Carbon Canyon Chronicle

City of Industry To Acquire More Tonner Canyon Property

2012-01-26T22:14:00.000-08:00

Today's San Gabriel Valley Tribune has a front-page feature by Ben Baeder reporting that, at a time when cities and towns in the state are struggling with the new post-redevelopment agency age, the City of Industry was expected today to purchase thirty-acres of land to add to the nearly 3,000 it has acquired in Tonner Canyon over the last decade or so. Of this about 20% is in Orange County just north of Carbon Canyon. The sale would be for $400,000 from a Scottsdale, Arizona resident, Jack Harding, for the hilly parcel adjacent to the Olinda Alpha Landfill.

Quotes from local figures including a county supervisor, Brea officials and Hills for Everyone executive director Claire Schlotterbeck range from nonplussed to curious to questioning. While environmentalist Schlotterbeck indicated that her organization would have wanted an opportunity to acquire the land and wondered why Industry was interested in adding to its Tonner Canyon holdings, the former use of the acreage as an oil field might have been an inhibitor because of the potential costs of cleanup, though the purchase agreement stated there was no issue of contamination. Strangely, the article's headline refers to the parcel as "wilderness," when it is anything but that, though it is certainly vacant.

Notably, Republican Assembly member Chris Norby of Fullerton, whose district encompasses the area, sounded a note of skepticism about Industry's plans. Although the city had discussed building a reservoir to provide water for a city-owned power plant when land there was first acquired, but has publicly announced otherwise in recent years, Norby questioned whether this was really the case. Moreover, he expressed concern about the city being able to buy land outside the county in which it is situated, though there is historical precedent for this going back to the City of Los Angeles buying non-contiguous land for the fabled Los Angeles Aqueduct project that brought water from the Owens Valley starting a century ago next year. Norby was quoted as suggesting that Industry was "essentially a land-speculation company" and that "we're keeping an eye on it." These sentiments seem a little surprising coming from an Orange County Republican.

Meantime, City of Industry mayor David Perez stated that the city was "going to keep it open space, just like we've been doing with the rest of our property" in Tonner Canyon and, to date, the acreage there has been used for recreational purposes via programs with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Boy Scouts of America, the latter of which sold most of the Tonner Canyon land to the city several years ago.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #s 8627-30

2012-01-24T22:07:00.000-08:00

There have been a rash of collisions on Carbon Canyon Road within the last few days. The first seems to have been an eastbound miscalculation on the Brea side just west of the Chino Hills border in which a car veered off the roadway and crumpled a guardrail. A bumper seems to have been retrieved, but other debris remains. This took place likely on Friday and before the rain came in.

Yesterday afternoon about 4 p.m., after the heavier showers had dissipated, but with the highway possibly still a little slick, another wreck took place at the summit of the S-curve in Chino Hills, where a few accidents have occurred lately. There is a Nissan hood grille and other fragments left there.

Then, today, a lightpole was plowed over on the north side of the highway just west of Chino Hills Parkway.

Meantime, a couple of slightly older incidents happened on the Brea side--one mentioned previously was at the old La Vida Mineral Springs property, where a fender lies under a dead bush on the north side of the highway.

Finally, a likely near miss occcurred in which a car heading westbound east of the burned out Manely Friends stable and west of the first mentioned accident above skidded across the opposing lane and into the south side shoulder. There isn't any remaining wreckage, suggesting the vehicle made its cross-highway excursion without any intrusion from travelers coming the opposite way. Skid marks remain to show what took place.

And, it may be worth noting that, in the Sleepy Hollow area, there are some young motorcyclists who have taken to riding on Carbon Canyon Road, as well as the neighborhood's one-way curving lanes, at high speeds and/or without helmets and/or passing other vehicles and/or standing while doing the first two (or maybe all three) of the above. At that age, most of us believe we're invincible--let's hope these young 'uns don't find out the hard way.

More Mail Theft in Carbon Canyon

2012-01-23T16:42:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: 25 January 2012: A simply-worded e-mail to the general Chino Hills City Council mailbox has yielded a response from a council member who lives in the Canyon, the Sheriff's Department captain (who lives in the city), and the department's Community Services Officer--the latter asking for more information about the rash of mail thefts as recent as last Sunday night and going back to just before Christmas. Anyone with information to report on the incidents can contact the CSO at the Sheriff's office in Chino Hills.

As recently as last night and going back to just prior to Christmas, a new rash of mail theft has been taking place throughout Carbon Canyon. A neighbor had a credit card account hacked into and a few thousand dollars worth of charges put onto it. At least one of the charges was for an Anaheim business. Another neighbor reported that there was a local resident's bank account accessed by the thieves, as well.

In talking to the mail carrier in this area, the only advice the postmaster can give is to pick up each day's mail as soon after delivery as possible (in Sleepy Hollow, this generally means mid-afternoon during the week and about Noon on Saturday); not to leave Friday or Saturday's mail in the box over the weekend; and to get, if possible, a locking mailbox (which this blogger has had for several years now.) Some existing clusters are so narrowly situated, though, that the larger locking boxes may not be feasible.

Otherwise, there would have to be very regular patrols of the area during the evenings by law enforcement, which may or may not be instituted. Even if this were done, though, patrols can only take place at certain times and thieves could still operate around whatever schedule was developed. Still, it seems reasonable to expect some attempt to patrol the area more often to give some effort to head off further trouble.

Ironically, about seven or so years ago, the postal service installed a clustered mailbox unit with locking compartments for individual households at both the Canyon Market and Sleepy Hollow Community Center parking areas. While the former has remained, the latter was quickly removed because it was placed on city-owned property. Why the City and USPS were not able to find a suitable location for the unit would be important to know, especially because mail theft continues to be a problem.

Towers of Terror's Twisted Tangled Travels/Travails

2012-01-22T23:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's Chino Hills Champion continued its coverage of the saga of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project's Section 8 fisaco with the latest reporting by Marianne Napoles on the status of the review of the stalled work on massive transmission towers through Chino Hills and just north of Carbon Canyon.

Napoles noted that the California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge Jean Vieth has now given Southern California Edison two weeks to come up with a feasibility and cost analysis on yet another alternative. This one, suggested by Edison's own alternative to change the composition of the lines from double to single circuit carrying 400 kV of power, rather than 500 kV, was recommended by a Chino Hills attorney to take these components and include them in an underground system. Edison did propose the reconfigured schema for above-ground towers, while identifying below-ground alternatives using the old configuration. While previous underground alternatives were claimed by the company to be of far greater cost and time to install, the city's attorney points out that the new configuration would be less expensive and faster to install. It remains to be seen what Edison claims and what the CPUC will rule.

Meantime, Napoles also reported that the judge ordered that Edison and the City of Chino Hills are to being mediation in which Edison's alternatives will be discussed and that this process is to start in about three weeks, or about a week after the analysis of the new underground alternative is to be submitted by the utility.

A sidebar article by the same reporter also discussed the intention of the California State Parks Foundation to seek compensation for an estimated $44,000 that the Foundation calculates that it will use in fees and expenses for representation at CPUC hearings on this latest iteration of the Section 8 portion of the TRTP project. Funds collected from utility ratepayers throughout the state can be used to reimburse non-profit entities who are involved in hearing of this nature, although the CSPF had spent almost $125,000 previously when fighting a City of Chino Hills proposal to get the lines run through Chino Hills State Park in the last go-round. The Foundation reiterates that the purpose of the park, like most passive-use state parks, is to preserve land and allow recreational opportunities for Californians seeking a respite or escape from the heavily urbanized environment in which most state residents live, and that putting power lines through the park (especially when inactive ones came down just recently thirty years after they were supposed to be removed when the park was created) defies that mission and purpose.

This conflict between continued growth and development and the movement to preserve dwindling open space and recreational areas has been an ongoing battle and it can also be carried over into places like Carbon Canyon, where more housing and other forms of development, whether completed, approved or proposed, threaten the very nature of the place. Another corollary has to do with wind farms proposed in desert areas that, contrary to common views of these areas as "wastelands", are, actually, highly diversified, vulnerable and sensitive environments for animal and plant habitates.

These questions are also enormously complex and not easily simplified into categorical "either/or" scenarios. More than likely, Edison will submit that the underground alternative will still be too expensive and time-consuming, but whether the CPUC finds otherwise will be interesting to see. Meantime, city officials, Assembly representative Curt Hagman, and Hope for the Hills representatives continue to claim important victories and milestones, as the political momentum locally is taken to Sacramento and San Francisco (where the CPUC hearings have taken place.)

More Early La Vida Mineral Springs History

2012-01-18T23:55:00.000-08:00

Early on in this blog, it was noted that an Orange County history timeline stated that William Newton Miller opened La Vida Mineral Springs in 1924. However, there was an earlier operation at the site, going back at least a decade.

This was noted in a February 1915 issue of Junior Republic Magazine, the in-house campus publication of what was then called the George Junior Republic and is now Boys Republic, the facility for troubled youth that has been in Chino Hills since 1907. The reference in the magazine, which was produced at a print shop that still exists today (although obviously using more modern printing methods--though some of the old typesetting machines are still there), was that, among the many print jobs done by the facility was one for "La Vida Springs."

Then, while research was being conducted on the 1920 federal census in the Olinda oil field area, there was a notable listing for the manager of "La Vida Springs," 36-year old Allen R. Abbott, residing with this wife Florence. There were no other persons associated with the facility at that time, so it was clearly a small operation. But, how did the "La Vida Springs" come into being?

First, work was done on Abbott's past, starting with his World War I registration information, which showed "Allen Roscoe Abbott", born in August 1884, living as a farmer in Buena Park. Then a check of the California Death Index for 1940-1997 found a listing for Abbott as dying in July 1959, but, more importantly, that his mother's maiden name was Gaines.

Well, the neighboring household to Abbott's at La Vida in 1920 was rancher Edward F. Gaines (discussed previously in the 1920 and 1930 census posts for Olinda.) Another look back at the 1900 census found Allen Abbott residing at Gardena in the South Bay area of Los Angeles with a younger brother, his father, Lucius P. Abbott, a farmer, and mother Sarah E., who was born in California with a father from Kentucky and a mother from New York, just like Edward Gaines, who was living in Downey in 1900.

The Abbott family goes back to the 1850s to Russellville, Ohio, a small farming town southeast of Cincinnati and near the Kentucky border, where Lucius was born. Then, the family moved to Ross, Illinois in the central eastern part of the state, very close to Indiana. Finally, during the 1870s, the Abbotts relocated to Wilmington, the town where the Port of Los Angeles is now located, and engaged in farming. After Lucius Abbott died, his mother, the former Sarah Gaines, remained in Gardena until the 1920s and then moved to Highland Park, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. She lived until age 96, dying in 1960. As to Allen Abbott, he relocated to Edwards, Montana to resume farming, but returned to Los Angeles where he died in July 1959 at the age of 74.

So, it seems possible that it was Edward Gaines who first developed "La Vida Springs," assuming that he had left his Downey farm for Carbon Canyon between 1910 and 1915, when the Boys Republic magazine mentions the Springs and then hired his nephew to run it for him.

By 1925, there was still some reference to "La Vida Springs," specifically a North Orange County directory listing for a restaurant waitress named Verna Swift. The next year's directory, however, shows a name change to "La Vida Mineral Springs" for a chauffeur there named Harold Brennan. In addition, articles of incorporation were filed on 27 March 1924 in Sacramento for the "La Vida Mineral Springs Company," though no information about the incorporators was found for the now long-dissolved company. Presumably, this would have been when William Newton Miller established his resort.

In 1927, there were additional persons associated with the Mineral Springs, specifically Harold's father, Peter, listed as a masseur, and Fred J. Cline, the manager. While Brennan resided on the property, Cline and his wife, Nellie, were living on Main Street in Placentia. Cline was also listed as manager of the resort in 1928 and at the same Placentia residence.

By 1930, both in the North Orange County Directory and the federal census, there was a change in personnel. Cline was no longer shown at the Springs, but Brennan, a 51-year old native of Ohio, continued to reside there and work as a masseur, while his 42-year old wife, Laura, born in Kansas, was a masseuse. Their son, Harold, noted above and a native of Nebraska, also resided with them and was listed as an "odd jobs laborer," though whether at the Springs or elsewhere is not known.

There was also the "bath man" in 52-year old Minnesotan, Dan Mangan, and his wife Nellie, 41, originally from Illinois, who was listed as "Proprietor Hotel," meaning, obviously, the new hotel at the Springs. The couple's 18-year old son, Howard, a Canadian native, also resided with them. Mangan is also listed as an employee at La Vida, though not a specific occupation, in the 1930 North Orange County Directory.

This left "cafe operator" Archie Rosenbaum, born to a Jewish family at the end of December 1882 in Russia, who emigrated to the United States as a boy in the early 1890s. Rosenbaum's wife, Mary, a 45-year old from Iowa, was in the household, as was a 17-year old Californian of Austrian ancestry, Anna Szettere, listed as a "waitress."

Rosenbaum has, in a few sources, been identified as the owner of La Vida, although references found so far, whether they be from Orange County voter registration or North Orange County Directory listings uniformly list him as a "cafe operator" or a "cafe man." The earliest date for Rosenbaum in the area is 1926, when he and his wife are shown in the directory as residing in Rural Free Delivery (a postal delivery term) District #1 in Placentia, which did include La Vida, though there is no occupation given. There was also an obscure newspaper reference from October 1928 about Rosenbaum, of Placentia, having his car license plates stolen and used on stolen vehicles in robberies in central California. Then, there are the 1930 references noted above.

Rosenbaum can be traced in southern California to between 1900 and 1910 when he and his wife Abbie Hall, resided on Grand Avenue and 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles and where Archie was a hotel waiter. In the 1910s, the couple had relocated to the Florence district of south Los Angeles, and Archie was working as a shipyard foreman for the Bagley Southwestern Shipyard Company at San Pedro during the height of the World War I military buildup when he registered for the draft in September 1918.

After the war ended, Rosenbaum went back to the restaurant business and, enumerated at Florence in the 1920 census, his occupation was given as manager of a cafe and the Rosenbaums remained in that area until at least 1922. Clearly, his years of restaurant experience brought him, by at least 1926, to run what was likely a new restaurant at the recently reconstituted La Vida Mineral Springs. As some oral histories of Olinda oil field workers revealed (noted in early posts to this blog,) Rosenbaum was able to develop a customer base with Los Angeles Jews who patronized La Vida. The opening in 1928 of the Camp Kinder Ring facility by the Arbeter Ring, a liberal Jewish organization from Los Angeles, on the San Bernardino side of Carbon Canyon, where a horse ranch now occupies the site with some of its original buildings, probably also facilitated the growth of the Jewish clientele at La Vida.

Rosenbaum remained at La Vida until at least 1940, when the biennial voter registration record shows him still as a cafe owner. By 1944, however, he and his wife were back at Florence working in the restautant business and listings for him continue into the 1950s. Archie died in early 1966 in Los Angeles at age 83.

Another notable development in the early years of the history of La Vida was the formation of the La Vida Mineral Water Company, which appears to go back as far as 1929. This may also have been a brainchild of Rosenbaum, although no incorporators of the separate company have been located so far. By early 1931, though, advertisements for La Vida Mineral Water showed up in downtown Los Angeles and as far afield as Prescott, Arizona. Radio and print advertisements and a listing of copyright entries with the federal government soon followed in 1932 and there was even a San Francisco office listed in that city's directories starting in 1932. By 1934, there was a Los Angeles office on West 2nd Street and a name finally associated with the mineral water firm: An H. Schugt appears in the 1935 North Orange County Directory as the manager at the same post office box adddress as for Rosenbaum.

As mentioned in the 1930 census post for Olinda, this year should bring the release of the 1940 federal census (these are made public after 72 years.) While it is known that Rosenbaum was at La Vida to at least that year, it will be interesting to see who else was counted in that enumeration at the Springs as the history continues into the World War II years and beyond.

New Olinda Elementary School Opens

2012-01-15T15:12:00.000-08:00

After $30 million for the acquisition of the land ($8 million) from Chevron and construction ($22 million,) which began in October 2010, Olinda Elementary School has opened at its new site on Birch Avenue next to the Brea Sports Park after almost a half-century at its Olinda Village location in Carbon Canyon.

Classes began in the new facility last Monday, the 9th for 400 students, faculty and staff, although there is still further construction to do within the next couple of years and the expected peak occupancy looks to be about 450 students.

The first Olinda School, described as a prototypical one-room schoolhouse, opened in 1898 to serve children of men working in the newly-opened Olinda Oil Field. As the community grew, a new school was opened in 1909 and operated for several decades until the diminishing oil field production and population led to its closure.

With the creation of the Olinda Village housing subdivision on the ranch formerly owned by Edward F. Gaines, a reconstituted Olinda Elementary School opened in 1964 and was a high-performing and close-knit campus. Because of new housing in the area, such as at Olinda Ranch and the newly opened Blackstone subdivision, the Brea-Olinda Unified School District decided to relocate the school to a larger campus on former oil property.

For an article by the Orange County Register on the opening last week, click here.

As to the future of the shuttered school at Olinda Village, it is considered surplus property and the district can either readapt it to a compatible educational use, lease it or sell it. A 7 November public hearing was conducted for public comment about the property, but, given its "remote" location, it seems unlikely to be used by the district for educational purposes and it also seems unlikely that there would be a lease opportunity, especially because the age of the campus would be an issue in either of the above cases. More likely, the district will look to sell the property for the obvious reason of needed funds. What also seems certain is that developers will be more than slightly interested in the land for housing. Certainly, there will be news at some point of what the district's plans are regarding the site.

Here is the flyer announcing the meeting with some information about the district's process in dealing with the property.

More information and photos concerning the new campus is available here on the district's Web site.

Chino Hills Champion Carbon Canyon Chronicling Continued

2012-01-13T23:55:00.000-08:00

Last week's edition of the Chino Hills Champion, the weekly paper that has, amazingly, been continuously published since 1887 and which is a great local newspaper, had a notable piece by Marianne Napoles on the Circle K convenience store, which opened several months ago at Carbon Canyon Road and Canyon Hills Road, just east of Sleepy Hollow.

It was interesting to note, for example, that the store and associated building constituted the sole commercial construction project in all of Chino Hills during the last year. The family of Jasbir, Kamal and Shawn Singh, who have resided in the city for about two decades, spent some $2 million to develop the property. After a late 2007 approval, work started almost two years ago in Spring 2010 with the store opening this past October. While there was a significant sum ($200K) invested in soil and engineering reports as well as a wastewater treatment system (sewers not existing in the area), there was also $170,000 assessed to the family for the construction of a traffic signal at the intersection, as a "fair share" of mitigating for traffic. As has been noted here previously, this signal is on the city's priority list, so the day is coming.

Also reported is the fact that the store, open all day every day, has six employees, five of which are from Chino Hills (how many are family members?) and one from Chino, and the Singhs were said to have stated that "business has been pretty good so far." There are four additional suites (one for retail and the others for offices) adjacent to and below the store (the structure is built on a slope so that the three lower level spaces are not visible from Carbon Canyon Road) and the family was quoted as saying that negotiations are ongoing regarding the retail space, while a passerby inquired about an office unit.

Finally, sometime early next month, the Singhs are planning a grand opening, including vendors and giveaways. At least one canyon resident will not be there, having opined here previously that the development is completely out of character in the canyon.

The rural atmosphere that defines Carbon Canyon and which has, it is assumed, been the inspiration for people to move here, is slowly and methodically being eroded by this and other incompatible uses. This includes suburban "amenities" like a convenience store with its glaring parking lot lights on all night and the claims of new jobs (at what rate per hour?) ring hollow.

Then, there'll be the traffic signal there, ostensibly to "alleviate traffic," but only really serving the interests of the very few residents who will be accessing Carbon Canyon Road from Canyon Hills Road. And, let's not forget the approved housing project that is slated for the hills to the west of Canyon Hills Road in and around the old Ski Villa slope. All of this will continue the onslaught, emasculate the rural nature of the canyon, and turn the area into more of what has already consumed too much of our region. For now, the moribund economy, ironically enough, provides a respite from the inevitable.

But, enough here--these views have been expressed before and others have countered them in comments, all of which can be located via a sidebar search tool.

Meanwhile, in news from tomorrow's paper, another article by Napoles concerns the 10 January deadline for Southern California Edison to submit alternative routes to the California Public Utilities Commission on the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project's Segment 8 through Chino Hills, passing just north of Carbon Canyon.

Not surprisingly, the route preferred by the opponents of the project and the City of Chino Hills, which would go through Chino Hills State Park (which was only recently the site of a long-delayed requirement upon SCE to remove old transmission towers and lines!) and include a special switching station at the old Aerojet munitions testing facility adjacent to the upscale golf course community at Vellano, is estimated by SCE to be a mind-numbing $600 million or so.

Moreover, the company claims that this route is technically not practical due to unstable slope conditions at the Aerojet site and that, even if the route was workable, the project would not be completed for another decade. In addition, the company asserts that the grading and soil removal at Aerojet would be enormous and that, because the Aerojet facility, which had all kinds of toxic materials from decades of weapons testing, is under the auspices of the Department of Toxic Substance Control (the early days of the Chronicle had some entries on Aerojet--accessed via the search tool at the right sidebar), delays would, naturally, ensue.

The existing route, including sections that come very close to houses, is largely complete, with twelve of eighteen massive 198-foot towers completed and the remaining in various stages of work. The cost there is said by Edison to be about $166 million (more than a third of which, nearly $60 mil, has been spent) and completion could be had in a few months, including finishing the last six towers and stringing the lines.

In all, the submitted report, spanning close to a hundred pages, detailed fifteen routes, including nine completely new ones. Of these latter, four involve shorter towers at increased costs of between $8 and $25 million dollars from the $166 million mentioned above. The other five routes deal with underground construction and the estimates are also staggering: from about $600 mil to $1 billion. Completion dates for these nine new routes vary from 2014 to 2017 and Edison was sure to point out that the hurried nature of the reporting process, mandated by the 10 January date, meant that a full, detailed analysis was not included.

City Manager Michael Fleager was quoted by Napoles as saying that the state park and underground options are "viable options," but Edison and, perhaps the CPUC (or even the DTSC), might beg to differ.

This whole project is enormously complicated, far more than many of those deeply invested have been willing to admit, at least publicly. While those who live adjacent to and close to the right-of-way are understandably upset and concerned about many elements, including property values, noise, and others, assertions of astronomical property value losses involving the entire city are more than slightly disingenuous.

So, too, is the admittedly clever and creative claim by congressional representative Ed Royce (R-Fullerton), running in this fall's elections for the newly-reconstituted district seat now held by longtime incumbent Gary Miller (who, incidentally, announced just this week that he is moving to a Rancho Cucamonga home he owns so he can run, against another Republican, Bob Dutton, for the redesigned district seat there--so much for the beloved hometown of Diamond Bar!)

Royce avers that federal housing loan rules apply to the homes next to SCE's right-of-way, so that government-funded loans would not be available to them in the future. A look, however, at those rules shows quite clearly that any prohibition only involves homes that are actually within the right-of-way. What's the old saying about "the devil is in the details?"

In sum, the towers are massive, unattractive, too close to a significant number of houses, and may well generate a significant amount of unwanted noise. As to whether these behemoths would fall and inflict enormous damage in a massive earthquake, Edison claims the design prevents the likelihood, but we really can't know, since we haven't had a true "big one" (that is, an 8.0 or higher quake) since January 1857 (boy, are we overdue!).

The merits and pitfalls concerning wind power and renewable energy also have led to statements that are politically charged (!) and motivated and, therefore, are as likely to contain somewhat plausible-sounding manipulations as legitimate critiques or reasonable claims of benefit.

Between the polarized talk at the ends of the political spectrum, the reality (let's not use the word "truth," hmm?) is that the impacts of these "towers of terror" are probably somewhere tending to the middle between benign and disastrous. More likely, their existence would be along the lines (!) of a significant inconvenience for those living close and not much at all for most anyone else. If there was a quake big enough to topple the suckers, it would almost certainly be so big that we'd have a whole lot else to be worried about, like leveled freeways, buckled and collapsed bridges, burst and snapped gas, electric and water lines, and a bunch of other life-changing crises, including many injured and a lot of lost lives. It's easy with these highly emotional issues to, as the cliche goes, not see "the forest for the trees."

Having said all this, the folks at Hope for the Hills deserve great credit for mobilizing an impressive level of community activism and power (!) at its most potent and effective form. Not that there haven't been exaggerations and dramatizations and not that their work will lead to the (full) accomplishment of their goals. But, it does show that grass-roots activism is alive and well and can lead to political success, if not a total victory.

The latter, though, remains to be seen. A pre-conference hearing comes up later this coming week and there is still much at play.

The 1930 Federal Census and Olinda

2012-01-08T23:54:00.000-08:00

The increasing affordability of the automobile and the growth of suburbs contributed to a change in the "company town" concept, in which manufacturers had provided housing for workers on the site of the business. Some local company towns, such as the Simons Brick Company yard in Montebello, as well as the many oil company leases that existed in the region, were affected by the changes in transportation and housing, because workers could live in towns and cities and enjoy the amenities there without having to live at a work site, with the noise, smells and isolation.

This appears to have been the case with the Olinda oil field, as noticeably observed in comparing the 1920 and 1930 federal censuses. The 1920 enumeration, discussed last entry, counted nearly 1,000 persons within the area from Valencia Avenue east (with a few people on the west in those leases that straddled both sides of the road. By 1930, however, the entire area designated as the Olinda precinct within the Fullerton township, had less than half the population.

There were 462 persons listed in Olinda in 1930, most, obviously living within oil leases, thought there were 64 persons who were outside of the oil field, in Carbon Canyon and also to the south along Valencia Avenue and Rose Drive. For the 398 residents of the fields, here is the breakdown by company (CCMO is the Chanslor Canfield Midway Oil Company, successor to the Petroleum Development Company on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad lease):

CCMO: 222
Olinda: 77
West Coast: 56
Shell Oil: 21
General Petroleum: 19
Fullerton Oil: 3

On gender, the percentage of men in the Olinda area was 53% and women 47%. Adults 21 and over amounted to 57% of the population and those under 21, 43%. The white population was still overwhelmingly dominant at almost 97%, with 12 Latinos, from two families named Reyes {and likely related) and the same Japanese family, the Fujimotos, residing on the West Coast lease as they had ten years before, although the head of the family was now a "roustabout," or general laborer, and not a boilermaker as before. Finally, as to home ownership, there was a slight change in home ownership, as 16 of 119 househoulds consisted of families who owned their residence, about 13% of the total. One residence in particular stood out in terms of its value. Most owned residences in the oil fields were small, plain wooden dwellings at low value, but on Rose Drive, citrus rancher Michael Harmon, owned a home worth $60,000, a pretty substantial sum at the time.

