January 1, 1907: Alive!

Posted on January 1, 2007 by lmharnisch

Dec. 7, 1906-Dec. 22, 1906,
Bakersfield

January 1, 1907
Los Angeles

For 15 days, miner Lindsay P. Hicks lay trapped by a cave-in that killed his five companions tunneling in a mountain above the Kern River for an Edison hydroelectric project. On the 16th day, crews finally cut through the last of the steel and scraped away rocks and debris to free the man who had been kept alive with gallons of milk poured down a 60-foot iron pipe.

At first, Edison officials assumed that no one survived the collapse of the tunnel. Then someone heard the faint signal tapped on one of the steel rails for the mining cars: the code for “trapped miner.” The iron pipe was driven through the side of the mountain to provide air and food as Hicks lay either under a rail car or next to it, sheltered by a pile of collapsed timbers that prevented him from being crushed. Continue reading →

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The Old Watchman

Posted on December 31, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 31, 1907
Los Angeles

His name was W.H. Reynolds and the old watchman for E.H. Howard Contracting had laid out all night after being beaten up and thrown in the weeds by two robbers who said they were garbage men looking for the closest dump.

A woman who saw the assault contacted the University Station and police searched all night in the area around Alameda Street and Washington Boulevard, where Reynolds lived in a small, ragged tent. It wasn’t until daylight that two patrolmen found him lying face down and he was taken to the Receiving Hospital.

When Reynolds was undressed, the hospital staff found his arms and legs covered with needle marks from where he had injected himself with cocaine. “He always has a small vial containing cocaine in liquid form about his person,” The Times says. “Such had become the grip of the drug upon him that he could not do without it for more than an hour.”

Reynolds told police that he went to bed, but didn’t feel well so he decided to get dressed and shoot up with cocaine. There was a knock at the door and when he went outside, he found two men with a team of horses who said they were looking for a garbage dump. When he began giving them directions, one of the men hit him on the head and they stole his drugs and syringe as well as $7.50 ($153.93 USD 2005).

“Despite the pain of the operation, Reynolds begged for cocaine and the surgeons, in view of the old man’s weakened condition, finally gave him a weak solution of the drug,” The Times says.

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google7971355090e933b6.html

Posted on December 31, 2006 by lmharnisch

This is for google.

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The Old Men in Blue

Posted on December 30, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 30, 1907
Los Angeles

James Sullivan, 64, was a prisoner of the Confederates held at Belle Isle, Libby and Andersonville, where he and war correspondent Albert D. Richardson escaped by tunneling for three months with a spoon.

Henry Russell, formerly of the 4th Cavalry, was held at Andersonville and Benjamin L. Gorsuch of the 1st Maryland Infantry was captured and sent to Belle Isle. James Sherwood was with the 10th New Jersey. John Ryan, 77, was with 7th New York Heavy Artillery.

And then there’s John Smith, 70, of the 8th Illinois who is out of his head most of the time. Smith is so feeble that one of his fellow ex-soldiers has to help him to his cell at night.

The six old soldiers are serving 10 days in jail for public drunkenness in Sawtelle, the settlement outside the gates of the veterans home, and much to their shame were brought downtown in irons on the streetcar.

Smith, Russell and Sullivan freely admit they were drunk on payday, but not causing any trouble. Gorsuch and Sherwood, two former infantrymen, said they were “skylarking” in a harmless scuffle and were jailed because they refused to pay a fine, while Ryan says he was in his room, doing nothing.



The men are no trouble. In fact the sheriff and jailer have refused to lock them up, giving them the run of the place as they serve their 10-day sentences. The men say that the Sawtelle constables “lay for us like a pack of wolves” on payday because they get a bonus for each arrest, plus mileage for every prisoner brought to the County Jail.

Veterans Home officials counter that drunkenness is an increasingly serious problem and that the old soldiers get around attempts to maintain sobriety by pooling their money and designating one man as a runner to buy liquor wholesale in Santa Monica.

