1875 Smith 1976

Jack Smith The Big Orange Ward Ritchie Press: Pasadena, CA, 1976. Santa Monica 1933, 1928, 1900, 1875, 1869, 1769, 1542

Santa Monica

"'Title to the ocean, the sunset, and the air is guaranteed by God.'

     "It seemed incredible that only a hundred years ago there was nothing here but land, sea and sky. An Easterner, writing years later of a visit he made to this shore in 1869, recalled that it was 'an unpeopled waste -no light (dressed) brigade of sportive bathers charged the angry surf; neither keel nor oar vexed the breakers that broke on the desolate shore.'

     "Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and his crew were the first white men to see Santa Monica Bay, on their voyage of 1542. Then two hundred and twenty-seven years passed before Gaspar de Portolá and his soldiers camped at a spring above the bay. It is said that one of Portolá's men named the place Santa Monica, likening the spring water to the saint's tears for her wayward son, Augustine.

     "It was another century before John P. Jones, a Nevada senator, and Colonel R.S. Baker, a cattleman, who had bought the old Mexican land grants, formed a township, filed maps and started selling lots. The sale was held on a hot day in 1875. They hired Tom Fitch, an orator and auctioneer of note. Hundreds of people buggied down from Los Angeles to hear Fitch and to see the ocean. Both were magnificent.

     "Fitch promised that anyone who bought a lot in Santa Monica would have the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop, with a daily sunset of 'scarlet and gold' and 'a bay filled with white-winged ships.'

     "He went on to say that the title to the land was guaranteed by his employers, but the title to 'the ocean, the sunset and the air is guaranteed by God.'" p. 251

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 Kelyn Roberts 2017