The same general run of oil field occupations existed in 1930 as a decade previous, including drillers, rotary helpers, rodmen, several types of engineers, machinists, firemen, watchmen, electricians, and others. A few men held position of authority as superintendents, chief clerks, shop foreman and the like. Also, where there were several Santa Fe Railroad workers in 1920, there was only a field inspector in 1930, residing on the Olinda lease. There seemed, however, to have been more variety of jobs held by members of households in which the male head was an oil field worker, including more work done by women. This seems to be a consequence of the automobile, which allowed oil field residents to find jobs further away from their homes. What is also notable is that, while in 1920, there were a number of men who lived in bunk houses on a few of the leases, there weren't any who did so ten years later.

On the CCMO lease, there was a barber, dentist, dental assistant,, glass factory worker, nursery bookkeeper, boarding house cook, store clerk, bus driver and real estate salesman. At West Coast, one wife of an oil worker worked in a beauty shop and there was also an airplane mechanic and citrus workers. On the Olinda lease, there was a garage mechanic and citrus house packers.

There were also oil field-sited jobs that were not directly tied to the business. Along or near Valencia Avenue, at the CCMO, Fullerton and Shell lease areas were three teachers, presumably at the Olinda School, including Alexander Barnes, a 47-year old from Ohio, Gladys Payton, 31, from Tennessee, and Ethel Overton, 39, born in Illinois. Overton's husband, Job, also 39 and from Indiana, was the bus driver. On Valencia Avenue, there was a gas station, run by 67-year old Iowan Omar Waitz. The CCMO had a company store, whose keeper was George Cullen, a 60-year old Indiana native who was one of the few homeowners in Olinda and he had a manager, 22-year old Clarence Perrin, a native of California. A teacher, perhaps also in Olinda, lived there, too, Mary Lemke, whose husband had a citrus ranch on the lease property. There was a bus driver on the lease, too, Walt Cullen (son of the store keeper), but his occupation specifically said "high school," which probably meant that he drove Olinda teens to the only local high school, Fullerton Union.

Of the 64 persons not enumerated directly on oil lease land, a few of them worked in the fields, but there were a few farmers in Carbon Canyon, such as Ramon Reyes, Edward Gaines, who, as in 1920, ran stock where Olinda Village and the Hollydale Mobile Home Estates are located, and Adolph Friend, a West Virginia native in his early 70s who ran cattle in the Canyon, as well. Down on Valencia Avenue and Rose Drive, there was citrus grower Harmon, another Reyes family, a building contractor, and a moulder for a brass factory.

The 1930 census was taken in April, about seven months after the stock market crash of October 1929 that signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. By 1932, when banks failed en masse, the Depression worsened. The 1940 census is due to be released this year, so there will be an opportunity soon to examine that enumeration and see what further changes came to Olinda.

The 1920 Federal Census and Olinda

2012-01-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

As a companion of sorts to the series of recent posts concerning the 1924 map of the Olinda oil field and surrounding areas, this entry examines the 1920 federal census for the oil field area, specific to the somewhat arbitrary definition this blog takes of Carbon Canyon. Namely, the discussion here covers the areas mainly east of Valencia Avenue, also the historic dividing line between the Rancho Cajon San Juan de Santa Ana to the west and public lands to the east. There are a couple of examples, however, where oil lease properties existed on both sides of the subjectively defined boundary--these being the Columbia and General Petroleum leases.

The tallying of twenty-one sheets on the census for the Brea township yields some interesting (and, possibly, useful) information on the nearly 1,000 people who occupied the heart of the Olinda oil field a little over ninety years ago. The research done deals with gender, age, race and ethnicity, and home ownership and is also broken down into population for the several existing leases. On this latter point, here's what was revealed:

Graham and Loftus [excluding company lands west of Valencia]: 29 persons
General Petroleum Company: 43 persons
Fullerton Oil Company: 65 persons
Olinda Land and Oil Company: 97 persons
Columbia Oil: 121 persons
Petroleum Development Company: Santa Fe Railroad lease: 275 persons
West Coast Oil: 316 persons

There were also a grand total of 14 persons counted in Carbon Canyon, east of Olinda and up to the San Bernardino County line (a future post will cover that county's portion of the Canyon).

There was an expectation that, because of the male-dominated nature of the oil industry, the gender imbalance would be significant, but, by 1920, there was certainly a difference in who lived in oil field communities compared to in previous years. Much of this was likely attributable to the availability of the automobile to more working and middle-class families. So, at Olinda, males amounted to 54% of residents with females, obviously, being 46%.

With more families residing at Olinda than were likely found earlier, the comparison of adults to children worked out to about 61% of persons above 21 years of age and, of course, 39% under 21.

What was not surprising was the segregated nature of the Olinda community. Simply put, ethnic and racial minorities were not welcomed at these work sites. 98% of all residents in the Olinda area were American, Canadian or European--94% of them being natives of the United States. Also to be expected were the large proportion of people who came from oil-producing states in the east, specifically, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Texas and the like.

There were only 17 persons of Latino or other ethnic groups. Of these, six were from a Mexican farm laborer family on the Graham-Loftus lease, who were not affiliated with oil production; and five were from a Mexican family that consisted of laborers who worked on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad spur line that came into Olinda from Atwood in Placentia. In fact, the only people of color who worked on oil properties was a Japanese boilerman on the West Coast lease named Fujimoto (who resided with his wife and two daughters--the children being California natives) and a Hawaiian named Richard Kahalulio, who worked on the Olinda Oil Company property as a teamster. Kahalulio, however, had a personal connection with Olinda's founder, William Hervey Bailey--he was from the Maui community where the Bailey families were Congregationalist missionaries.

As to residential status, there were about 240 separate households in the covered area. Of these, only 14 owned their homes with the remainder renting their dwellings, almost certainly, in most cases, from the oil companies. There were 5 persons whose status was listed as "unknown," though what this might have meant will have to go unexplained. It should also be pointed out the 50 single men resided in bunkhouses on four different leases (West Coast [17], Petroleum Development/Santa Fe [17], Columbia [9] and Fullerton [7].) It would seem probable that more single men in bunkhouses would have been found in earlier days.

It was also interesting noting the various listed occupations for oil workers on these leases. Standard job types would include pumpers, drillers, boilermakers/boilermen, tool dressers, well pullers, machinists, electricians, carpenters, engineers, truck drivers/teamsters, rotary helpers, rodmen, and roustabouts.

Some of these terms needed definition, so here they are. A roustabout was a general unskilled laborer, doing whatever odd jobs were needed, and were usually more temporary than the skilled employees. A rotary helper would assist with the use of the rotary drill, a recent innovation in drilling technology. The tool dresser helped the driller by sharpening the drill bits. A well puller cleaned and serviced wells and their equipment. A rodman was a surveyor working on siting potential or chosen well locations.

A couple of men had the intriguing vocation of "gang pusher." Creative modern thinking aside, these were the guys who supervised the roustabouts and were, basically, foremen for unskilled general labor.

Above them all, of course, were the field superintendents or foremen, who often had assistants. In some cases, there were clerks, watchmen [security officers], painters, car loaders, and other field-related workers. Perhaps the most notable of the first-named was William J. Graham, founder of the Graham-Loftus Oil Company, one of the oldest at Olinda. Graham, a 60-year old veteran of the Pennsylvania oil fields, earliest in America, listed himself, notably, as an "oil overseer." Though not listed on this research, because the fields were further west than the area covered here, was L. A. Hardison, the brother of one of the Union Oil Company's three founders, Wallace Hardison (the others being Lyman Stewart and Thomas Bard.) Hardison, a 66-year old Maine native, was merely listed as a "laborer." There were also a couple of stores on two leases (Santa Fe and West Coast) and a boarding house on the West Coast lease that had a keeper, cook and two waitresses--these being a widow and her son and two daughters. The Columbia lease also had a boarding house keeper and assistant, both women.

Then, there were those residents whose jobs were outside of the field. On the Olinda Land and Oil Company lease was the Olinda School and its two teachers were listed as Maud Crane, a 28-year old from Minnesota and Myrtle Harris, 23, from Wyoming. Also at Olinda was an apiarist, or bee-keeper. At the Columbia lease, there was a partner in a transfer (trucking) company and his wife, a music teacher. Their two daughters were an orange house packer (there were a few packing house workers in Olinda) and a house servant. At the West Coast lease, straddling Valencia Avenue, was a Baptist church, presided over by a minister, Wilfred Kent, who lived at the house of worship with his wife and two children. There was also a noteworthy listing, the son of a West Coast blacksmith, 23-year old John Woods, was attending law school. The West Coast also had a worker's son who worked as a bank bookkeeper and two hotel waitresses.

Finally, there were the few folks who resided in Carbon Canyon east of the Olinda oil field settlements. Two of these have already been discussed in a post related to the 1924 map, theseing being farmer Edward F. Gaines and his wife, who owned and lived on land encompassed now by the Olinda Village subdivision and the Hollydale Mobile Home Estates on the south side of the village. There were two others, however, who will be covered in a future post.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #8563

2011-12-30T23:44:00.000-08:00

UPDATE, 31 December: The Chino Hills Champion reports in today's edition that a stolen minivan containing stolen property and methamphetamine crashed late Monday evening in the 2000 block of Carbon Canyon Road, with the vehicle rolling over into the front yard of a home. Three La Mirada residents in their early to mid 20s then got out of the vehicle and ran, one of them stealing a bicycle, but were captured by Sheriff's Department deputies about midnight Tuesday after a perimeter was cordoned off and then searched. Obviously, Carbon Canyon is about the worst kind of location to escape on foot (or even bike), so it must have been easy pickings for deputies to capture their quarry, who were taken to the county jail in Rancho Cucamonga

This latest manifestation of motor vehicular mayhem seems to have occurred within the last week or so.

This is just beyond the summit on the S-curve on the Chino Hills side of the canyon and is the property of a long-time resident.

An eastbound driver took the curve too quickly (naturally) and crossed lanes, plowing through the chain link fence, mailbox and property owner's identification sign before plunging down the short embankment.

As a year-end bonus: another front fender is lying under some weeds on the old La Vida Mineral Springs property on the Brea side, representing another recent deposit of derelict driving debris. Presumably, someone miscalculated the curvature of the road relative to what was on the speedometer (as if such a thing mattered anyway.)

1924 Map of Olinda Oil Field and Surrounding Areas, Part Seven

2011-12-29T23:56:00.000-08:00

In the area directly north of the Olinda Oil Field's thick concentration of oil wells on this 1924 map, are sections 4 and 5 up in the hills and into the lower part of Tonner Canyon. Research into the several owners of these areas has yielded little information, so far, except for, naturally, Shell Oil Company, which is well enough known. For example, nothing has been located yet on the California Crude Oil Company and the surname Packovich in the rest of section 5. And, in section 4, the larger share assigned to "C. Sheerer" has also drawn a blank. At least with the remainder of that latter section, something is known, although there is also some speculation to be made, too.

There are four persons, other than Sheerer, listed as owners of land within section 4. For at least two of these, there appears to be a solid link. These are Waddy Johnson and his father-in-law, John Ward. Johnson, whose birth name was, indeed Waddy (often used as a nickname for Walter), was born in March 1861 at Knight's Landing, a river ferry crossing community in Yolo County, just west of Sacramento. His father, John, was a native of North Carolina and his mother, Mary, was from Tennessee. By 1870, the family had relocated to the Ventura area and, in the ensuing decade, John Johnson passed away. At the time of the 1880 census, Mary Johnson, Waddy and a daughter, Clara, were living in Santa Ana, where Waddy worked as a farm hand.

Perhaps he was employed on the farm of John Ward, a native of Arkansas, who later resided and married Texas. He and his wife Rosana had a daughter in the Lone Star State before coming to California in the late 1860s. By 1880, the Wards settled in Tustin, living a few households from the community's namesake founder, Columbus Tustin. The Wards established a farm at the intersection of what is now Newport Boulevard and Walnut Avenue, just east of the 55 Freeway and south of Interstate 5.

However they may have met (you've heard the one about the guy who met the farmer's daughter), Waddy Johnson married Rosana Ward, the third Ward child, in 1887. The couple, who had three daughters, resided for a time in the Orange area, before settling in Santa Ana, on the west side of the river, where Waddy was an apiarist, or bee-keeper, for a time. Later, he seems to have worked for the Irvine Company, before retiring in the 1920s to a home in downtown Santa Ana. Waddy died in Santa Ana in 1938 and his wife passed away four years later. It would appear that Johnson and Ward went in together to acquire the property in the hills north of Olinda believing there would be the potential for oil there, though the map clearly shows that this was not the case, at least in 1924.

As to the other two men listed in the same section as Johnson and Ward, there looks to have been a possible connection geographically. There was a John W. Rogers, born in July 1882, who lived in Santa Ana, where his father, Frank, owned a feed mill. John later resided on Cambridge Street, west of the town of Orange, where he worked in ranching and his wife, Martha, was a nurse. By 1930, the couple lived in Tustin, where John operated a farm. Perhaps further research will validate whether this was the "John Rogers" listed on the map.

The case is a little stronger for Fred Kelly. It is tempting to want to believe that this is the same Fred Kelly, for whom the athletic stadium at El Modena High School in Orange is named. This Fred Kelly, born in 1891, was a 1911 graduate of Orange High and, while a freshman at the University of Southern California, qualified to represent the United States in track and field events at the summer Olympics of 1912 in Stockholm, Sweden, where he took the gold medal in the 110 meter hurdles. Kelly competed in American Athletic Union (AAU) events and was a two-time hurdles champion later in the 1910s. While working on a ranch in the Riverside County desert town of Mecca, near Palm Springs, he enlisted in the aviation corps for World War I and began a career as a pilot. In 1930, for example, he delivered mail by airplane and lived in San Gabriel. Whether he would have amassed the money or had the interest in buying land near Olinda before his mid-30s, when the map was issued, is not clear.

There was, however, another Fred Kelly in the area. This one was born in May 1870, in Milford, Pennsylvania, at the eastern edge of the state near the borders with New York and New Jersey. His mother was Jane Robinson and his father James Kelly (the two marrying in March 1869). James Kelly, a native of Milford, was a farmer before enlisting with a state cavalry unit and serving as a first lieutenant. He was captured by the Confederates in June 1864 and remained a prisoner of war (even escaping twice before being recaptured) until the conclusion of the war about nine months later. He returned to farming and also served as county sheriff in his home area before taking his family west to Lawrence, Kansas in 1888. Fred, meantime, enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he received his degree as a doctor of medicine, though he did not practice.

In 1891, James Kelly and family, including Fred, migrated to California, takling up residence in east Santa Ana, living on a farm on Walnut Street, where he raised apricots, oranges and, naturally, walnuts. Fred, however, by 1896 found a government job as postmaster, though this was in Needles, the eastern California desert town on the Arizona border. He continued in that position for at least twenty-five years, but obviously spent much time in Santa Ana, where he met and married Pearl Glenn, an Iowa native whose widowed mother moved to Santa Ana in the late 1890s. After their 1899 nuptials, Fred and Pearl Kelly raised two sons, though Pearl and the boys often lived with her mother in Orange County, while Fred tended to his job in Needles.

Sometime in the 1920s, though, Fred changed professions and became an engineer for a mining company. While there was plenty of that being done in Needles, Fred had relocated permanently to Santa Ana. Perhaps he purchased the property near Olinda because of his experience in the mining industry? Perhaps further research will better establish the connection of the property discussed here with Kelly, Rogers, Sheerer, Packovich and California Crude Oil.

Notably, the land covered in this post is west of the boundary line (being Valencia Avenue, seen at left) between the Rancho Cajon de Santa Ana and public land and going up to the border between Los Angeles and Orange counties. Some of this area is now the Olinda Alpha Landfill. It is also worth pointing out that, just west of this, and also covered by the map is the Brea Canyon property developed by more Santa Ana residents, including Albert Otis Birch, whose strange story was covered in an early post on this blog back in 2008.

This, however, concludes the series of posts on this fascinating map.

A 1924 Map of the Olinda Oil Field and Surrounding Areas, Part Six

2011-12-20T23:57:00.000-08:00

This detail shows the heart of the Olinda Oil Field as it was in 1924. At the upper right is the area covered in the last post, concerning parcels in and to the west of today's Olinda Village subdivision. To the lower right and bottom of this detail, meanwhile, are sections of land held by the Olinda Land Company, the descendant of the original Olinda Ranch, founded by William Hervey Bailey in the late 1880s. Bailey's son, William, Jr., still had a controlling interest in the land company and held some of his own area parcels, as noted in the last entry.

While the Olinda Land Company also had some oil wells, these numbered sites marked by black dots, the big players in the Olinda field were major firms like Shell, General Petroleum, and CCMO (Chanslor-Canfield Midway Oil). The latter, co-founded by Charles Canfield, who was a partner of Olinda's first oil producer, Edward Doheny, when the two struck oil at Los Angeles in the early 1890s, operated on land leased from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. This area is now mainly within the Olinda Ranch subdivision and up Santa Fe Drive is the Olinda Oil Museum, which features the still-pumping 1896-97 well drilled by Doheny. Other oil companies featured in this section included Fullerton and West Coast.

Speaking of the railroad, commonly called the ATSF or Santa Fe, the line coming up from the bottom left and ending in two strands at the bottom of the CCMO parcel is the spur rail line built by that company from its main line between Los Angeles and points east from a station stop in Atwood, a neighborhood in today's Placentia. The spur was used, naturally, to haul crude oil from the Olinda field to the main railroad line for shipment, although pipelines were also added to directly carry the crude to refineries situated in and around the harbors at San Pedro and Long Beach.

The dual lines with white space in between them, found at the bottom and bottom left of the image, are plotted roadways for subdivisions. Those to the lower left of the place name "Olinda" and through which the railroad spur lines pass are likely for the 1880s townsite of Carlton, created out of Olinda Ranch property, but succumbing to the bust that followed the real estate boom of 1886-88.

Finally, the dashed line at the left marks the boundary between the Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana to its left (or west) and public lands to the right (or east), which latter were used by ranchers in the Spanish and Mexican eras for common grazing.

The San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana was granted in 1837 by Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado to Juan Pacifico Ontiveros and spanned nearly 36,000 acres in present Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton and Placentia. Ontiveros (1795-1877) was a corporal in the Mexican Army, stationed at Mission San Gabriel and was later majordomo or foreman at Mission San Juan Capistrano. In 1853, Ontiveros sold about two-thirds of the ranch to prominent American merchant and land owner Abel Stearns and then moved to Santa Barbara County, where he had a ranch north of Buellton and south of Santa Maria. In 1857, Ontiveros sold off some more land to a syndicate of German colonists called the Los Angeles Vineyard Society seeking to establish a winemaking community, which they named Anaheim (Ana from Santa Ana, and heim being "home" in German.) Ontiveros' sons, Juan Nicolas and Patricio, received shares of land on the ranch, but promptly sold them to their sister's husband, August Langenberger, one of the German founders of Anaheim. Another German, Daniel Kraemer, acquired the remainder of the ranch at the same time, in the mid-1860s, and this became the foundation of the city of Placentia.

The northern boundary of the rancho extends to Tonner Canyon Road and then to Brea Boulevard before it enters the City of Brea and on out to a short distance east of Harbor Boulevard, before moving southwestward through a small section of La Habra and then southward just to the east of Euclid Street through Fullerton and Anaheim. At about the intersection of Euclid and Ball Road, the boundary takes a southeasterly angle, passing through the extreme southwest corner of a Disneyland parking area, slicing through the Anaheim Convention Center, and then through a corner of The Block at Orange before turning north and east, passing roughly up near State College Boulevard and the western extremity of Angel Stadium before taking in the west bank of the Santa Ana River until west of Tustin Avenue. From there, the boundary heads north west of Tustin, which turns into Rose Avenue within Placentia and appears to form the boundary between Placentia and Yorba Linda from north of Yorba Linda Boulevard to Golden Avenue before entering Brea and bisecting Rose Drive until it follows the path of Valencia Avenue until the road turns into the Olinda Alpha Landfill.

Click here to see the September 1855 survey of the Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana, conducted for the California Land Claims case pertaining to the rancho by George Hansen, who was responsible for selecting the land that became the Anaheim colony shortly after.

More from this map soon.

Carbon Canyon Historical Artifact #26

2011-12-18T23:43:00.000-08:00

This is another 10 ounce bottle from the La Vida Mineral Springs. It is the same type in terms of design and layout and era as the one featured last month and may be from about the same era: 1940s or perhaps not long afterward.

But, the reverse list of available flavors offered by the La Vida Bottling Company, Inc. is slightly different than the other bottle. For example, the one shown in November offered some flavors not found here or named differently. Such as, what is here shown as "Tropical Punch" is probably "La Vida Punch" on the other. Or, that one had "Lime Rickey" and this one shows "Lime Soda." Then, there was "Cheri Cola" on the first one and "Black Cherry Cola" on this. And, there are some, like "Tom Collins Mix" or "Grapefruit" from the other that aren't found here.

Finally, this bottle has a flavor that is in a larger font size, seemingly indicating the one that was found in this bottle, and, it's a pretty cool name: "Charley's Chocolate." Makes one wonder (maybe) who "Charley" and whether the attempt at alliteration made for a better flavor rather than just a catchier name!

The La Vida Landfill, East Annex

2011-12-16T23:30:00.000-08:00

The trash unceremoniously dumped some weeks back at the historic La Vida Mineral Springs property, where a bridge once crossed Carbon [Canyon] Creek and led to the old motel, remains, only more widespread, perhaps into the creek, and further dampened with the recent rain.

Now, a second pile of trash has appeared just a short distance east in a large open area off the south side of Carbon Canyon Road--an annex of sorts to the first.

Let's see how long both accumulations of garbage are left to beautify the Canyon . . . and how many more might appear.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #8412

2011-12-15T23:58:00.000-08:00

While there have been no major accidents (at least known to this blogger) since the tragic death of a bicyclist several weeks ago, there have been some recent errant driving incidents on the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon, including the dismembering of a stop sign at Carbon Canyon Road and Ginseng Lane, the nudging or flattening of a sign or two on the S-curve near Summit Ranch, and the entire front bumper of a yellow car left by the side of the road in the same vicinity.

All reminders that, whether there are so-called "major" incidents or not, unsafe driving is a daily occurrence and those who drive safely should comtinue to exercise caution when driving through the Canyon, especially on weekend evenings (when, evidently, the bumper was deposited along the highway) and during the upcoming holiday season.

As has been noted before, the most horrific accident yours truly has seen in the Canyon occurred New Year's Eve/New Year's Day, at about 1 a.m., when several cars were strewn across Carbon Canyon Road on the downslope east of Olinda Village. There were persons lying in the road and fronzen in shock behind shattered windshields. It's a scene that will not be forgotten and, unfortunately, will be repeated.

1924 Map of Olinda Oil Field and Surrounding Areas, Part Five

2011-12-05T23:57:00.000-08:00

Our series based on this nearly 90-year old map continues with the ownership (in 1924 or well before) of parcels in and around Olinda Village. A large section, in fact, between there and the La Vida Mineral Springs property to the east is attributed to a "J.T. Raddick," but nothing has been discovered about this person thus far. There are, however, three others, who owned property in the mid-1920s or earlier, who can be discussed.

One, actually, has been covered previously--this being William Hervey Bailey, Jr., the namesake son of the founder of Olinda Ranch. Bailey, Jr. succeeded to the ownership and management of the ranch after his father's death in 1910, and his land in this section appears to have been near the Hollydale Mobile Home Estates tract and the confluence of Carbon and Soquel canyons. His story has been amply detailed in earlier posts about the Baileys and the history of Olinda Ranch. We will also see that Bailey, Jr. controlled other parcels on this map lying further south and west in the Olinda oil field.

To the north and west of Olinda Village, in what is today both privately-held land and portions of Chino Hills State Park, there was a notable character in the history of American oil development, John Martin Clapp. Clapp's holdings extended to the Orange/Los Angeles counties border and, to the east, near the existing water tanks above the east side of Olinda Village, while, to the west, his land seems to have gone close to what is now the Olinda Alpha Landfill. Given his history, there seems no question that Clapp bought his property, as did many others within the Canyon from about 1900 onward, for potential oil development, though little, if any, was found in his section.

Clapp was born in May 1835 in Mercer, Pennsylvania, in the far western part of the state, not far east of Youngstown, Ohio. His mother was Sally Hubbard and his father, Ralph, was an iron master (an owner of an iron foundry--steel and ironworking being a primary Pennsylvania occupation for much of its history) before switching gears (!) completely and becoming a Methodist Episcopal clergyman. The Clapps later moved to a new town established by Ralph called President, in Venango County, to the northeast of Mercer. It was in nearby Titusville, in 1859, that the American oil industry began.

Meantime, John Clapp worked in the iron industry, perhaps taking over his father's foundry, as his occupation in the 1860 census was that of a "furnace manager." Two years later, as the Civil War was in full swing, Clapp enlisted in the 121st Pennsylvania Infantry and was captain of its F Company. Later in life, he was very active in veterans' affairs and was a major figure in the state's Grand Army of the Republic organization. At the conclusion of the war, Clapp married Anna Pearson from nearby New Castle. In the 1870 census, the young couple resided with her parents and John worked as a merchant in a flour mill.

His career in that line soon ended, however, as he moved to Tidioute, a booming oil town, in 1871 and engaged in petroleum prospecting with a brother. Within a decade, he rose rapidly to become one of the state's oil barons and controlled tens of thousands of acres of oil-bearing lands and drilled, along with his brother and other partners, some 250 wells. By 1881, he moved his family, including three children, to Washington, D. C., while he continued his oil business, supplemented with activities in banking, timber and real estate. He remained a full time resident of America's capital and had a summer home at Lakewood, New York on Lake Chautauqua, not far from the Pennsylvania border, where Clapp died in October 1906 at age 71. Interestingly, he was one of America's first major numismatics or coin collectors and his collection, left to his namesake son, was well-known and highly valued.

How Clapp came to acquire property in and around Carbon Canyon takes us back to Burdette Chandler, who was from the same area of Pennsylvania as Clapp and who entered the oil business there in 1860 at the start of the industry, discussed in the last post. Chandler and Clapp certainly were acquaintances or friends back East and the former, it will be recalled, acquired considerable holdings within the Canyon in the later part of the 1800s, but wound up selling much of it, probably as the Boom of the 1880s petered out and Chandler needed cash. In a 1906 Los Angeles newspaper article he wrote about the oil industry, Chandler noted that, "Victor Hall [Charles Victor Hall, another Olinda notable earlier profiled in this blog], J. M. Clapp of Pennsylvania and others also bought land. J. M. Clapp came to my rescue when the Los Angeles business men hesitated and I sold him land at from $2.50 to $3 an acre." Clapp appears to have owned at least a full section, or 640 acres, of land, at least by the reckoning of this map.

The other individual listed in the map as a property holder in the Olinda Village area was E. F. Gaines, who had the distinction of being one of the few, maybe the only, such landholder who actually lived in the Canyon and, also, utilized his property for something other than oil investments.

Edward F. Gaines was a California native, born in January 1868 in Gilroy, south of San Jose, and long considered (at least, self-proclaimed) to be the garlic capital of the world. His father, John, a native of Kentucky, was a carpenter and his mother Mary Margaret Clamp was from New York. In the 1870s, however, the Gaines family migrated south and lived in the Wilmington area near today's Long Beach, where the family took up farming. On Christmas Eve 1889, Edward married Frances Atwater, a native of Illinois, and the two settled in the Clearwater community of the Downey Township--now the City of Paramount--where Edward farmed, while the family grew to include three daughters, two of whom lived into adulthood. As of 1910, the Gaines family still lived in this area, but sometime in the following decade moved out to Carbon Canyon, when Edward acquired property there.

