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

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.

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

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.