Los Angeles herald., 1905-07-16

few "reminiscences concerning that at
tractive watering place resort may not
be amiss.
About the time the FIRST American
boom was getting ready to strike Los
Angeles the rancho Centinela Y Sausal
Redondo was the property Of an ec-
centric scotchman named Sir Robert
Burnett, whose personal history was
Of an adventurous and even tragical
kind, although the tragedy did not de-
velop until his return to his native
Scotland. He used the ranch as a sheep
range and run the business or
a colossal scale. Redondo was an
ocean frontage of this great property,
which contained $4,000 acres, more or
less.
It might easily have been ten or fif-
teen thousand acres more, in the loose
way surveys were managed in South
ern California in those days. If Sir
Robert had not possessed the near"
habit said to characterize some of his
countrymen and had not neglected to
invite the surveyors to dinner a slight
to which the keen breezes blowing over
the sand dunes from the ocean front
at Redondo made those gentlemen very
sensitive.
However that may have been, the
Scotch baronet gathered on the goodly
domain which was allotted to him al
together the finest band of sheep ever
collected on any ranch in Southern
California, or indeed, in the whole
state He imported Southdowns at
great expense and his graded fiocks
were a delight to the eye of the con-
noisseur of mutton. But for the awful
drought of 1S76-77 this lower country
would have possessed the finest sheep
on the American continent down to
the current day. Land soon became too
valuable to allow it to be depastured
for common sheep, but plenty of it
could be found for such sheep as these.
Dan Freeman Came
About the fall of 1872 Dan Freeman
made his appearance in Southern Cali
fornia. He was seeking a climate
which might re-establish the health of
his invalid wife. He had tried South
Carolina and Florida and failed to
find just the climate desired. His ply
sicians said California" and hither
he came. He went all over the state,
from San Diego to Siskiyou, and fin
ally decided that Los Angeles fulfilled
all the conditions he required.
Just at this time Sir Robert Bur-
nett succeeded to his baronetcy and
wished to go home. Having looked the
property over and finding it suited
him, Mr.. Freeman bought 1t, paying
for it the sum of $25S an acre. This
may not have been the exact figure,
but it was substantially that, and the
fine sheep were taken at valuation
satisfactory to both parties.
The acquisition of such a property
on such terms was of course the foun-
dation of an enormous fortune for him.
In the fall of 1874 Mr.. Freeman con-
cluded to subdivide and sell a consid-
erable portion of his ranch. AS luck
would have it the rains were unusually
late that year. The sale had been
first rain fell on the 18th of January.
The sale was postponed; but when it
came off it could scarcely be called
success. Although the year turned out
to be a splendid one, as proves so often
to be the case in this region, nobody
could tell in advance what to look for,
and the sales We're adjourned indef-
initely, fortunately for the owner, as
the lands were proved, even in the IA
nous drought year of 1S76-77 to be ex-
cellent for agriculture, Mr.. Flood hav-
ing raised a good wheat crop on sew
eral thousand acres Of the Centinela
in that noted dry year, when the rain
fall was only 4S5 inches. The sales
which were oonsummated at this auc-
tion were afterwards compromised and
the plan was cancelled to make way for
adequate appreciation Of the realty
values of the Centinela.
Its Boom Began
About the time the great boom of
1SS6-S7 was coming to a head Captains
Ainsworth and Thompson of the Ore
gon Navigation.company became inter-
ested with Mr.. Freeman in exploiting
the Centinela- in. genuine commercial
sense. Both of these gentlemen were
possessed of great wealth-were very
much ultimillionaires-and withal
noted for their enterprise. They asso-
ciated themselves with Dan Freeman
in projected which materialized on
the coast as Redondo and in the inter-
for as Inglewood.
The Redondo project was the dis
tinctively Observation-Disclosures pro-
ject. and I presume embraced among
other things the 1000 lots which were
purchased by Mr.. Huntington the other
day
The northern people entered into the
scheme with energy and intelligence.
They built a superb hotel at Redondo,