Welcome to the blog of writer and musician Andrew Martin. Here I'll post original photographs and observations as I encounter the history and culture of the San Fernando Valley, the City of the Angels, Alta California and the far-flung Pacific Rim… but mostly the Valley.
A new series applying history’s tire-iron to the rusty Hub of the Valley
Millard Sheets, 1965. HSFC Bank on Van Nuys Boulevard, now BofA
PART ONE: ‘WHEN ALL THIS WAS FARMLAND’
In the photo below, the sun-baked middle ground is today’s Van Nuys. Van Nuys is unusual in America in that the historian can’t sanctimoniously intone in the opening paragraph “For time immemorial People of the Ancient Ways called this land home, at one with Nature’s Ways.” Nobody called Van Nuys “Home” until Isaac Newton Van Nuys. And for the Tongva, the Chumash and the Tataviam who lived in the surrounding hills, the way to be at one with Nature’s Ways was to hot-foot it across the Valley as fast as you can in the dry seasons; and avoid it completely during the dangerous wet times when it swamped and Tujunga or Pacoima Wash could rampage. Of the two pleasant spots where natural wells and pools spring up, and the Indians had mixed-tribe rancerias, neither of them is Van Nuys. One was Encino [Siutcanga]; the other of course was San Fernando [Achoicomenga], where the Mission was built. But Van Nuys belonged to the antelopes. When the Indians were almost gone and the Mission was secularized the Valley was heavily ranched. Gen. Andres Pico took his interest in San Fernando and the northern half of the Valley, and his brother Don Pio Pico, the last Californio governor who had signed the original grant in 1846, by the 1850s had somehow come to own the southern half himself — including the cattle-tramped hardpan we call Van Nuys, that nothing in the middle:
Mission San Fernando and the vast San Fernando plain.hoto 1875 by a railroad surveyor; taken from SF Pass looking toward Cahuenga.
1869, the final surveyed boundaries of the Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. Signed, sealed, and delivered by Pio Pico for $115,000 to the crazy Yankee wheat farmers.
Don Pio Pico, executing rights from a complicated chain-of-title victory from the Land Commission, sold his half of Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando to the Yankees because beef prices had collapsed. Around 1865, the 15-year Gold Rush boom waned, then busted. The days were bygone of Valley rancheros driving thousands of cattle up to San Francisco and Sacramento to be slaughtered for twenty-dollar beefsteaks. The problem of a sudden oversupply of lowing stock solved itself, when a searing drought gripped the Southland, leaving the Valley full of cattle bones by 1868. The land sale was pervaded with ironies; Col. Fremont had made the Mission the headquarters for his California Battalion, and across these very plains had ridden in triumph to receive the sword of capitulation from Gen. Andres Pico, who claimed the Mission and its lands for his own. In 1848, Pico capitulated to save the Californios’ ranchos. Now the Picos were selling theirs off to the Yankees. But Pio Pico was the wiliest California land-jobber of them all. Realizing a profit from the switch of allegiances to Norte America, even so land could be liquidated legally, was their triumph. Pio was was certainly shrewd enough to realize a Hotel on the Plaza would bring steadier returns, and more genteel social connections, than running stock on the hoof. It was a brilliant trade for Pico, one of his canniest bets, for it kept him in good credit. It was also a decisive investment in downtown Los Angeles; the first moment when the dusty pueblo earned any notice at all in the world. Pio Pico put the Merced Theatre in back of the Pico House, with a door to the lobby; and put Jules Harder in the hotel kitchen; and made LA a cityon the map.
1880s: the combine and twenty-mule team.
And it was a great deal for Van Nuys, who was the partner responsible for actually running the farm operation. Lankershim had tried dry wheat farming for a couple of seasons but had busted. Van Nuys said he could do it, and he did; with true Yankee luck, the middle of 1870s when he experimented brought some good El Niño rains, and by the 1880s Van Nuys was harvesting boatloads of grainwith Lankershim’s capital, and shipping it overseas at a branded premium. Thus it was a great return for the San Franicsco investors, too.Lankershim had found this land destroyed by heavy cattle ranching and failed to work it; it was Van Nuys who made it into a productive monocrop that brought other wheat farmers to make fortunes here too. He was one of the greatest farmers who ever lived.
The Home Ranch was the Van Nuys’ farmhouse, where he and Susannah (Lankershim) raised three kids and a million bushels of wheat.
