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these letters About EJ
Phillips
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Los Angeles,
California letters
previous:
Sacramento Sept. 7, 1886
1888
1890 1896
EJP's Los Angeles Google Map
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=202426891661796490166.00049848ced3869db63f7&z=18
Mary Glen's planned
transcontinental train trip
Historical Tourism Los Angeles
I'm grateful to college friend Miriam Cantor and family for introducing me to Los
Angeles, particularly to 19th century Los Angeles. My first visit included a
trip to the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Garden
http://www.huntington.org/
Founded in 1910 it's a little late for EJ Phillips but
Pasadena was charming and older than I'd expected. On
another trip we went to the original Los Angeles Farmer's Market
http://www.farmersmarketla.com/index.shtml On every trip we've gone to the
Hollywood Farmers' Market for tamales
http://www.farmernet.com/events/one-cfm?venue_id=587 The
Hotel Nadeau, said to be the first four story building in Los Angeles,
now the site of the Los Angeles Times building, southwest corner of Spring St.
and First St. In the old Spanish days, this site was a flat stretch of ground
which Angelenos would make use of on the occasion of a community fandango
http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal3.html Brent C. Dickerson, A Visit to
Old Los Angeles, Spring Street Part 1
But the most
relevant existing site is connected with San
Francisco
Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden, 301 North
Baldwin Avenue, Arcadia CA is about 17 miles east of Los Angeles and across from
the Santa Anita Race Track .
http://www.arboretum.org/index.php/ was the home of EJ
"Lucky" Baldwin, owner of the Baldwin Hotel and Theatre in
San Francisco . See EJ Phillips'
descriptions of driving a horse with Mrs. Baldwin in 1890.
History
http://www.arboretum.org/index.php/explore/our_history/ Elias Jackson
(“Lucky”) Baldwin, homespun Yankee capitalist, in 1875 paid a fantastic $200,000
($25 an acre) for Rancho Santa Anita.
Historic Structures
http://www.arboretum.org/index.php/explore/historic_structures/ Queen
Anne cottage built for the fourth Mrs. Baldwin in 1885, Santa Anita Depot
[reconstructed to 1890 appearance]; Coach Barn c 1879 Baldwin's stylish "Tally
Ho" carriage, purchased at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, is
today on display in the enlarged west room and Hugo Reid Adobe house.
Lucky Baldwin, Southern California Historical Society
http://socalhistory.org/biographies/e-j-lucky-baldwin.html
"Lucky" Baldwin
photo
and short bio Lucky Baldwin: Sheep grazing Santa Anita Ranch 1890
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/view/chs-m6430.html
More on Los Angeles
Streetcars Railroads in Los Angeles
at the end of this webpage.
Los
Angeles Cal
Monday 17th Septr 1888
Nadeau Hotel
My
dear Son
Yesterday morning when we left San Francisco the weather was delightfully
cool and our journey was pleasant up to 3 PM when we got into hot weather and
dust, and we have had it hot ever since.
The
journey was very uninteresting - a repetition of the Prairie from Omaha to
California. We passed through as great deal of the Alkali [desert] too, this
morning.
The
town looks quite lively, being dressed in flags and arches. The Odd Fellows are
having a picnic here this week. I believe they are coming from all parts of the
U.S. Do not know whether it is a convention or a conclave, but I have as above
called it a picnic.
This
seems to be quite a thriving City. Has horse cars, cable cars, and all the
modern improvements in lighting. But it is a long journey to get here. Hotel
very good.
Have
not yet seen the theatre. I do anticipate having rehearsals this week, so will
be able to tell you more about the place in my next letter. No more at present,
but love and Kisses from your loving Mother
The
Hotel Nadeau had opened in 1886 built by French Canadian Remi Nadeau
http://www.explorehistoricalif.com/nov2006.html
H.W.
Chase
HOTEL
NADEAU
Chase & Maynes...Proprietors
Jos. Schreiber, Jr., Manager
Los Angeles, Cal.
Septr 19th, 1888
My
dear Son.
On
the 7th Hattie went to see the folks and had to stay all night as a storm came
up, but she got home on Saturday morning the 8th. She took John upstairs and
put him in bed with his Aunts. After they had romped with him awhile she heard
Nellie exclaim, "Oh how I wish your Uncle Albert could see you. He would think
you so sweet". And Hattie continues, "I wish he could see him before I put him
in short dresses".
Think
I like Los Angeles better than any of the other places of California that I
have visited. No fog and no high winds. The days are warm, but the nights are
lovely and cool. Your friend Barker lives at Santa Barbara, doesn't he?
That is on another road. We did not pass it. It is more towards the Seashore.