“This method of irrigation is practiced to such an extent that one veteran is kept almost constantly on the go between Sawtelle and the beach,” The Times says. “All who travel over the electric line are familiar with the figure and the package bottles. He is seen every day. He gets off the car before it reaches the Sawtelle business center, and always there are lolling tongues and parched throats to welcome his return.”

Read the previous entry on Ocean Park banning the sale of liquor to soldiers in uniform because of drunk Civil War veterans.

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The City Grows

Posted on December 29, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 29, 1907
Los Angeles

The Times real estate pages feature homes under construction around Washington Boulevard west of Hobart Boulevard. “This section is just being built up with a splendid class of dwelling houses,” The Times says. “There are several car lines within a short distance, furnishing a rapid transportation service to the center of the city, and as the whole section is on a mesa, it is high above the fogs and occasional floodwater caused by rain, which obtains a few blocks farther south.”

One home features a bit of whimsy: A Mission-style house on the northwest corner of Washington and Westmoreland Boulevard with an automobile garage designed like a Dutch windmill, including a conical top and sails. Of course, the garage and the house are long gone.

J.H. Lapham is building a two-story, seven-room home at 2045 S. Oxford while the California Bungalow Co. is building a two-story frame home at 1732 S. Oxford that “will compare well with the surrounding homes.” Note that while the neighborhood in the 1700 block of South Oxford appears to be generally intact, The Times apparently erred in the street numbers, which go from 1728 to 1734 S. Oxford.

Stay tuned more architectural ramblings to South Oxford. By the way, here are the “New Ha Apartments.” Apparently the signage once read: “New Hampshire,” but I like it better this way.



And a random snapshot of ABC Letter Art on South Vermont. Maybe the folks who own the “New Ha” should pay a visit.



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Architectural Ramblings

Posted on December 28, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 28, 2006
Los Angeles

As promised, here are some photos of a few neighborhoods I visited recently.

Views of South Pasadena





First, a few shots of South Pasadena taken along Mission and El Centro to contrast with the views from 1907, then a visit to the 4600 block of South Wesley Avenue and the 100 block of West 52nd Street. Note the various states of preservation and decay, along with generous layers of stucco.

Views of Wesley Avenue









I always seem to run across interesting cars, a Corvair on Wesley and an old jalopy in South Pasadena.





And here’s an interesting mystery from Fedora Street. What’s the purpose of the guard shack/ticket booth? I can’t imagine.

The Mystery of Fedora Street

916 Fedora St., as photographed in December 1907

Behold, the mysterious guard shack



If it’s to keep out the stucco crew, it’s too late.


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A Gruesome First

Posted on December 27, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 27, 1907
Henryetta, Okla., by the Associated Press

A little more than a month after Oklahoma achieved statehood, James Garden became a wretched statistic: the first black to be lynched there.

On Dec. 24, Garden went to see liveryman Albert Bates about renting a rig. When Bates refused, Garden accused him of racism, went across the street to get a gun, returned and shot Bates to death.

By nightfall, a group of 100 men stormed the jail, fought off police officers and hanged Garden from a telegraph pole in the center of town, then used his body for target practice, riddling it with bullets.

“All the Negroes in Henryetta are terrorized and more than 100 came from there to Muskogee tonight,” The Times says.

The strife continued and there were fears that another lynching would touch off a race war. On Christmas Day, a mob stormed the jail a second time and tried to take “a one-eyed Negro named Smith, charged with inciting Garden to commit the crime,” The Times says. However the sheriff took Smith and Jim Johnson, who gave Garden a rifle, to Okmulgee before they could be lynched.

On Dec. 26, The Times reported that the white men of Henryetta had been sworn as deputies and armed themselves in response to reports that an armed band of 35 heavily armed African Americans were en route to seek revenge. There were “only 1,290 rounds of ammunition in the city,” The Times said, enough to shoot each member of the alleged black band 36 times.

