Still Standing after all these Years

Part II: The Early Settlers and the Village of Glendale, 1870s to 1890s

By Katherine Peters Yamada

Jose Maria Verdugo’s vast land grant, some 36,400 acres, remained intact for less than 100 years. A lengthy bankruptcy proceeding awarded several claimants large tracts which eventually became the neighboring communities of Eagle Rock, Tropico, Rancho La Canada, Highland Park, York Valley, and Burbank.

Three men, O. W. Childs, Cameron Erskine Thom and Prudent Beaudry, received title to smaller parcels. Several years later, much of their land would give way to a new town called Glendale.

After the bankruptcy case was settled, portions of the former Verdugo rancho began changing hands. Thom, who had received title to 724 acres from the court, soon purchased 2700 more, much of it mountain or foothill land, from Catalina Verdugo, presumably part of the 3300 acres that she and her nephew Teodoro received in the court settlement.

Cameron and Bella Thom

Erskine M. Ross

Thom sold some of his property to his nephew, Erskine M. Ross. The two were law partners for many years and managed their ranch properties in common, eventually selling the parcels on which the town would be founded.

Ross’ 1100 acres stretched from Verdugo Road to the village of Casa Verdugo. He planted citrus trees, deciduous fruit trees and olive trees and built a mill for making olive oil. Some of the trees bore fruit well into the 1920s, when the orchards gave way to subdivisions.

Like his uncle, Ross left Virginia for California. He studied law at Thom’s law office, was admitted to the bar and served as a California Supreme Court justice for several years before returning to private practice in 1886. President Grover Cleveland soon appointed him to the new U.S. District Court for Southern California. Later, he was appointed to the circuit court, where he served as a judge for more than thirty years. Ross married Ynez Hannah Bettis in 1874 and a son, Robert Erskine Ross, was born to them. They joined the Episcopal church and Ross was a member of the California Club of Los Angeles.

Ross built a house with wood siding for his family; it was one of the first ‘board’ houses to be constructed among the older adobe brick dwellings. He called his house, which fronted on North Verdugo Road, “Rossmoyne.” An 1885 clipping from the Los Angeles Daily Times noted that Judge Ross, of the state Supreme Court, had begun work on a ``handsome ten thousand dollar residence in Verdugo Valley; a two story, Queen Anne-style structure with all the latest conveniences.’’ (Katherine Yamada, Verdugo Views, Glendale News-Press, Nov. 15, 2003)

At the time, Verdugo Road was a narrow, dusty lane, but it served as a major thoroughfare for travelers between Los Angeles and Canada Valley. Originally called the Main Road, it went through the old Verdugo rancho and was eventually renamed for the first landowners.

J.C. Sherer and George B. Woodbury

Two other early settlers on Verdugo Road were J.C. Sherer and George B. Woodbury. Sherer, born in Maryland, worked his way to Los Angeles, where he found employment in a Western Union office. He purchased 17 acres on Verdugo Road, in the southeast corner of Glendale, and built a two-room cabin in 1883.

George B. Woodbury, a young man of 24, arrived in the area not long after Sherer built his cabin. Raised in Maine, he taught school until 1884, when he and his mother headed west. He bought 20 acres of land on Verdugo Road and left a description of the many new fruit trees planted in the area. ``This dark green foliage was about the only relief in the prevailing russet brown over all the valley in 1884.’’ Later, Woodbury was credited with being the first to describe the area as ``russet brown’’ in color.

Harry J. Crow

Harry J. Crow, another early settler, owned one of the largest properties, 600 acres, extending from Crow Avenue (now Glendale Avenue) to Central Avenue and from Fourth Street (now Broadway) to Windsor Road. In 1875, Crow planted peach, pear and orange trees and also planted a row of eucalyptus trees along Lomita Avenue. A severe depression, following the boom of the 1880s, forced Crow to sell his holdings. Soon, actors, painters and musicians built homes there and it became an artists’ colony known as Lomita Park.

Ellis T. Byram and Benjamin F. Patterson

The New Town of Glendale

The arrival of the railroad in Southern California set off a real estate boom. Glendale, one of many regional towns founded during this time, traces its beginnings to 1887 when several of the entrepreneurs described above joined together to form a town among the farms and orchards.

On March 11, 1887, Ross and Thom, along with Byram, Crow, Patterson, and agent Ben E. Ward, filed the first plat for the new town, described as “Pasadena’s first and only rival.” The public was invited to visit the new town site by taking a stage from Ward’s offices at No. 4, Court Street, in Los Angeles. One of the most important selling points was the “Pure Mountain Water in Abundance.”

The 1887 plat called for over sixty blocks, from Lexington Drive on the north to just below today’s Colorado Street on the south and from Central Avenue on the west to ”A” Street (now Adams) in the east.

The plat, a subdivision of the Childs, Crow and Thom Tract of the San Rafael, Los Angeles, CA called for large lots on wide streets (from sixty to eighty feet wide) separated by alleys. Ben E. Ward, of Los Angeles, was the general agent, while E.T. Byram of Glendale, was the local agent.

Although the city planners used the name of Glendale when they filed the plat, its usage hadn’t yet been sanctioned by the United States post office. Mail in those days was addressed to Verdugo, California, no doubt in reference to the original landowner, Jose Verdugo. At the time, letters arrived at the combination general store and post office at the southwest corner of Fourth Street (now Broadway) and Verdugo.