In the 1920 and 1930 censuses, Edward and his wife Fannie lived alone on a ranch with his occupation listed as "farmer" and "dry farmer," respectively. Oral histories of former residents of the Olinda oil fields (this covered in early posts to this blog) remembered Gaines as running cattle in the hills and it does seem unlikely that there could have been any tillable land in the Olinda Village area. By 1947, Mrs. Gaines had passed away and nine years later, Edward died in Canyon City, an unincorporated area near Chula Vista close to San Diego. Still to be discovered is when he sold his land, which was developed into the Olinda Village tract in the early to mid-1960s.

In the same Section 10 as the Gaines and Bailey, Jr. tracts were those of three companies: Olinda Land Company, owned by Bailey; Soquel Canyon Oil Company (previously discussed in this blog), which existed for a few years from 1900; and Continental Oil Company of Los Angeles, founded in 1899, and which was headed by William West, also president of the Carbon Canyon Oil Company, which operated on 160 acres near where Soquel and Carbon canyons meet. Charles E. Price, owner of land near the La Vida Mineral Springs area, was a partner with West in the Carbon Canyon and Continental firms. In 1900, Continental had 40 acres in the Olinda field, but its later history needs to be researched, especially as to whether it became part of the Continental Oil Company that is now the massive conglomerate, Conoco (get it?) Phillips.

1924 Map of Olinda Oil Field and Surrounding Areas, Part Four

2011-11-29T23:56:00.000-08:00

This post, continuing the highlighting of a 1924 map of the Olinda Oil Field and nearby locales, moves to the west and south of the area discussed in the last and takes us into the Orange County and Brea portion of Carbon Canyon.

In this case, there are four individually-listed owners of parcels ranging from the county line out to the La Vida Mineral Springs property. As stated before, although the map is of a certain date, the reference to property owners is, in many cases, to ownership in prior years. In other words, the persons here likely were not owners of the holdings shown as of 1924, but, instead, earlier.

Closest to the county line is land shown as owned by Annie Edwardson. Edwardson and her husband Lars were natives of Norway, she born in March 1846 and he six years earlier, and married about 1868. The two then migrated to the United States in 1885. By 1900, the two were living in what later became part of the City of Placentia, but which was denoted in the census of that year and a decade later as Fullerton township. Lars was a farmer and the couple, who had eight children with six living to adulthood, were residing with three sons and a daughter. Today, there is an Edwardson Circle near the northeast corner of Kraemer Avenue and Bastanchury Road, where there is a townhouse complex today, which commemorates this family's ranch which was on the site. In fact, they Edwardsons were virtually neighbors of Charles C. Wagner, who, as noted in the last post, owned a stretch of Carbon Canyon just north of Sleepy Hollow over the county line. It could well be that Wagner and the Edwardsons purchased their Canyon property at around the same time and for similar reasons: the possibility of oil production looming after the 1897 strike of crude at Olinda. It is hard to imagine why they and others would buy hilly, rocky Canyon land otherwise.

There were three other owners listed to the west and slightly south of Edwardson and in the general vicinity of what became the La Vida Mineral Springs. One of these is J. S. Carver and, while there was a New York-born furniture salesman of that name who lived in Orange in the 1900 census and died in that city five years later, it is not known if this is one and the same person. This Carver might plausibly be seen as a local who may have saved enough money to buy a small plot of land in the Canyon for potential petroleum prospecting.

Another owner was Charles E. Price, who, as noted in an April 2010 post on this blog, was secretary of the Carbon Canyon Oil Company, a firm formed in 1900 and which owned 160 acres at the junction of Carbon and Soquel canyons near the Hollydale Mobile Home Estates in Olinda Village. Born in Canada about 1868 and a migrant to the U. S. at age 20, Price resided in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1900, a few doors down from Carbon Canyon Oil Company president William West. While Carbon Canyon eventually went out of business, Price continued to work with oil companies with West and others and lived until 1951.

Finally, there is Burdette Chandler, whose tenure in the Carbon Canyon and wider area was much earlier than the others noted so far in this series. Chandler was born in April 1836 in Union, New York, a small town southwest of Syracuse and where his father was a merchant. Chandler, who married in the late 1850s, went into the dry goods business and lived for a time in a small community called Pomfret, near Lake Erie about halfway between Buffalo and Erie, Pennsylvania. Meantime, the first oil boom in the U.S. erupted in 1859 in Pennsylvania and Chandler went to Venango County, the center of all the attention and worked as an operator there. He then migrated to Toronto, Canada by 1871 and was involved in oil speculation there before trying his hand in similar endeavors in West Virginia.

In 1877, Chandler and his wife Albertine came to Los Angeles and resided on Aliso Street near the Los Angeles River, where, in 1880, Chandler was listed in the census as a farmer. In an article in the Los Angeles Herald from 1906, Chandler tried to take credit for introducing the oil industry to the city. While there were attempts as early as 1865 and then during the first half of the 1870s to develop wells to the north in present-day Santa Clarita, with some small successes, it is true that Chandler was one of, if not the first, to drill a crude (!) well within the city limits of Los Angeles. He did have some success and, by his account, "later I bought up thousands of acres of land near Whittier, Puente and Fullerton," including an instance in which, "at a sale of the old Temple estate, I bought 1200 acres of land north of Brea Canyon for $800." This refers to the former Rancho Cañada de la Brea in Brea Canyon, which had passed to the ownership of rancher and banker, F. P. F. Temple. The Los Angeles bank owned by Temple and his father-in-law, William Workman, half-owner of the massive Rancho La Puente in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, collapsed in 1876 and Chandler was able to buy up some considerable acreage from the ruined men's estates.

In a depressed economy that lasted for a decade or so, Chandler claimed that he "lost" 1000 acres to Standard Oil Company and sold 200 more to a man named Daniel Murphy and his Brea Cañon Oil Company in Fall 1899. Chandler also noted that he sold other oil-rich lands, before they were developed, for small amounts, including a section of property in the Puente Hills that he got $1300 for, but stated were worth $2 million in 1906. In another instance, Chandler sold Whittier property to a Michigan native named Simon Murphy for $11,000, which was said to be worth $1,500,000 at the time the article was written. This area is now the Murphy Ranch areas of east Whittier.

As to the Olinda area, Chandler had acquired quite a holding, as well, but noted that "Scott and Loftus bought some land and they now [again, 1906] have an output of from 1000-2000 barrels per day." Chandler refers here to William Loftus of the Graham-Loftus Oil Company, an early entrant at the Olinda field during the late 1890s and to William Benjamin Scott, connected to the Stewart brothers [also veterans of the Pennsylvania oil fields] who founded Union Oil Company, and whose Columbia Oil Company came into Olinda at about the same time as Loftus. Scott was also one of the tres hermanos, along with Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler [no known relation to Burdette] and former Los Angeles County Sheriff and Puente Oil Company president William R. Rowland in the ranch of that name in upper Tonner Canyon north of Carbon Canyon. In fact, in Fall 1881, Rowland brought Chandler out to his holdings in the Puente Hills to drill an oil well. Within four years, the two developed enough successful oil production to create the Puente Oil Company, though Chandler soon sold his interest to Los Angeles businessman William Lacy. Puente Oil also had land and oil wells in the general Olinda and Brea Canyon area.

Chandler, who also had oil interests at Huasna in San Luis Obispo County in 1899 in conjunction with Puente Oil, was quite involved in the Los Angeles city politics and, within only a couple of years of arriving in town, secured election to the city council as a representative of the Fourth Ward, He served three terms between 1880 and 1888, the latter being the peak of the massive real estate boom known as the "Boom of the Eighties." After leaving the council (and overcoming a grand jury indictment on a charge of blackmail in 1889, perhaps connected to his political connections), Chandler moved to the newly-fashionable suburb of Boyle Heights. After the death of his wife, he remarried in 1902 and remained involved in the oil industry (in 1909, he was again arrested on a charge of embezzlement brought against him by two brothers who owned an oil company of which Chandler was a director--this case was dismissed) until his death at age 76 in February 1914, a decade before the publication of this updated map. Chandler was buried at Rosedale Cemetery west of downtown Los Angeles.

Next, we move a little further west and south towards Olinda.

1924 Map of Olinda Oil Field and Surrounding Areas, Part Three

2011-11-28T23:58:00.000-08:00

Two months later . . . this detail shown here of this map focuses on the area in and around Sleepy Hollow, although the listing of property owners does not necessarily mean that they had possession of those parcels in 1924 and, in fact, most of the land involved had passed on to others.

This post concerns the three privately-held properties, setting aside the corporate Chino Land and Water Company and Chino Real Estate Company, which controlled lots 1 and 35 that straddled the county boundaries of Los Angeles (above the horizontal dotted line moving from center to left and to the left of the angled line moving from the number 35 and to the lower right corner) and San Bernardino and Orange, which are divided by this angled line. Incidentally, those familiar with the religious compound, St. Joseph's Hill of Hope will know that it sits on the lot 35 property. Lot 1, meantime, is the area south of Sleepy Hollow heading out into Soquel Canyon in both modern Brea and Chino Hills.

Unfortunately, the property probably most likely to have embraced the area that became Sleepy Hollow was listed as owned by a Charles A. Hall and nothing has been found on this individual. As to the others, however, there are some interesting north Orange County connections.

First is Charles C. Wagner. Wagner was born in November 1873 in Elizabeth Lake, a remote area of northern Los Angeles County west of the Palmdale/Lancaster area. His mother was Josefina Andrada, daughter of 1859 migrants to California from Monterrey, Mexico and there is a place name there today called "Andrade Corners." Wagner's father was Charles C. Wagner, Senior, born in Wüertemberg, Germany and who lived for many years in Grand Rapids, Michigan before migrating to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. He may have been the Charles Wagner who briefly held half of the title to a ranch in Sonoma County known as the German Ranch and on which is the noted coastal planned community of Sea Ranch (whose chief developer died within the last few weeks.)

In any case, Charles, Sr. migrated to Los Angeles County, became a sheep rancher and had several children with Josefina Andrada, the eldest of which was Charles, Jr. Before 1880, the Wagners relocated to what became Placentia and Charles, Sr. maintained his occupation as a sheep rancher and wool grower, owning 150 acres of land near Valencia Avenue and Yorba Linda Boulevard and grazing his animals in Brea Canyon. Not long after the federal census of 1880 was taken, the 35-year old Charles, Sr. was carrying bricks in a wagon from the Anaheim Landing wharf in what is now Seal Beach, when he evidently feel asleep and fell off the wagon and was killed.

The widow soon married her brother-in-law, John Wagner, shortly afterward and the marriage lasted fifteen years until Josefina's death about 1898. Meantime, the Wagner family, led by Charles, Jr. moved from sheep raising to agriculture, trying grapes before moving into walnuts and, more importantly, oranges. In fact, in 1883, the Wagners planted the third orange grove to be developed in what later became Orange County. Charles spearheaded these efforts and was a founder of the Placential Mutual Orange Association and the Placentia Orange Growers Exchange. In 1899, Charles married Maud Taylor, a native of Missouri and the two had one son, Merwin, born in 1903. With all of his success in orange and walnut growing, Charles was able to build a substantial Colonial Revival home in 1920 on the ranch. He and his wife lived in the house until their deaths in the 1960s, after which their son owned the home for about a decade. The building passed through a series of owners, including the Calvary Chapel religious organization, but is now the "Wagner House Wedding Center" (see here for the Web site.) Meantime, the Wagner name also lives on with Charles Wagner Elementary School and Wagner Park, near the house and on the old family ranch.

Why Charles, Jr. acquired the land on the San Bernardino County side of Carbon Canyon is not known, though it is likely that, because the oil boom at Olinda fueled (!) speculation throughout the area, Wagner hoped an investment in the Canyon might yield success in that industry, though no oil of any significance has been found that far north and east of the Olinda field.

This was undoubtedly true for the second property owner covered in this post, Joseph Hiltscher. That name will be familiar to those who know about Fullerton's Hiltscher Park, a great resource for horse riders and walkers as the park winds through neighborhoods between Euclid Street and Harbor Boulevard south of Bastanchury Road.

Hiltscher was born in Sternburg, Austria in February 1874 to weaver August Hiltscher and Frederika Bochisen. When he was thirteen, the family migrated to the United States and made their way to Fullerton, where 20 acres was purchased along Orangethorpe Avenue in west Fullerton. The ranch was planted to apricots, peaches and walnuts under the management of August Hiltscher until his death in 1891.

Meantime, Joseph and a brother went into the meat market business in Fullerton and ran a successful operation for many years. This enabled Joseph to acquire thirty acres along Romneya Avenue in Anaheim, not far from his family's Fullerton ranch, a little below today's 91 Freeway between Harbor Boulevard and Euclid Street and on which an orange grove was developed.

While the Hiltscher name has long been known in Fullerton, not just for the bucolic park named for them, but also for political activity and a longtime family photography business that was shuttered (!) not long ago, a recent posting by Gustavo Arrellano in the Orange County Weekly's blog (see here) revealed a more controversial side to the family. In the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan experienced a resurgence throughout the United States in a time of growing political conservatism, ethnic antagonism, fears of Jewish and Roman Catholic influence and other related issues, the local scene featured its own KKK revival. For example, in 1924-25, four Klansman, without revealing so publicly, secured election to the Anaheim Board of Trustees [City Council]. A recall election in early 1925 led to the removal of the four (see here for some information on this ignoble part of OC history.) Meanwhile, Herman Hiltscher, Joseph's brother, was a Fullerton planning commissioner (it was he who secured the naming of the park after his family) and city engineer and Arrellano's post identifies records (though noted as vague) that showed Herman to be a KKK member.

Back to Carbon Canyon . . . it would appear that Hiltscher's land is actually just north of Sleepy Hollow, embracing oart of the area that is slated for an approved housing development off to the west of Canyon Hills Road and north of Carbon Canyon Road, just above the old Ski Villa site. Wagner, meantime, looks to have owned only a small part of the Sleepy Hollow community at the end of Francis Drive and much of Grandview Drive at the eastern and southern extremities of the neighborhood with his holdings continuing out to about where Red Apple Lane and the top of the Mountain View Estates tract (subdivided in 1925 along and around Canon Lane south of Carbon Canyon Road) are located.

As to the bulk of Sleepy Hollow, this, evidently excepting the small segment along East Lane (ironically, at the far west end of the neighborhood) which was owned by the Chino Land and Water Company, falls within the land once owned by Charles A. Hall, of whom, as noted above, nothing has been found so far. It is possible that the name was misslabeled and this could be Charles V. Hall, the Olinda oilman who has been profiled elsewhere in this blog. This makes some sense, again considering the likelihood that much Carbon Canyon land acquired from the mid-1890s until the mid-1920s would almost certainly have been for speculation in the light of the oil boom at Olinda. This, however, needs to be confirmed, if possible, by further digging.

Towers of Terror Three: Tangled, Twisted, To Be Continued

2011-11-27T23:56:00.000-08:00

A new piece in the Los Angeles Times (see here) has just been posted online (following an 18 November treatment in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, of which see here, summarizing the latest developments (as discussed here recently) on the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP) project to run renewable energy power through lines strung on massive 198-foot tall towers through a portion of Chino Hills roughly along Eucalyptus Avenue on an east-west trajectory to Ontario.

Notably, the article, by Phil Willon, observes that the growing protest over the sequoia-sized [his well-chosen words] towers has been such that it has been "sending the simmering local opposition into a full boil and drawing more heat from politically attuned congressmen."

Also of significance is the attention paid to the question of these towers being in a "fall zone" so that, outside of the 150-foot easement in which they've been placed, an earthquake could possibly send these behemoths crashing into surrounding neighborhoods. As one Chino Hills resident, Cris Garcia, was quoted: "We live in an earthquake zone. If a disaster strikes, that thing could fall right through my house." Some sources indicate that the fall distance is equal to the height of the tower, which, in this case, would place that distance almost fifty feet outside of the easement.

Naturally, officials with Southern California Edison claim that the towers are structurally sound and dismiss other concerns about the towers and their powerful lines creating a health hazard.

As to the California Public Utilities Commission, which approved the project in 2009, a quote was obtained from Michael Peevey, who gave a thumbs-up then, but issued the recent decision halting the project pending a 10 January deadline for Edison to submit a report looking at alternatives and then seeking to either defend their current approach or identify a feasible alternative. Peevey told the Times that, "Everybody has an interest, and everyone's got an ax to grind. It's a very tough job to balance all of this." But, why did Peevey vote one way two years ago and now has seemingly moved in a different direction?

Meanwhile, yesterday's mail brought a flyer from Fullerton congressional representative Ed Royce announcing that he is hosting a "meet and greet" with him at the Summit Ranch community clubhouse next Sunday, 4 December at 1:00 p.m.

On the reverse of the mailer is a copy of a 14 November press release from Royce's office announcing his opposition to the TRTP line through residential neighborhoods AND calling for a hearing in Congress "on the impact on neighborhood home values and the ability of homeowners and buyers to obtain loans."

The main reasons given for such a hearing before the Financial Services Committee are two-fold: first, that power lines, even of half the voltage, "are not allowed within 900 feet of schools" and, second, that the Federal Housing Administration does not permit the residences of FHA-issued mortgage or refinance holders to be "in what FHA calls the Fall Zone below high voltage transmission lines."

On this last point, there is an apparent variation with what is found in the FHA's "Homeownership Center Reference Guide" and its "Hazards and Nuisances" section's description of "Overhead High Voltage Transmission Towers & Lines." Specifically, this portion states that:

The appraiser must indicate whether the dwelling or related property improvements is located within the easement serving a high-voltage transmission line, radio/TV transmission tower, cell phone tower, microwave relay dish or tower, or satellite dish (radio, TV cable, etc). If the dwelling or related property improvements is located within such an easement, the DE Underwriter must obtain a letter from the owner or operator of the tower indicating that the dwelling and its related property improvements are not located within the tower’s (engineered) fall distance in order to waive this requirement.

In other words, it would appear that the question of "fall distance" only applies if the structure is within the utility easement.

As to the question of distance from schools, it doesn't appear clear what the proximity to schools has to do with the activities of the Financial Services Committee and the matter of home loans. Interestingly, the California Department of Education has advisory guidelines that request a distance of at least 350 feet from schools for lines of 500-550 kilovolts, which is the capacity of the proposed line.

In any case, the Times article and, to a lesser degree, the Daily Bulletin piece, note the political nature of the involvement of representatives Royce and Miller, mainly because the two, now in separate congressional districts, will be contending against each other in next November's election in a new district, the 39th, created by voter-mandated redistricting that was recently completed in California.

This seems to explain Miller's characteristically charged commentary in October castigating Democrats and "liberal elitists" for foisting green energy legislation a decade ago that led to the TRTP project being green-lighted (!) by the CPUC and leading to "hillsides scarred and vistas disrupted" [an interesting choice of words, indeed, from a home builder and developer].

Royce, meantime, used a more measured tone in his dissent, focusing on what may potentially fall within the purview of Congress and the federal government, with one exception, in which he likened the project as "equivalent to a government taking of private property," usually wording used to fight eminent domain. Here, however, there is a matter of a private easement, albeit very close in a narrow easement, to private property in response to a government [state] mandated program. It should also be pointed out that Royce opined, as many have done, that the route of the line should either be underground (which SCE has rejected as cost prohibitive) or through the "uninhabited Chino Hills State Park," though environmentalists and state park officials would likely call attention to the fact that the use of the term "uninhabited" by Royce would be equivalent to demeaning the park's value.

At all events, this involvement of our local representatives is all very interesting, given that these politicians, as Republicans, are usually given to calling for local control of local issues and in reducing the role of the federal government. Yet, in this case . . .

So, it was not surprising to see that Royce's flyer was "Paid For By The Royce Campaign Committee" and that the 4 December event is advertised as a "meet and greet," a term usually reserved for campaign appearances, rather than say, a "town hall" or "community meeting." Will we see a similar event soon from Rep. Miller?

And, regardless of the merits of the opposition, which are considerable, is the alliance of local opponents with soon-to-be battling federal representatives, when the TRTP project is one of state, not federal, jurisdiction, a question of the means justifying the ends, even if the ends are reasonable?

Carbon Canyon Historical Artifact #25

2011-11-20T23:49:00.000-08:00

Here is another vintage soda bottle from the La Vida Bottling Company made from water extracted from the firm's mineral springs resort on the Brea side of Carbon Canyon. While other bottles posted here have either been 32 ounce or 7 ounce examples (though note at the bottom image that there were, evidently, no 7 ounce products made by the company when this bottle was produced), this one is 10 ounces.

Moreover, on the reverse panel are listings of the flavors offered by the company at the time, which would appear to be in the 1940s or 1950s. It is possible that the flavor of this particular bottle is the first one listed, "La Vida Punch." Funny how there is the interesting spelling of "Cheri-Cola" for a cherry-flavored soda (maybe someone associated with La Vida was named "Cheri" . . . or was French?!) At any rate, fourteen flavors is quite a roster for a small company (even as "distinctive" as described) as this was one was.

The La Vida Bottling Company plant was located in downtown Fullerton, just off Harbor Boulevard along the railroad tracks of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.

Towers of Terror Two: Temporarily Thwarted

2011-11-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

From the folks at Hope for the Hills comes these excerpts of a California Public Utilities Commission "Assigned Commissioner's Ruling," handed down just a few days back, on the 10th, regarding Segment 8 of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project through Chino Hills in response to opposition by the City of Chino Hills and stakeholders, such as Hope for the Hills.

First,

Once the new transmission towers were placed in Chino Hills, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made recommendations to SCE that SCE modify portions of Segment 8, by installing marker balls on certain transmission line spans, installing lighting on certain transmission structures and making certain engineering refinements for Segment 8. In light of these FAA recommendations, on October 17, 2011, SCE filed a Petition for Modification (PFM) of the TRTP decision, D.09-12-044, seeking modification of the findings of fact, conclusions of law, and ordering paragraphs to account for the proposed FAA recommended changes.

Second,

Once the new transmission structures were put in place through the residential neighborhood in Chino Hills, the City found them to have a “visual, economic and societal impact . . . far more significant than what the City or the Commission envisioned at the time the CPCN was issued.”1 On October 28, 2011, the City filed a PFM to reopen the record with regard to Segment 8 of the TRTP. In light of the recent events and filings that affect Segment 8 of the TRTP, I direct SCE to prepare testimony on alternatives or solutions to the current approved route for the transmission line. SCE’s testimony should include the feasibility, cost, and timing for each alternative.

Alternatives:
1. Alternative 4CM [City’s preferred route through the state park]
2. Alternate 5 [Partial undergrounding]
3. Other alternate routes through the City and/or State Park
4. Utilizing the existing right-of-way with shorter/more frequent towers
5. Mitigation for impact of TRTP line

Many of these alternatives were researched and developed as part of the initial application proceeding. Any alternative reviewed then, that could be considered a viable alternative today, should be presented with refreshed data. In addition, since parties have not yet responded to the recently filed PFMs, my directives here today are not intended to prejudge the PFMs, to be exhaustive, or to foreclose alternatives not yet considered. If parties suggest additional alternate routes or solutions, those may also be considered by the Commission. However, the information and data already gathered was quite extensive, so reviewing known alternatives with up-dated cost, viability, and timing data should prove sufficient.

Southern California Edison has been given until 10 January to provide testimony including the called-for "supporting data" for the alternatives listed above, as well as any potential new ones (though these are clearly not suggestive given the last sentence shown here.)

This is a strange turn of events, if for no other reason that the PUC had every opportunity to learn of the potential impacts of Segment 8 through Chino Hills (or any other impacts on the other segments of the project.) at any time between the initial filing by SCE in late June 2007 until the PUC's approval at the end of December 2009. The 150-foot right-of-way owned by the utility and the homes impacted by the project were all there then. Yet, the burgeoning opposition developing within Chino Hills clearly had a major political impact on the Commission (or, at least, its "assigned commissioner," Michael Peevey) and provoked this seemingly contradictory ruling.

Naturally, the City, Hope for the Hills and other opponents are thrilled by the latest news. The question now becomes: which alternatives will SCE propose and what will be approved by the PUC? Alternative 4--placing the lines through Chino Hills State Park (which would still have some residential housing impact, though much less than the current route) was vigorously opposed by the State Parks department and environmental groups--for understandable reasons, even as it was championed by the City. Alternative 5, involving partial underground construction (is undergrounding a real verb?), was opposed by Edison as prohibitive from a cost and feasibility standpoint, though this alternative has gained steam among some project opponents, evidently. Item 3 seems vague and conflicting with the above-listed alternatives. Item 4, involving the idea of using the existing right-of-way but replacing the mammoth towers just now installed with shorter ones more closely placed, seems outright impossible for SCE to support.

Which leads to item 5: mitigation. This has become a common method for approving controversial projects of all types--finding a way to compensate for the impacts generated by said projects. It would be interesting to see what SCE proposes on this, while knowing that, in all likelihood, opponents are going to reject any and all such mitigation. Unless there is no choice, meaning that the PUC believes that mitigation is a reasonable middle ground for compromise and rules accordingly.

So, that's where matters lie for the time being and the events of 10 January will, of course, be interesting to ponder as SCE submits its testimony and supporting data to the PUC. For now, the installed towers will remain until, someday, a new ruling is rendered.

Sleepy Hollow Resident is Chino Hills Volunteer of the Quarter

2011-11-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

Don Briney, who has lived in Sleepy Hollow since the 1950s, has been selected as the Chino Hills Volunteer for the Quarter. Don joined the Chino Hills Citizens Patrol (COP) in 1989 after his retirment as an engineer from General Dynamics in Pomona. Along with his wife Sue, who passed away almost fifteen years ago, Don worked in patrolling the city, assisting in checking homes of residents on vacation, working with traffic control, helping with DUI checkpoints, and other duties. This August, Don retired from the COP program after twenty-three years and was given a service pin and a plaque that displays his Sheriff's Department badge.

In addition to his work with COP program, Don, with his wife, was heavily involved in the city incorporation project, is a charter member of the Chino Hills Historical Society, and has been on an advisory committee for the city about needs in Sleepy Hollow.

Congratulations to Don Briney for this recognition.

Fire Just Outside Carbon Canyon

2011-11-02T10:11:00.000-07:00

A little earlier this morning, a 5-acre fire broke out in the vicinity of Valencia Avenue and Rose Drive, a bit west of Carbon Canyon and just outside Carbon Canyon Dam and the regional park. An Orange County Register article can be found here.

I drove through the Canyon westbound at about 9:30 and the traffic signals were blinking at Olinda Village and completely out at Olinda Ranch. CHP had Valencia Avenue closed at Lambert Road (Valencia being the continuation of State Highway 142 from Carbon Canyon Road to Imperial Highway) and there were many fire department vehicles on Valencia. A helicopter was also starting to descend on the scene, possible to do a water drop. It did appear that power lines were down and that may have been the cause, because of wind conditions.