Unfortunately, The Times (or AP) didn’t follow this incident, so there’s no telling what happened. But we in Los Angeles need not feel so superior to those in the raw, new state of Oklahoma. A quick check of Proquest shows that a lynching was narrowly avoided at Towne and 8th Street in 1906 after H. Whitfield of 907 W. 28th St., bit off the ear of Fritz Gustavson, 925 Crocker St., during a fight.

Whitfield’s life was saved by Deputy Constable Dennis Johnson, who arrested Whitfield and blockaded himself and his prisoner in a barbershop at 8th Street and San Julian until the police wagon arrived, despite threats from a mob that they would burn down the shop if Johnson did not turn over the black, who was soaked with a white man’s blood.

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Blunder the Double Eagle

Posted on December 26, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 26, 1907
Pittsburgh, by direct wire to The Times

As Christmas celebrations concluded at Knoxville Presbyterian Church, the congregation presented the Rev. W.A. Jones with $100 ($2,052.36 USD 2005). A banker who was among the worshipers made a point of getting freshly minted gold pieces to present to the pastor.


But the $20 Double Eagles, newly redesigned by sculptor Augustus St.-Gaudens at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt, had a terrible flaw, in Jones’ view.

“This is Godless money, I cannot take it,” Jones said of the coins, example at right. “My mother taught me to look for the motto ‘In God We Trust’ on the coins of our country and when the president announced his new order effacing the inscription from the coins, I swore I would take no money that did not bear the old motto.”


St.-Gaudens died in August before the release of the coins and the resulting furor over omission of the motto, which was restored by U.S. Mint engraver Charles E. Barber in 1908. In fact, St.-Gaudens wanted to omit all the lettering and it was only after a heated battle with Roosevelt that he agreed to restore “E Pluribus Unum” to his design.


In 1908, Los Angeles bankers made further complaints about St.-Gaudens’ new $10 gold pieces, saying that they wouldn’t stack properly because the Indian’s cheek, example at right, was raised too high. “Someone’s idea of art is on the bum if those are artistic coins,” one the banker said. “Maybe it is mine and maybe it is the designer’s. I don’t know about that, but I do know the coins won’t do for us. They won’t stack and we cannot handle them at all.”

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Merry Christmas, Gen. Otis

Posted on December 24, 2006 by lmharnisch


Dec. 24, 1907
Los Angeles

Last-minute shopping, crowded post offices, trees decorated in hotel lobbies and toys given by Santa to the neediest children of the city; it was a Christmas season very much like today. And at Levy’s, 310 Times employees gathered to celebrate the most prosperous year in the newspaper’s history.

Of course, as The Times noted, not everyone could attend because “the news must needs be collected and the wheels kept going.”

Between courses of the Christmas dinner, speakers made humorous comments, following the motto: “Spare not the gaff, but live to laugh.”

Harry Chandler received a set of doll triplets and Gen. Otis was presented with a tin sword. The employees also put together a comic eight-page paper, “The Timeslet,” full of jokes, satirical ads and cartoons. Among the most notable speakers was George W. Burton, “known around the office as ‘The Bishop,’ who gave “a jolly and entertaining talk, full of humorous thrusts at the managing editor and others.”

Gen. Otis received a silver loving cup from the employees, along with a speech by the staff poet, John S. McGroarty:

“Gen. Otis is this afternoon the guest of his official family. He is among his own people—the people who are nearest to him and in whom he is most interested. In his busy and strenuous life he has to do with many men who are great and powerful in the world’s affairs, but it is we who toil within the strong walls of the old gray castle who are his strength and upon whom he relies. His enemies are not here, but are outside of the breastworks, where they lie more or less incapacitated….

“It is Christmastime and we, the members of the great craft who are each doing our part to produce a great newspaper every day in the year, are here to celebrate. The head of the house sits with us, as one of us and not the least of the hard workers now as he has always been. To him, from his employees and from his fellow workers, from the men and women of The Times, I am commissioned to bear a message of goodwill and loyalty and upright treatment. As a token of these sentiments, I present to Gen. Otis this loving cup, knowing that he will accept it with the same feeling that inspired the givers.