Selecting a name for the prospective town had been a huge topic of discussion among the settlers, new and old alike, well before the plat was filed. They met at the local schoolhouse to consider names which reflected the locality, such as Portsuelo (the name of the house built by Julio Verdugo), San Rafael and Verdugo. Other, less obvious, names were Etheldean and Minneapolis.

Legend has it that a young woman, a painter from Chicago, suggested two words: `Glen Dale.’ Although it seemed to have no basis in local history, the name stuck; however, mail continued to be addressed to Verdugo, California for three more years.

Then, a post office was installed in Hollingsworth’s general store at the corner of Glendale Avenue and Third Street (now Wilson Avenue) and postal officials finally changed the name from Verdugo, but not to Glendale. Instead they called our town Mason, pointing out that there were already several other Glendales throughout the U.S.

The founding fathers persisted, using `Glendale’ when they filed their plat in 1887. Finally, after several more years of negotiations, the U.S. Post Office acquiesced and `Glendale’ became official.

At the time, most of the businesses and residences were clustered around Glendale and Third Street (now Wilson). The new town included a church, a school, a livery, a blacksmith, a meat market, a hotel and about 300 residents. There were no gas or electric services and the town had a limited water supply.

Queen Anne-Eastlake Victorian Homes

The Victorian era still reigned, inspiring the design of many Southern California houses during the 1880s and 90s. One very popular architectural style was the Queen Anne-Eastlake Victorian. Several were built in Glendale.

The Goode House, in the Queen Anne-Eastlake style, was built in the late 1880s by Henry C. Banker, who along with his brother, Joseph, settled in Glendale in 1885. In 1897, it was purchased by Edgar D. Goode, who was instrumental in bringing the Pacific Electric to Glendale. Following his residency, the house had a number of owners and tenants. (Katherine Yamada, Verdugo Views, Glendale News-Press, Sat., April 20, 2002)

Another Queen Anne-Eastlake style house was constructed about 1888 at Third and B streets (now Wilson Avenue and Belmont Street). It became known as the Doctor’s House, as a succession of doctors lived there.

Dr. C.V. Bogue was the first to use the dwelling as a doctor’s office. Bogue and his wife Nellie, and their five children, had previously lived in an adobe built not too many years before - in 1870 - by a member of the extended Verdugo family. (The adobe, featured in ‘Still Standing: The Tongva, The Missions and the Verdugos,’ is now a city park on Dorothy.)

David Winslow Hunt, the second medical man to live in the Queen Anne Victorian, practiced in Minnesota before relocating to Glendale in 1901. He purchased the practice and the house from Bogue. Hunt paid cash, taking a $2500 trust deed. He expanded the carriage house and moved his office into the new portion, storing his automobile (the first within in the city) in the original carriage house.

Churches, Schools and Services

Southern Pacific

In the 1870s, Southern Pacific began building a line from Los Angeles to San Fernando, some 22 miles away. The line went through what was then called Santa Eulalia (later to become Tropico and then Glendale.) Trains began operating on January 21, 1874.

At the time, San Fernando was the end of the line, as mountains blocked further travel to the north. Southern Pacific soon began digging a 6,975-foot tunnel (at the time it was the second-longest railroad tunnel in the U.S.) and laid track as far as Lang, in Soledad Canyon. Another track was laid from the north. In 1876, Southern Pacific president, Charles Crocker, pounded in the last spike, connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco, via the San Joaquin Valley. (Lang is still on the map; it’s just off the Antelope Valley Freeway.) (Katherine Yamada, Verdugo Views, Glendale News-Press, Nov. 17, 2001 and Nov. 24, 2001)

The land for our first railroad station, built in 1877, was donated by W.C.B Richardson, owner of the huge Santa Eulalia Ranch. Richardson stands to the left in this photo taken in 1883. The station was demolished in 1924 and replaced by a Spanish Colonial Revival depot, which still stands.

Still Standing After All These Years

Several of the buildings pictured above — and the park — still stand in the city of Glendale

Conclusion

A number of other houses and buildings from the 1870s -1890s still survive in Glendale. The Glendale Register of Historic Places, available on the city’s website, lists a few private houses in addition to the three properties listed above. There are several other buildings still standing from this era that have no official designation. And our oldest park, Verdugo Park, does not have official protection.

Many of the settlers have been remembered with street or neighborhood designations: Beaudry, Goode, Patterson, Rossmoyne, San Rafael, Sherer, Verdugo and Woodbury can be seen on street signs, while Rancho San Rafael, Rossmoyne, San Rafael Hills, Verdugo Viejo, Verdugo Woodlands and Woodbury are neighborhood designations. The mountain range that runs thru Glendale is named for the Verdugos; one of the peaks is called Mt. Thom. And Glendale Avenue was formerly Crow Avenue.

References

Our local history was studied extensively by early historians, including John Calvin Sherer, who authored History of Glendale and Vicinity in 1922. Carroll W. Parcher incorporated much of that information in Glendale Community Book, published in 1957. A later version, Glendale Area History, was published in 1974 and expanded in 1981. Unless otherwise noted, much of what is included here is from these books and from Glendale, A Pictorial History.

*For more information about the Doctors House or to purchase the Labor of Love or Glendale, A Pictorial History, contact Glendale Historical at info@glendalehistorical.org (or phone 818-242-7447) with your request and a return email or telephone number.

Note: All images Courtesy of the Glendale History Room, Glendale Public Library unless otherwise noted.

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