But who was Isaac Newton Van Nuys? He wasn’t the founder of Van Nuys, but it was named for him when he sold in 1909. (The town was founded in 1911). Speculative towns are usually named after the developer’s signature on the front of the check, not the farmer’s name on the back. Significantly, also, the name ‘Van Nuys’ is practically the only one of the developers’ original town names not to have changed; meaning, Van Nuys never actively voted to change its identity, as did social-climbing Toluca to Lankershim to North Hollywood, or Zelzah to Northridge, or Marian to Reseda, or Owensmouth to (the equally unappealing) Canoga Park. In the next part we’ll take the man, and his name, and his Life, in View, to glean what civics lessons we can.
The very first view of LA, from 1847, looking down from Fort Hill to La Placita church and the Plaza. This was the enemy capital as Stockton saw it — and took it. On August 13, his Marines camped on the Plaza.
On August 13, 1846, Commodore Stockton led his footsore Marines, joined almost at the last minute by Maj. Fremont’s mounted California Battalion, into the nearly deserted capital of Alta California, El Ciudad de Los Angeles. Ten years later, in 1856, Fremont was the popular hero, a gold millionaire, a former California Senator, and running for President — the first, and very controversially anti-slavery, candidate of the Republican Party. During that election year, Stockton threw out a ghost-written pamphlet telling his own story as Fremont’s (nominal) commanding officer, and highlighting his own role as the true kick-ass hero of the California Theatre of the Mexican War. From the moment he took command of the Pacific Squadron in Monterey Bay, Stockton began planning his conquest of California. (Note that the following account of Stockton’s “pivot to aggression” was intended to be highly flattering of the Commodore’s independent character:)
“It must be admitted that it took great moral courage to assume the responsibility of the enterprise which Cmdr. Stockton thought it his duty to undertake. He had no precedent in U.S. history to guide him. He had no instructions which applied to the emergency. And we are informed that he held no council, with whose deliberations he might divide the responsibility of his decisions. His decisions were the result of his own patriotic sense of duty. Indeed, we have been informed that he has said, that from his departure from the United States, in the fall of 1845, to the close of his career in California, he never asked the advice of anyone, nor took any counsel in relation to any measure of importance…Having determined upon the most decisive measures, Commodore Stockton, assuming the command-in-chief, civil and military, issued his proclamation (at Monterey, July 23, 1846) placing the country under martial law.”
— A Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, With an Appendix, Etc. 1856
Monterey, at bay
Stockton’s Monterey martial-law proclamation shocked the Californios. It came on the heels of Commodore Sloat’s friendly proclamation of American possession-as-protectorate. California had been abandoned by Mexico, and Monterey had accepted Sloat’s gunboats without a murmur of resistance. But suddenly the benign, reassuring Sloat retired, and was replaced by Stockton. Acting entirely on his own initiative and out of his own prejudice against the Mexican nation, Stockton immediately insisted Alta California had committed bellicose outrages against the United States, chief amongst which was that:
“General [Jose] Castro, the commander-in-chief of the military forces of California, has violated every principle of international law and national hospitality (sic) by hunting and pursuing with several hundred soldiers, and with wicked intent (sic), Captain Fremont, of the United States Army, who came here to refresh his men, (about forty in number), after a perilous journey across the mountains on a scientific survey.”
[In other words, California deserved conquest, because her officers had dared to defend her against conquest. Remember, Patient Reader, that Capt. Fremont’s brigade had spent the last few months taunting Castro, refusing to leave the territory, leading him on a wild goose chase around Northern California, massacring and stirring up the Indians, and then stirring up any American “emigrants” they could find with tales that Castro and the Indians were planning to slaughter them. Fremont even seized the heights of Gavilan Peak, in sight of Castro’s camp, to run up the Stars and Stripes as a pre-emptive act of conquest-by-discovery — tee hee! — then pulled the flag down and – tee hee! — slipped away into the tules.]
“On assuming command of the forces of the United States on the coast of California, both by sea and land [a presumptuous assumption, Gen. Kearny of the Army would later declare] I find myself [sic] in possession of the ports of Monterey and San Francisco, with daily reports from the interior of scenes of rapine, blood and murder…I am constrained by every principle of national honor…to put an end at once, and by force, to the lawless depredations daily committed by General Castro’s men upon the persons and property of peaceful and unoffending [American] inhabitants…I cannot, therefore, confine my operations to the quiet and undisturbed possession of the defenceless ports of Monterey and San Francisco, while the people elsewhere are suffering from lawless violence, but will immediately march against those boasting and abusive chiefs, who…unless driven out, will with the aid of the hostile Indians, keep this beautiful country in a constant state of revolution and blood, as well as against all others who may be found in arms, or aiding and abetting General Castro.”
