Los Angeles herald., 1905-09-17

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time owned by Maj. Hancock-the sur
veyor whose map of the city was the
leading authority for many years and
is standard now as far as it reaches
and which is now owned by his widow,
was an immense quarry, as one might
say, of this valuable material. 1t was
largely exported to San Francisco and
other points along the coast.
Time Came at Last
But however long neglected, the
| time at length came for the develop
ment OF this distinctive interest, and
derricks soon arose on every hand. The
development not only came in time to
help out the city but individuals as
well. Boyer & Last, the wholesale Ii
quor merchants, owned the Second
Street park, at which place a brisk
beer garden was run. Annexed to the
place was pretty little lake on which
pleasure craft were plying every hour
of the day and many Of the night.
The oars were sometimes observed to
drip Oil as well as water 1t was not
long before a score of wells were
pumping oil around this lot, to the no
| small profit of the bank accounts of
these enterprising merchants. Even
Doheny himself has found great profit
in developing this portion of the city.
Following fast in the footsteps of the
pioneers, every part of the hill por-
Af J,a 1if b.
harbor crowded with masts and the
nuisance became so great that howls
of depreciation arose from the aristo-
cratic denizens of Wiltshire boulevard
and Westlake park. Exploitation for
oil leaped the city limits and spread
out to the Puente, Fullerton, Santa Fe
Springs and other points to the east
and south, where many extraordinary
developments resulted.
Work in these fields has not only en-
riched oil syndicates in Los Angeles.
but has converted some genuine good
fellows, like ex-Sheriff William R.
Rowland, into capitalists. This gen.
tleman's labors, as a politician and a
rancher, were not nearly so fructify-
ing as sitting at his ease and seeing his
Puente wells spout oil. The ubi-
quitous Rockefeller is understood to
have an agreement by which he takes
care of Mr.. Rowland's oil interests
for him, thus allowing that gentleman
to live at ease in his elegant villa in
Los Angeles.
j. A. Graves Part
Another we'll known Angeleno who
has been greatly enriched by opera
tions in oil is j. A. Graves, who has
been highly successful as a lawyer,
banker and speculator; If by the word
speculator we are to indicate a man
who knows how to get hold of good
thing in oil lands or anything else and
hold on to 1t till the psychological mo-
ment. Another thing Rowland and
Graves have in common is that they
are two of the best racounteurs in this
lower country. That is saying good
deal, for there are great many peo-
PIE to the manner born" in that line
hereabouts.
Every now and then story reaches
Los Angeles of a mineral discovery in
this neighborhod, the San Gabriel
mountains sometimes figuring as the
scene. Nobody need be surprised at a
new mineral development anywhere in
this region. The great Randsburg
mines, with their Yellow Aster and
other striking and profitable develop
ments are of very recent discovery.
For twenty years before they were
stumbled upon by drunken Los An
geles printer, the experts of Flood,
O'Brien, Mackay and other famous
mining men passed over these mines
without dreaming that there was any,
thing to the good either under the grass
roots or between the surface and
China. The teams of John p. Jones
hauling goods to and from his Pana-
mint mines were not so far away, and
yet Randsburg had remained perdu.
Belshaw and Beaudry went great
distance farther north and east for
their Inyo mines, and yet that did not
prevent the opening up of the nearer
mines when their day had come.
There is ore up in the San Gabriel
mines exactly like that which Jim Fair
handed me in the 1850 level of the Con-
solidated Virginia in the fall of 1874
and which I handed to John G..
Downey and I. w. Hellman of the
Farmers and Merchants bank when
got to Los Angeles. 1t was displayed
in the bank for a long time and many
people remarked it's striking resem-
blance to the ore of DR.. Winston's
mine in the San Gabriel. AS the story
goes, the doctor was wont to spend
all the money he earned in the prac-
tice of his profession or in running
, the Bella Union hotel in trying to de-
velop that mine.
UP in San Gabriel
The country in the San Gabriel in
which ore is found in the outcroppings
is exceedingly impracticable. About a