West Hollywood, California (November 30, 2009) - [Excerpted from “Images of America: West Hollywood” by Arcadia Publishing:The region that West Hollywood inhabits enjoys one of the finest climates on earth, generally sunny, warm, and dry, with moderate winter rainfall and dry summers.
Called a “Mediterranean” clime, such conditions can be found on only three percent (3%) of the world's land surface (2/3 of that is found around the Mediterranean Sea itself).
The lifeblood of this semi-desert region is water and, until 1913, the irregular flow of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers provided the only outside source beyond the springs that bubble up out of the hills and the aquifer underlying WeHo.
The deep human history of the area containing West Hollywood lies in that area just blocks to the south of it: the La Brea Tar Pits.
Aboriginal Americans used the pitch and tar they found bubbling to the surface there to be useful for waterproofing. Because of the tar bubbling to the surface, the land area was useless for agriculture, except for the pitch or the occasional trapped animal the native Americans were able to snare.
Only much later did European settlers think to drill for and make use of the oil that the asphalt indicated lay beneath the surface. Tar pits are actually springs of molten asphaltum, or asphalt, which is a residual form of petroleum.
After the Spaniards "tamed" the Gabrielanos Indians through Catholicism and the missions, and Mexico gained its independence, the 'Alcade,' or local governor, of Los Angeles parceled out ranches to his stalwart friends in the 1830s and 1840s.
Rancho La Brea was granted to Antonio Jose Rocha and Nemisio Dominguez by Jose Antonio Carrillo, the alcade of Los Angeles in 1828. It consisted of one square league of land (4,439 acres) along what is today Wilshire Boulevard and included the land to the north up to the mountains where Sunset Boulevard runs now.
Rancho La Brea eventually became Hollywood, West Hollywood, and Hancock Park, and Rancho De Las Aguas became West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Beverlywood. The owners of the ranchos seldom lived on the land, leaving the adobe houses they were mandated to build within a year of their land grants to their major domos, or ranch managers.
These men oversaw the cattle trade that made up the only industry in the entire area. Cattle was the main source of income for the Southern California ranchos. Herds of cattle were abundant and allowed to roam the wide open plains, hills, and canyons in the pastoral days of the rancho.
Drought in 1860s destroyed cattle as a way of life, throwing open the lands to development and, as the railroad joined the basin to the rest of the country, tremendous growth.
After the United States took California from Mexico in the Mexican-American War, the lands were surveyed by a Maj. Henry Hancock, whose expertise came into play in proving the Rancho La Brea owners' claim to their land.
However, the legal battle left the ranchero broke and eager to hand over the rancho to Major Hancock to pay the bills for his consultancy. Major Hancock began to make commercial use of the tar fields, building a refinery in the 1850 to sell tar and asphalt to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Hancock family controlled most of the Rancho right through the oil boom of the 1880s and 1890s. Oil discovered and pumped from the areas of West Hollywood and La Brea made the Hancocks one of the wealthiest of California families. The subdivision known as Hancock Park carries their name, the exclusive Wilshire Country Club (est. 1920 by the family) their imprimatur.
The most lively West Hollywood characters to ever grace the landscape, George Caralambo, a Turk of Greek descent who later changed his name to Allen, was selected by the United States' Camel Corps to lead "a pack of camels hauling supplies to build the Butterfield Overland Stage Route from St. Louis" to Los Angeles in 1855.
Hancock, who met him as part of their mutual military service, built a stable and house for "Greek George" and his camels near the top of Kings Road at Sunset Boulevard on a bet that his stage route could be used as a dromedary mail run.
The route died without active support of the military, and Greek George was forced to 'liberate' his animals, some of which wandered the neighborhood for 30 years afterward.
Greek George, who was quite a musician and bon vivant, stayed on at the stables to care for Hancock's cattle and horses, becoming a naturalized American citizen in 1867, and figures in the most dramatic of events to play out in WeHo in the 19th century, the capture of desperado and bandit, Tiburcio Vasquez.
This 19th Century cartoon depicts the camels being used on American mountain trails alongside mules. WeHo News. |
Mr. Vasquez, a two-time federal prisoner and feared highwayman, had, since 1870, raided and sacked several whole towns, leaving three dead in one. A $15,000 bounty was placed on his head in 1874 by the state legislature.
William R. Rowland, then sheriff of Los Angeles County, plotted long to capture Vasquez while he holed up in the hills at Kings Road and Santa Monica with Greek George and conducted audacious robberies.
One night Greek George was downtown supposedly seeking information on the sheriffs’ doings, having left his wife and baby with the outlaw and one of his men. The other bandits were up in the hills.
Sheriff Rowland captured Mr. Vasquez in a shootout and promptly arrested and took him to Los Angeles for questioning and trial.
His capture was such a celebrated event that a burlesque troupe at the Merced Theater performed a take-off on his career and capture in the months following.
Greek George took the reward money (worth between $350,000 and $500,000 in today’s currency) and moved away to Whittier.
Tiburcio Vasquez’s capture foretold the end of the Wild West days that Los Angeles had enjoyed; the area was tamed by Midwestern transplants, and Hollywood by temperance-driven WASPs, during the Reconstruction Era.
As this wave of settled in and developed Hollywood they brought a blend of agriculture, churches, and temperance. Reform was in the air and the "bad man" was no longer welcome in Los Angeles, least of all in Hollywood.
All of which left the gate open in unincorporated Los Angeles County, also known as Sherman at the time, for the growth of a culture anchored squarely in more libertine pursuits.
Moses Sherman, railroad tycoon and real estate speculator, swooped in at the end of that century and built a Los Angeles-wide rail system with West Hollywood, and its homo-social, male-dominated culture at its center.
Next week: “Sherman, Company Town.”
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