The
theatre here is very pretty, as far as the Auditorium goes, but the dressing
rooms are very uncomfortable. Direct your letters to Theatre. A.M. Palmer,
Co. At Denver,
"Tabor Opera
House". Love and Kisses from your loving Mother
next:
Salt Lake 1888 previous:
San
Francisco 1890
Hotel Nadeau
Practically fire-proof
Bonsall & Schreiber
Managers
Los Angeles, Ca August 12th 1890
My
dear daughter Neppie.
I
hope by the time this reaches you that you will have Hattie with you and will be
enjoying each others' society as I would like to do.
[Hattie] wrote that John [Dolman] had received my photographs which I sent to
the office in Phila - by his receiving those I hope Albert has his also. And
that you both enjoyed looking at the shadow of your Mother. Do you think she
has grown stouter?
"Nickel in the slot" machines gave three weights for her in about ten days - 165
lbs - 171 lbs and 172 1/2 lbs. I think the first is nearest to the proper
weight. However as everybody tells me I am looking well, I suppose I may have
gained something in weight while in San F'co but I think I shall lose
some of it travelling back to Denver
The
dressing rooms at theatre were very hot last night, but that was due to the gas
and want of proper ventilation. Our house was crowded and everything passed off
nicely.
We
leave here again on Sunday Morning, at last turning our faces homewards. Travel
Thursday night to Salt Lake for two nights. Thence to Denver for
two weeks.
After
reaching Denver the hardest part of our travelling will be over. Shall receive
letters in a shorter time and begin to think I am within walking distance of
home. Mr.
[EM]
Holland who was so very ill is better, and is again playing his parts.
We were very much afraid we were going to lose him. [He died in 1913 aged 85.]
I
hope you have your sewing pretty well accomplished for October, and that your
dear Mama is not worrying very much over the event. I trust her trip did her a
great deal of good. It would at least convince her that there are many less
desirable places to live than Middletown, N.Y.
I
shall long to hear of Hattie's safe arrival in M[iddle]'town. It is quite a
long trip to take with no one to help her with Jack, but I hope a cool wave to
take her there, and am sure she will have a good time when she gets there.
I
sincerely hope Jack will be a good boy and not give much trouble. Hattie write
that they are dreadfully sunburnt, that her hands look like a mulattos. Love
and Kisses to my dear children, Albert and Neppie - wishing them good health and
much happiness I remain their loving Mother
Ask
Hattie for any information she will gladly give you all she knows. [Neppie was
pregnant
with Edward Phillips Nickinson.]
next: Salt
Lake City Aug. 1890
previous: San
Francisco 1896
1896
Chicago, July 25, 1896 I settled with Gustave Frohman (for
Chas Frohman)
for next season. Beginning in San Francisco August 17th. Leave here [Chicago?]
on Sunday August 9th, due in "Frisco on Wednesday and rest there until Monday
17th when we open at Baldwin Theatre for 2 weeks. Travel down the coast
and up as far as San Diego and back up as far as British Columbia.
If
the company did go to San Diego we have no letters from there. We do have one
from Vancouver..
Hotel Ramona
Los Angeles, Cal
Septr 7th 1896
My
dear dear Son,
Your
letter with Birthday wishes to me rec'd this Morning. I thank you and assure
you it gave me great pleasure to receive your prayers for my welfare and safety
on this, my 66th anniversary. I am indeed grateful that I have been spared thus
long to receive the love and Kisses sent to me by my dear children, and received
today, even if it is from 3000 miles away.
I
think I told you in my letter yesterday that I had a cold, and this Morning I
began sneezing again, so found a doctor and am taking medicine every hour. I do
not feel at all sick, but a little sore in my left breast when I cough or
sneeze, so thought I had better see a doctor, as an ounce of prevention would be
better than a pound of cure.
Our
ride to Sacramento will be a hot and long one. I thought a little
physical preparation would be wise. We shall be in
Portland,
Ore 14th, 15th and 16th. The ride to Salt
Lake City from Seattle
will be a long hot one, two nights on the road. Also from Salt Lake to Kansas
will be hard, but it will be getting cooler by that time. I hope [grandson
Ted Nickinson] is by this time better. His Grandma Nickens loves him and I
am his Grandma.
Hotel
Ramona
Los Angeles Cal
Septr 8th 1896
My
dear Son,
Your
[birthday] telegram received last night. Many Thanks. Took streetcar
ride to Pasadena
this Afternoon, was warm and pleasant. We give a Matinee tomorrow (Wed). We had
a good house last night. Play pleased. My love and Kisses to [Ted] also his
Mama and yourself from your loving Mother
Was the Hotel Ramona named after Helen Hunt Jackson's novel?
http://socalhistory.org/biographies/helen-hunt-jackson.html
next:
Portland Sept. 1896
Streetcars
The first streetcar system in L.A. dates back to 1874,
when Judge Robert M. Widney convinced his neighbors in the vicinity of Third and
Hill Streets (then considered the sticks) that they needed a convenient way to
get to the business section of the city. A single-track railroad stretched for 2
1/2 miles from the Mission Plaza down Main and Spring Streets to Sixth Street.
