Sleepy Hollow's Hiltscher Mineral Springs Resort

Thanks to a comment and an image provided by Sleepy Hollow resident Ray Byworth after he read the post two weeks back on the 1940 federal census in the community, there is new information about a second mineral springs resort in Carbon Canyon.  The far better known La Vida Mineral Springs opened sometime in the early 1910s or so and operated for many decades, but there was another resort just over the San Bernardino County line and Mr. Byworth provided the image below, which he received from Doug Dale, the local realtor who sold him his house and who annotated the image at the top with "PICTURE OF YOUR PROPERTY."  The view comes from a ca. 1960s publication that looks like a community newsletter and shows the Hiltscher Springs property.

This photocopy of a ca. 1960 newsletter from the Carbon Canyon community of Sleepy Hollow shows a photo of the Hiltscher Mineral Springs resort, which operated in the 1930s and perhaps beyond near the southwest corner of Carbon Canyon Road and Rosemary Lane.  The image, which can be viewed in a larger format by clicking on it, was provided by community resident Ray Byworth.

As noted in an earlier post concerning a 1920s map that showed the Olinda oil field and surrounding areas, there was a J.M. Hiltscher who owned a parcel in the general area that became Sleepy Hollow.  It was speculated in that post that this was Joseph Hiltscher, who was from a Fullerton ranching and farming family.  In the 1930 census, as also covered in this blog, there was a Fred Hiltscher shown as residing in Sleepy Hollow. 

A little further research reveals that Joseph and Fred (Frederick) were brothers.  Their parents were August Hiltscher and Frederike Bockisch.  August, born in June 1843, and Frederike, born in September 1850, were from German-speaking families who had Prussian and Austrian birthplaces.  The couple married in 1868 and raised five sons: Frederick, August, Jr., Joseph, Maximilian, and John.  August was a manufacturer of fine linen tablecloths in Austria and, because he had markets in the United States, decided to come to this country.  In April 1886, the Hiltscher family sailed from Hamburg, Germany and landed in New York City within eleven days.

Almost immediately, the family came west and found property west of Fullerton along Orangethorpe Avenue at Nicolas Avenue, what is today Euclid Street.  On twenty acres, the family tried wine grapes (after all, nearby Anaheim was founded by German immigrants looking to establish a wine-making colony), but then moved to walnuts and apricots after a disease wiped out the majority of the area's vineyards.  Later, the ranch was converted to raising oranges, which became the signature crop of its namesake county.

After only five years in the area, however, August Hiltscher died at age 48 and his widow assumed management of the ranch, successfully operating it with the help of some of her sons until her death in August 1919.

Shortly after his father's death, Frederick moved to Butte County in northern California, where he worked as a cooper (who made casks, barrels, tubs, buckets, butter churns and other vessels) in the town of Bangor, southeast of Oroville.  After a couple of years there, he returned to Fullerton for another brief tenure and worked as a farmer.  By 1900, however, he and his younger brother, Maximilian, five years Frederick's junior, were living in Chino where the two were farming.  It is not entirely clear where in Chino they were and it is possible they were in Carbon Canyon.  One of their neighbors, a French Basque named John Bidart (there was a La Puente family by that name) was a shepherd, and another was Andrew Friend, a farmer, and a family named Friend has been raising cattle in the Canyon for many decades.

By 1904, though, Frederick and Maximilian had left California for Arizona, where in that year the former and three partners incorporated the White Dog and Fullerton Mining Company in Prescott, a copper mining town northwest of Phoenix (incidentally, fifteen or so miles north of Prescott is Chino Valley!)  Fred served as the company's vice-president, while Max was a director.

However, after a few years at Prescott, the two brothers lit out for the copper mining town of Faulkner, New Mexico, north of Las Cruces and near what is now called Truth or Consequences, after a popular 1950s game show of all things.  In 1910, Fred worked as a mine assayer, someone who tests ores and minerals and figures out their type and what they are worth, while his brother was a machinist in a mine.  The brothers, who never married, were in the same community a decade later and, while, Maximilian continued to work as a machinist, Fred was listed as a civil engineer, though undoubtedly connected to mining.

Sometime during the 1920s, though, Fred came back to California and settled in Sleepy Hollow, while Maximilian remained in Faulkner associated with mining and was listed as owning his own copper mine in his World War I registration form.

The image provided by Mr. Byworth clearly shows the structure, located on the south side of Carbon Canyon Road between Rosemary Lane and the San Bernardino/Orange counties line to be the "Hiltscher Springs."  The question is: which member of that family.  The Joseph guessed at earlier as the "J.M. Hiltscher" on the 1924 oil map, was actually Joseph P. Hiltscher, not that map-makers don't make mistakes.  On the other hand, the middle initial might stand for "Maximilian," except that the 1900 census shows him as "Max H. Hiltscher."  It certainly wouldn't seem that "J.M." would have been Frederick.

Another minor issue is that 1937 and 1938 articles in the Los Angeles Times about regional mineral springs stated that Hiltscher, along with Silverado (in the Santa Ana Mountains east of Orange) and La Vida, was in Orange County, though the 1940 census clearly enumerates the spa as in San Bernardino County, which the photo above also indicates.

In any case, this is a great find.  Mr. Byworth, as indicated in his comment to the 1940 census post, also unearthed the remains of six concrete and tile hot tubs on his property that were from the Hiltscher Springs resort.  If someone out there has any information on which Hiltschers were owners of the springs, how long it operated, and any other material, it would be great to hear from you.

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.