Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp., 1876, 1875
" . . . the First Methodist Church was dedicated January 2, 1876. The chapel was on Arizona Ave. between Third and Fourth Streets . . . followed by the First Presbyterian Church . . . on Third and Arizona.
" . . . one of the first churches established in Santa Monica was the First Presbyterian . . in which the Vawter family played a leading role. [Beginning in 1875] . . . the church building was erected at Third and Arizona in 1876. The Rev. I.M. Condit was the first minister.
" . . . the Methodist congregation, the First Methodist Church was dedicated February 3, 1876.
"February, 1876, [a] town meeting was called to consider the question of becoming a town. Rejected. A school district was formed with J.W. Scott, Lemuel T. Fisher and John Freeman, Trustees. A special election was held March [1876] to vote $5000 for a public school.
" . . . The first public school in Santa Monica was ready for use in September [1876].
(Juan Carrillo, father of Leo and Oite, police judge and civic leader, and B.F. Reid were among the horseback athletic competitors . . . )
"In March of 1876, J.W. Scott subdivided an area of 43 acres lying between Fifth St. and the present Lincoln Blvd. It was the first addition to the unincorporated town, and lots in the tract bear the legal description of "Scott's Addition" . . . Jones and Baker's original townsite still carry the designation, "Town of Santa Monica."
"Scott planted a thousand eucalyptus trees, which were very popular throughout Southern California in those days, and built a bridge across the arroyo at the bottom of which ran the railroad track. His bridge was at Sixth Street, and remained in service well into the twentieth century.
" . . . Also in 1876 a road was built to connect Santa Monica with the San Fernando Valley . . . (by) Isaac Lankershim . . .
"San Pedro . . . Southern Pacific . . . Collis P. Huntington . . . 1876
" . . . the California Coast Steamship Co., organized by Colonel Robert Baker, E.J. "Lucky" Baldwin and others [failed].
" . . . North Beach . . . In 1876 Michael Duffy completed a bath house, and Jones and Baker a pavilion. Both were a short distance from the foot of Colorado Avenue, on the beach."