The Californios thus discovered they were not, in fact, going to be brought into the Union by a peaceful stroke of republican independence, which had been promised by Cmdr. Sloat, and anyway long-since negotiated between Gen. Vallejo and the U.S. consul Thomas Larkin. Stockton overruled all that patient diplomacy, in favor of a full-scale invasion and ravaging of the country, at his own behest and under his own personal direction, hostilities to be ended only upon his own personal satisfaction.
The Californians were further alarmed by the report that, at a party that night on the quarterdeck of the U.S.S. Congress, over cigars and brandy, Stockton got expansive, stared up at the stars twinkling through the lacy Monterey pines, and outlined his plans to punish, chastise, put the boot to, and in every way scorch the earth of California. If the Southern Californians dared keep up an insolent resistance, Stockton boasted, he looked forward to hoisting the flag over the capital of the territory, even if he had to wade through the Los Angeles Plaza with the blood of slain Mexicans lapping at the top of his boots. Or words to that effect. This report came from the Mexican officer Juan Maria Flores, who was standing right there when Stockton said it.
Southern California’s coast, with the port of “Pedro” and the town of “Angeles” marked, along with El Camino Real leading up from San Diego past “Sn. Luci Rey” and “Sn. Campistrano.”. The Homestead Museum reckons this as the oldest extant U.S. military map of the territory, found among the papers of an adjutant at Monterey, and dated July 17, 1847.
“On the 1st of August Commodore Stockton sailed with the Congress to…San Pedro, on the coast about thirty miles distant from the Ciudad de Los Angeles. He landed at once 350 sailors and Marines, established them in camp, and commenced drilling them for the service contemplated. [Upon receiving Castro’s offer of a parley and a truce until Washington and Mexico City worked out a peace, Stockton] …directed the messengers to return to their master, and inform him that the American commander intended to march immediately to Ciudad de Los Angeles; that General Castro should prepare to surrender his arms, disperse his forces, and require his men to return to their homes and demean themselves peaceably, under penalty of being dealt with in the most rigorous manner. He ordered them to tell Castro that he would not negotiate with him on any other terms than those of absolute submission to the authority of the President of the United States. Having, through an interpreter, delivered this message in the most fierce and offensive manner, and in a tone of voice significant of the most implacable and hostile determination, he waved them from his presence imperiously with the insulting imperative, “Vamose!”
On the 11th of August, Stockton commenced his march upon Delos Angeles. The enemy were often in sight, hovering on the brows of adjacent hills. The artillery and ammunition carts were dragged along by the sailors over hills and through tedious valleys of sand, but without complaint or reluctance. [The Marines camped that night at Rancho Cerritos, owned by American Jonathan “Don Juan” Temple.] On the 12th, as they approached within a few miles of Castro’s position, another courier arrived…with a pompous message: “that if he marched upon the town he would find it the grave of his men.” “Then,” said Stockton, “tell your general to have the bells ready to toll in the morning at eight o’clock, as I shall be there at that time.” He was there at that time; but the California general of couriers and despatches was unwilling to risk a battle. Evidently panic-stricken, without firing a gun, Castro broke up his camp, dispersed his forces…and fled in the direction of Sonora. His artillery fell into the hands of the Americans. His principal officers…Don Andres Pico and Don Juan Maria Flores, surrendered, and were set at liberty on their parole of honor not to serve against the United States in the war. Ciudad de Los Angeles capitulated without any specifications of terms, and on the 13th of August, Commodore Stockton took possession of the capital of California.”
— A Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, With an Appendix, Etc. (Derby & Jackson, 1856)– A Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, With an Appendix, Etc.
Thus Stockton took Los Angeles quietly, in the morning, without firing a shot. He marched his Marine band around the Plaza; did the honors with the colors; and set up his H.Q. in “Government House,” the old Isaac Williams adobe on Main Street. This casa had been bought by Pio Pico when he removed the political capital to LA in 1845, so the administration would have offices. It was also conveniently next door to “El Palacio”, the grand courtyard adobe of the wealthy American Don Abel Stearns, who was at that time serving as L.A.’s alcalde. Doubtless Dona Arcadia offered the Commodore and his officers the fine bedchambers. That evening the band took formation in the Plaza, and gave a lengthy pops concert. The music lured the wary Angelenos back from the hills and ravines where they had fled, and LA slept quietly that night,
But things would not remain quiet; Stockton’s rude taunts and baseless accusations of crimes against humanity, his self-serving saber-rattling, and his deliberate insults to their patriotic honor, had hardened the Southern Californios’ hearts to Yankee rule. They endured a month under the thumb of the officer that Stockton left in charge of the city, Marine Capt. Archibald Gillespie; then hot-head Sebula Varela issued his pronunciamiento, Generals Flores and Pico responded by renouncing their parole, and the Californios revolted against their overlords. It has been argued that Gillespie was no martinet, but that he was just following Stockton’s gall-and-wormwood orders: prohibiting LA’s duennas from accompanying their muchachas on the traditional posada around the Plaza, for instance, because it was “unlawful assembly.” The California Lancers constituted themselves under Flores, besieged the Marines up on treeless, waterless, Fort Hill, received their surrender, and marched them at gunpoint back onto their ships and out of the harbor at San Pedro. Stockton had underestimated the Californios, and over the next four months, this mistake would be paid for with American blood, as well as Mexican.