“Knowing Gen. Otis as I do, I know that no gift that he has ever received will occupy in his stately home a more honored and more affectionate place than this cup will occupy.

“Within his rooftree are many trophies of both war and peace—emblems of hard fights won on the fields of battle as well as in the oftentimes fierce struggles of peace. But when his eyes rest on this cup, which bears to him its message of faithfulness, the loyalty, the esteem and the affection of his own people, there will be no other to stand beside it.

“Gen. Otis, on behalf of my associates, I present this gift to you with old Rip Van Winkle’s toast: ‘Here’s to you and all your family; may you all live long and be happy.’ ”

The Times said: “Gen. Otis was taken by surprise and was much affected. He expressed his thanks for the token of esteem and affection, and spoke feelingly of his appreciation of the loyalty of his corps, remarking that the size of the gathering, the harmony of it and the whole spirit of the affair were most admirable, and once more assuring all that the gratitude of and kindly notice of the publishers of The Times were accorded to every faithful worker, no matter how humble.”

The banquet closed with three cheers for Gen. Otis and new refrain set to the tune “Auld Lang Syne”:

“The good old, good old Times, old Times
The good old, good old Times
Join in the song on every lip
The good old, good old Times.”

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On the Frontiers of Mental Health

Posted on December 23, 2006 by lmharnisch


Dec. 23, 1907
St. Louis, via Direct Wire to The Times

Dr. Henry S. Atkins, superintendent of St. Louis’ insane asylum, has found that Christmas is a perfect time to test his theory that shopping cures insanity.

Atkins and two attendants took 60 women from the asylum “into the world of department stores and the activities which all women enjoy,” The Times said.

The patients and the two female attendants, who wore civilian clothes instead of their uniforms, mingled with crowds downtown, “swallowed up among the thousands of other women bent on the same mission.”

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A Mystery Solved

Posted on December 22, 2006 by lmharnisch


Dec. 22, 2006
Los Angeles

A quick (well, relatively) check of the Sanborn maps (online via the Los Angeles Public Library website) shows (Vol. 11, Sheet 1143) the intersection of McCollum and Berkeley. Alas, the impact crater was not recorded. Apparently all other variants were typos.

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Ecclesiastes 1:9

Posted on December 22, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 22, 1907
Los Angeles

As Police Capt. Flammer approached Yuma, Ariz., to take custody of George White, he noticed the smoke of hundreds of campfires made by hobos burning old railroad ties.

The hobos, Flammer learned, were avoiding Yuma because the marshal meted out hard justice to vagrants, as he warned in posters all over town. But Flammer also learned all those homeless men were heading for Los Angeles.

“The chief of detectives pictured in his mind another winter of lawlessness,” The Times said. “Last week 130 hobos were on the chain gang, working from eight to 10 hours a day, but thousands more were coming.”

The city of Los Angeles printed thousands of posters that were placed along railway lines from the coast to the desert warning hobos: “The police of this city are waiting for them and that they will be put to work as soon as they arrive here.”


The Times also noted that the city planned to build a stockade to accommodate all the tramps who were expected. Not so simple a task, however. While one faction wanted a stockade in the riverbed, another thought it should be in Chavez Ravine. Still others wanted to use the money for a new automobile for officials.

The council was eventually split between putting the stockade in Chavez Ravine or next to the jail on Hill Street. Police, meanwhile, backed a proposal to add cell space by cutting the jail’s existing “bull pen” horizontally with a new floor halfway up the wall.

Eventually, it was noted that the state penal code called for a $5,000 fine and imprisonment for inhumane treatment of inmates; the grand jury began looking into the situation.

By the end of January 1908, city officials rejected the idea of a stockade in favor of a new jail or workhouse. Meanwhile, a public works program was begun for unemployed men with families to build a boulevard between Griffith and Elysian parks.

