Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp. 1875
"[Senator Jones] set about organinzing [a railroad], and the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad sprang into existence in 1875. Directors were Senator Jones, F.P.F. Temple, for whom the street in Los Angeles was named; Colonel Baker, T.N. Park, James A. Pritchard, J.S. Slauson, whose name also has been perpetuated on street signs; and Col. J.U. Crawford, an engineer who became general manager.
" . . .
"In 1875 Charles Crocker, the San Francisco magnate, wrote to Huntington: "I notice what you say of Jones, Park, etc. I do not think they will hurt us much, at least, I would rather be in our place than in theirs."
"Collis Huntington's reply: "I shall do my best to cave him (Jones) down the bank."
" . . .
"Senator Jones' intent was to carry his rail lines from Los Angeles to Independence, where he owned the Panamint mines, but this never occurred.
"Meanwhile, Senator Jones had joined forces with Colonel Baker on another project: the establishment of the town of Santa Monica.
"Accordingly, they laid out the area from Colorado Avenue to Montana Avenue, and from the top of the bluff to Twenty-Sixth Street in blocks 320 by 600 feet in dimensions.
"With few exceptions, each block consisted of 24, 50 by 150 foot lots, a pattern which remains today. The developers set aside the present Palisades Park and Lincoln Park for that use.
"They also reserved entire blocks for such purposes as two hotels, public buildings, a university, "a young ladies' seminary." Only the parks became facts.
" . . . the first lots wer sold at public auction July 15, 1875 . . .
"Ingersol says that the steamer Senator put in at Shoo Fly Landing for the first visit to the new town, and that a large crowd of Los Angeles residents gathered under the hot July sun. No trees had been planted, no buildings erected except for one board shack and a number of tents.
" . . . Tom Fitch, known as "the silver-tongued orator," [is reported to have said, "On Wednesday afternoon at one o'clock we will sell at public outcry to the highest bidder, the Pacific Ocean, draped with a western sky of scarlet and gold; we will sell a bay filled with white winged ships; we will sell a southern horizon, rimmed with a choice collection of purple mountains, carved in castles and turrets; we will sell a frostless, bracing, warm, yet languid air, braided in and in with sunshine and odored with the breath of flowers. The purchaser of this job lot of climate and scenery will be presented with a deed to a piece of land 50 by 100 feet, known as 'Lot A in Block 250.' The title to the land will be guaranteed by the present owner The title to the ocean and the sunset, the breath of the life-giving ozone and the song of the birds, is guaranteed by the beneficient God who bestowed them in all their beauty and affluence upon Block 251, and attached them thereto by almighty warrant as an incorruptible hereditament to run with the land forever."
" . . .
" . . . it is recorded that the first lot went to one E.R. Zamoyski for $500. It was at the corner of Utah and Ocean Avenue, now Ocean and Broadway. Other first day buyers included such names as Hancock, O'Melveny, Hellman, Vawter, Boehm and Giroux, . . . names . . . well-known . . .
"Other lots on Ocean Avenue brought from $400 to $500; those further inland went for as little as $75. W.D. Vawter built the first general store in Santa Monica on three lots in the 1400 block on Fourth St., bought for $125.50 each. Three weeks after the sale, Ingersoll relates, the store was open for business.
" . . . by October, population had increased to the point where a newspaper was considered neecessary, and on the 13th of the month the first edition of the Santa Monica Outlook appeared with Lemuel T. Fisher as editor. It was a [four-page] weekly. . . .
"[Quoted from the first issue of the Outlook,] "On the 15th of July, 1875, the first lot was sold in Santa Monica. As the date of this writing, October 13, 1875, six hundred and fifteen lots have been sold by the land company for $131,745; 119 houses and shops have been erected. The water of San Vicente spring as been collected in two large reservoirs, forming pretty lakes in the proposed park, and the flow of half a million gallons per day is in process of being distributed through iron mains all over the townsite."
"[The Outlook, Nov. 24, 1875] "Santa Monica continues to advance. We now have a wharf where the largest of the Panama steamers have landed; a railroad completed to Los Angeles; a telegraph station, a newspaper, post office, two hotels, one handsome clubhouse [the tennis club in the 1000 block on Third St.], several lodging houses, eight restaurants, a number of saloons, four groceries, three drygoods stores, two hardware stores, three fruit stores, one wool commission house, one news depot and bookstore, one variety store, one bakery, one jeweler and watchmaker, one boot and shoe maker, one tin shop, two livery stables, one dressmaker, several contractors and builders, three real estate agencies, one insurance agency, one coal yard, one brick yard, two lumber yards, two private schools, and in a short time we shall have two churches and a public school."
" . . .
P.2 {Photo caption: "These buildings at Ocean and Railroad (Colorado) Avenue were the early pride of Santa Monica. Built by Jones and Baker as the Santa Monica Hotel in 1875, they burned to the ground in 1889. Sign "Santa Monica Hotel".}
"Transportation . . . on October 17 [1875] the first train left Santa Monica for Los Angeles . . . passengers rode on flat cars . . . made three trips that day . . .
" . . . Nov. 3, the Outlook reported . . . at the Shoo Fly Landing. On one side of the pier, the schooner John Hancock was discharging lumber; another schooner across the pier from it unloading railroad ties; the barkentine Ella was delivering coal; passengers and freight from the Senator, along with several race horses.
"By December, two trains daily . . . to Los Angeles . . .