There are, of course, strong Santa Ana winds blowing through the area and they are directed to the west, so there shouldn't be any issue with the fire moving the other direction towards either the regional park, Chino Hills State Park or the homes on the south face of the hills. The area in and around the fire appears to be oil fields and, perhaps, where the Christmas tree farm is located.

The La Vida Landfill

2011-10-26T23:40:00.000-07:00

As has been noted here before, the November 2008 fires that ravaged the Brea side of Carbon Canyon had, among its myriad effects, the result of exposing the historic La Vida Mineral Springs property by burning off the dense growth of weeds, trees, and other plant materials that had hidden much of the area for years. The old water tank, for example, largely invisible from Carbon Canyon Road, was suddenly easy to spot and became a regular target for graffiti.

Similarly, a former access road from the state highway to the old motel, which followed a bridge (now long gone) over Carbon [Canyon] Creek, has proved to be an enticing area for people (term used somewhat loosely) to dump their trash.

Yet, this activity has not been as pronounced as it is now, demonstrated by the above photo taken this morning. While dumping garbage in anything but trash receptacles or actual landfills is bad enough, the creek runs right along where this mound of debris has been deposited. Not that the water is of any great quality, consisting largely of runoff anyway, but the potential of further pollution from refuse like this is not helping.

The property owner is absentee, residing in Japan, and it will have to be left to some other entity, maybe the city, to come in and remove the latest mess left here.

Carbon Canyon Resident Brush Drop-Off Day #2 This Saturday

2011-10-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

The second installment of the brush drop-off program for residents of Carbon Canyon on the Chino Hills side only, coordinated by the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council and paid for by the City of Chino Hills, will take place, once again, next to Fire Station #64 and Western Hills Park on Canon Lane and Carbon Canyon Road.

The hours have been shortened to between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m., because that's when all of the activity took place at the inaugural date in September, which had an additional hour at each end. As with last month, residents can bring their brush to the drop-off point and members of the Council will be there to assist.

Those bringing brush should bring proof of residency in the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon, such as a driver's license, utility bill or Carbon Canyon emergency access pass.

For further information, call (909) 902-5280, x. 409.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #8352

2011-10-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

The latest assault on the much-maligned (well, misaligned) sign at the middle of the S-curve along the eastbound side of Carbon Canyon Road in Chino Hills occurred sometime today.

CalTrans will, obviously, soon have our hard-earned tax dollars at work once again to repair this sign and its cousin further down the road that was unceremoniously mangled a couple of weeks or more ago.

Meantime, between these two points, new skid marks, again eastbound, tell another tale of an errant vehicle rubbing shoulders with the guardrail, despite the earnest pleas of three separate signs requesting a 20-mph passage as the curve turns right. Alas, said vehicle did not comply . . .

Circle K Opens in Carbon Kanyon

2011-10-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

After almost a year-and-a-half of construction, the Circle K market at the corner of Carbon Canyon Road and Canyon Hills Road on the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon has opened, as of yesterday. Previous entries and comments to them have expressed views pro and con and these don't need to be rehashed here necessarily, though they can be accessed in the links below.

The Circle K mini-market at the corner of Carbon Canyon Road and Canyon Hills Road in Chino Hills opened as of 11 October.

It will, of course, be interesting to see how well this mini-mart does and what effect its operations will have on the Canyon Market down the road to the west a half-mile or so in Sleepy Hollow.

Now, to see how well the Circle K does and whether the Canyon Market in Sleepy Hollow will survive the competition.

The building also has rented office space, though it is not known here if there are any tenants as of yet. For the previous blog posts about this project from spring 2010, please see here and here.

Chino Hills State Park Camp Out (and a little tangential history)

2011-10-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the Chino Hills State Park Interpretive Association, which works to assist the state parks system in developing interpretive and preservation programs for our great local park held a program about owls on Saturday night at the Rolling M Ranch complex and a Camp Out for those who wanted to stay overnight at the nearby group camp.

This blogger and his two kids signed up for the Camp Out and went out late Saturday afternoon. After setting up camp and making a quick dinner on the camp stove, we joined the others for the walk to Rolling M for the owl program, conducted by a representative from the Starr Ranch, an Audubon Society facility in Trabuco Canyon near Rancho Santa Margarita and Coto de Caza. The Ranch does an impressive amount of research, preservation, and education work, of which more can be learned here. The PowerPoint illustrated program might have been a little over the heads of some of the younger children, but, overall, was quite interesting and had great photos of the types of owls encountered in this area (including quite a few out here in Sleepy Hollow.) The presenter also told some good stories about his thirty-plus years of studying and observing owls, both in his native Connecticut and here at Starr Ranch.

Unfortunately, about 5:30 a.m., a little health issue arose with one of my kids, so we gradually packed up early and left before being able to take a hike in Bane Canyon, which was really going to be a highlight of the visit. I've had the good fortune to be able to hike most of the park, mainly before the kids came along, and have only been in the park once or twice since the 2008 fires. With a 9-year old dying to get out and do some hiking, this was an opportunity to get some quality time in at the park, but that will have to wait for some other time.

Meantime, this blog's numerous posts about the history of Rancho Santa Ana del Chino were supposed to include some reference to the history of land within the park that was once owned by the Chino Land and Water Company, proprietors of the ranch from the 1890s. So, here's an opportunity to cover some of that background. First, some research was gleaned from the February 1999 Chino Hills State Park General Plan, as well as some good content from a blog called Los Angeles Revisited, maintained by Betty Uyeda, a staff member at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

While much of the area contained within the state park appears to have been used almost exclusively for grazing cattle and sheep when the area was public land under Spanish and Mexican rule (neighboring ranchers at Santa Ana del Chino, the Yorba ranches in north Orange County, the owners of San José in present Pomona, etc., would have common grazing rights to public land set aside for that purpose), little seems to have changed until the later 1800s.

Fenton Slaughter, who, in 1868, bought a Yorba family adobe that is now a San Bernardino County Museum historic site (see here for more on this interesting site on Pomona-Rincon Road in Chino) used the eastern part of the park for grazing his stock. By the middle 1890s, the Chino Land and Water Company took over most of the area. According to the Chino Hills State Park General Plan, a 1902 United States Geological Survey map showed only three structures and one wagon road through the park vicinity. On the other hand, there were indications that a road through Telegraph Canyon, stretching from Brea for several miles to the east may have been in use from at least 1860. Still, the use of the park site seems to have been limited and not well documented.

That is, until 1921 when the Chino Land and Water Company sold a significant amount of the state park area to Frank Pellissier. Pellissier was born in Taix, in the Haute Alps region of France that was the homeland of many French Basques who settled such areas as East Los Angeles, La Puente, Fullerton, and Chino, among others. In fact, Pellissier's uncle, Germain, migrated from the Basque country of France to Los Angeles in 1867, became a wool grower, and acquired land at Seventh and Olive, where he built a home and a business building and 200 acres to the west of the city. Later, the latter was developed by his grandson, Henry de Roulet, into Pellissier Square and, in 1931, at the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue, de Roulet completed a notable Art Deco structure called the Pellissier Building. Today, the landmark is best known as the home of the Wiltern Theater.

As for Frank, he migrated to the United States about 1888, and became within a decade a proprietor of the Highland Union Diary in Los Angeles. In 1900, Pellissier was in Big Pine, a town in Inyo County, where he lived with his wife Marie Valla and their four children. Pellissier retained interests in animal grazing in that area and out in Mono County, where he tried at one time to build a railroad. But, by 1905, he had relocated his family to Los Angeles County, specifically Rancho La Puente, where he bought a large tract from Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin, one of the more colorful figures in California during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Pellissier built a home on Workman Mill Road between Whittier and La Puente and gradually he and his namesake son, Frank, amassed over 3,200 acres, on which they ran 2,800 head of cattle.

For years, the Pellissiers operated their enterprise by working to sell raw milk to a Los Angeles dairy, but, in 1930, the younger Frank created the Pellissier Dairy Farms. After his father's death in 1941, Frank, Jr. expanded and enlarged the family enterprise. He was a co-founder of the American Dairy Association of Los Angeles, was a director of the Holstein-Friesian Association of America. The Pellissier name received national publicity in 1952 when Time magazine ran a feature on Hazel, a record-setting milk producer, said to have routinely averaged an astounding 37 quarts of raw milk a day.

The post-World War II era, however, saw suburbanization impeding upon the Pellissier ranch at Whittier. By 1948, the family developed some houses on their land. Later, the California Country Club, now owned by City of Industry, was opened on the ranch. Rio Hondo College was created in 1963 on 115 acres of Pellissier Ranch property that included the old family home, long razed. Rose Hills Cemetery also expanded by acquiring family land and, by 1970, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts took over a huge chunk of Pellissier land to open the Puente Hills Landfill, a facility slated to close in fall 2013. Faced with all of these major transformations, the Pellissier Dairy shut down in 1971. Frank L. Pellissier, meantime, died in 1969 at his home in San Marino.

As for their holdings at Chino, the Pellissiers ran cattle, built a ranch house, and kept their operation going there for almost three decades. In 1948, however, the family sold the 1720-acre property to the Mollin Investment Company, hence the new name for the ranch, the Rolling M [cute pun!] The Mollin Investment Company was headed by Christopher Hendra (1900-1985.) Hendra had family roots in Cornwall, England, where his grandfather, a minister with the Primitive Methodist Church of America, was born, but the family migrated to America in the late 1840s and settled at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, southwest of the state capital in Madison, where Hendra was born. His father, John, was a dry goods merchant in Mineral Point.

Hendra was a 1923 graduate of the University of Wisconsin and became a banker, working for a time in Chicago and marrying there. In 1933, however, he picked up stakes and moved to California. Hendra eventually became president of the Mollin Investment Company, based in San Marino, and had at least two major development projects of note. One was in Searchlight, Nevada, the hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, where Mollin had an early investment in mining activities. Another was the 1940 purchase of a project that Mollin Investment called Palm Village and which is now the city of Palm Desert near Palm Springs.

From the 1948 acquisition of the Pellissier holdings until the creation of Chino Hills State Park in the early 1980s, the Rolling M was owned by Mollin Investment Company and run as a cattle ranch. The existing corrals were expanded and modernized and the ranch house was renovated and enlarged. The complex included seven structures, four windmills, corrals, stock ponds, water troughs, fencing and other material.

Not long after the sale of the ranch to the state parks department, Hendra, a resident of San Gabriel and Ludington, Michigan (a resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan in the northwest part of the state), died in 1985 at age 85. He had been a president of the San Gabriel Country Club, a Mason, and director of the Cornish Choir at Huntington Park, and was still president and co-owner of Mollin Investment Company at his death.

Unique Carbon Canyon Home for Sale

2011-10-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

Back in the early days of this blog (A.D. 2008), there was some discussion about some interesting architecture within Carbon Canyon, such as geodisic homes in Sleepy Hollow and Mountain View Estates and postmodern residences in the former and in Western Hills Oaks.
Now there is a house, the Ashley Residence, for sale in Western Hills Oaks that is probably among the most interesting architectural examples in the Canyon and of which more can be seen here. In fact, the house was featured in the magazine Architectural Record back in 1988

Architect Coy Howard is a faculty member at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and more can be learned about him here. Notably, he is well-known for his interior design work, specifically furniture and his work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and the Denver Art Museum.

In many ways, this 3,000 square foot architect-designed home on a half-acre lot, much of which is usable, and which has great views is a deal at an offering of $695,000. Modern architecture may not be to many people's taste, but this is quite a house and should sell quickly.

Carbon Canyon Road Fatal Accident Update

2011-10-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

This photo from Tuesday the 11th shows a simple floral arrangement in a pot along the embankment on the eastbound side of Carbon Canyon Road (SR-142) in Chino Hills that commemorates the death of a cyclist killed in this vicinity by a car on Satursday. In the distance is Carriage Hills Lane.

UPDATE, 12 OCTOBER: A roadside memorial started a day or two ago with a simple flower arrangement in a pot that seems to have identified the site of this accident as on Carbon Canyon Road between Fairway Drive/Ginseng Lane and Carriage Hills Drive. Though the memorial is on the embankment on the shoulder of the eastbound side, it may be that the accident occurred on the westbound side, where the shoulder is very narrow and that the memorial was put where it was because of its safer location.

By today, the memorial grew to include a couple of votive candles, a decorated cross, and a painted stone. On the cross is the name of the bicyclist who was killed in this accident, Omar Gómez. When I stopped there with my sons today, my younger boy noticed that the red candle, closest to the cross, had toppled from the embankment to the pavement and wanted to put it back, showing his respect for Mr. Gómez.

By today, Wednesday the 12th, the memorial had grown to include a painted stone (left, next to the flowers), two votive candles, and a decorated white cross with the name of the deceased, Omar Gómez, 27, a resident of Pomona.

UPDATE, 10 OCTOBER. With thanks to another commenter, additional information is available about this incident:

This accident was also in the Orange County Register yesterday Oct 9th. Goverment section, news page 10.

The cyclist from Pomona was 27 years old and was struck from behind by a 23 year old unlicened driver from Anaheim. Drugs and alcohol did not appear to be factor but the driver will be charged.

Much could obviously be made of the fact that the driver was unlicensed, but whether there will be other charges related to, say, vehicular homicide or manslaughter, would be another issue. It is possible in other words that the driver will not be charged for the accident in question, but for the fact that he or she was driving wthout a license. Perhaps more information will be be forthcoming.

Thanks to a commenter to yesterday's post regarding the closure of Carbon Canyon Road (State Highway 142) yesterday at 11:30 a.m. due to a fatal accident. This person spoke to a Sheriff's Deputy stationed at the west end of the shuttered section at Fairway Drive/Ginseng Lane and was told that the victim was a bicyclist who was hit by a vehicle somewhere along the S-curve between Fairway/Ginseng and Old Carbon Canyon Road.

Two issues immediately come to mind on this: first, that stretch of the road is about as dangerous as any along the route and, second, bicycling almost anywhere on the highway is a risky endeavor. While this may be the only cycling fatality that this blogger is aware of in seven and a half years of living in the Canyon, anyone who drives the highway regularly has had some experience in the potential hazards of sharing the road with bicycle riders.

It needs to be stated upfront that bicyclists have every right to use the roadway and the drivers of cars, trucks and motorized vehicles need to respect that right, but there is clearly great risk for anyone riding the bikes on a two-lane road with many curves, questionable sight lines, narrow passages, small or non-existent shoulders in many areas and the propensity for people to cut curves by driving too close to the shoulder and those who drive with excessive speed.

Some might suggest that one fatal accident over several or more years is not necessarily indicative of a problem, but others might respond that all it takes is one tragedy like this to highlight the inherent risks of riding a bicycle on Carbon Canyon Road.

As a sidelight, it should be pointed out that this is, at least, the fourth accident of significance on the Chino Hills side in just the last few weeks. A few Fridays back there was a two-car wreck at Canon Lane. Last Monday, a red Mustang with a crushed left side was off the road at the bottom of the S-curve on the eastbound side a little west of Old Carbon Canyon Road. Then, just a few days ago, there was a major accident at Canyon Hills Road, by the soon-to-be-opened Circle K, which required the "Jaws of Life" to literally cut a car in two to extract a person. Now, the fatality from yesterday is added to the list.

Carbon Canyon Road Closure Today!

2011-10-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

UPDATE, 3:00 P.M.: Carbon Canyon Road is open again as of 2:30 p.m. Presumably, there will be information on the fatal accident in the next issue of the Chino Hills Champion.

Carbon Canyon Road (State Route 142) has been closed from the Brea/Chino Hills border on the west because of a fatal traffic accident that has occurred somewhere in the vicnity of Carriage Hills. For those looking to go west from the Chino Hills side, the road is closed at Chino Hills Parkway and for those coming east from Brea, the closure is at the county line, although posted street signs and message boards warn of the closure from near the 57 Freeway and further east along Lambert. According to the Chino Hills emergency hotline, the road could be closed as late as 5:00 p.m. while the investigation into the fatality continues.

As of 11:51, the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon only has local resident access for Carriage Hills and Summit Ranch residents, with the former using Old Carbon Canyon Road and the latter using the Feldspar Drive access. While there was no indication as to access to other portions of the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon (namely, Sleepy Hollow, Mountain View Estates, Western Hills Oaks, Oak Tree Downs/Estates or Western Hills Mobile Home Estates, I was able to get to Sleepy Hollow from the Brea side and, upon driving east on the highway, found that Sheriff's deputies were blocking access only from Fairway Drive/Ginseng Lane, so access from Brea should be available to that point.

However, while the Chino Hills emergency hotline identifies the westbound closure from Chino Hills, the Brea hotline identifies the closure at the county line and DOES NOT specify resident access to the Chino Hills side up to Fairway/Ginseng. It is suggested to keep checking the two city hotlines.

For recorded information on road conditions, the City of Chino Hills hotline is (909) 364-2828. The City of Brea hotline is (714) 990-7732.

Soquel Canyon Shenanigans

2011-10-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

As has been noted previously here, Soquel Canyon, a place just moments from "civilization," is a world unto its own. Aside from an odd assortment of discards, including a trailer or two, and long disused ranching corrals, watering troughs and the like, the only signs of life generally were a few head of cattle raised on leased land by a local whose family has been doing such for many, many years.

A walk down Soquel Canyon Road from the Aerojet facility on the east to Olinda Village to the west, especially with a decent flow of water in the creek, can be a great tonic to settle the mind (or, perhaps, the soul) looking to break away from the everyday and enjoy a little isolation.

Recently, however, this isolation has brought some issues. The aforementioned lessor running cattle in Soquel, as well as throughout large section of Carbon, Canyon had noticed that there were unwelcome signs of new life down there. Namely, a resident of the Brea side of Carbon Canyon had purchased a landlocked ten-acre parcel, cut locks above Sleepy Hollow to access his holding, and stocked it with a fifth-wheel travel trailer, ATVs, motorcycles, and guns. Consequently, weekends became a time to party with ridin' and shootin' being some of the main sources of recreation. In addition, the owner decided to create his own apiary (regular readers will recall that bee-raising has been conducted in areas in and near Carbon Canyon in recent years.)

The problem was, however, that these activities not only affected the cattle being run in the canyon, and posed a tremendous fire danger, but were just plain illegal, especially the shooting. Finally, after the situation was made known to concerned community members, code enforcement personnel from the City of Chino Hills looked into the matter and communicated with the property owner, who was given to allowing friends and family to use the spread for their enjoyment.

After letters and personal contact made it clear that the use of the property violated any number of city codes, it has been reported that the property owner has removed virtually everything from the parcel, excepting a tractor and the bees. Hopefully, the situation will continue to be better and that the owner will confine activities on the land in question to those allowed for under code.

Arundoing and Other Doings

2011-10-03T22:09:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of weeks or so, work has been ongoing between Olinda Village and the old La Vida Mineral Springs property on the Brea side of Carbon Canyon in the removal of dead biomass from the arundo donax that had long been accumulating in Carbon [Canyon] Creek, but has been subject to an intensive eradication program given unintended assistance by the devastation of the November 2008 Freeway Complex fires.

Crews from a Lake Forest habitat restoration company called Nature's Image (see here) have been busily engaged in the tough task of cutting and hauling away of plant material, as the accompanying photographs, taken last week, show. These efforts will continue, presumably, for some time, even as new stands of arundo have arisen and will have to be treated.

Meantime, on Chino Hills State Park property alongside Carbon Canyon Road east of the new Discovery Center, work details from the Inland Empire division of the California Conservation Corps (see here for more on the local center of this organization, which has served California since 1976) are doing cleanup work with unwanted plant material.

And, in recent weeks, CalTrans has been on the Orange County portion of Carbon Canyon Road, removing dead trees from as far as near the Chino Hills border to the rehabilitated El Rodeo Stables, where the remnants of very tall, but also very dead trees, burned in the 2008 fires, were probably a risk to those driving on the highway. CalTrans crews have also been very busy over the last week or so putting down ribbons of asphalt to seal cracks that have long been worsening on SR-142.

Finally, workers have also been quite busy along the highway working on power lines and poles, so the amount of maintenance activity recently has been quite impressive.

Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center Open House This Saturday

2011-09-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, 1 October from 9 to 11:30 a.m., there will be an open house at the new Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center at 4500 Carbon Canyon Road, adjacent to Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea. Though there was a "soft opening" a few months back, this is the official kick-off for those portions of the building that are finished. The exhibit galleries are awaiting completion, but other sections will be available for viewing and there is a self-guided nature trail to explore, as well.

Also of note is an event the weekend of 8-9 October over at the Rolling M Ranch section of the park in Chino Hills in which there will be an evening program on owls at 7 p.m. on Saturday night as well as an overnight camping outing at the group camp on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. While the owl program is free (with a $4 parking fee to enter the park), the camping outing is $10 per person or $8 for groups of four or more.

Meantime, remember that anyone wanting to hike, bike, or run in the state park can park on the site and use the restrooms during the normal operating hours of the park.

For the Chino Hills State Park Interpretive Association Web page concerning this event, please click here. For the owl program and camping opportunity, please click here.

Canyon Crest Public Hearing Next Tuesday

2011-09-28T23:58:00.000-07:00

Received just today in the mail is a "Notice of Public Hearing" from the City of Brea concerning the long-running saga of Canyon Crest, a 165-unit housing development proposed for 367 acres in the northeastern corner of the city within Carbon Canyon north of Carbon Canyon Road (State Route 142) between Olinda Village and the Orange/San Bernardino counties line.

Last heard from in 2008 when the city's Planning Commission narrowly approved the project on a 3-2 vote, just days before the economic collapse in which we are still mired and a few months before the disastrous Freeway Complex fires that roared through the area, Canyon Crest also was stunted by the loss of the property by developers, The Shopoff Group. New owners, Old Standard Insurance Company, which loaned money to Shopoff, however, announced its intention to pursue the project back in 2009.

Now comes the public hearing next Tuesday, 4 October at 7:00 p.m. before the City Council. The technical description of the process involved is Appeal of Development Review (CCSP) No. DR 08-01, Vesting Tentative Tract Map No. TT 15956 and Final Environmental Impact Report No. EIR 02-01.

Also noted in the notice was that:

it is anticipated that the City Council will receive a report from staff, updating them on the status of the appeal application, informing them that the development applicant is now prepared to complete the appeal hearing process, and that the Council will be providing staff its desired direction regarding the entitlement-CEQA processing options.

This desire of the developer to continue the approval process, however, is being appealed by former Mayor and Council member Bev Perry and others from the Planning Commission decision. This matter was to come before the Council in 2008 before the Shopoff Group lost the property.

The italicized paragraph above, though, makes it appear that little of consequence will happen at next Tuesday's meeting aside from a staff report and then a Council motion for direction to city staff on the "entitlement-CEQA processing options," which seems technicaleze (is that a word?) for how the city could approve the project based on mitigation for unavoidable environmental impacts.

Not that the city has any legal (or moral, if that is relevant) obligation to seek for or approve such mitigation, but . . .

More on this after the meeting.

The Rebirth of El Rodeo Stables

2011-09-27T23:57:00.000-07:00

Next year will mark 75 years since El Rodeo Stables opened at its location on Carbon Canyon Road in Brea, east of the Olinda Ranch subdivision and north of Carbon Canyon Regional Park. It was looking rundown and poorly maintained until the last several months when the horse owners association, El Rodeo Riding Club, that owns the site brought in new management and has engaged in a thorough revamping of much of the site's facilities.

For example, two sets of stalls at either end of the riding areas have been rebuilt and are now lighted. Horses fill the stalls and there are trailers lined up along the side facing the road. It is great to see riders again, as well.

Local horse owners looking for a place to board (these are becoming fewer all the time) would be glad to know about the renovations at El Rodeo, which looks like it has rebounded considerably from just a year ago.

The association Web site hasn't had much to say so far about the new work, but interested persons might want to check out the site at later date (see the link here) to find out if more has been posted.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #s 8132 & 8278

2011-09-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a quiet last couple of months in the Canyon concerning accidents, which is always good. That's not to say there haven't been any incidents, just none that seemed to be major enough to bother to mention or which were not indicative of dangerous driving. For example, last Friday late afternoon there was a two-car collision at Canon Lane and Carbon Canyon Road that looked like a miscalculation rather than blatant speeding or illegal passing.

In the last several days or so, though, there were a couple of examples of errant traveling that indicate too much speed, especially on the notorious S-curve near Carriage Hills and Summit Ranch on the Chino Hills side. In one case, an eastbound vehicle took the curve about half-way down the stretch with enough force to nearly topple a directional sign while embedding a piece of the car's body in the guardrail. Just a few feet to the right, the end of the rail, which often bears the brunt of someone who cannot manage to take the curve but insists on going straight, is getting pushed back further and further. Meanwhile, more recently (as in, this weekend), down at the bottom of the curve across from the intersection of SR-142 and Old Carbon Canyon Road, another eastbound car crossed the opposing lane and took out a 25mph sign.

Let's hope that people are, indeed, driving more carefully, rather than the relative silence being circumstantial.

1924 Map of Olinda Oil Field and Surrounding Areas, Part 2

2011-09-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

In the 1924 map discussed first a few days back, the focus was on oil production in the Fullerton field, but which was mainly developed in the Olinda area. Eventually, attention will be paid to the Olinda section of the map, but there are outlying areas of interest.

The detail [click the maps for closer views] below, for instance, shows the area known as Tres Hermanos Ranch, controlled by the "three brothers," Harry Chandler, longtime publisher of the Los Angeles Times and powerful real estate mogul; William R. Rowland, son of early San Gabriel Valley rancher John Rowland (owner of half of the massive Rancho La Puente), two-time sheriff of Los Angeles County, and part-owner of the Puente Oil Company, which first began operations on Rowland's share of La Puente ranch in 1885; and William Benjamin Scott, another oil operator, whose connections to Olinda were substantial, and who also owned the historic Soto-Sanchez Adobe in Montebello. As shown below, the trio owned section 12 and a good chunk of section 1, with the dotted lines indicating the county boundaries between Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. Note, too, that the lands of F. E. Lewis, creator of the Diamond Bar Ranch in the 1910s is to the west, while properties owned by the heirs of Louis Phillips at the top and top right are within the City of Pomona.

This detail of a 1924 map of oil lands in the Fullerton district also embraces outlying areas, such as Tonner Canyon and the Tres Hermanos Ranch, shown here in sections 1 and 12 with the names of its owners, Harry Chandler, William B. Scott, and William R. Rowland, and Diamond Bar Ranch (owner: F. E. Lewis). Courtesy: Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry.

Phillips, born in Poland, migrated to America in the late 1840s and soon found his way to Gold Rush-era Los Angeles. After ranching near the San Gabriel River, he moved to Rancho San Jose to serve as manager for the interests of the new owners of the southern half of the ranch, Tischler and Schlessinger, but quickly acquired the parcel. After residing for about a decade in the ranch house of the original owner, Ricardo Vejar, who lost the lower San Jose to Tischler and Schlessinger during the drought years of the early 1860s, Phillips built a French Second Empire brick residence in 1875 that survives as the Phillips Mansion in Pomona. The structure is partly restored and occasionally opened by the Historical Society of the Pomona Valley, which manages the site for the City of Pomona. The area shown on this map is partly within the Phillips Ranch neighborhood within Pomona.