In February 1908, the council reversed itself and put out bids for a stockade “near the sand pits east of Elysian Park.” But by the time the stockade was finally built in June 1908, “hobo season” was over and there were few occupants.


Ecclesiastes 1:9 “There is nothing new under the sun.”

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South Hope

Posted on December 21, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 21, 1907
Los Angeles

Lillian Poelk was new to Los Angeles, with no friends and little more than a job as a waitress that didn’t quite cover the rent of her room at 831 S. Hope.

“While other girls were getting pretty things and preparing for a pleasant Christmas, she was shut up in a cheerless room,” The Times said.

Poelk went to visit an acquaintance at a rooming house at 138 N. Spring St. On her way to the woman’s room, Poelk passed the quarters of Mary Del Rose, who had left her door open. Seeing two $5 gold pieces on the dresser, Poelk impulsively took the money.

Apparently instead of visiting, Poelk left the rooming house but was overcome with guilt and fear of being arrested. She went into a department store and threw “the money into the toilet room,” The Times said.

The rooming house’s janitor saw the theft and reported it to police. When Poelk was arrested, she begged for mercy. Police Capt. Auble said: “if we find that Miss Poelk is a good girl we will do all we can to secure her release. A girl living by herself is beset with enough trials and temptations to wreck a saint.”

There are no further stories on Poelk, so we don’t know what became of her. Nor do we know if Del Rose received restitution for her money ($205.24 USD 2005). We can only hope for the best.

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OMG

Posted on December 20, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 20,1907
Los Angeles

Mr. C.D. Roberts of 1900 E. Main was feeling a bit unwell. He had bad headaches, an irregular appetite, saw dark spots before his eyes and felt as if something in his stomach was alive.

Not sure what to do, Roberts consulted the European Medical Experts at 745 S. Main St., where he was treated with the secret cure of “The Great Fer-Don.” “He was prevailed upon to try it, with the result that his system was quickly relieved of this monster scores of feet in length,” surely the Loch Ness creature of internal parasites.

Mr. Fred Schaffer, 125 W. Colorado in Pasadena; Albert Crist of the Parker House on 5th Street; and others have been similarly cured, the ad in The Times says. The European Medical Experts miraculously used bloodless surgery to treat Mrs. M.J. Brenner of San Gabriel, relieving her of gallstones; removed a tumor from Mrs. Jack Rowell of 303 Central Ave. without an operation and treated half a dozen people for deafness.

One might wonder, since Main Street runs north and south, where “1900 E. Main” might be. More to the point, who is the Great Fer-Don?

One ad says, “He is a man of large build, has dark hair tinged with silver gray. His flow of speech is pleasing and magnetic. In his lecture and demonstration Fer-Don said: ‘I came to your city to introduce my medical compound discovery and bring with me some of the methods of the old world, which will be demonstrated to the public by the staff of European Medical Experts.”

Fer-Don is not a registered doctor with the state of California, but the staff members are, the ad says. And what miracles they worked: little lame children walked again and cancer was removed without a trace. He was a philanthropist too: Not only did the Great Fer-Don treat a poor Pasadena woman without charge, he gave her $50.

Above, Vivian Edwards and his transcontinental goat team.


Among those providing testimonials was Capt. Vivian Edwards, who apparently won fame for crossing the country in a buggy pulled by goats. “I was in so great pain that I would have tried anything,” he said. “I would have suffered being cut open or would have drunk molten lead if I had thought it would bring relief.”

Three doses of medicine from the European Medical Experts was sufficient, however. “Like electricity, it went through my system,” he said. “In five minutes I knew I was going to find an end to pain. With the next dose I felt still better and the next morning with the third and last dose of this medicine I was relieved of a large number of gallstones.”

Before long, the Great Fer-Don was giving free lectures on a lighted platform in the vacant lot at 7th and Spring streets. The Diamond Cluster Band preceded his carriage and performed for 15 minutes before lectures. Eventually, Fer-Don added acts until he had an entire vaudeville show.