The El Camino Real bell on the Plaza, placed 1906.
Winter rains bring out the Spanish in California. If a growth of grass like this year’s had come in the ranching period, the herds of Mexican longhorns would have increased past counting. The profits from the tallow-and-hide trade with the Yankees at San Pedro would have been a cause for setting off fireworks. Ramona’s Allesandro would have grown so drowsy counting the sheep in his flock, he might have lain down in the hills for a ten year snooze, like Rip Van Winkle. Andres Pico never saw it looking so lush and fat. But this is the Spanish winter green that he, and the Franciscans, labored to create.
A landscape that was re-grassed for, and by, European stock animals.
How did it happen so quickly? You can’t make bricks without straw. It explains why the Missions took so long (the 1790s, really) to get up their great adobe buildings.
“ And Pharaoh saith, Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not ought of your work shall be diminished. So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw…
And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw. And the…children of Israel…were beaten, and…cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants?…There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick: and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people.”
Exodus 5
Mission San Fernando was the largest adobe complex ever built in California. Adobe bricks themselves cure in the sun; but if they are not covered with a tile roof and slathered with gleaming whitewash, they slump into mud with the first rain, just like the hills. Now, terra-cotta tile, and quicklime for whitewash, had to be fired in kilns, and kilns had to be fueled with oak. (Don’t blame the padres entirely: most of the Mission quicklime was sold to the pobladores of Los Angeles, to whitewash their adobe casitas downtown.)
“Gen. Andres Pico and Two Old Indians at San Fernando Mission” (1865). Left to right in background: glimpses of Limekiln, Lopez, and Kagel Canyons.I’m pretty sure these are the Pacoima Hills at sunrise. That’s Tujunga Wash; the Verdugos; and, in a haze of purple mountain majesty, the distant San Gabriels fading away. 1883.Spanish grass pasture has taken over the thin, recent layer of fertile soil that masks the fact that these hills are essentially uplifted dunes of beach sand.
“The conversion of California’s grasslands to non-native grasslands began with European contact. European visitors and colonists introduced plants both intentionally and accidentally. Adobe bricks from the oldest portions of California’s missions (1791-1800s) contained remains of common barley (Hordeum vulgare), Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum), redstem filaree (Erodium cicutarium), wild oat (Avena fatua), spiny sowthistle (Sonchus asper), curly dock (Rumex crispus), wild lettuce (Lactuca sp., wild mustard (Brassica sp.) and others (Hendry 1931).
Most of the nonnative and invasive plants in California originated from the Mediterranean region of Eurasia and North Africa. Exotic Mediterranean annual plants altered California’s native grasslands to such an extent that it has been called “the most spectacular biological invasion worldwide” (Kotanen 2004).”
Land that is disturbed for any reason (fire, flood, landslide, man or beast traffic) gets immediately be re-colonized by the invasive grasses. Mudslides, in particular, displace native plants.
Three different green California hillsides.
The peculiar geology around Hansen Dam allows a View of three green communities, on three ridges. The middle ridge is a forgotten corner of the golf course. Somehow this olive-green hued knoll either retained, or re-grew after the Army Corps left, a native foothill chaparral flora: mature laurel sumac trees, shoulder-high sagebrush, buckwheat, cholla cactus, native sunflowers and bunch grasses. Above it, carpeting Top Hill., is the deep green of the naturalized Spanish/Mexican pasture grass mix, Old World foxtails and wild oats and rye and brome.
The bottom, bright green and yellow ridge is a small alluvial dump that just a week ago washed down from a new bridle path ramp. The disturbed soil immediately sprouted mustard shoots and turf weeds. The native plants nearby are putting out root; they won’t get a chance for a foothold until they set seed in the fall. If a hot summer burns off the “weeds”, the California natives might get a chance.
The Valley Village View 