Abel Stearns
Isaac Williams
Store of Felipe Rheim
Charles L. Ducommun was here in business in 1853, he and John G. Downey having arrived together, three years before. According to the story still current, Ducommun, with his kit and stock as a watchmaker, and Downey, with his outfit as a druggist, hired a carreta together, to transport their belongings from San Pedro to Los Angeles; but the carreta broke down, and the two pilgrims to the City of the Angels had to finish their journey afoot. Ducommun's first store, located on Commercial Street between Main and Los Angeles, was about sixteen by thirty feet in size, but it contained an astonishing assortment of merchandise, such as hardware, stationery and jewelry. Perhaps the fact that Ducommun came from Switzerland, then even more than now the chief home of watchmaking, explains his early venture in the making and selling of watches; however that may be, it was to Charlie Ducommun's that the bankrupt merchant Moreno—later sentenced to fourteen or fifteen years in the penitentiary for robbing a Frenchman—came to sell the Frenchman's gold watch. Moreno confessed that he had organized a gang of robbers, after his failure in business, and had murdered even his own lieutenants. Ducommun, pretending to go into a rear room for the money, slipped out of the back door and gave the alarm. Ducommun's store was a sort of curiosity-shop containing many articles not obtainable elsewhere; and he was clever enough, when asked for any rarity, to charge all that the traffic would bear. I wonder what Charlie Ducommun would say if he could return to life and see his sons conducting a large, modern wholesale hardware establishment on an avenue never thought of in his day and where once stretched acres of fruit and vine lands! Ducommun Street commemorates this pioneer.
Ozro W. Childs, who came to Los Angeles in November, 1850, was for awhile in partnership with J. D. Hicks, the firm being known as Childs & Hicks. They conducted a tin-shop on Commercial Street, in a building about twenty by forty feet. In 1861, H. D. Barrows joined them, and hardware was added to the business. Somewhat later the firm was known as J. D. Hicks & Company. In 1871, Barrows bought out the Childs and Hicks interests, and soon formed a partnership with W. C. Furrey, although the latter arrived in Los Angeles only in 1872. When Barrows retired, Furrey continued alone for several years. The W. C. Furrey Company was next organized, with James W. Hellman as the active partner of Furrey, and with Simon Maier, the meat-packer and brother of the brewer, and J. A. Graves as stockholders. Hellman, in time, succeeded this company and continued for himself. When Childs withdrew, he went in for importing and selling exotic trees and plants, and made his home place, in more modern days known as the Huntington Purchase and running from Main to Hill and Eleventh to Twelfth streets, wonderfully attractive to such tourists as then chanced this way; he also claimed to be the pioneer floriculturist of Los Angeles County. Toward the end of his life, Childs erected on Main Street, south of First, a theater styled an opera house and later known as the Grand, which was popular in its time. Childs Avenue bears the family name.