Meanwhile, another section of the map just to the east of the above example, shows the northeast extremity of the range of territory covered in the document. As can be seen, most of the land on the San Bernardino County side of the boundary fell within the ownership of the Chino Land and Water Company. As discussed in many postings on this blog concerning the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, this firm was formed in 1900 after the ranch was lost by Richard Gird, owner of the ranch from 1881 and founder of the City of Chino. Led by Edwin Marshall, the Chino Land and Water Company revamped the town, which incorporated in 1910, and rededicated itself to the management of its large acreage in Chino and what became Chino Hills. In fact, section 7 of the map is essentially the area in and around Grand Avenue as it today's moves east from Tres Hermanos Ranch and downslope toward Chino Hills Park and back up another hill and down toward Peyton Drive. To the south all of the sections in the detail (13, 16-17, 19-20, 23-24) were Chino Land and Water Company property.

A broader view of the above image showing portions of Rancho Santa Ana del Chino as mainly owned by the Chino Land and Water Company, but with two sections held by Valentine Peyton, a railroad president, mining executive, citrus grower and rancher, for whom Peyton Drive in Chino Hills and Peyton Road in La Verne are named. Courtesy: Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry.

But, there is an interesting area within section 8 involving land owned by the man who became the namesake of the only major arterial roadway in today's Chino Hills named for a person. While residents of the city, of course, know Peyton Drive very well, few likely have any idea of where the name comes from. The story is fascinating and worth a little diversion here.

Valentine Peyton was born in April 1845 near Danville, Illinois, close to the Indiana border and east of Champaign. His mother hailed from Clinton County, Ohio, northeast of Cincinnati, and his father was born in the wonderfully-named Apple Pie Ridge, Virginia, northwest of Washington, D. C. He was one of ten children born to Joseph Peyton and Priscilla Cass and his father was a farmer who made shoes off-season and who served as Vermillion County Sheriff. Valentine remained in Danville until his late twenties, working first as a sewing machine store clerk and then as a merchant, achieving some wealth in his hometown before moving to Chetopa, Kansas, in the southeast part of the state west of Joplin, Missouri, where he married and had a daughter. He had moved there, following his older brother, Isaac, who was a successful real estate agent in Danville before going to Kansas and then relocated to Saguache, Colorado, west of Pueblo in the south-central part of the state, where he was a newspaper publisher, hotel proprietor and salesman and was elected to the state legislature. By 1880, Valentine, whose wife had died, trailed Isaac to Saguache with his child and went into the cattle dealing business.

Issac Peyton, meantime, had a nasty little issue when he experienced financial problems and was the subject of an arrest warrant that may have been connected to the monetary difficulties. Escaping Saguache with his wife, Isaac hightailed it to St. Louis and then suddenly abandoned his wife and skipped town. Only when Valentine wrote to the wife in his brother's stead did she learn she was being abandoned. Issac then surfaced in Washington Territory, specifically the eastern city of Spokane. By the mid-1880s, Isaac had gotten involved in local banks and became a major player in town, except that he had taken an alias, Colonel G. H. Morgan. When he tried to remarry, however, he had to reveal his actual name, which was published in the paper. His earlier wife found out, however, and brought some unwanted publicity that led to Isaac's arrest for bigamy. The matter was eventually settled with a cash payment and a legal divorce from the first wife, while Isaac resumed his role as a leading citizen of Spokane, bulding a prominent downtown commercial building in 1898 that still stands. In fact, his son was a prominent investment banker there and a grandson, president of the Spokane School Board for many years, died in 2010. Astute readers of the blog will note that the current owner of the moribund, but not dead, Canyon Crest housing project in the Brea portion of Carbon Canyon, is an insurance company, Old Standard, based in Spokane.

Isaac Peyton, then, became, in fall 1890, a major investor in a gold mining venture at the LeRoi Mine in Rossland, British Columbia, Canada, north of Spokane and just over the international boundary line, but solicited his younger brother, Valentine, who had moved back to Danville and earned a good income as a wholesale grocer, to purchase a large share of the stock, totaling $25,000, in the project. Consequently, Valentine was, for a time, president of the mining company. In 1898, however, a British mining conglomerate made a princely offer on the LeRoi mine, which was sold for about $4 million. As a major partner, who gradually accumulated over 71.000 shares sold for $6 each, Valentine made a substantial profit and decided to pull up stakes and leave Danville for Los Angeles.

The reason he migrated west is because of an offer that arose to buy one of the most unusual railroads in the world, the Mount Lowe Railway. The funicular rail, operated by cable up very steep grades in the San Gabriel Mountains above Altadena near Pasadena, was the brainchild of Thaddeus Lowe, best known before as the creator of the ballooning corps for the Union Army during the Civil War. In 1893, Lowe conceived of the Mount Lowe project and, against staggering odds in terms of geography and financing, got the line built, open and operating as part of a resort that featured hotels, dance pavilions and other elements. After several years, however, he was no longer able to maintain control of the railroad and it went into foreclosure. Notably, the assignee who handled the sale was Jared Sidney Torrance, a major player at Rancho Santa Ana del Chino. Valentine Peyton had an agent work to buy the Mount Lowe Railroad in May 1899 for $190,000 and then migrated out to run the business, renamed the Pasadena and Mount Lowe Railroad.

Peyton bought a house in a fashionable upscale neighborhood near Westlake (now MacArthur) Park, with his second wife and three children, and was listed in the 1900 federal census as a railroad president. He was given brief mention in the 1916 memoir of prominent Los Angeles merchant, Harris Newmark, who in his Sixty Years in Southern California, a major resource of the 1850s through 1910s in Los Angeles, referred to Peyton as "my agreeable neighbor and friend." Unfortunately, the cost of running the Mount Lowe resort and railroad line was staggering and a major fire in early February 1900 took out the Echo Mountain House hotel. Consequently, within two years of buying the business, in June 1901, Peyton sold it to Henry E. Huntington, railroad titan and founder of the museum in San Marino that bears his name.

In the meantime, it would appear that Peyton's connection to Jared S. Torrance led to his purchase of land on the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino's northwest corner, from about where the 60 and 71 freeways meet southward. Given that he remained a resident in Los Angeles, it might be that Peyton ran cattle or sheep on his ranch, but another notable project came his way. By 1901, Peyton had become a director of the McKinley Home for Boys, a school for delinquent youth. Within a few years, in early 1907, he was named Chairman of the Board of Directors of the George Junior Republic, a new facility for troubled boys that had just acquired land on the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino immediately south of Peyton's portion of the ranch. This institution is now Boys Republic.

It is not yet known how long Peyton held onto his Chino ranch property, but, in fall 1906, he acquired 200 acres of ranch land in the town of Lordsburg, now La Verne, and created the Evergreen Ranch, where he raised oranges in conjunction with his son, Robert, who had been an automobile agency owner in Los Angeles. Peyton continued to maintain his permanent residence in Los Angeles and made shrewd real estate deals in downtown, such as a 1909 purchase of the Los Angeles Trust Company building there.

In La Verne, Peyton became a prominent person, building the La Verne Orange Packing House, a concrete structure finished in 1910, that still stands at the southeast corner of 1st and D streets, though the building was sold within a few years to a lemon-growing cooperative. It is now used by the Art Department of the University of La Verne. He continued to own the Evergreen Ranch for many years and, late in life, moved out to the ranch at D Street north of Bonita Avenue. Years later, when housing tracts replaced the orange trees a street called Peyton Road was built running east to west through the old ranch property.

Peyton's second wife died in 1925 and the aged rancher and capitalist was listed in the 1930 federal census as a resident of Evergreen Ranch on D St., but, at age 85, described as "mentally incapacitated," likely a reference to senility or dementia (what we would call Alzheimer's Disease.) He died in 1932 and is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, known mainly for its many film stars and other celebrities interred there.

More soon about other portions of this great map.

Carbon Canyon Resident Brush Drop Off Day This Saturday

2011-09-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

Though grant funding recently expired for a long-term project concerning a fuel reduction program, which allowed the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council to arrange for brush pick-ups for residents on the Chino Hills side of the Canyon, a new arrangement has been made by the Council with the City of Chino Hills.

This Saturday, the 24th, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., Canyon residents will be able to bring cut brush to a drop-off location at Western Hills Park on Canon Lane, across from Fire Station 64, just north of Carbon Canyon Road. There, a green waste dumpster provided by Chino Hills Disposal and paid for by the city will be available for off-loading the material.

It is important to note that all contents MUST BE BUNDLED and that those dropping off brush are to be prepared to do their own unloading. For persons with special needs, there will be Fire Safe Council volunteers to assist.

Because this is a free service offered to Canyon residents, it is also essential that those taking part provde residency by bringing their driver's license, utility bill or Canyon emergency access pass.

With the fall coming and Santa Ana winds fueling the potential for dangerous fires within the Canyon and in adjacent areas, keeping up on the removal of brush assists greatly in mitigating some of the risk.

For those who cannot get their brush to the collection date this weekend, there'll be another time to do so next month, specifically Saturday, 22 October.

More information can be obtained by calling (909) 902-5280, extension 409.

1924 Oil Map of Olinda Oil Field and Surrounding Areas, Part One

2011-09-15T23:59:00.001-07:00

This 1924 map shows a wide area from La Puente, Walnut, Diamond Bar and Pomona on the north to Anaheim, Placentia and Fullerton to the south and from La Habra on the west to Chino on the east. Among its many details are roads, railroad lines, historic rancho boundaries, property owners and, the core of the object, oil wells.

This detail of a 1924 map of the Fullerton oil field shows an area to the north including portions of Walnut, City of Industry, and Diamond Bar. Courtesy: Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry.

This first post looks at some of the details of the very large map, starting from the northern sections. The view above shows the area from Walnut and Diamond Bar at the top down into Tonner Canyon and towards Brea Canyon at the bottom. At the top left is a portion of Rancho La Puente, including a subdivision created by William R. Rowland, son of the ranch's original co-owner, John Rowland. In fact, a small adobe house built by Rowland as a residence for ranch workers survives in Lemon Creek Park in Walnut, within the subdivision.

Just below that, between the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific rail lines is "Swan's Subdivision." Henry A. Swan has been mentioned before in this blog concerning property he owned further south within lower Tonner Canyon. The Swan tract appears to be west of Brea Canyon Road within Walnut and City of Industry.

Sections four, nine and sixteen, meanwhile, were ranch lands of Alvin T. Currier, a Los Angeles County sheriff and state senator, who bought his property in 1869. About forty years later, he built a large home that was moved, several years ago and at great expense, by the City of Industry to the Phillips Mansion historic site in Pomona as Industry was developing the old Currier Ranch between Valley Boulevard, the 57 Freeway, Grand Avenue and the 60 Freeway.

But, the biggest landowner shown on the map, in parts or all of ten sections, was Frederick E. Lewis, who created the Diamond Bar Ranch. Note on sections 16 and 20 that two oil companies were leasing from Lewis, including Gold Seal Petroleum Company and Copa de Oro. There is an Olinda Village street by that name, though it is not known if there was a direct connection between the firm and the naming of the street four decades later.

Another curious detail is in sections three and ten, where a rectangular parcel set at an angle was used as the "Pomona City Sewer Farm"! This appeared to have been somewhere just east of today's 57 Freeway near Grand Avenue.

There are only a few oil well sites in this portion of the map. One is referred to as the Currier well at the lower left of section nine. Another, at the lower right of section sixteen, is a Gold Seal site. The third, at the upper right of section seventeen, is labeled "Fundenberg Well." This refers to W. F. Fundenberg, a Pennsylvania man who owned most of Tonner Canyon at one time (an earlier blog post discusses him in some detail) before it was sold and became Tres Hermanos.

Next another close-up or two (including more on Tonner Canyon) of this fascinating and richly detailed map from nearly eighty years ago.

Artistic Expression in the Face of . . . Religious Fervor . . . Coda?

2011-09-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

The philosophical debate between the true believer who expressed a whimsical platitude on a k-rail on the north side of Carbon Canyon Road on the downslope west of Olinda Village a while back, to which a confirmed atheist bluntly sprayed the symbolic "A" over the word "faith" not long after, has been firmly and decisively ended, it appears, by a work crew from CalTrans District 12.

Sometime in recent days, a coat of gray paint was applied to the k-rail, which has resumed its mundane appearance as it does its routine job of, presumably, keeping people from exiting the road to dump trash or do whatever else they would at the turn out.

Whether this is the end or if there'll be a resumption of the theological "tilting at windmills" remains to be seen (or not.)

Towers of Terror in Chino Hills: The Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project

2011-09-13T23:57:00.000-07:00

UPDATE, 10 November: This is really old news, because the decision was made about mid-October by the California Public Utilities Commission to halt the Tehachapi project within Chino Hills on two grounds. The first was to address concerns about the height of the towers and their proximity to Chino Airport so that the design can be amended to protect aircraft. The other, however, is of greater significance because the ruling seeks to limit the activation of any part of the project that has towers less than 1000 feet from residences--a condition that involves a great many houses in Chino Hills. This latter point has been cheered by local opponents of the project, who have either sought to have the lines moved to largely run through Chino Hills State Park or be rerouted underground. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for the project in light of this recent decision, especially when the same CPUC approved the project and construction has been ongoing.

UPDATE, 16 September: An e-mail was received yesterday from Assembly member Curt Hagman, in which he noted that, regarding the battle over the Tehachapi project, "this has been a long and frustrating process, but we will continue to fight for the safety and beauty of our community. We cannot give up!" Hagman continued by writing, "I urge you to contact Governor Brown to express your concerns and outrage. Let your voice be heard!" A sample letter was attached for concerned citizens to use in writing to the governor.

In the letter, it is claimed that, "a projected amount of up to $2.5 billion of home values will be lost in Chino Hills." Reference was also made to recent statements by the National Transportation Safety Board criticizing the California Public Utilities Commission, the agency oveseeing the Tehachapi project from a regulatory standpoint, for its role in last year's horrific gas pipe line explosion at San Bruno. The NTSB did assign the "probable cause" to Pacific Gas and Electric for not meeting existing standards during that line's 1956 construction and for poor maintenance since, while identifying the CPUC and the federal Department of Transportation as "contributing" to the disaster by exempting the line from later maintenance standards, such as pressure testing, that could have prevented the exploosion. Moreover, a blanket statement about the CPUC having a "'buddy' relationship with utility companies" was added to the mix.

Also of note is the statement that, "the City of Chino Hills has spent $2.4 million to identify and design a viable alternative route that had the support of environmentalists. That route was through Chino Hills State Park, Alternate 4CM." It should be noted that some of those funds have been expended in paying for litigation, as well as for the alternative design process.

The core message of the letter is, "what are we to do when a big monopolistic corporation and our own state government ignore our pleas, and disregard the safety of our families and property values for their own profit?" It asks the governor to visit Chino Hills and "tour the devastation . . . forced upon our community" and concludes, "we desperately need your immediate help."

For more from Assembly member Hagman's Web site, see here.
ORIGINAL POST: This has been a battle years in the making, but, because the issue was not (seemingly) specifically about Carbon Canyon, it has been kept off this blog. In the last several days, however, a banner has appeared at the top of the S-curve along Carbon Canyon Road in Chino Hills. Because drivers might see it and have no idea what it refers to (the banner not mentioning the actual dispute in question), however, here's an attempt to examine the matter, hopefully fairly.

After years of planning, Southern California Edison (SCE) proposed a project (see here) known as the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP), a massive endeavor that, as the company's Web site explains, "is the first major transmission project in California being constructed specifically to access multiple renewable generators in a remote renewable-rich resource area." In plain English, this means that wind energy generators in the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area of Kern County are generating renewable energy that will be trasmitted some 175 miles on new lines strung between massive towers. In spring 2007, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved the first segments of the project and there are now a total of eleven of these segments stretching from eastern Kern County to San Bernardino County, specifically the Mira Loma substation in Ontario. CPUC approval came in fall 2009 for the project affecting this area. For more on the CPUC's views on the TRTP, see here. There is also an undated (likely before the 2007 initial CPUC decision) two-page fact sheet here.

The impetus for this project comes from the state's call for having a fifth of California's energy come from renewable sources by 2010. This mandate represents one of the most ambitious efforts in the United States regarding renewable energy development, but has, naturally, stirred controversy up and down the political spectrum.

Notably, the current project of segments 4-11 that is dealt with here affects three cities in San Bernardino County (Chino, Chino Hills and Ontario), three in Kern County, and about 25 in Los Angeles County. Chino Hills, however, has been the focus of some of the most heated debates, protests, and challenges about and to the project, as the expansion brings 200-foot tall "monster" towers on 150 foot wide easements that come very close to homes in several tracts and subdivisions within the city.

Over the last few years, though, the City of Chino Hills has sought legal remedies for its efforts to halt the project (see here for the City's Web site page dedicated to the TRTP). It has repeatedly lost cases in the courts, as it seeks to have alternate routes chosen for the TRTP, with a favored route redirecting the line through Chino Hills State Park to keep effects on residential communities to a minimum. Even though construction has been continuing from west to east, with towers recently completed between Chino Hills Parkway and Peyton Drive as the project moves into Chino, the city continues to fight, to the tune of some $2.5 million.

Just today, city leaders, joined by concerned community members and state Assembly representative Curt Hagman (R-Chino Hills) and Senator Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) had a press conference/protest next to one of the "monster" towers.

A few months ago, a citizens' group, formerly known as C.A.R.E. and now going by the moniker of "Hope for the Hills" (not to be confused with the Hill of Hope religious facility in Carbon Canyon at the Chino Hills/Brea border!), rededicated its grass-roots efforts to fight the TRTP. Hence the banner appearing recently along Carbon Canyon Road. Care for the Hills has a Web site (see here) that lays out its position.

This is an issue loaded with all kinds of views and opinions. It is entirely understandable that those residents whose homes are adjacent and close to these "monster" towers are upset. Some people believe there are health risks associated with electro-magnetic field levels. Others worry about the potential for tower collapses and exposed wires. There are people concerned about the noise that would be generated by the electrical current traveling along the lines. Still more question the legitimacy of "green energy" and the benefits of wind power relative to conventional energy sources. Some are unhappy with the jurisdiction given legislatively to the CPUC (a position so far upheld by state courts). Others claim that there are overly cozy relations between the Commission and SCE. Many feel that an alternative route through Chino Hills State Park is reasonable, while the state parks department and park supporters point out that the open space purpose of CHSP is completely incompatible with such an alternative (especally given the fact that the removal of old decomissioned Edison towers, mandated in the 1982 park creation agreement, only just finally happened after years of wrangling.)

Pragmatically, the project has been underway for a significant period and the towers through Chino Hills are gradually approaching completion, although the installation of power lines and the firing up of the transmission system is a way off. The 4th District of the state Court of Appeals has, again, affirmed the CPUC's jurisdiction in dealing with project and it seems highly unlikely that the state Supreme Court would rule any differently if the City of Chino Hills, which has already spent $2.5 million, were to continue to press its claim. It just seems a virtual impossibility that anything can be done at this late stage to halt and redirect the project.

In a matter as contested as this one, laden with all kinds of politicized viewpoints, it will indeed be interesting to see how far the City and the Hope for the Hills organization carry their campaign and how the project will be viewed a few years and longer down the road.

Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center Opens (Partially)

2011-09-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

UPDATE, 13 September: Here are some important clarifying comments from Hills for Everyone regarding the new Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center:

The parking lot and restrooms are now open during the day but the hours will be reduced starting October 1st. Staff will be on site Friday through Monday (when most people visit). The whole park will be closed Tuesdays through Thursdays due to budget cuts. As you may know, 70 state parks are experiencing full closures and all remaining state parks are reducing services.

There will be an Open House at the Center on October 1st from 9:00- 11:30 to explain park passes and future exhibits.

The parking lot will not ever be paved – it is a permeable surface that allows recharge of the water table.

These last two sections are good to know; first, that there'll be an Open House for visitors to learn more about the Center, its operations and its future; and, second, that the parking lot was not meant to be paved, but has the important environmental feature of water collection and recharge.

Thanks to Hills for Everyone for providing the clarification.

ORIGINAL POST:

The new summer issue of the Hills for Everyone newsletter, among several interesting items of note, reports that "at long last the Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center . . . has opened its parking lot and restrooms for business."

Though the project began several years ago with funding from a state bond issue and was to have been completed long before now, the structure is finished and a new concrete sign is up, though the parking lot is still mostly unpaved and the interior exhibits are not done.

According to the HFE periodical, the parking area and restrooms "will generally be open Tuesday-Friday through September 30th," though that seems to indicate that it could be closed at any given time. Because of budget issues, however, access to these areas will be limited to Friday through Monday.

The unpaved parking area and partially available (that is, opened restrooms) building of the Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center in Brea, as viewed this morning.

Beyond that, there is no indication so far of whether the lot will be paved soon, when exhibits might be installed and opened, or whether there is any idea whether the park could be shut down entirely if the budget worsens.

Another question involves parking on Carbon Canyon Road, which many persons have done to avoid paying the $5.00 entry fee into Carbon Canyon Regional Park, which was the previous official entry point into the park from the Brea side. It had been stated that, once the Discovery Center opened, parking tickets would be issued to those who conitnued to park on the highway. Whether this is true now is not clear.

At any rate, when the park is opened, parking will be available for several dozen cars, more than can squeeze onto the road's shoulder (or block the emergency phone at a pullout on the eastbound side of the highway) and it is free.

Given the state's dire fiscal situation and all the news about state park closures and budget cuts, it seems somewhat incongruous to see a newly-built structure partially open and, in a few weeks time, at a reduced schedule. Such is the nature of bond funding (with all the accrued interest that will, somehow, have to be paid off in the future.)

Carbon Canyon Historical Artifact #24

2011-09-10T23:58:00.001-07:00

On the face of it, it is not a particularly striking item, but it's still part of the canyon's history. This is a matchbook from La Vida Mineral Springs, possibly from as early as the 1960s, but maybe from the following decade.

Actually, the silver lettering on the royal blue background is somewhat eye-catching. On the front flap is the name of the resort and the listing of its offerings, including the old cottages that sat on the west side of the property, the hotel that was on the east side across a footbridge that spanned Carbon [Canyon] Creek and the cafe that was attached to the hotel. Interestingly, the text includes a notation that the Springs was "7 miles east of Brea, Calif.," even though it is and has been for decades within the City of Brea, but the reference was obviously to the old downtown on Brea Boulevard north of Imperial Highway.

The back cover, to which the strike is attached, notes that "For General Health[,] Try Our Natural Hot Soda Mineral Baths" and that the resort also offered "Complete Physio-Therapy Dept." Finally, on the top edge is the addition that the facility had an "Olympic Size Heated Swimming Pool." It appears that this pool was added to the resort in the late 1950s.

So, it's a small, perhaps insignificant item, but there were probably many of these handed out and used in the cottages, hotel, cafe and out by the pool over some years at La Vida. Sometime soon, there'll be a few more items to post from the resort.

Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 9

2011-08-31T23:57:00.000-07:00

With the end of the nineteenth-century, the hurried activity at the Olinda Oil Field, Orange County's first such center of petroleum prospecting, continued unabated. For Olinda Ranch founder William Hervey Bailey, this meant further manueverings to protect and maximize his interests. As noted previously, Bailey created the Olinda Oil Company and then assisted in the organization of the Richfield Oil Company. But, by late 1899, he engineered the formation of the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company, which appeared to be a front for the powerful Union Oil Company. Still, the legal issues continued.

In the 22 July 1900 issue of the Los Angeles Times, it was noted that "disputed ownership of territory in the Fullerton [really Olinda] field promises to result within a short time in the opening of litigation involving the property of nearly every company in the district." In this instance, this had to do with discrepancies in surveys affecting the boundary of land controlled by two entities: the Fullerton Oil Company and the Fullerton Consolidated Oil Company, the latter controlled by Charles Victor Hall, who was profiled here a while back.

As to Bailey's own consolidated firm, the issue had a short notice that "The Olinda Consolidated is moving a rig to the old Carlton township," indicating an interest in developing its operations further south and perhaps east of its main concentration in the area in and around today's Carbon Canyon Regional Park.

There was other interesting local news. For example, the new Soquel Canyon Oil Company (a stock certificate of which was highlighted in this blog some time back), sunk its first well, but found trouble in drilling, so pulled the rig and started a second one nearby. This company, while working in the area where Soquel and Carbon canyons meet, near Olinda Village and the Hollydale Mobile Home Park, believed it had oil prospects because of successful wells on the same geological "strike" as that of the Columbia and Fullerton companies. By 1902, however, the Soquel Canyon firm went belly-up as its wells turned up dry.

Meanwhile, further east and south, it was announced that "a large corps of surveyors has been at work on Chino ranch land in Telegraph Cañon . . . good oil conditions exist there." Telegraph Canyon is the main east-west canyon that runs along the north portion of Chino Hills State Park and some interesting history there will someday be added to this blog.
A little more than a mohth later, on 31 August 1900, the Times announced further news concerning W. H. Bailey's Olinda activities. Some 4,400 acres of land was purchased by Bailey and partners for yet another oil firm, the Olinda Crude Oil Company. This company's capitalization was much higher than Bailey's earlier endeavors, totaling $2 million, and featured a larger pool of investors. These included prominent Los Angeles businessmen like Abraham Haas, Herman Baruch, H. H. Kerckhoff, M. A. Hamburger, S. H. Mott, F. W. Braun (men involved in wholesale grocery, furniture, and pharmaceutical enterprises) and Times publisher Harry Chandler. Its directors also featured banker Herman W. Hellman, lumberman William H. Perry, Braun, Baruch and, of course, Bailey.

Some of the new concern's lands were oil producing under lease to the Columbia and Fullerton companies and 10% of the 4,400 acres were under lease and new wells were being drilled on those, while the remaining company-owned land was to be thoroughly investigated for new wells paid for by the Olinda Crude entity. By early January 1901, in fact, the Times reported that its first well struck oil at 740 feet.

This was Bailey's last oil company on the ranch he founded in 1887. His oil-prospecting enterprise seems to have had some success over the years, although it was again reconstituted, using the name Olinda Land Company. State oil reports in 1918 and 1921 noted that the firm had ten, then eleven, wells and was under the leadership of Bailey's son, William, Jr. Meantime, in October 1906, remaining land at the Olinda Ranch was sold by Bailey to Jacob Stern, the highly successful German-born Jewish merchant, born in Saxony in 1859, who came to America in 1884 and went first to New York, then Cleveland, where he spent five years in the clothing business.

Stern arrived at Fullerton in 1889 and opened the Stern and Goodman mercantile house on Spadra Avenue, now Harbor Boulevard, building an impressive business building there. Stern and Goodman had branch stores at Anaheim, Placentia and Olinda and eventually controlled fully 75% of all the hay and grain business in the area. While Goodman attended to the store, Stern branched out into hay and grain dealing and real estate through a Los Angeles office. He emerged as a particularly successful and under-recognized real estate investor, having stakes in Yorba Linda (much of the town was founded on his holdings); Placentia; Whittier; Corona; Pomona; Santa Ana; Sunset Beach (just now absorbed into Huntington Beach); one-half of the famed Rancho Cucamonga, which he leased to Charles Victor Hall of Olinda renown; other lands in Los Angeles, Kern, Imperial, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Fresno counties; and, finally, in Mexico, Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas! At one time, he owned some 20,000 acres.

