To return to the Los Angeles Star. When J. S. Waite became Postmaster, in 1855, he found it no sinecure to continue even such an unpretentious and, in all likelihood, unprofitable news-sheet and at the same time attend to Uncle Sam's mail-bags; and early in 1856 he offered "the entire establishment at one thousand dollars less than cost." Business was so slow at that time, in fact, that Waite—after, perhaps, ruefully looking over his unpaid subscriptions—announced that he would "take wood, butter, eggs, flour, wheat or corn" in payment of bills due. He soon found a ready customer in William A. Wallace, the Principal of the boys' school who, on the twelfth of April, bought the paper; but Waite's disgust was nothing to that of the schoolteacher who, after two short months' trial with the editorial quill, scribbled a last doleful adiós. "The flush times of the pueblo, the day of large prices and pocket-books, are past," Wallace declared; and before him the editor saw "only picayunes, bad liquor, rags and universal dullness, when neither pistol-shots nor dying groans" could have any effect, and "when earthquakes would hardly turn men in their beds!" Nothing was left for such a destitute and discouraged quillman "but to wait for a carreta and get out of town." Wallace sold the paper, therefore, in June, 1856, to Henry Hamilton, a native of Ireland who had come to California in 1848 an apprenticed printer, and was for some years in newspaper work in San Francisco; and Hamilton soon put new life into the journal.
In 1856, the many-sided Dr. William B. Osburn organized a company to bore an artesian well west of the city; but when it reached a depth of over seven hundred feet, the prospectors went into bankruptcy.
George Lehman, early known as George the Baker (whose shop at one time was on the site of the Hayward Hotel), was a somewhat original and very popular character who, in 1856, took over the Round House on Main Street, between Third and Fourth, and there opened a pleasure-resort extending to Spring Street and known as the Garden of Paradise. The grounds really occupied on the one hand what are now the sites of the Pridham, the Pinney and the Turnverein, and on the other the Henne, the Breed and the Lankershim blocks. There was an entrance on Main Street and one, with two picket gates, on Spring. From the general shape and appearance of the building, it was always one of the first objects in town to attract attention; and Lehman (who, when he appeared on the street, had a crooked cane hanging on his arm and a lemon in his hand), came to be known as "Round House George." The house had been erected in the late forties by Raimundo, generally called Ramón, or Raymond Alexander, a sailor, who asserted that the design was a copy of a structure he had once seen on the coast of Africa; and there Ramón and his native California wife had lived for many years. Partly because he wished to cover the exterior with vines and flowers, Lehman nailed boards over the outer adobe walls and thus changed the cylinder form into that of an octagon. An ingenious arrangement of the parterre and a peculiar distribution of some trees, together with a profusion of plants and flowers—affording cool and shady bowers, somewhat similar to those of a typical beer or wine garden of the Fatherland—gave the place great popularity; while two heroic statues—one of Adam and the other of Eve—with a conglomeration of other curiosities, including the Apple Tree and the Serpent—all illustrating the world-old story of Eden—and a moving panorama made the Garden unique and rather famous. The balcony of the house provided accommodation for the playing of such music, perhaps discordant, as Los Angeles could then produce, and nearby was a framework containing a kind of swing then popular and known as "flying horses." The bar was in the Garden, near a well-sweep; and at the Main Street entrance stood a majestic and noted cactus tree which was cut down in 1886. The Garden of Paradise was opened toward the end of September, 1858, and so large were the grounds that when they were used, in 1876, for the Fourth of July celebration, twenty-six hundred people were seated there.
This leads me to say that Arthur McKenzie Dodson, who established a coal- and wood-yard at what was later the corner of Spring and Sixth streets, started there a little community which he called Georgetown—as a compliment, it was said, to the famous Round House George whose bakery, I have remarked, was located on that corner.
On June 7th, Dr. John S. Griffin, who had an old fashioned, classical education, and was a graduate, in medicine, of the University of Pennsylvania, succeeded Dr. William B. Osburn as Superintendent of the Los Angeles City Schools.
In these times of modern irrigation and scientific methods, it is hard to realize how disastrous were climatic extremes in an earlier day: in 1856, a single electric disturbance, accompanied by intense heat and sandstorms, left tens of thousands of dead cattle to tell the story of drought and destruction.
During the summer, I had occasion to go to Fort Tejón to see George C. Alexander, a customer, and I again asked Sam Meyer if he would accompany me. Such a proposition was always agreeable to Sam; and, having procured horses, we started, the distance being about one hundred and fifteen miles.
We left Los Angeles early one afternoon, and made our first stop at Lyons's Station, where we put up for the night. One of the brothers, after whom the place was named, prepared supper. Having to draw some thick blackstrap from a keg, he used a pitcher to catch the treacle; and as the liquid ran very slowly, our sociable host sat down to talk a bit, and soon forgot all about what he had started to do. The molasses, however, although it ran pretty slowly, ran steadily, and finally, like the mush in the fairy-tale of the enchanted bowl, overflowed the top of the receptacle and spread itself over the dirt floor. When Lyons had finished his chat, he saw, to his intense chagrin, a new job upon his hands, and one likely to busy him for some time.
Departing next morning at five o'clock we met Cy Lyons, who had come to Los Angeles in 1849 and was then engaged with his brother Sanford in raising sheep in that neighborhood. Cy was on horseback and had two pack animals, loaded with provisions. "Hello, boys! where are you bound?" he asked; and when we told him that we were on our way to Fort Tejón, he said that he was also going there, and volunteered to save us forty miles by guiding us over the trail. Such a shortening of our journey appealed to us as a good prospect, and we fell in behind the mounted guide.
It was one of those red-hot summer days characteristic of that region and season, and in a couple of hours we began to get very thirsty. Noticing this, Cy told us that no water would be found until we got to the Rancho de la Liebre, and that we could not possibly reach there until evening. Having no bota de agua handy, I took an onion from Lyons's pack and ate it, and that afforded me some relief; but Sam, whose decisions were always as lasting as the fragrance of that aromatic bulb, would not try the experiment. To make a long story short, when we at last reached the ranch, Sam, completely fagged out, and unable to alight from his horse, toppled off into our arms. The chewing of the onion had refreshed me to some extent, but just the same the day's journey proved one of the most miserable experiences through which I have ever passed.