City-Makers

By Remi A. Nadeau

This book, written by a descendent of a Los Angeles pioneer, a city-maker, details the men who transformed Los Angeles from a Mexican village to an American metropolis during its first great boom from 1868 to 1876. For the Homestead docent, the book is a treasure of information on the business activities of F.P.F. Temple.

The author discusses the economic life of Los Angeles and environs, starting from the rancho days of trading hides and tallow for finished goods with the traders who sailed into the port of San Pedro. There was no market nearby for the beef. Once the gold rush was going in full steam, a market developed and the ranchers flourished. Floods followed by two years of severe drought in the early 1860’s devastated the ranchers, who were land rich and cash poor. They subdivided their ranchos as newcomers arrived in southern California following the Civil War. The added financial transactions created a demand for a banking system.

The development of lead and silver mining in Inyo county provided an economic boon to Los Angeles as ore was transported through Los Angeles to San Pedro. Los Angeles managed to fend off competition from Ventura and Bakersfield, which envisioned a connection via the Southern Pacific to Sacramento. More importantly Temple was involved with the creation of a railroad running from Santa Monica to Inyo County, with control of the Cajon Pass. The Southern Pacific initially planned to bypass Los Angeles on its eastward march on a southern route back east. 

Benjamin Wilson, who traveled with Workman and Rowland to California, made sure that enabling legislation granting a charter to the Southern Pacific, required the railroad to connect with Los Angeles. That road proceeded south from Bakersfield through the San Fernando pass. 

In the end, the Southern Pacific gained control of the upstart railroad, dismantling port facilities at Santa Monica and abandoning the line to Los Angels. With a railroad, Los Angeles attained a position of dominance over both San Diego and San Bernardino. Los Angeles was now poised to benefit from transcontinental passenger and freight traffic.

The railroad solved Los Angeles’s need for fast and reliable transportation. The drought during the 1860’s focused the attention on the next hurdle in the growth of Los Angeles-the need for water. That problem would be solved by the next generation of city-makers.