Mark E. Kann Middle Class Radicalism in Santa Monica, Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 1986. 322 pp., 1986, 1970s, 1950s, 1878, 1877, 1875, 1874, 1873, 1872, 1870s, 1868, 1850, 1849.
Chapter 2: The Highest Bidder
". . . The Anglicized history begins with Colonel Robert S. Baker and Arcadia Bandini de Baker. Colonel Baker sought his fortune in the 1849 gold rush in Northern California but found it instead in the cattle and sheep trade. He invested in landholdings (Bakersfield, California, is named after him) and in 1872 purchased half of Rancho Boca de Santa Monica. He consolidated his Southern California empire when he married Arcadia Bandini de Stearns, whose deceased husband left her heiress to the largest individual landholdings in California history. Thus one local historian suggests that "Arcadia Bandini de Baker and Colonel Robert Baker were the real mother and father of Santa Monica." Nonetheless, in 1874, the Bakers took on a partner in their Santa Monica Land and Water Company and it is the partner's bust as official city founder that now graces the Santa Monica Mall."
"John P. Jones was a corporate dreamer worthy of the Robber Baron Age. He came to California in 1850 seeking wealth in silver rather than gold and eventually cashed in on Nevada's fabulous Comstock Lode. Jones moved to Nevada in 1868, a man of substantial wealth and influence, and was elected by the state legislature to the U.S. Senate in 1873. Jones "won" his Senate seat "at a reputed cost fo $500,000." With wealth, position, and ambition, he hatched a scheme to make himself one of the most powerful men in America.
"Jones invested heavily in California's Panamint mines knowing that their full profit potential could not be realized until the silver could be easily transported to the ocean and shipped to major markets. His plan was to build an integrated corporate monopoly that would include his own mines, his own railroad to the ocean, his own seaport city, his own deep sea harbor, and thus his own control of West Coast shipping. Jones' major problem was that he would be in competition with the Southern Pacific Railroad, the fabled "Octopus" that wrote the book on integrated corporate monopoly west of the Mississippi River. The Southern Pacific owned the only rail line between Los Angeles and the Wilmington-San Pedro harbor twenty-five miles to the south, controlled the harbor facilities, and dominated regional shipping. It would not look kindly on Jones's competitive bid.
"Jones's strategy was to bypass the Southern Pacific as much as possible. He could build a railroad between the Panamint mines and Los Angeles without raising too much fuss because the Southern Pacific was concentrating its expansion efforts on a line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Once Jones's railroad reached Los Angeles, it would veer west toward the Santa Monica Bay rather than south in direct competition with the Southern Pacific line to the San Pedro harbor. Jones purchased from Colonel Baker a three-quarter interest in his Santa Monica landholdings, intending to transform what was essentially a weekend campsite into a major seaport city. Jones would then build a wharf with docking facilitiies for loading and unloading deep sea vessels off of the Santa Monica coastline; and he would use his political influence in the U.S. Senate to win a federal appropriation for a breakwater that would make Santa Monica the major deep sea harbor for all Southern California.
"In 1875, Jones laid out the town of Santa Monica, registered it with the government, and hired noted auctioneer Colonel Tom Fitch to begin selling lots. He also began construction on his wharf and docking facilities, and on his Los Angeles and Independence Railroad that would link the Santa Monica harbor to Los Angeles and then to the Panamint mines. Before the year was out, his 1,740-foot wharf was operational, complete with warehouse and depot; excursion trains were running between Santa Monica and Los Angeles; and advertisements appeared in newpapers throughout the United States inviting West Coast steamers to dock at the new harbor and businessmen to invest in the new seaport city. The promotional literature called Santa Monica "the Zenith City by the Sunset Sea."
"The sun set on Jones's scheme almost immediately. The Southern Pacific cut its own rates and applied considerable pressure on shipping companies to continue to dock in San Pedro rather than Santa Monica. Jones expected this and confidently predicted that he would "ruin" the other harbor and that Santa Monica would become the "logical metropolitan center of California." Jones was losing money at the moment but figured that the growth of the shipping trade and the town of Santa Monica would convert temporary losses into long-term profits. What he did not figure on, however, was that his Comstock mines would crash, his bank would close, and his financial support would disappear in a statewide depression, or that his Panamint mines would fail and his construction on the railroad from the mines to Los Angeles would be stopped for lack of funds. By 1877, Jones's dream of an integrated corporate monopoly was shattered.
"It was time to salvage his investment. He hoped to safeguard his Santa Monica holdings by selling his wharf and railroad to someone who would build a future for his new seaport city. He approached the county of Los Angeles but it feared offending the powerful Southern Pacific; he approached Jay Gould of the Union Pacific Railroad but Gould was not convinced that investments west of Los Angeles would pay off. Jones had no choice other than to deal with the Southern Pacific, which, having eliminated the threat of Jones's competition, had no particular interest in his wharf and railroad. However, Collis P. Huntington persuaded his Southern Pacific partners that they could get the railroad dirt cheap (at one-fourth of Jones's investment) and simultaneously "keep the Nevada legislator friendly, in view of his influence in the United States Senate." Jones retained his land interests in Santa Monica, eventually acquired a local bank that his son would manage one day, but left the city's future to the Southern Pacific.
"The Southern Pacific had no plans for Santa Monica; its purchase was largely a political one. In 1878, when Southern Pacific engineers determined that the wharf needed expensive repairs, the corporation decided that it was simply cheaper to dismantle the wharf. The Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, whose service had deteriorated during Jones's downfall, now ran on a reduced schedule, bringing weekend campers and beachgoers rather than silver, businessmen, and buyers who were to have made Jones's dream metropolis into a reality. What happened to the individuals who had invested in Santa Monica's future? "A pervasive gloom now settled over Santa Monica, and the town went into a 'slump.' Business failures were common, property values sank, and within a few months the population had dropped from 1000 to 350 citizens." Santa Monica seemed to have become a silver miner's ghost town." pp. 29, 30 and 31