In 1918, Stern and Goodman liquidated their store, while keeping the valuable Fullerton building. Stern also had oil lands in Placentia (the old Richfield townsite) which he leased to General Petroleum Corporation. After living in Fullerton until 1904, Stern moved to a palatial residence on five acres in what was then a rural outpost west of Los Angeles called Hollywood. In fact, his property was at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street! As to his Olinda land, Stern paid $140,000 and planned to subdivide it into fivce, ten and twenty acre tracts.

William Hervey Bailey lived a few years beyond the Stern sale and retained presidency of the Olinda Crude Oil Company until his death at age 64 on New Year's Day 1910 at the Lamanda Park Hospital in Pasadena after a year's battle with pneumonia. In a Times obituary, it was pointed out that "a little more than twenty years ago . . . he bought a large piece of land in the Fullerton district and organized the towns of Olinda and Richfield. At that time it was thought the land was most valuable because of the agricultural possibilities, and it was not for many years thereafter that its true worth was discovered through the striking of oil." Bailey's full-time residence remained in Oakland, but he had a room at the Hotel Melrose in Los Angeles. After he contracted pneumonia, it was decided to bring him back to Pasadena for the warmer winter climate than what was to be found in the Bay Area. Bailey was, however, interred with his parents and brother Edward at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.

Bailey's son, William, Jr., as noted above, took the reins of the company, which continued to operate some wells as well as receive lease income from other oil firms with producing wells. It doesn't appear that Olinda Land expanded during the son's tenure, but it maintained its operations, with some occasional indications of new success, such as a 1921 well, its twnety-third, "in an undeveloped section of Olinda and Chino Canyon," this latter seeming to mean either Carbon, Soquel or Telegraph canyon. But, in early 1938, Olinda Land Company voted to issue a liquidating dividend on its capital stock based upon "the sale of the company's real holdings in Orange county to the Shell Oil Company for $500,000." Other assets of the firm, basically in marketable securities, were also liquidated and distributed to the company's stockholders. After just over a half-century, the Bailey family's direct involvement at Olinda was concluded. Two years later, in July 1940, William H. Bailey, Jr., manager of the Olinda Land Company for almost three decades, died at age 66 at his West Los Angeles home and was buried at nearby Rosedale Cemetery.

With this entry, this series of Olinda Oil Field history comes to a close, although there will be much more to add about the field in later entries focusing of different subjects.

Mail Theft in Carbon Canyon

2011-08-30T23:57:00.000-07:00

UPDATE, 31 AUGUST: A comment was left today with this post, noting that last Thursday evening/Friday morning, mailboxes were also burglarized at Olinda Village and Hollydale Mobile Home Estates, so the reach of the thieves was much wider, though not surprisingly so, than noted below.

It's a bit of old news by now, but last Friday, a string of apparently-related mail theft occurred in several Carbon Canyon neighborhoods in Chino Hills stretching from Summit Ranch to Sleepy Hollow. In the latter, the area in and around several mailbox clusters near the community center was littered with discarded mail. It was probably the same, or largely so, in the other affected areas.

It has been stated that a resident of Mountain View Estates, off Canon Lane on the south side of Carbon Canyon Road not only had a Bank of America debit card just happen to arrive in the mail that day, but that the thieves were able to call the bank and change the password without having to answer security questions designed to prevent just that and then drain the account.

Notably, while mailboxes are federal property and are subject to criminal laws (see here) governing them and the mail in them, there is law and then there is enforcement and sometimes the twain definitely do not meet.

As an example, I have twice in the last few years had my mailbox physically removed from its clustered location and left lying on the ground or on a hillside slope by another resident who felt that it and several others of my neighbors were on his property. In the last incident, I had the privilege of driving several miles to the post office to pick up my mail, while the property owner, who lived in the High Desert area, didn't have to worry about whether his own tenants got their mail, because Big Brother was encroaching on his sacred domain. I was within a couple of days, even with an extension, of having my mail automatically returned to senders because of postal service policy preventing holding mail for longer than a couple of weeks.

Technically, in the ideal world, this type of action is against the law and would warrant actual enforcement against the perpetrator. In the real world, seeking assistance from federal representatives and agencies like the postal service and Representative Gary Miller's proved virtually futile. One helpful employee at the Chino Hills post office was willing to help get the property owner to talk to a few of us residents and the regular mail carrier had helpful advice and sympathy, but the final solution was negotiated by us rather than dealt with, as it should have been, by federal representatives using existing federal law crafted precisely to prevent these things from happening in the first place.

However, even in the best of economic times, the likelihood that action would be taken by federal postal inspectors (see here) on localized vandalism and theft would be remote anyway. Funding and staffing is undoubtedly insufficient to deal with the bigger crimes of mail fraud and theft, as it is. And, with declining usage of the mails, funding will continue to decline and services cut even further.

Fortunately, I shelled out the big bucks to get a locking mailbox with a specially-contoured delivery door that prevents being able to reach in and grab mail out, because at the time I was treasurer of an organization and received regular mail including checks and cash--though this is no longer the case. Ours was the only (or one of two, maybe) of the seven or so boxes that was so designed. Otherwise, it would seem that most households are on their own.

Otherwise, the best way to safeguard your mail is to rent a box at the post office or a privately-operated mail center. Interestingly, while the north side of Sleepy Hollow received, several years back, a postal service-installed cluster box system next to the Canyon Market, a similar system installed in the city-owned community center parking area was only here for a few days before the city insisted the postal service remove it. We still are using the old clusters (in my case, a simple piece of board attached to old metal posts that has probably been there for decades.)

It would probably be a lot more secure if the city and postal service could agree on a location for the locked cluster box like the other side of Sleepy Hollow has. As fpr the other neighborhoods hit by the theft, potential solutions could be a lot more difficult or impossible.

So, will anything come out of what amounted to probably dozens of vandalized mail boxes with who knows what amount of stolen mail? One would hope so, but given this blogger's past personal experience, it would be great to be pleasantly surprised, but . . .

Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 8

2011-08-29T23:55:00.000-07:00

As the Olinda oil field grew in importance in the waning years of the 19th-century, Olinda Ranch founder William Hervey Bailey continued to work to improve his position within the field. Having already sold or leased large portions of the ranch he established a decade prior during the fabled Boom of the Eighties, Bailey formed the Olinda Oil Company and the Richfield Oil Company.

In early October 1899, however, he moved to expand his reach, as announced by the Los Angeles Times in an article on the 3rd, which announced that "there seems no longer to be any doubt as to the important position Orange county [sic] is to occupy in the development of oil on this Coast." Referring to important sales of oil land in the area, the paper offered that "yet the general public has but little conception of the real extent to which the development of this industry is destined to go." In truth, the paper had little idea either, given the oil production had not seen the advent, in any major way, of the emerging automobile industry and the Wright brothers and their airplane were still a few years off.

Interestingly, the Times indicated that, while oil was found in Olinda only within the previous few years, "it was believed to be in very small quantities—scarcely enough top justify development." After, however, "several men with capital were attracted to this locality," lands deemed only usable for sheep grazing became highly prized for the petroleum potential.

This led to the news that "today four deeds were filed here transferring over eight thousand acres of oil land to the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company, the aggregate consideration being $340,000." The paper went on to state that "this land was formerly owned by W. S. Bailey, Jr.," though they certainly meant William H. Bailey, Sr., not his 26-year old son. The next sentence has a little syntax and grammar problem: "The Olinda Oil Company, the Richfield Oil Company, and the Olinda Ranch Company, the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company, has secured control of the oil interests of the other companies above mentioned." What this seems to mean is that the new consolidated firm absorbed all the interest in the former Olinda Ranch of the ranch company, as well as those of the Olinda and Richfield entities. The article closed by noting that "this company will make extensive developments in the oil district in this county during the next few months."

Just two days later, though, the Times reported "that the big oil deal a few days ago, by which the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company became the owner of more than 8000 acres of oil-bearing land in this county, and for which they paid $340,000, was made in the interest of the Union Oil Company." In addition, a Union Oil representative appeared before the Board of Supervisors in Santa Ana "to present a petition for permission to pay an oil pipe line from the oil wells back of Fullerton along certain county roads to the Alamitos beet-sugar factory." Moreover, it was observed that Union first proposed securing a right-of-way to Newport Beach, but "that the use of the wharf at Newport could not be procured." Further, the company intended to build the line from Los Alamitos (near where the San Gabriel River empties into the Pacific at the border of Seal Beach and Long Beach [and, therefore, at the junction of Orange and Los Angeles counties]) and over to the harbor at San Pedro, recently the subject of massive federal appropriations for creating a man-made port facility that led to the modern day Port of Los Angeles.

The following day, on 6 October, the Times noted that the Consolidated Olinda Oil Company filed its articles of incorporation at Santa Ana and that $500,000 of stock was to be issued, divided into 50,000 shares at a par value of $10 each. At the time, though, only $1,220 was subscribed among those stockholders who constituted the Board of Directors. These were William Hervey Bailey and T. V. Bakewell of Oakland, Ralph Jones and a Mr. Donzel of San Francisco and Bailey's brother-in-law, Warren Olney, Jr., also of Oakland. Notably, Bailey held $1,000 of the initial subscription amount, while Olney and Donzel took $100 and Bakewell and Jones but one share of $10 apiece.

A little sidenote of interest: Olney was married to Bailey's sister. His namesake father was from frontier Iowa and was a teacher (one of his students was the legendary Texas judge, Wyatt Earp) before serving in the Union Army in Missouri during the Civil War. Warren, Sr. earned a law degree from the University of Michigan and then migrated to San Francisco in 1868. Although a sucessful attorney and mayor of Oakland from 1903 to 1905, the senior Olney is perhaps best known as a founder with John Muir of the Sierra Club and wrote its first charter, as well as serving as vice-president. As to Olney, Jr., he also had a distinguished legal career as an attorney and served on the California Supreme Court from 1919 to 1921. The younger Olney's son, Warren III, continued the family tradition of law and was Assistant Attorney General under President Eisenhower in the 1950s and oversaw the criminal division of the Department of Justice. More well-known than them all, though, is Warren Olney IV, a longtime news reporter, anchorman, and radio personality in Los Angeles.

Back to Olinda. Readers of posts on Tonner Canyon will recall that the Union Oil Company, founded in Santa Paula by Pennsylvania veterans of the oil industry like Lyman Stewart, Thomas Bard and Wallace Hardison, will recall that Hardison's sister married William Benjamin Scott, one of the "three brothers" of Tres Hermanos Ranch in upper Tonner Canyon in Diamond Bar/Chino Hills, and founder of the Columbia Oil Company, which had a significant presence in Olinda. William Hervey Bailey's Consolidated Olinda Oil Company as a front of sorts for Union was further expounded upon by the Times in an editorial on 8 October 1899, when it referred to the recent deal with Consolidated as a transfer "from the Olinda Oil Company to the Union Oil Company." Because, "the latter is known to have very heavy capital," it was fully expected that Union was going to get its product from the field via pipelines to ports for transfer. This presaged a great boom for Olinda and, indeed, this was the case.

Yet, it is interesting to note that, on 13 October 1899, the Times reported that Consolidated Olinda filed a lawsuit against Columbia Oil, William Benjamin Scott, Wallace Hardison and others to take possession of 320 acres of land which it claimed it owned and which was said to be oil-bearing, as well as seeking $500 in damages. The outcome of that case has not been found by this blogger.

Meantime, in early November, the Southern California Railway petitioned Orange County's Board of Supervisors for a right-of-way across public roads because "it is the intention of the railroad to construct a branch from the Santa Ana Cañon to the location of the company's oil wells [the Santa Fe lease] in the vicinity of Olinda." This spur line will be the subject of a future post and reflected another example of important infrastructure to get crude oil from Olinda to shipping points. While Union Oil was looking at a lengthy pipeline system to San Pedro Harbor, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe via the Southern California Railway was relying on a shorter, simpler transport by rail.

Another sidenote in the same 8 November 1899 Times column from above: Burdette Chandler, a principal in the Puente Oil Company operating a few miles west and north of Olinda in modern Rowland Heights, also owned some oil lands in the vicinity of the junction of Tonner and Brea canyons and just consummated a deal to sell 200 acres to the new Brea Cañon Oil Company.

As 1900 dawned, the action was increasing with greater force and speed. More to come next entry.

Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 7

2011-08-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

With the successful launch of the Olinda oil field, courtesy of a joint venture between Edward Doheny and the Southern California Railway (as owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad), in 1897, it was not long before other oil companies came into being and then the battles in the courtroom followed.

As noted last post, William Hervey Bailey, founder of the Olinda Ranch in 1887, teamed up with other investors to create the Richfield Oil Company (later Atlantic Richfield, now known as ARCO) to develop portions of the ranch for oil development. Moreover, the San Francisco-based real estate firm of Eldridge, Easton and Company, which had also recently been hired to sell and develop land in the east end of Carbon Canyon located within the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, was hired by Bailey's Olinda Ranch Company to do the same on his holdings.

With the formation of Richfield Oil, the idea was to transfer all viable oil lands within Olinda Ranch from the ranch company to the oil firm. This was based on an agreement entered into between the two entities in April 1898.

Alas, a year later, problems arose amongst the principals involved in the agreement, when suit was filed in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana by Easton, Eldridge and Company (consisting of four men: George Easton, D. Easton, W. L. Valentine, and L. Phipps) against Bailey and the Olinda Ranch Company. The allegation was that, although some Olinda Ranch lands that had bearing oil deposits were transferred to Richfield as stipulated in the Spring 1898 compact, other properties that were determined to have oil at some point before 1 April 1899 were not. Easton, Eldridge and Company were asking the court to compel Bailey to transfer those properties and to pay for the plaintiffs costs and attorney's fees, amounting to $1000.

As often happens in matters of civil law, the parties found a way to resolve their differences without going to to the further and greater expense of a trial. In early May, the Los Angeles Times reported that the case had been dismissed, because a deal was made out of court. A four-party transaction involving the Olinda Ranch Company, Richfield Oil Company, George Easton (principal figure in Easton, Eldridge and Company) and a portion of the stockholders of the first two firms was consummated,

in which it is agreed that in consideration of the sum of $575 paid to the Olinda Ranch Company by the Richfield Oil Company and other valuable concessions, the Olinda Ranch Company conveys to George Easton of Los Angeles city fifty acres of land . . . transferred with this land are valuable oil wells which are now largely productive.

Clearly, despite the previous indications that there were four Easton, Eldridge and Company litigants, there was really just George Easton who was pursuing the matter and he seems to have obtained much or all of what he sought in the settlement.

Meantime, within a week, William Hervey Bailey moved to create his own oil company, although it is not clear whether he parted ways with Richfield to do so. At any rate, he formed the Olinda Oil Company with $100,000 in stock and took on his son William, Jr. and Los Angeles investors J. W. Briggs, J. G. Mossin, and T. W. Phelps as fellow directors.

In August, the Times reprinted a lengthy article by the Santa Ana Blade, later absorbed into the Santa Ana Register, which gave some detail about the emerging Olinda field. Notably, the unnamed Blade reporter referred to "the Santa Fe group of wells," noting that this name came from its ownership by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and its partner, Edward Doheny. Also of note was that the crude generated from the "Santa Fe wells" "is hauled to Richfield Station, four miles distant," this being the Southern California Railway depot in present Atwood in Placentia. The Blade also reported that there were ten operating wells and four others in the process of drilling.

Meantime, there were a growing number of companies and individuals mentioned at Olinda in addition to the Santa Fe/Doheny enterprise. These included the Columbia Oil Company (which has been mentioned in this blog fairly recently as a firm headed by William B. Scott, William R. Rowland and Harry Chandler, the main figures in the later purchase of much of Tonner Canyon for the Tres Hermanos Ranch) though the Columbia was then occupied principally at Brea Canyon; the Graham-Loftus Company (William Loftus, in 1910, provided a detailed update on Olinda progress, as covered in this blog before); Charles Victor Hall, another recent notable covered here, thanks to contact from a descendant; and the others mentioned above, namely Easton, Eldridge and Company and the new Olinda Oil Company.

According to the Blade, "so far as we could learn there have been no failures," which seemed to indicate that all drilled wells came up with crude, although the paper then drew the erroneous conclusion that "there seems to be every reason to believe that oil may be developed at almost any point upon the strike [geological formation] from Los Angeles to some point east of the Santa Fe development." It was correct, though, that "the fields already partially explored will be greatly extended," and that, "the life of the wells developed is probably very great."

As for extended activity in the fields, the next post will cover further maneuverings involving Olinda Ranch owner William Hervey Bailey as well as an important development for "the Santa Fe wells."

Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 6

2011-08-12T00:11:00.000-07:00

After the first oil well at Olinda was brought into production in April 1897 by Edward Doheny in association with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad's Southern California Railway subsidiary, matters moved rapidly toward the development of the area, which was called the Fullerton field.

In June 1898, the Los Angeles Times did a brief profile on the Olinda Ranch, noting that the 4500-acre parcel was subdivided during the great Boom of the Eighties a decade before "with a townsite in the middle of the tract, named Carlton." It referenced founder W. H. Bailey and his transfer of the ranch to the Olinda Ranch Company. Yet, as the paper pointed out, "few sales were made, and most of the townsite has now been transformed into acreage," meaning larger lots of probably the 5, 10 and 40 acre ones promoted for the ranch outside the Carlton townsite.

Of note, however, was the fact that a new entity was entering the field at Olinda (fortunately, the name "Oil Center" proposed in April 1897 went nowhere!) As reported by the Times, this was the "Richfield Oil Company," which, the paper continued, "has secured extensive rights of development, pipe-line privileges, etc., from the Olinda Ranch Company, and proposed operating not only directly, but by subleasing lands for oil development . . ." Observing that "the Olinda Ranch lies south and west of the Santa Fe wells," which was not technically the case, as the "Santa Fe wells" were within the original Olinda Ranch property, the paper noted that W. L. Watts of the California Mining Bureau had visited the ranch to assess its oil-bearing potential. Because of Watts' favorable report, the Richfield Oil Company, later the Atlantic Richfield Company now known as ARCO, was formed to work the field.

Also of interest is the fact that Richfield was then composed of "San Francisco and local capitalists" and that oil men in the Orange County and surrounding areas would have the opportunity to sublease from Richfield. Readers of this blog's posts about the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino will recall that, during the 1890s, a San Francisco-based real estate firm, Easton, Eldridge and Company, were hired to market and sell sections of that ranch. When the incorporation papers for the Richfield Oil Company were filed, this was done by Easton, Eldridge and Company, thus providing another tangible link between Olinda and Chino.

On 3 July, the Times reported that the Mining Bureau's Watts as back in the area reviewing oil properties from Puente Hills to Olinda and further east and south along what is now known as the Chino Hills, but then considered part of the Puente chain, to the Santa Ana River. Watts, however, believed that there was no indication of oil bearing lands anywhere east of Olinda, which has proven to be the case. As a sidenote, some attention was paid in the article to Watts' investigations in a canyon near the Southern California Railway's Gypsum side track (this, of course, being Gypsum Canyon) and that a favorable indication of coal was located where existing efforts to mine the material had already been made. Coal Canyon, naturally, is where Watts was conducting his investigation. In 1900, Watts completed a report, including a series of maps, that were the first comprehensive effort to examine and interpret the oil lands of southern California generally, including the new Olinda segment of the Fullerton field.

As to Richfield Oil Company's efforts, an article in the same paper from two weeks later, noted that "work on the first of a series of wells to be put down on the Olinda ranch commenced this week." Commenting that oil experts were favorably impressed with the potential at Olinda, the Times reported that "if expectations are realized, plans made for an extensive pipe-line sustem will be put in effect at once." This system was projected to run "from the ranch to Richfield station on the Santa Fe [Southern California Railway]." This refers to the station at what became Atwood, along today's Richfield Avenue in Placentia, where the railroad track still runs parallel to Orangethorpe Avenue. From that point, the article continued, "from Richfield, over an easy route, the line will be run to this city [Los Angeles], coming in at the west-end depot of the Southern Pacific. From there it will be run to Los Alamitos, where, it is said, the sugar factory will be supplied with oil for fuel," a contract apparently being imminent. By sugar factory, this was a sugar beet facility like the one Richard Gird established at Chino, though, eventually, sugar beets as a source of sugar dissipated in favor of protected tariffs for production from Louisiana and Hawaii's sugar cane fields.

As to the wells owned by the Santa Fe Railroad, an August 1898 feature in the Times noted that 8000 barrels of crude were extracted and shipped from Olinda by the company in July and that expectations were for a larger proportion in August. Well #1 continued to be the best producer, at 125 barrels per day, but an unspecified number (probably a few) were also in production. Of course, Well #1 is still in operation today and is a feature of the Olinda Oil Museum within the Olinda Ranch housing subdivision on the old Santa Fe property. Another tangential tidbit: the article referred to two officials from the Santa Fe being at Olinda looking over the situation, one of these men being Chief Engineer for the company, Fred Perris. He, of course, is the namesake for the Riverside County city of Perris, a station stop on a company-owned line (once on the California Southern Railway) from San Bernardino to San Diego.

More on early Olinda oil fields next time!

Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 5

2011-08-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

As noted last post, the Olinda Ranch, as established by William Hervey Bailey in the late 1880s, was promoted as an agricultural subdivision and struggled to do so through depression and drought for most of the 1890s. Fortunes changed dramatically in 1897, however, thanks to the efforts of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and oil man Edward L. Doheny.

Doheny, born in Wisconsin in 1856, became a government surveyor while still in his teens, working in Kansas before leaving the profession to become a mining prospector in South Dakota, New Mexico and Arizona. While living in Kingston, New Mexico, he met Albert Fall and Charles Canfield, who both figured prominently in Doheny's later exploits. Doheny and Canfield worked together in mining, but did not experience financial success, so the latter went off on his own to another mining area nearby and made a small fortune. Canfield then went off to Los Angeles about 1887, the same time that William H. Bailey made his purchase of the land that he named Olinda Ranch. Although Canfield lost most of this money during the ensuing bust of the real estate boom, Doheny caught up with him in Los Angeles, arriving there in the Spring of 1891.

Hearing about the presence of asphaltum in the area, Doheny used a $400 investment from Canfield to hand-dig a primitive oil well just west of downtown starting in Fall 1892. Within months, the well proved to be successful, though a small producer, and it inaugurated the Los Angeles Oil Field. Despite his initial success, however, Doheny struggled to keep himself as a player in the rapidly-emerging and evolving industry, until he formed a partnership with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and its local subsidiary, the Southern California Railway. This latter had a new line which went into Los Angeles through Santa Ana Canyon, passing through the area on what is now the track that parallels Orangethorpe Avenue through much of northeastern Orange County.

Doheny convinced the Southern California Railway that the emerging regional oil industry would allow the railroad to move to oil-powered engines rather than coal. Because of the success of the Puente Oil Company, a company founded by William R. Rowland, former sheriff and scion of an early ranching family in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, with William Lacy and Burdette Chandler, which, in 1885, made a discovery of oil on the north side of the Puente Hills in what is now Rowland Heights, Doheny looked to nearby areas as possible sources of oil. It should also be noted that surface appearances of asphaltum or tar were so common in the general area that the canyon dividing Los Angeles from Orange County on the eastern end of the Chino Hills had been known in the Spanish and Mexican eras as Cañon de la Brea, and a Mexican-era rancho of that name was created there. Local ranchers used the raw brea to cover the roofs of their adobe brick homes long before any thought of drilling for oil was considered.

Doheny settled on the area in and around the Olinda Ranch and worked to obtain a lease for some 3,000 acres of the ranch from Bailey. By the end of 1896, a test well was started at the hilly northern end of the ranch. Readers of earlier posts in this series will recall that, in 1888, when Bailey began promoting the Olinda Ranch, advertisements noted the presence of oil in this area, but it was completely untested. At least, until Doheny and the Southern California Railway entered the picture. Working with an executive from the Santa Fe, the SCR's parent company, named Almon Maginnis, Doheny sited the well and began drilling.

At 400 feet, a shallow depth, oil was encountered, but the well was deepened to twice that depth. Although the pump encountered typical levels of sand in the well, there was such enthusiasm for the potential of a major strike that the Los Angeles Times trumpeted the project before it was fully determined to be a producing well. Indeed, in its 28 April 1897 edition, the paper announced that there were plans to have oil extracted from Olinda taken eight miles by a pipeline to Fullerton and the Southern California Railway line. Addtionally, it was noted that timber was already being gathered about 500 feet away from the first well for a second one.

Interestingly, the paper wondered whether or not it was accurate to label this newly-discovered oil field as part of the Puente field, which was not only several miles to the northwest, but was part of a different geological setting. Ironically, it was decided in short order that the new field should be referred to as the Fullerton field, though it was several miles from that small, emerging town. The fact that there was a plan to send oil from the new wells to Fullerton seems to have encouraged state mining officials and others to refer to the new field by that name.

This is a ca. 1920s photograph of the Olinda oil field, which, upon the April 1897 announcement of the first well dug by Edward Doheny for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad's Southern California Railway subsidiary, was first called by the inelegant name (even for an oil field) of Oil Center.

Meantime, the Times also pointed out that Union Oil Company, which got its start in Santa Paula in Ventura County, had obtained some nearby property for oil prospecting, while, up in Tonner Canyon, a tract owned by the People's Bank of Pomona was involved in negotiations for sale and development for oil, as well.

In these early days when the geological formations and the science of examining and identifying these was still in a primitive stage, the paper reported that there was some confusion and uncertainty about the nature of the new field's structure. Lacking familiar means such as examining rocky outcroppings, prospectors would have to deal with the fact that "the whole country is upturned," presumably meaning not uniform as to surface indications. Doheny's first well was sited close to an area in which brea was seeping to the surface and the second well was placed near another like tar deposit, in the expectation "that the rocks slope downward to the north" and thus indicating a direction where oil would be most likely to pool.

Two days later, on 30 April, another article promoted that new oil discovery, particularly noting that the Southern California Railway had its own source for oil, independent of middlemen, for its newly-emphasized reliance on the product for fueling locomotives. While the first well was described as at 900 feet and not complete, there were already some 40 to 50 barrels of crude being extracted daily. The railway, which had a twenty-year lease, was planning its pipeline, which, thanks to the geography of the new field, would allow oil to simply flow down to the company's tracks by gravity.

Interestingly, the paper reminded readers that, because oil prices had skyrocketed a few years before, the SCR had switched its use of fuel from oil to coal, but, now that there was every expectation of an oil bonanza at the new site, it was looking to return to oil. The Times also noted that, as the orange industry comtinued to blossom (!), the need for more trains to ship the product out of the area was becoming more pronounced. It also pointed out that, unlike in Los Angeles, where oil promoters had to deal with the lease of many small lots, the discovery of oil in the hinterlands of Olinda Ranch meant that developers could lease or buy larger tracts and not have to deal with the smaller parcels that could bring a host of issues. Finally, the paper also stated that older maps, from the 1870s or so, indicated that the area consisted of "coal lands" because of the knowledge of existing tar seeps at the surface. Of course, the adjacent "Carbon Canyon" also was part of that earlier identification of "coal lands" for the Olinda area.