The Great Fer-Don said that he would leave Los Angeles on Jan. 1, 1908. But after announcing that he was staying indefinitely, the Great Fer-Don and his medical experts disappeared in May 1908.

When next heard from, James M. Fer-Don and his wife were being sought on a felony warrant from Sacramento. It seems that his $100 medical cure was nothing more than colored water. He appears to have been in Oakland about 1909 before vanishing permanently from the historic record.

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It Wasn’t His Fault

Posted on December 19, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 19, 1907
Los Angeles

What you have to understand first about George White is that he isn’t to blame. Oh he’ll take his prison sentence for robbing the Hot Rivet Saloon, 1006 N. Main St., but it’s not his fault; he fell in with the wrong man. He just hopes that when he’s released he won’t be turned over to the Army as a deserter.

“The best and worst thing that ever happened to me was the Army,” White says. That’s where his problems began, you see. That’s where he got the habit of never staying too long in one place. And that’s where he got in trouble with a tough, cocky lieutenant who was always riding him.

White was used to serving in the Philippines, where life was “swift and rather free,” but he was transferred to the East Coast. One day the lieutenant ordered White, who was trained as a carpenter, to do some carpentry work but White refused and fled after beating up his superior officer. That wasn’t his fault; the lieutenant shouldn’t have been giving him such a hard time.

He began wandering: London, Scotland and all over the U.S. But not as a freeloader, for he always earned a living. “I worked most of the time,” White said. “I would get a job and stick at it a while and then I would get this itch to go someplace else.

“I have done everything that you can do to earn money at except law, theology and medicine; and I could make a pretty good bluff at those if I had too. All during this life of wandering I had definite ambition. I wanted to study law. In fact, I did read law for 10 months. But I never could get far enough ahead to do anything much.”

White was in Portland, Ore., and doing fairly well, he says, when he met a down-and-out ex-soldier. White says he felt sorry for the man and loaned him $5. Nothing wrong with that, you know, for there’s a unofficial fraternity among former military men.

And then White got that itch to travel and decided to come to Los Angeles. Of course he was broke and he ran into his old friend from Portland. The friend didn’t have much money, and certainly couldn’t repay White, but he knew about the Hot Rivet Saloon, and how it would be full of ironworkers who had just been paid, so a robbery would be easy pickings.

Robbing a crowded saloon might frighten most men, but the Army teaches you not to be afraid and how to handle a weapon, White says. It wasn’t his fault; the military taught him how.

So on Nov. 16, 1907, a little after 11 p.m., White walked into the Hot Rivet with two pistols drawn and said: “Get into the back end of the barroom or I will plug you.” His partner, who had entered the saloon half an hour before and had several drinks, emptied the cash register of $103 ($2,134.45 USD 2005) and an $85 paycheck, scooping the money into his hat. It wasn’t White’s fault that neither man wore a mask, so they were easy to identify. The plan was to leave town immediately.

“I would know that big fellow a year from now if I met him on the street,” one witness said. “His eyes are as black as coal and his chin is square set. The other fellow is a smooth talker and it surprised me when he walked behind the bar and started to get the money. I had three drinks with him.”

White hit the rails, but was caught in Yuma by a Southern Pacific detective who was rousting a hobo camp and thought White resembled one of the robbers described in a police bulletin. White denied the charges, but the railroad detective had him photographed and sent the picture to the Los Angeles Police Department, where it was identified by half a dozen holdup victims.

Naturally, White says his partner cheated him out of his fair share of the money. That wasn’t his fault, either, but he refused to tell police the man’s name. In fact, he wouldn’t have been arrested if the detective hadn’t found his revolver. You see, he needs to carry a gun because the railroad brakemen shake down hobos riding the rails and if they can’t pay, they’re thrown off, sometimes while the train is moving. It’s not his fault.

