian Church, in 1895 built a place of worship at his own expense, on Broadway near Temple Street, costing twenty thousand dollars—no inconsiderable sum for that time.
Sometime in March appeared the first issue of the Los Angeles Record, a one-cent evening paper started by E. W. Scripps as "the poor man's advocate." It was really another one of the many enterprising Scripps newspapers scattered throughout the country and championing, more or less, Socialistic principles; in accordance with which Scripps, from the outset, distributed some of the stock among his working associates. At the present time, W. H. Porterfield is the editor-in-chief, and W. T. Murdoch the editor.