Subsequent horse-drawn streetcar systems were developed in other growing
communities like Pasadena, Ontario, Santa Monica, and San Bernardino. A
portion of the L.A. system along Pico Street was electrified in 1887, and
expanded in 1890. Redcars of Los Angeles, Univ of Southern California, 2002
http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/historic/redcars/
Street Railway History of Los Angeles
http://www.erha.org/railwayhis.htm
1873-1921
Street Railway History of Southern California 1873-1910, Electric Railway
Historical Association
http://www.erha.org/railwayhis.htm
Railroads in Los Angeles
No other single California company ever held the power and influence that the
Southern Pacific did. For more than three decades, its slightest decision about
where to lay tracks and where not to created some cities and destroyed others.
In 1880, in an area halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco called Mussel
Slough, a dispute over land rights between settlers and the Southern Pacific
erupted into violence, leaving seven men dead. The brief bullet-punctuated
episode became a turning point, as public outrage swelled against the powerful
railroad.
Over the next several decades, the SP operated out of three grand train
stations, beginning with the Los Angeles Junction, which boasted a hotel and
dining room in an area known as "the Cornfield," bound by Spring Street and
North Broadway. In 1888, the SP moved to the Arcade Station at 5th and Central
streets, which was rebuilt on an adjoining site three decades later and called
Central Station... Two more railroads would battle the SP for a foothold in the
West, and each had its own station. In 1891, the Los Angeles Terminal Railway
Station -- whose title spawned the name for Terminal Island -- opened on East
1st Street, just east of the Los Angeles River. After changing its name to the
San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake, it eventually was swallowed up by Union
Pacific. ... In 1885, the SP paid the Santa Fe, which had reached San Diego,
$500,000 a year to make San Bernardino its terminus instead of Los Angeles, to
keep competition away. Their pact lasted only two years, when the Santa Fe
acquired a route, becoming the third railroad line into the city and triggering
a half-century-long conflict. Union Station Helped Turn a City Into a
Metropolis By CECILIA RASMUSSEN, [Los Angeles?] TIMES STAFF WRITER, 2002,
Railfan.net
http://www.railfan.net/lists/rshsdepot-digest/200209/msg00005.html
Wikipedia Los Angeles Coming of the Railroads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Los_Angeles#The_coming_of_the_railroads
more on Railroads
Views of early Los
Angeles
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/courses/city/LosAngeles/Early_images/laviews.html
Los Angeles celebrated the arrival of the Southern Pacific railroad in 1876
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/courses/city/LosAngeles/Early_images/trainband.gif
Los Angeles and San
Bernardino, 1880
http://davidrumsey.artselect.com/perl/frChooseSize?artID=21566&collectionID=4715
A glance at New High
Street
New High Street was not sufficiently glamorous to engage the attention of
postcard photographers on its own merits! We obtain some rare glimpses via
enlargements of pieces of other postcard views and photographs. In this view,
the County Courthouse on what's left of Pound Cake Hill dominates the center of
the picture; the unseen street below the slope we see immediately to the right
of the courthouse building would be New High Street, running parallel to the old
"diagonal" block of Spring Street, which is the street seen stretching into the
picture above the word "Nadeau" on the wall-sign in the foreground (we are
looking down on the "alley side" of the Hotel Nadeau at Spring and First). At
the left edge of the view, we see the tower of the High School, the previous
incarnation of which was on the location of the Courthouse.
http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor/socal5.html
Brent C. Dickerson, A Visit to Old Los Angeles, New High Street
Discovery of oil in Los Angeles 1892
http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/historic/oil.html
Bibliography
Mulholland, Catherine, William Mulholland and the Rise of Los Angeles, Berkeley,
Los Angeles & London: University of California Press
Mrs. Frank Leslie, California: a pleasure trip from Gotham to the Golden
Gate, April, May, June, 1877
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/calbk.115
Chapter XXVIII The Queen of the Angels
Chapter XXIX Baldwin's Ranch
Chapter XXXI Santa Monica
Los
Angeles City Historical Society
http://www.lacityhistory.org/
Los Angeles Conservancy Historic Walking Tours
http://www.laconservancy.org/tours/tours_main.php4
Registered Historic Places Los Angeles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Registered_Historic_Places_in_Los_Angeles
Southern California Historical Society
http://socalhistory.org/
Wikipedia Los Angeles 1870-1913
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Los_Angeles#Industrial_Expansion_and_Growth_1870.E2.80.941913
Los
Angeles Times Proquest 1881-1986
http://www.proquest.com/assets/literature/products/databases/hnp_latimes.pdf
Last updated April 3, 2011
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"Lucky" Baldwin