By late May, another feature was issued by the Times, which, on the 25th, stated that the first well was still not done, but the output from the current apparatus was yielding some 50-60 barrels of crude per day. However, the second well was in the process of being dug and "will probably be producing oil before many days." There were immediate plans to begin the digging of the third and fourth wells, too. In discussing the desire of the railroad to move back to oil-fueled engines, the paper reported that the advantages included less smoke, no cinders, and the resulting cleanliness of the cab meant "that the engineers can almost wear their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes without fear of getting soiled." The work of the locomotive firefighter would also be materially easier with oil than coal, while other workers on the cars would benefit from not having "to shovel coal till your back breaks."

As to the very earliest name of this new oil field, the first Times article of late April was eager to note that "this new metropolis has sprung unheralded upon the world, and probably this is the first time its name has been seen in print." Even though there wasn't yet a proven well on the property, the paper saw fit to note that "yet the possibilities of the location seem unbounded." Consequently, it was announced, the new name of the field was Oil Center and the by-line was so indicated.

Fortunately, the very direct, but clunky name of Oil Center did not stick and soon the Olinda appelation came to be accepted, even under the broader field designation of Fullerton!

Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 4

2011-08-03T23:56:00.000-07:00

From its creation during an immense southern California real estate boom in 1887-88, William Hervey Bailey's Olinda Ranch was intended as an agricultural subdivision, promoting "fertile farms" and "beautiful villa sites." Early ads, as noted in a previous entry here, promoted the raising of fruit, grain, alfalfa and other products with an "ample supply of water for irrigation and domestic use." In addition, promotional materials trumpeted the "now building" Anaheim, Olinda and Pomona Railroad, which, evidently, was going to go north and south through Brea Canyon between the established towns of the former and latter. Notably, there was mention of a $50,000 plant to develop "immense deposits of asphaltum" found on the northern portion of the tract.

The great boom went bust, however, by the end of the Eighties and the 1890s proved to be a long, dreary decade of drought and depression. As noted in other posts here about Richard Gird's struggles to develop his new town on the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, the real estate marked remained moribund for that period. But, like Gird, Bailey made efforts to promote his subdivision despite prevailing conditions.

In late Summer 1891, for example, a small article appeared in the Los Angeles Times about Olinda Ranch, subtitled "Where Orange Land May be Had at a Reasonable Price." The piece noted that, while oranges could not be raised everywhere in the region, it could be done at Olinda for under $200 an acre in 5, 10 and 40 acre parcels. Described as "beautifully located on gentle, sloping ground, commanding a magnificent view of the surrounding country," the ranch was noted as being "on the Santa Fe line," meaning the railroad line of the Southern California Railway, a subsidiary of the massive Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway then engaged in a storied battle with the Southern Pacific Railroad for control of western America's burgeoning railroad system. Actually, Olinda Ranch wasn't exactly "on the line," though a spur line was constructed from Atwood (now a neighborhood in Placentia) northwestward to the ranch.

The article also claimed that the parcel was "just far enough from the ocean—about 13 miles—to escape fogs and yet insure [ensure] a temperate climate all year round." This also tinkered a bit with the truth. The distance to the Pacific from Olinda is more like 20 miles and while dense fogs may be very rare now, a certain blogger who lived in Placentia thirty years back can well remember heavy blankets of fog in the area. Still, the temperate climate part is basically the case. Another example of toying with accuracy was the statement that Olinda "adjoins the celebrated Chino beet sugar ranch," although, of course, a few miles of the Chino Hills and Carbon Canyon separate the two. While noting that there was an existing "orchard of bearing orange and other trees," the piece went on to say that the tract's land was "adapted to vegetables, grain and stock."

In fact, regarding the last item, there was an attempt to graze cattle on the ranch during this period, but it proved unsuccessful or, at least, not profitable, as the Olinda Ranch Company advertised in the Times in August 1892 for the sale of registered Gallaway cattle, bulls, cows and calves "at a bargain" through an Anaheim office.

This detail from a 1924 California State Mining Bureau map shows the Olinda area, including the abandoned Carlton townsite, the Santa Fe Railroad spur line from Placentia and parcels still held by the successor to the Olinda Ranch Company, the Olinda Land Company, headed by William H. Bailey, Jr., son of the founder of the ranch. Courtesy of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry.

The following year, the Company tried trumpeting some success with a field crop, as the Times noted in a June 1893 issue that "a field of red Texas oats on the Olinda ranch, near Fullerton, has yielded this season the large crop of five tons of hay to the acre, which sells readily at $12 per ton."

Two years later, in December 1895, the Times published an article about castor bean growing, citing The American Cultivator's discussion about the difficulties in raising the crop, used as a "purgative" or laxative, because of the need for very rich soil and "peculiar" and costly machinery to hull the bean from the pod. Although the Cultivator noted that some farmers in Kansas and Missouri were raising the bean for a St. Louis market, the further expense in pressing the oil from the bean was also viewed as an issue. Consequently, the journal opined that the bean was better raised in small home gardens for local use rather than on a larger farm-based scale. Undeterred, the Times offered the rebuttal that "in this region the harvesting of the bean does not entail any such trouble." It went on to say that, "Mr. Bailey, who owns the Olinda ranch in Orange county, informs The Times that he obtained 2 1/2 cents per pound in San Francisco for the hulled beans which he raised." The paper reported that Bailey, who offered that growing castor beans was basically like raising corn, simply had the pods spread upon the ground in the hot sun, which effectively hulled the beans without machinery. Moreover, the Times observed that "Mr. Bailey finds that his castor beans pay about $30 to $40 an acre" and concluded that "this is enough to warrant the farmers in Southern California to pay some attention to a crop which can be easily marketed."

This did not prove to be the case and the difficulties of promoting and selling the land, even as Bailey did so in his native Hawaii, advertising Olinda in the Hawaiian Gazette newspaper, for example, during 1896, led him, in Spring 1897, to transfer the main office of the Olinda Ranch Company from Los Angeles, where it had been for almost a decade, to San Francisco, across the Bay from his home in Oakland.

Still, by Spring 1898, the agricultural and ranching possibilities of Olinda were being touted, as the Times, in early April reported that, due to the efforts of San Francisco real estate firm Easton, Eldridge and Company, sales of two tracts totaling some 90 acres brought in $12,500. Notably, the connection to Chino comes to the fore here, as Richard Gird hired the same firm to market and sell his ranch during the same period. Moreover, the buyers of the two Olinda parcels were "cattle men from Arizona, one of whom is feeding cattle on the adjoining [!] Chino ranch, with pulp from the sugar factory." Gird, as blog readers might remember, bought the Chino ranch with money made at the Tombstone, Arizona mines he helped found and develop and these ranchers were associates of his from that territory.

Whatever may have transpired with this stock-raising activity, the 1898 piece hearkened back to something touched upon, but not heavily emphasized, in earlier promotional efforts about Olinda. Namely, the piece observed, "in the hill section of the ranch are oil deposits, which are reserved. Several wells have been sunk here by the Southern California Railway Company" and it concluded by reporting that "another sale of several thousand acres of this ranch is pending."

Indeed, Olinda was on the verge of a transformation from a stagnated subdivision intended for farming and cattle ranching to a new enterprise that would make it far more famed than William Hervey Bailey or anyone else, for that matter, could have foreseen a decade before.

Artistic Expression in the Face of . . . Religious Fervor . . . Contested

2011-07-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

The divinely-inspired tagging of a K-rail alongside Carbon Canyon Road westbound down hill from Olinda Village noted here about a month-and-a-half back was given, within the last week or so, a direct challenge by someone whose contrarian certainty was offered with great emphasis. The letter "A" within a circle is a common symbol for athiests.

So, this may be a manifestation of the so-called "cultural wars" as expressed via spraypaint. The hubcap has no relation (unless someone wants to link it with circular reasoning, the circle of life, or the debate between a flat or round earth).

Carbon Canyon's Newest Religious Facility: Bharat Sevashram Sangha

2011-07-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, 24 July, the former Carbon Canyon Christian Church and Samsung Presbyterian Church property was the site of a dedication for the newest religious group to occupy the site: Bharat Sevashram Sangha, a Hindu organization that was founded in Kolkatta (Calcutta), India in 1917. The local BSS chapter Web site (see here and here for some pages) identifies its core beliefs or mission as:

Service of humanity, irrespective of caste, creed, or national origin
Moral & spiritual regeneration
Spread of moral, spiritual and physical education
Study of Hinduism, Hindu culture & heritage
Teaching of yoga and health science subjects
Education through moral and spiritual publications

The swami at the ashram is Purnatmanandaji Maharaj, who is also described as Chairman, Director & Principal Coordinator & Chief Official Representative of the Overseas Branches and Chairman of BSSW-California, the local organizational chapter.

The BSS West--California chapter opened in 2004 at a Riverside location, but found that site to be too limited for its needs and the 50-acre Olinda Village site, adjacent to Hollydale Mobile Home Estates was purchased. The chapter Web site describes the location:

Tranquility, beautiful, scenic and unique—can hardly describe the magnificence of our Brea Bharat Sevashram Temple. It is here that one seems separated from the rest of the world similar like “Rishikesh” in India. Apparently this temple location is one of the most beautiful place in Southern California. Please come, join and take a tour to experience the solitary beauty, exotic landscape, spectacular and beautiful sites. Natural beauty, mountains and forests makes it one of the most stunning place.

It’s a quiet place with abundant parking available even on the weekends. The neighborhood is welcoming and safe. The Temple is now a place of great divine beauty and peace. It is breathtakingly beautiful. It is a great place for people looking for a powerful escape from everyday demanding life and divulge it’s panoramic beauty. To summarize in short, our Brea BSSW Ashram is a swell destination.

Rishikesh might be best known, if at all, to most of us as the place where The Beatles spent some months at an ashram back in the late 1960s.

As described in the local India Journal newspaper (see here) in its coverage of the grand opening:

the monastic order is a socio-religious, philanthropic organization dedicated to the service of humanity, propagating the great human values of fraternity, tolerance and inclusiveness with non-sectarian, non-communal and nonpolitical outlook. Ever since its inception BSS, with its goals of Universal Emancipation, has been tirelessly working for the upliftment of the downtrodden and the neglected section of society.

As for its programming, the BSS West--California chapter identifies daily offerings as including early morning prayer, yoga and meditation; noontime puja and bhog. A puja is a ritual offering usually made several times daily to deities, as well as distinguished persons and special guests. A bhog entails a ritual sacrifice to deities. Devotional music and scriptural readings and an offering of lamps (arati) are also part of daily rites. A limited schedule on Fridays through Sundays involves mid-morning yoga and meditation. Weddings and spiritual lectures and classes will also be held at the temple.

The BSS West--California chapter identified the Olinda Village neighborhood as "welcoming and safe," although a recent Hindu temple project in Chino Hills has been involved in some controversy in the decade or so since it was proposed at a location on undeveloped land east of the Chino Valley Freeway (SR-71) between Chino Hills Parkway and Soquel Canyon Parkway. A good summary of that project's history from the Pluralism Project at Harvard University can be found here and a certain blogger can well recall e-mail and phone correspondence with persons who expressed broadly-stated concerns about non-Western architecture and cultural practices not "fitting in" with the community majority, even though the ethnic, racial and religious diversity of our area has been, as in many places, shifting and evolving (and not always in very predictable ways.) Nearly a quarter century ago, the establishment of the Tsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights (see here) generated somewhat similar issues and a certain blogger who began working nearby in 1988 when the temple was finished can vividly remember those contested days, as well.

It will be interesting to see what reactions, if any, will arise with the establishment of the Bharat Sevashram Sangha here in Carbon Canyon.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #8022

2011-07-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

This spot on Carbon Canyon Road just below Carriage Hills in Chino Hills has proved to be quite a-peeling to drivers who find its curves irresistible, but also, evidently, deceiving.

The latest transgression occurred over the weekend (let's go out on a limb and suggest late evening Friday, Saturday or, maybe, Sunday.)

A vehicle traveling westbound took the curve past Carriage Hills Drive, overcompensated somewhat, and skidded into a low berm and onto the shoulder, taking out another roadside reflector, just a few feet away from a compatriot recently supplanted by an eastbound driver.

Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 3

2011-07-22T23:56:00.000-07:00

William Hervey Bailey, who founded the Olinda Ranch Company in the late 1880s, was the third of five sons born to Edward Bailey (1814-1903) and Caroline Hubbard (1814-1894), both natives of Holden, Massachusetts, about forty miles directly west of Boston. The two were devout Congregationalists who, just a week after their November 1836 marriage, joined a missionary company under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). The ABCFM was an organization formed at Williams College in Massachusetts a quarter century before during a period called the Second Great Awakening, a Christian revival movement that swept the United States through camp meetings and other non-traditional means. New religious groups like the Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists and the Churches of Christ sprung from this religious ferment and intense missionary activity also marked much of the movement. The ABCFM sent its missionaries to many areas of the world, including India, China, the Middle East, and Africa.

Edward and Caroline Bailey were in the eighth company sent by the ABCFM to what were commonly called the Sandwich Islands, better known as Hawai'i. They arrived on 9 April 1837 and were promptly assigned to a station at Kohala on the island of Hawai'i, usually referred to as the "Big Island." Shortly thereafter, they were relocated to Lahaina, Mau'i, where they remained for about two years. Finally, in 1840, they were assigned to Wailuku on the same island. For the next decade, the Baileys worked as missionaries and Edward Bailey ran the Wailuku Female Seminary from 1840 until its closure in 1849. The following year the Baileys severed their ties with the ABCFM and Edward Bailey went into the sugarcane industry and remained connected with it for some thirty-five years, including with the Wailuku Sugar Company from 1862 and then, from 1882, the Planters Labor and Supply Company, which beame the powerful Hawaii Sugar Planters Association.

The Bailey family included Edward, Jr. (1838-1910), Horatio (1839-1899), William (1843-1910), James (1846-1891) and Charles (1850-1924). The family occupied an early American-style house in Wailuku, that was on the site of the royal compound Kahekili II, the last ruling chief of Mau'i, and which was the home of the Wailuku Female Seminary when Edward and Caroline Bailey took it over in 1842. After the seminary's closure, the Baileys acquired the house and land, the latter of which became a sugarcane plantation. Not only did Edward Bailey become a sugarcane grower, but, in his early fifties and without any training or education, he took up painting. He proved to be so adept as a "Sunday painter" (that is, an amateur) that his art works, consisting of some 100 landscapes of Mau'i, have become famous there and a book showcasing his life, career, and art has recently been published. Moreover, the family residence, taken over by the C. Brewer Company, one of the famed "Big Five" sugar conglomerates of Hawai'i, became, in the late 1950s, the headquarters of the Mau'i Historical Society and is now the Bailey House Museum.

William Hervey Bailey (1843-1910), a missionary's son from Wailuku, Maui, who created Olinda Ranch in 1888. From the 1902 "mug book" (a mug book was a history that contained biographies submitted by those who paid for their inclusion) Men of the Pacific Coast.

William Hervey Bailey, like all of his brothers, attended Punahou School, which also included O'ahu College, in Honolulu, but was there far longer than his siblings, being enrolled from 1853 to 1862. Presumably, he joined his father and older brother, Edward, in the sugarcane industry. At the end of 1869, William was married to Anna Hobron, daughter of ship captain Thomas Hobron, best known for being the builder of the first railroad on Mau'i, the Kahului and Wailuku Railroad, a small-gauge line serving sugar plantations sending their product to the port at Kahului. Hobron was also owner of the Grove Ranch Plantation. William and Anna had two children born in Wailuku: Minnie born in 1872 and William, Jr., born the following year.

William, with his father and brother, was a shareholder in the Planters Labor and Supply Company, a sugarcane industry association formed in March 1882 that worked to find cheap foreign labor in Hawai'i's plantations. Among the powerful names involved in the company were Castle, Bishop, Dillingham, and Thurston, all major figures in the development of sugar and in politics. William served on the firm's labor committee and, in an issue of its Planters' Monthly publication, reported on Japanese migrant laborers that "as irrigators they could not be beaten, and they were steady and honest." Within a few years, however, of joining the PLSC, William, his parents and some of his brothers decided to move to California, settling in Oakland in October 1885. William's mother, Caroline, died in Oakland in 1894 and his father migrated south to the Los Angeles area, dying in Alhambra in 1903.

About 1888, a few years after coming to California and during the colossal land boom that engulfed the southern California region, William made his purchase of land in northeastern Orange County that he named the "Olinda Ranch." Now, as to why he bestowed that name on his new purchase.

In 1535, the Portuguese established one of their earliest colonies in Brazil and called it Olinda. That city, now a UNESCO World Heritage Centre, became the center of a burgeoning industry in sugarcane. Consequently, when sugarcane was established on Mau'i, Hawai'i three centuries later, the place name of Olinda was given to an area in the Kula Highlands, at about 4,000 above sea level along the slope of the volcanic mountains that lead to the famous Haleakala National Park. It has been said that the moniker was given by Samuel Alexander, another missionary scion and founder of the "Big Five" sugar company Alexander and Baldwin, for a home he had in the area. Notably, after Alexander relocated to Oakland in 1882, he bought land south of Redding for a ranch and built, in 1884, a brick mansion that he called Olinda and the place name survives there today. There is also an Olinda in Australia, not far from Melbourne.

It seems obvious, then, that William Hervey Bailey chose the name Olinda because of the memories he retained of his more than forty years on Mau'i and may have been following the lead of Samuel Alexander, with whom he grew up as sons of early missionaries on Mau'i.

Who would have known that Olinda was named for a place in Hawai'i?

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #7981: The Tortoise and the Harebrained

2011-07-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

Puttering along this morning westbound on Carbon Canyon Road at the obnoxious snail's pace of a paltry 50 mph, I had the privilege to be passed, after being closely tailed from near Summit Ranch on, by a black BMW just past Canon Lane, where a left-turn lane for eastbounders granted ample enough room, it seems, for the righteous to roar past doddering fools only barely transgressing the posted speed limit (45 mph, as if it mattered.)

Did she not heed the sign back at the start of the highway at Chino Hills Parkway that sternly warns "DO NOT PASS"?

Crowning her achievement, as she eased into bucolic lil' ol' Sleepy Hollow behind a line of cars ahead and yet having saved her brutal commute to the OC at least twelve (maybe thirteen) whole seconds, our daring driver deigned to deposit, through the opened passenger's side window, a can of whatever it was that made her dreaded dreary drive somehow bearable.

Why, if she were to be caught by our local constabulary, that would render a punishment of a $1000 fine--the sign, very near the aforementioned one, says so!

Duly, in fact doubly, impressed by her dual dismissal of ordinances as we came to a stop in Brea, I rolled down my window and called out to my antagonist, "Thank you for taking my life into your hands and for littering my neighborhood!"

Her curt reply: "No problem. Maybe you should drive faster!" Touche!

Incidentally, in the early evening last Friday, with our younger son in tow, my wife was passed by a pickup truck as she drove westbound and made the first curve into Sleepy Hollow (not the fairly long straightaway leading to it, but in the curve.)

In both cases, oncoming vehicles were but a couple of seconds away. But for circumstances being otherwise, this would have been a very different, and not so glib, a post.

Next, back to history.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #7845

2011-07-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

This seemed to have occurred over the last weekend.

A slight miscalculation in taking the curve eastbound on Carbon Canyon Road (State Highway 142) just before the Carriage Hills tract entrance in Chino Hills.

Casualties were merely three reflectors and some scrapes on the power pole.

Olinda Oil Field History: Origins of Olinda, Part 2

2011-07-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

Actually, this post represents a mild, but notable, diversion from Part One. When William Hervey Bailey bought the land that he named Olinda Ranch during the great land boom of the late 1880s, he hired a real estate and mining speculator to work with him. This was George Whitwell Parsons, who remained an agent and secretary of the Olinda Ranch Company through the 1890s.

Parsons was born in Washington, D. C. in August 1850. He was the only son among four children of Virginia Whitwell, a native of Richmond, Virginia, and Samuel Miller Parsons, who hailed from Wiscasset, Maine. His mother came from a well-to-do family and she went to Mrs. English's Boarding School at Washington, where she was a classmate of Jessie Benton, daughter of powerful Missouri senator, Thomas Hart Benton, and wife of the famed and controversial explorer and politician, John C. Frémont. Samuel Parsons, an graduate of the first class at Yale University's law school in 1843, began his practice in Brooklyn, New York (which was an independent city until the 1890s) but met his wife at Washington, where the couple started their family before relocating back to Brooklyn.

George was educated in public schools in Brooklyn and then attended a seminary at Blairsville, Pennsylvania before going back home to study accounting and bookkeeping at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He was working as a clerk at brokerage and import companies while studying law at his father's practice (an apprenticeship known as "reading" with a law firm) on Wall Street, the financial center of New York and the United States. George, however, soon tired of the law and migrated in 1874 to Miami, Florida, where he sold salvage lumber.

He then headed westward, landing in Los Angeles in August 1876, just after the town of about 15,000 was shaken by financial disaster and heading into a long period of population decline and business depression. Almost exactly a month after his arrival, the Southern Pacific Railroad line from San Francisco to Los Angeles was completed and, in 1885, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (which had a huge stake in Olinda later on) built its line directly to the nascent city from the east.

Parsons, though, came at a bad time to Los Angeles and quickly headed north to San Francisco where he spent three years working as a bank clerk for the National Gold Bank and Trust Company. Always on the lookout for new opportunities, Parsons found one in a new mining town in the Territory of Arizona called Tombstone, where he migrated with the gloriously-named Milton Clapp. Readers of the Chronicle may recall that Richard Gird, owner of Rancho Santa Ana del Chino and founder of the town of Chino, was one of the prime movers in the development of Tombstone. As it turned out, it was 1880 when Gird sold out of his mining interests at Tombstone and bought the Chino ranch and Parsons was heading the other direction, arriving in the boom town in mid-February.

The tract map of the town of Carlton, identified at the upper left as being in "Olinda Ranch." This 1888 map is provided courtesy of the Orange County Archives.

Parsons was a notable resident of that famous community for about seven years. For example, as the rough-and-tumble Tombstone grappled with disorder and violence, Parsons was a member of the Committee of Vigilance's administrative wing, the "Council of Ten", seeking to root out lawbreakers in town. He was a close friend of the famed Wyatt Earp and other major characters in the community. In 1885, he helped form the library, one of the "civilizing" influences in the town and served as librarian. More importantly, Parsons kept a diary, which he had started upon his mother's death in 1869, and continued it all through his years in Tombstone, up until mid-January 1887, when, news of the Los Angeles real estate boom reaching his ears, he packed up and headed back to the coast. As to his diary, it has been one of the most important sources of information about Tombstone, including the Earp brothers, the O.K. Corral incident, and other historic events.

When Parsons reestablished himself at Los Angeles, he moved into the Argyle Hotel and hung his shingle at 41 South Fort Street in a real estate business with partner Maurice Clark. Soon afterward, the two were hired by William H. Bailey to work on the Olinda Ranch subdivision, including the town of Carlton, which began its operations in early 1888. Within a year, however, the great "Boom of the Eighties" had gone bust, though Parsons continued in real estate, as well as mining, and also retained his involvement with Olinda Ranch. In fact, in 1894, when Bailey announced the shuttering of the Los Angeles sales office and the relocation of all company operations to the San Francisco main office, Parsons was company secretary.

Parsons was also an Arizona commissioner of deeds and notary public, but became well-known in Los Angeles as a charter member of the city's Chamber of Commerce, which re-formed in 1888, and was Chairman of the Mines and Mining Committee. Due largely to his efforts, the Chamber was successful in 1894 in securing a State of California survey of Los Angeles-area oil lands, two years after Edward Doheny and Charles Canfield brought in the first successful oil well within the city. Doheny went on, in 1896-97, to drill the first oil well at Olinda.

Parsons, whose active involvement at Olinda seems to have ended by 1900, continued to live and work in Los Angeles, dealing in real estate and mining. He was reunited with Wyatt Earp, when the Tombstone marshal migrated to Los Angeles and when the lawman died in 1929, Parsons was one of the pallbearers. Unmarried, Parsons died in January 1933, leaving a modest $25,000 estate, and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights. A set of scrapbooks covering the years 1893-1920 kept by Parsons was donated to the special collections section of the library at U.C.L.A.

Carbon Canyon Road (State Highway 142) Remains Closed

2011-07-08T08:05:00.000-07:00

A 6 am update from the City of Chino Hills and a recorded update from last night from the City of Brea both indicate that Carbon Canyon Road remains closed between Olinda Village and Santa Fe Road in Olinda Ranch, as final containment and mop-up on the fire north of Olinda Ranch continues.

As before, the 714-990-7732 hot line, City of Brea Web site (click here), and the City of Chino Hills Web site (click here) have update information.

UPDATE (9:15 A.M.): According to the City of Chino Hills notification system, Carbon Canyon
Road will remain closed between Olinda Village and Olinda Ranch until 6 p.m. tonight.

Carbon Canyon Fire North of Olinda Ranch

2011-07-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

A view of the fire north of Carbon Canyon near Olinda Ranch taken from Sleepy Hollow at 4:45 p.m., 7 July.

At around 10:30 this morning, a grass fire broke out in the vicinity of Olinda Ranch in Brea and has caused a closure of Carbon Canyon Road (State Highway 142) at Valencia Avenue on the Orange County side and in Sleepy Hollow on the Chino Hills side.

One report from the Orange County Register quoted someone in the area as saying the fire started along the highway and spread northward into the hills. The paper also stated that, while firefighters initially thought they had the fire under control somewhat quickly, the blaze reignited and headed north and east toward Olinda Village.

This view was taken from a ridge on the north side of Carbon Canyon Road looking northwest from the Orange/San Bernardino County line. Courtesy of Jim Powderly, Chino Valley Fire District.

New Brea fire chief Wolfgang Knabe has been quoted as saying that there is a contingency to evacuate residents there, if needed, but that, in any case, he expected crews to be there through the night. Fixed-wing aircraft, moreover, have been deployed to drop material on the fire.

Fortunately, while temperature are in the upper 90s, there is humidity and low winds, which aid in the effort to combat the flames.
As for the road closure, this means that, while residents of Sleepy Hollow east can access their homes, those living in Olinda Village, Hollydale Mobile Home Estates and, perhaps, Olinda Ranch or parts of it, will not be able to reach their houses at this point.

Here is a dramatic view of a fixed-wing aircraft dumping Foscheck, a fire-fighting chemical, on the blaze. Courtesy of George Ullrich of Olinda Village.

Click here for a NBC-LA web article and here for an Orange County Register Web page.

We'll see if more news is available as the afternoon progresses.

Meantime, for info on the Orange County side, call: 714-990-7732.