“I’ve got to go to prison now,” White told The Times. “A fellow only has one life to live and it’s pretty hard to know he has wasted that. It’s all off with my ever becoming a lawyer now. The best of my life will be caged up. It will be all the way from five to 15 years before I ever see outdoors again.”

It’s impossible to tell what became of White after he served his prison sentence. He told police he had a wife and baby but hoped they wouldn’t learn of his crime. But it wasn’t his fault.

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A Walk in L.A., 1951

Posted on December 18, 2006 by lmharnisch

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Whats in That Embalming Fluid?

Posted on December 18, 2006 by lmharnisch


Dec. 18, 1907
Los Angeles

Los Angeles County Coroner Roy S. Lanterman was arrested on charges of being drunk and disorderly at the Navajo, a bordello run by Ida Hastings, 309 Ord St. Hastings called police, who arrested Lanterman.

A Mills Seminary graduate nicknamed “Suicide Ida” because of her attempts to kill herself “every time she has a serious setback in her numerous ‘love’ affairs,” Hastings had contacted police earlier in the evening, asking for protection from Lanterman, saying that he had attacked her. Hastings notified police when Lanterman, who was married, returned to the bordello, went to her bedroom and after a fierce fight, removed several photographs of himself as well as a letter.

Upon arriving, police found Lanterman hiding in a bathroom and refusing to come out. When officers finally took him into custody, they discovered he was drunk and armed with two revolvers. They also seized the photographs and the letter Lanterman had taken from Hastings.

“The Hastings woman refused to make any statement of the affair when seen early this morning. She said the facts would probably come out in court,” The Times said.

Lanterman contended that he was summoned to the bordello because a woman was in hysterics and while attending her, he was arrested by a new and apparently inexperienced police officer.

The desk sergeant said: “He was drunk; good and drunk.” An observation corroborated by the arresting officers, the night jailer and several others at the police station.

Lanterman hired famed defense attorney Earl Rogers, but Hastings refused to appear in court to press charges, so the case was dropped. However, charges were later brought by prosecutor E.J. Fleming under an 1880 law demanding the dismissal of any official who is intoxicated while on duty.

Officials closed the Navajo, and in January 1908, Lanterman resigned as coroner. He was soon indicted on charges of making false statements about his election expenses and submitting fraudulent travel expenses to the Board of Supervisors. In April 1908, he was sentenced to a year in prison, but his conviction was overturned on appeal in 1909.

Lanterman’s legal troubles were far from over, however. He was freed on a technicality after being indicted in 1916 on charges of performing an abortion on 17-year-old Elizabeth Johnson. The Times said: “Dr. Lanterman has practiced in Los Angeles for many years and is one of the best-known members of the local medical fraternity. He has offices in the Grosse Building.”

He was arrested in 1917 on charges of performing a fatal abortion on Mrs. “Reggie” Regina Greenburg Evans of San Francisco, which he claimed was “spite work” by his political enemies. In her dying declaration, Evans told her brother that Lanterman performed the abortion, but she told others at County Hospital that she tried to perform it herself. He was found not guilty and after a petition drive, regained his medical license in 1921.

In 1918, he was accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 20-year-old Marjorie Woodbury, during an outing to Malibu.

He and Dr. Paul Traxler were accused of murder in the 1929 death of film actress Delphine Walsh during an abortion. He was found not guilty, but lost his medical license for a second time.

He died in 1948 at the age of 79 in his home, 4420 Encinas Drive, La Canada, survived by his wife, Emily; and sons Lloyd and Frank. His services were conducted at Church of the Lighted Window, which his family helped found. The Lanterman mansion was turned into La Canada’s City Hall in 1985.

Bonus facts: His father, F.D. Lanterman, bought Rancho La Canada from the Verdugo family in 1875. The portion of the Glendale Freeway between the Ventura Freeway and La Canada is known as the Frank Lanterman Freeway in honor of the late state legislator, who served in the Assembly from 1950 to 1978.

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Posted in 1907, 1908, 1909, Black Dahlia, Books and Authors, City Hall, Crime and Courts, Film, Freeways, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD, Photography, Streetcars | Comments Off on Whats in That Embalming Fluid?

Green Eyes

Posted on December 16, 2006 by lmharnisch

Dec. 16, 1907
Los Angeles

And what ran on the sports pages in 1907? We certainly didn’t have the Lakers. How about a cat show at Chutes Park at Grand and Washington? I can just imagine the reaction of my distinguished colleagues on the other end of newsroom to this:

“In the class of white neuters, Col. Dunham Jr. was awarded the first place, and Tootsie, owned by Mrs. E.H. Coane, was a very close second. Mr. [Frederick] Story said he had never had to decide between two cats having so many equal points. The colonel was the finer and best furnished. The eyes and head of Tootsie were better than those of the colonel.”

Now this is intriguing:

“Judge and Mrs. Frederick Story will return to their home in Chicago in a few days. They brought out with them a fine cat for Mrs. H.A. Stearns of the Los Robles kennels. Mr. Stearns presented the cat to his wife, who owns several fine specimens. The new cat, a blue female, comes of an exceptionally fine strain. Her dam was Penelope, the famous Lincoln Park cat, known all through the East as a direct descendant from Spangles. The renowned Spangles is the cat that crossed the Great Sahara Desert upon a camel’s back and was later imported to the United States.”

Now I know nothing about the famous Spangles, but the image of a cat swaying on the back of a camel is too good to ignore. Let’s see what we can find. Alas, Proquest and Google are silent about Spangles the cat and its desert trek. We’ll just have to use our imaginations.



Bonus facts: The Times says that the cat with the greenest eyes was Amboy Lina Snow, owned by Miss A. Trahn.


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Adios Judy!

Posted on December 16, 2006 by lmharnisch


Judith Regan, the publisher of Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files,” has found a way to make Page 1 of The Times: Get fired by HarperCollins. (The New York Times story is here.)

I’m trying not to gloat. But it’s a challenge. As we used to say at my little old paper, The Arizona Daily Star, in a riff on the standard line in fire stories: “Champagne corks flew hundreds of feet into the air and could be seen for miles.”

By the way, I’m still waiting to hear from Wolfe about his bogus document.

Posted in 1947, Another Good Story Ruined, Black Dahlia, Books and Authors, Cold Cases, Crime and Courts, Donald Wolfe, History, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Adios Judy!

L.A. Rising

Posted on December 15, 2006 by lmharnisch


Dec. 15, 1905
Los Angeles

Anybody who sets out to study the development of the city’s neighborhoods can expect to do lots of driving. My recent travels have taken me to an obscure area of South Los Angeles to look for 1907-era houses mentioned in the Dec. 8 issue of The Times: one in the vicinity of 4615 Wesley Ave. and another around 124 W. 52nd St. (Bonus fact: Broadway in that area used to be known as Moneta).

I’ll post some pictures later. The buildings on Wesley are a mix of single-family homes and two-story apartments. As for preservation, you might as well call this neighborhood Stucco Heights.

The Dec. 15 issue pays another visit to South Pasadena and as these buildings involve a short walk rather than a long drive and time is short; well, you get the idea.

The Times says: “South Pasadena, just to the northeast, crowded by the bustling life of the great city to the south and penned in by the no less prosperous Pasadena on the north is one of the best examples of a suburban city…. South Pasadena has more handsome homes within the same area, about a mile and a half square, than any other similar place in the country. There are several modern business blocks also being erected, and a new library building.”

The Times notes 299 building permits in South Pasadena in the last year with a total valuation of $357,036 ($7,327,653.44 USD 2005).



One of the buildings noted is the First National Bank of South Pasadena at Mission and Diamond, now home to an antique store. And then there’s the library, where people are out doing Tai Chi every morning. I’ll post pictures when I get the film developed. We are old school around here….

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