UPDATE (7:30 P.M.): The City of Chino Hills sent an update an hour ago that Carbon Canyon Road (State Highway 142) is expected to be closed overnight and that updates will be provided as early as 5:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. Evidently, this applies to through traffic in both directions. Travelers east have been stopped at Valencia Avenue, while those going west can go through as far as Olinda Village before being halted.

Another view of aircraft responding to the fire and within Chino Hills State Park, as pointed out by Hills for Everyone Executive Director Claire Schlotterbeck, who provided this photograph.

Meantime, the fire has evidently scorched over 400 acres, including portions of the rarely-visited sections of Chino Hills State Park that are north of Carbon Canyon Road, and had been moving northeast into Los Angeles County. The blaze is said to be more than 75% contained. Notably, the fire was said to have been under control late morning/early afternoon, but then jumped fire lines and leapt out of control after 2 p.m., at which time the acreage burned had only been about 25. Eventually, 250 firefighters, three helicopters and two aircraft were on scene and responding. By 7 p.m. the force was down to half the fire personnel and one helicopter. Expected winds did not materialize, which certainly has helped the effort. In fact, fire officials hope to contain (not necessarily fully extinguish) the fire by late tonight or early tomorrow morning. Fortunately, no damage or injuries have been reported and there have been no evacuations.

Here is an updated Orange County Register article link.

Thanks to everyone who has shared information and photographs of this fire as the event has developed over the day.

If anything, the aftermath of the disaster of November 2008 has led to improved communication and, hopefully, response to fires within the Canyon and highlights the importance of the Community Wildfire Protection Plan and Carbon Creek Egress Corridor Fuel Reduction Project [a.k.a., the cleanup of Carbon Creek of overgrown and fire-prone plant materials that also are diverting the creek and threatening the stability of Carbon Canyon Road].

Both of these projects have been developed by the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council, which had its monthly meeting last night to discuss the status of these ongoing efforts to improve fire safety in Carbon Canyon.

Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council Banner Is Up!

2011-07-02T22:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to some dedicated members of the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council and the generosity of a Chino sign and banner company, a series of new banners will be seasonally displayed during the year to warn residents and passers-through of the fire danger that is essentially ever-present within the Canyon.

The first banner was put up by a Council member within the last few days, with a timely warning about fireworks and dirtbikes being a very real cause of fire within the area during hot, dry and windy summer days.

There are existing signs from the City of Chino Hills concerning the banning of fireworks throughout the city, but these are generally up for a couple of weeks before the Fourth of July holiday and then down soon after that day.

These banners, posted at the east entrance to the Canyon along westbound Carbon Canyon Road near Chino Hills Parkway and (soon to be) at the west end of the Chino Hills portion near the county border are enclosed within custom wood frames below the long-standing wooden signs warning of fire danger that have been up for many years.

Banners and signs have their place and, hopefully, these will have some impact. Concerned citizens in Canyon neighborhoods can also be of assistance. Ultimately, though, some enforcement has to take place, an issue that continues to occur with driving behavior on the road, despite all the directional and warning signs CalTrans has (and continues to add) on the highway.

Kudos to those Fire Safe Council members who put a lot of time and effort to get this project to fruition!

Olinda Oil Field History: The Origins of Olinda, Part 1

2011-06-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

Back in the earliest days of this blog, a reference was made to the beginnings of the Olinda oil field (see here) regarding its founding by a W. H. Bailey in 1891. This post offers a correction and a good deal more (interesting?) information about the origins of the community.

Early in 1888, when the Los Angeles region was deep in the throes of a massive land boom known as the "Boom of the Eighties" and real estate speculation was in a frenzy, an advertisement appeared in the Los Angeles Times that was typical in its florid, overheated language praising "The Olinda Ranch" and its "fertile farms" and "beautiful villa sites."

The notice went on to claim that "this land is some of the most fertile in the Santa Ana Valley," which was a little strange because Santa Ana is a good deal south, although the reference could have been to the old Rancho Cajon de Santa Ana, which was historically near the tract. Moreover, it claimed that the property was "highly improved and now producing a great variety of fine fruits, grains, alfalfa, etc."

By improvements, this presumably meant the most important of all, a reliable water supply and the piece went on to claim that there was an "ample supply of water for irrigation and domestic use." Yet, it went on to note that "Hotel and Water Works in course of construction [italics added.]"

In addition, there was mention of "a $50,000 plant to develop the immense deposits of Asphaltum and Oil on the north line of this ranch," a direct reference to the fact that asphaltum was so common in the area that the name of a ranch, "Cañon de la Brea," embracing Brea Canyon, was a reference to the tar that residents in the area during the Spanish and Mexican eras used to coat their house roofs (the tar pits on Rancho La Brea, now part of the La Brea Tar Pits at the George Page Museum, were the source for Los Angeles residences.) It also followed by three years the discovery of oil nearby in what is now Rowland Heights on the north side of the Puente Hills within the portion of Rancho La Puente owned by former sheriff William R. Rowland.

Moreover, the ad stated that "the Anaheim, Olinda & Pomona R.R., now building, gives direct communication with Los Angeles and the sea." This project was evidently projected to go through Brea Canyon to connect the established towns of Anaheim and Pomona.

An advertisement filled with hyperbole and rampant over-enthusiastic observations
about the newly-subdivided Olinda Ranch, Los Angeles Times, 24 January 1888.

The parcel was said to contain a "fine view of sea and mountains and the neighboring towns of Santa Ana, Anaheim, Orange and Long Beach [the latter was hardly neighboring, though]."

Most importantly, however, was the fact that "the finest portion of this ranch" was "surrounding the Rousing Town of Carlton." This townsite, "situated in the midst of the ranch" was said to be "rapidly taking its place as an important town, and is preparing for electric lights, newspaper, bank and business buildings." Not only that, but its unnamed "principal boulevard is to be paved throughout with asphaltum, making a handsome drive through the town and ranch."

Carlton was located at what is now the area east of Rose Drive and north of Imperial Highway. Even today, 123 years later, some of its streets survive, including the east-west thoroughfares of Wabash Avenue, Chestnut Street, Chicago Avenue, Walnut Street, Brooklyn Avenue, Pacific Avenue (though east of Valley View or the old First Street and, therefore, outside the actual Carlton boundary), and Los Angeles Street (while Orange Street is now Marda Avenue and Richfield Avenue is today's Bastanchury Road.) Of the numbered north-south lanes, First is now Valley View Avenue, Fifth is now Prospect, Seventh is today's Rose Drive and Eighth and Ninth seem lost to history. But Second through Fourth and a sliver of Sixth streets are all still around. At the southeast end of the old townsite, there is even a small little lane called Carlton Place. Most of the site is now situated within the City of Yorba Linda, although some of the western portion is in Placentia, where pieces of Brooklyn and Chicago avenues extend west of Rose Drive and flank Golden Avenue, which might be the western extension of Walnut Street.

To top off the hyperboles, the ad claimed that "three-fourths ofthe town of Carlton was sold in 30 days, and prices have advanced 400 per cent. This acreage will rise in the same proportion, though its opening prices were promoted at a mere "$100 per acre upward" in lots of one to twenty acres.

The piece concluded by offering daily excursions to "fertile Olinda" with trains leaving at 9:30 a.m. and returning at 3:15 p.m. (presumably offering a free lunch in the bargain.) Interested parties were requested to inquire at the Los Angeles office of the company with its agents, Maurice Clark and George W. Parsons.

For a time, this ad and slight variations of it appeared in the Times, but the problem was that the real estate boom was filled with myriad other examples of Olindas and Carltons and the speculation was so rampant that the inevitable bust came by the end of the year.

Still, despite the failure of the real estate market and the collapse of Carlton and the Olinda Ranch subdivision, its owner, W.H. Bailey pressed on. Next, more on him.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #7777

2011-06-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

Probably from Monday. Eastbound on the mid-section of the S-curve along Carbon Canyon Road in Chino Hills. Lots going on over there as of late.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #7613

2011-06-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

Sometime today. Looks like someone decided to put it out of its misery (see here for its late April maiming.)

On second thought, this can't really qualify as a decision.

BTW, doesn't that tree trunk (a hi-tech solution to defend the power pole) look like it's holding its "hands" out for protection, or pleading?

Artistic Expression in the Face of . . . Religious Ecstasy?!

2011-06-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

Well, this is interesting.

Somewhat akin, perhaps, in a strange type of sweetness, to the reintroduced "Falling [in love] Rocks" sign that has reappeared on the westbound side of Carbon Canyon Road in Olinda Village, this earnest expression in spray paint has recently sprung up on a K-rail further west on the same side of the highway in a turnout below the steep hillside.

Has anyone been taken yet?

Carbon Canyon Land Purchased for Preservation

2011-06-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

This news came out a couple of weeks ago, but a little under 300 acres of Carbon Canyon land, south and east of Olinda Village was acquired by the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) from Leo Hayashi, former owner of the La Vida Mineral Springs property and is to be preserved as open space.

The acquisition, one of many the agency intends to conduct, was done with funds set aside in the county's Measure M transportation funds as mitigation for projects conducted by OCTA with those monies. According to this article (click here) from the Orange County Register, the agency paid just below $3 million for the parcel and is working with California State Parks to have the state agency manage the preserved land as part of Chino Hills State Park. In fact, it has been said that the property may within a couple of years be formally annexed to the state park, although the article stated that it is "unclear" whether the property would be made accessible to the public or be transferred to the state as an addition to the CHSP.

The Orange County Register got a much more professional and well-placed view of the 287-acre site from atop the ridge. Carbon Canyon Chronicle readers will have to settle for this pedestrian view (power lines and all), taken from Olinda Village on 16 June 2011.

Hayashi, whose trials and tribulations in trying to get his Carbon Canyon domains developed made him something of a cause celebre for pro-development voices, intended at one point to build "up to 300 homes" on the tract, although the City of Brea informed him that he would only be able to construct less than half that number because of the steep terrain.

According to OCTA, which recently announced the purchase of 84 acres near O'Neill Regional Park for $3.2 million (note the significant difference in value), the Carbon Canyon site was desirable because of its high concentration of native plant and animal life. According to the agency in a 2005 report, the proceeds from Measure M projects available from mitigation for the purchase of land for open space could, over three decades, total as much as $243 million. An OCTA spokesperson stated to the Register that some $40 million has been approved by the agency for land acquisition in 2011 alone.

This is welcome news for those who appreciate the effort to preserve what little remains of open space in a county that had witnessed nearly unending development since the 1950s. Acquiring open space for public benefit using mitigation funds derived from public sources is a reasonable and laudable project, given how much of the county has gone to developers over the decades. Presumably, Mr. Hayashi received "fair market value" or more for his land.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #7529: Full Closure of Carbon Canyon Road

2011-06-09T23:58:00.000-07:00

The Leaning Tower of Sleepy Hollow (Redux)

Sure is quiet here in Carbon Canyon this evening. Arrived home to find the electric clocks stopped at 6:43. Turns out a car accident led to the shearing of a power pole on Carbon Canyon Road between the Orange County/San Bernardino County line and the Rosemary Lane/Hillside Drive intersection. SR-142 is closed to thru traffic.

Couldn't get down to the road, so took this shot of the road blocked off at Canyon Market from on high.

Looks like the repair work to the pole and lines will be conducted by Edison throughout the night and, perhaps, into the morning's commute. Likely to lose power at points overnight, but at least we'll be counting sheep (or power poles).

Shocking. Electrifying. Polarizing. OK, Annoying.

At least, it'll be a restful night's sleep for those who live along SR-142.

Olinda Oil Field History: Charles Victor Hall

2011-06-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

Charles Victor Hall was an early entrant into oil development at the Olinda field and has briefly been mentioned in earlier posts on this blog, specifically the entry on 30 June 2009. Recently, however, a descendant, Cliff Hall, communicated with the Chronicle with an offer to provide information on Hall and his life, including his work in oil prospecting at Olinda. Thanks to Mr. Hall and the material, including the great photos herein, he sent for this post.

Olinda oil field developer Charles Victor Hall (1854-1933). Courtesy of Cliff Hall.

Charles Victor Hall was born in May 1854 in San Francisco (though several of his census listings state New York) and seems to have come to Los Angeles around 1860 with his mother, Eliza Jane Hall, and sister Mary. Thanks to the recently-enacted federal legislation, the Homestead Act of 1862, which allowed for settlers to get free 160-acre sections of land, Eliza and daughter Mary applied for and received, by mid-decade, parcels of land southwest of Los Angeles in an area now enclosed within Western Avenue on the west, Normandie Avenue on the east, Washington Boulevard on the north and Adams Boulevard on the south. By 1868, Eliza's land was recorded as "Adams Street Homestead Tract #2," while Mary's was, after her marriage, known as the "Mary Moore Tract." In the 1870 census, Eliza Hall was listed as a house keeper, while Mary was a schoolteacher. Sixteen-year old Charles was merely "at home," but according to an obituary, he had enrolled in the University of California at age 13 and graduated three years later. Actually, an 1870 university register showed Hall as in the "fifth class" or in a college preparatory program for the 1870-71 academic year and, if he continued with the university program as a "fourth class," or freshman, student the following year, he would have graduated in the class of 1875.

Charles Victor Hall, back right, with wife Josephine Dalton next to him and daughter Rowena at the front center.
Courtesy of Cliff Hall.

At any rate, Hall, his obituary continued, eventually found work as a deputy Los Angeles City surveyor and he would either have worked for George Hansen or William Moore, who alternated as city surveyors for many years. His sister, Mary, in fact, married William Moore in 1878. That was also the year, Charles entered into matrimony with Josephine S. Dalton. Josephine was from a well-known Los Angeles family. Her uncle Henry, who left London as a young man for South America, came to the town during the Mexican era and was a merchant and rancher, obtaining a land grant for Rancho Azusa in the eastern San Gabriel Valley. In the early 1850s, during the Gold Rush, Henry's brother, George, brought his family to Los Angeles from Ohio. In 1853, Josephine was born to George and his wife Elizabeth (she, in turn, had been previously married and her two sons from that relationship, William and Charles Jenkins, were notable residents of the Los Angeles area for decades.) George Dalton obtained a tract of land south of town near Central Avenue and Washington Boulevard on which he farmed and raised his family.

Charles Victor Hall and Fullerton Consolidated Oil Company crew members
at an oil rig on the Olinda field. Courtesy of Cliff Hall.

After Hall married Josephine, he tried his hand in Oakland as an insurance agent. The couple's first child, Frank, was born in the Bay Area in 1880 and was followed by three other siblings, a boy and two girls, though only Frank and the youngest, Rowena, survived infancy. By the time a great land and population boom exploded in the Los Angeles region in the latter part of the Eighties, Hall was back in the south and working in real estate. In fact, his major project was the subdivision of his father-in-law's tract (George Dalton died in 1892.) He also inherited some of his mother's homestead, creating the "C.V. Hall Tract" in what is now the West Adams neighborhood. In the late 1940s, the area in and around the Hall Tract was a flashpoint for the important court cases that struck down restrictive covenants that kept blacks and other minorities out of white neighborhoods. Also of note is that two of the streets in this area are Dalton and Halldale, both of which run in segments down deep into south Los Angeles, with Halldale finally terminating below Sepulveda Boulevard in the Harbor Gateway area. There is also a Halldale Elementary School in Torrance. Hobart Boulevard, on which Mary Hall Moore later resided, was named for Hobart Stewart, a nephew of Eliza Hall who was killed by a trolley in Michigan.

The caption reads "Fullerton Consolidated Oil Co. No. 14 / May 16, 1905."
Courtesy of Cliff Hall.

Perhaps his real estate dealings gave him the finances to embark on a career in the oil business, as that industry was launched in the city of Los Angeles with the 1892 discovery of a successful well by Edward Doheny and Charles Canfield in an area just north and west of downtown. In fact, while Doheny went on to initiate work at Olinda a few years later, Hall tried his hand in the business. According to Samuel Armor's 1921 Orange County history, Hall, "whose experience consisted of a few shallow wells" in Los Angeles, was "not supposed to know a bad thing when he saw it," which seems to be an off-hand way of suggesting that Hall was inexperienced when he and three partners, George Owens, Martin Barbour and James Lynch, leased, in 1898, 58 acres at Olinda Ranch and started drilling.

The Fullerton Consolidated Oil Company property at Olinda.
Courtesy of Cliff Hall.

Hall's three partners, however, sold their interests to him in short order and he went it alone. The first well came in successfully in 1899 and even brought in a staggering 20,000 barrels a day for a few days. A second producer was not long in following and, by 1905, there were at least fourteen wells there. This launched the Fullerton Consolidated Oil Company, a major player in Olinda for a decade, and which was capitalized at $300,000. Meanwhile, Hall expanded his oil holdings to include other companies operating in several California fields and he aggressively advertised in such publications as the prominent magazine, Land of Sunshine.

Hall and his family resided at a house on the George Dalton Tract on Central Avenue and 20th Street and lived there for many years. In the early 1910s, however, Hall and his wife were embroiled in a bitter divorce that was heavily publicized in the local papers, after which the oil operator emerged in a marriage with Maria Suetans, a native of Belgium who arrived in the United States in 1912 and who was forty years Hall's junior. According to Hall's obituary, he retired from the oil business in 1915 and, indeed, in the following two censuses he was listed as not having an occupation.

By the 1920s, Hall and his second wife were living in the Westlake Park (now MacArthur Park) neighborhood and he had retired from business. The 1930 census listed the two as residing in a home valued at $100,000, a princely sum for the era. His obituary, though, indicated that, from 1920, he considered a ranch at Buena, a community between the present cities of Vista and San Marcos, near San Diego, his home (this ranch was later subdivided as suburbanzation spread from the city into "North County.") In July 1933, the 79-year old Hall died at his ranch and was said to have made and lost millions in his real estate and oil careers.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #7461

2011-06-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

Well, that didn't take long.

It's only been a couple of weeks since it was reinstated and here it is, that modest directional sign at the summit of the S-curve on Carbon Canyon Road in Chino Hills, unceremoniously pummeled and pulverized.

The driver, as in the previous incident, was proceeding east bound . . . well, sort of . . . and crossed the westbound lane to smash the sign to smithereens (smithereens--where does that word come from?)

The impact sent the sign and part of the post careening into the dust and the spot is strewn with pieces of plastic and fiberglass. Again.

The incident occurred over the weekend and the photo was taken this afternoon. Ho hum.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #7344

2011-05-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

This one was an injury accident on Carbon Canyon Road in Brea east of the Manely Friends stable property and occurred Friday late morning/early afternoon.

Response came from the Chino Hills side with a fire truck and ambulance. Otherwise no details known to this blogger.

Photos taken yesterday morning.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #s7248 and 7248a

2011-05-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

It's now ancient history—probably ten days ago now.

On eastbound Carbon Canyon Road between Fairway Drive/Ginseng Lane and Carriage Hills Drive, in which a vehicle slid off the shoulder, hit an embankment, skidded across lanes and nearly went over the side of the opposing shoulder.

The above were taken a few days ago. Meantime, on the lower part of the S-curve a little further east, more errant traipsing around a curve in which frequent miscalculations occur, as fresh tire tracks show an alternate route off-road:

Childhood Recollections of Camp Kinder Ring in Carbon Canyon

2011-05-16T23:57:00.000-07:00

In a comment to an earlier post on this blog about Camp Kinder Ring, a Jewish youth camp run by the Workmen's Circle of Los Angeles at what is now the horse ranch on the northeast corner of Carbon Canyon Road and Canyon Hills Road in Chino Hills, Leslie Frierman Grunditz excitedly noted that her father, Leonard, had attended the camp for several summers as a child.

When she came in from out of town in February to visit her father, Leslie was able to secure a written account of some of his recollections. Finally and belatedly, the Chronicle is happy to be able to offer those reminiscences in a post, just as they were sent. Here is Mr. Frierman's account:

Childhood of memories: Carbon Canyon Kinder Camp
as told by Leonard D.A. Frierman

Leonard was born in Los Angeles on January 23, 1925. His parents, Russian immigrants, were both very active in the Workman’s Circle and in Socialist discussion groups. His mother, Rebecca, played in the Working Man’s Circle Mandolin Orchestra. In the late 1930’s Leonard and his older brother, Jay, began attending Kinder Camp in Carbon Canyon and continued going there every summer until the beginnings of WWII. Besides attending summer camp, Jay and Leonard often followed their parents to meetings for labor and social organizations that were sponsored at Carbon Canyon throughout the year.

Here are some of Leonard’s memories from his days at Carbon Canyon, as he related them to me in February of 2011.

Leaving Los Angeles, the road would take you through mixed farm country. Passing through the town of Chino on the way was always considered dicey. This was because Chino was know as “Ticket City”, a place that made it’s money by giving tickets to those traveling through.

As the road climbed up to Carbon Canyon, there was a Roadhouse that served booze, had steam baths, and poker. Leonard remembers that the mother of a friend of his (Bud Novack) liked to gamble there, but didn’t trust banks. So, she would bring a purse full of money with her and bring her loaded purse into the steam room with her when she took her bath.

Continuing up the road, it would eventually turn to dirt. Then you crossed a bridge over a stream and entered into the Working Man’s Circle property. You would drive past a cement swimming pool, which he remembers as having a huge filter system.

Reaching the top of the hill, you came to a large wooden building which housed an auditorium and offices. Past that, was the dining hall building, and then you came to the campers cabins. Behind the cabins ran a little creek, which was mostly dry, and the kids would hang out together there. They also like to hang out in a grove of large oak trees that lay past the dry creek. Past the oak grove was a gully and then a little wooden shack where the ladies would cook and serve potato latkes. Leonard remembers killing a rattlesnake out in this area, and described how there were lots of very large garter snakes. He said the girls would take the live garter snakes and drape them across their shoulders like feather boas.

Up on the hillside were private cabins, which people built for themselves. There was no electricity to these buildings, all accept for one, a cabin owned by a friend to Leonard’s parents, John Uptaker. He was a handy guy, who sold used small mining equipment. The cabin consisted of a large room and kitchen and one bedroom. There was an outhouse, no bathroom. On the roof of Mr. Uptaker’s cabin were 3 windmill generators. These were connected to wet cell batteries in the basement, and this provided him with electricity for the cabin!

Summer camp sessions for kids lasted 3 to 4 weeks. Leonard has very fond memories of the camp activities and clearly remembers the daily routine. Breakfast was followed by Yiddish lessons, Jewish music, and then political discussion (Much centered around socialism with a clear anti communist bent). The kids would also put on shows. There were nature walks and afternoon pool time, and of course, campfires at night.

The camp director, Mr. Laser, was nicknamed Mr. Loiser by the kids (which is Yiddish for loser)! They actually liked him very much, but thought the rhyme was funny to say.

On weekends, parents would come for visits during the day. Special activities were scheduled and there were family picnics. The Working Mans Circle Mandolin Orchestra would sometimes perform and there was Eastern European entertainment. Parents would have political meetings and the kids were welcome. There were guest speakers who talked about politics, history, and Jewish culture. An actor from Hollywood, Paul Muni, would come and read from the works of Shalom Aleichem (this was before Leonard’s time at camp). Guest actors and singers would come on weekends to perform Jewish cultural works. The Farm Worker’s Union would also make an appearance. Everyone argued politics. Everyone participated. Everyone ate latkes.

People tend to think that, because Chino Hills is a recently-incorporated city, it somehow lacks history, which cannot be further from the truth. Although residents, visitors and passersby might notice the horse ranch and some of the old camp buildings sitting off Carbon Canyon Road, few undoubtedly know of the interesting history of Camp Kinder Ring, which existed for about thirty years from the late 1920s to the late 1950s. Mr. Frierman's recollections help preserve a little of that story.

The accompanying photos are courtesy of the Workmen's Circle Arbeter Ring office in Los Angeles and were copied in Summer 2008 from an album of images photographed at Camp Kinder Ring in the 1940s or 1950s. Clicking on any of them will open a window with a larger view.

A Strange Sight on Carbon Canyon Road

2011-05-11T23:38:00.000-07:00

While it is not at all uncommon to see items dumped alongside Carbon Canyon Road, especially on the less populated and more rugged Brea side, this was a strange sight encountered this morning. This is in a large turnout on the westbound side of SR-142 between the old La Vida Mineral Springs property and Olinda Village.

It appears to be a couch loaded with trash, covered with some kind of pad and tied together with rope that is then attached to a reflector sign.

The obvious question seems to be why it was left this way, especially tied to the sign? Maybe it looks a lot creepier than it really is!

A Less Intrusive Artistic Expression in the Face of Social Injustice

2011-05-10T23:46:00.000-07:00

This, appearing in the last week or so at the old La Vida Mineral Springs property on the Brea side of Carbon Canyon, is an interesting manifestation of tagging--isn't the point to be seen?

Then again, is there really a point to it all anyway?

Um, are we done with the rhetorical questions? Let's hope the good samaritan who usually comes in and paints this area will return soon.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon: #7011 and #7163

2011-05-09T23:48:00.000-07:00

Late last week, at the top of the S-curve on Carbon Canyon Road in Chino Hills, an innocuous directional sign politely pointing drivers to remain firmly in the eastbound lanes of traffic while negotiating a curve was pathetically pulverized by someone who evidently thought better of it, as below.

Meantime, within the last week or two, there was some erratic perambulation (look it up) a little further down the curve to the east, but, without success in taking out any pent-up energy or dislike for any signs or other animate or inanimate objects down thataway, as below (though a car coming westbound inadvertently, though conveniently, demonstrated here what could have happened had someone else been coming that way when said skid-monger made his mark.)

Wildfire Awareness Fair Next Saturday!

2011-05-06T23:44:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, 14 May from 10 am to 2 pm, the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council hosts its annual Wildfire Awareness Fair with the cities of Chino Hills and Brea serving as co-sponsors. This event, held for the last few years at Western Hills Park in the Chino Hills side of the Canyon, is moving to the new Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center at 4500 Carbon Canyon Road in Brea, adjacent to Carbon Canyon Regional Park. Moving the venue is also recognition of the fact that Brea joined the Council in 2009 and this important interconnectivity has strengthened the organization and the resolve to make awareness of wildfires a broader effort.

The event, created to let the area know about prevention of fires, evacuation policies and procedures, and general emergency preparedess, will feature presentations on landscape that is firewise and water-saving, demonstrations of wildfire preparedness products, displays by local CERT (Citizen Emergency Response Team) and Auxiliary Radio Operators who assist with emergency issues, and animals from the group "Nature of Wildworks." There will also be food, face painting and prize drawings and many people will be able to get a first look at the Discovery Center, which is awaiting completion of exhibits, but is otherwise finished in terms of the structure.

Among local vendors and agencies who are participating are: Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market, Home Depot, Chino Valley Fire District, Brea Fire Department (which has just concluded an joint operating agreement with the Fullerton Fire Department), Brea Police Department, CalFire (the state fire agency), California State Parks, Hills for Everyone, and others.

Anyone who lives in Carbon Canyon or nearby areas that are vulnerable to wildfires should come and learn more about what can be done to mitigate that hazard, as well as get a chance to see the new center.

For more information, call the Fire Safe Council at (714) 33-2405 or (909) 902-5280, extension 409.