An Early La Vida Mineral Springs Document from 1924

Thanks for Orange County historian and former county archivist Phil Brigandi for providing a copy of an "Application for License," filed with the county by the promoters of what was called in the document "La Vida Springs" on 10 June 1924.

These applications were either for a "pool room," or billiard space, or "public dance," or dance hall.  On the La Vida one, the description for the premises is that the parcel consisted of "160 acres of Deeded Land — Bath Houses, Cabinets, Etc. owned by — Wm Berkenstock, Wm Blatner, Pugh and Miller, Fred Cline, A.L. Lewis, C. E. Price."

The request was for the quarter beginning on 1 July and was signed "C.W. Blatner, Trustee / La Vida Springs Co."  The license, if approved, was to be mailed to Blatner at the resort site, which was then in the Fullerton R.F.D. 2 (the acronym standing for "Rural Free Delivery," people of a certain age might recall the old TV chestnut "Mayberry, R.F.D.")

Brigandi noted that the application was found in the records of the Orange County Board of Supervisors at the county archives and stated that the district attorney and sheriff were asked to weigh in as to whether applications were to be approved.

Indeed, at the top in pencil, is the inscription, "refer to / Dist Atty / refusal recommended" and this signed by district attorney Alexander P. Nelson and sheriff Sam Jernigan.  A separate inscription reads, "no fee paid," because of the refusal to accept the request.  Notably, Jernigan was a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan, which had a host of prominent Orange County men on its rolls back in the 1920s.

By contrast, as explained by Brigandi, Nelson was a forceful opponent of the Klan in the county and, having acquired a list of members, made that information public whenever anyone on the list ran for public office.

As profiled by Gustavo Arellano in his Orange County Weekly column on KKK "pioneers" in the OC, Jernigan was also a fervent support of Prohibition as sheriff, which likely explains his (as well as Nelson's) recommendation to ban a dance hall license for La Vida--because the remote Carbon Canyon location would have provided easy cover for illicit drinking and gambling.  A future post will concern a bust on the latter that took place at La Vida a few years later.

On the reverse of the document is a stamp showing the application was filed on the same date of the request by county clerk J.M. Backs.  A pencil inscription in a corner noted that the petition was "Denied — June 10, 24 / La Vida Springs."

Obviously, the more important information ultimately concerns the size of the property, which constituted a quarter section of land and substantially more than just the developed areas, as well as the owners of the resort.

A June 1924 application for a dance hall license from the trustees of "La Vida Springs," from the records of the Orange County Board of Supervisors in the county archives.  The copy was provided by historian and former county archivist Phil Brigandi.  Click on the image to see it in an enlarged view in a separate window.

Pugh and Miller was the oil production company co-owned by William Newton Miller, who effectively ran the business and later owned the entire operation until it was turned over to his daughter and son-in-law, Lois and Robert Dickenson, who continued operating La Vida until the 1970s.  Miller's story has been detailed in this blog previously.

As to the others, William Berkenstock was a native of White Deer, Pennsylvania, a small community in the north-central part of the state, close to Williamsport, the birthplace of Little League Baseball.   Born there in 1870 to a farming family, Berkenstock made his way west as a young man and, by 1900, was living in the Fullerton township, where Placentia was later founded.

Berkenstock married Josephine Wagner, daughter of Charles C. Wagner, a prosperous Placentia citrus grower,  Several homes built by Wagner's children stand in the city, including one on Yorba Linda Boulevard east of Valencia Avenue and another on Valencia, cater corner to El Dorado High School, and there is a school and park named for the family.

Berkenstock made his money as a fumigator for growers and also operated his own groves on 80 acres immediately north of those of his father-in-law.  In 1913, he built an Italianate home that was designed by architect Frederick Eley, whose work includes structures at Chapman University, the famed White House restaurant in Anaheim, the Santa Ana Y.M.C.A., and others.  Said to have cost $15,000, a princely sum at the time, the nearly 6,000 square foot home still stands in a private enclave just south of Bastanchury Road and east of Valencia.  Among other activities, Berkenstock was a director of the Fullerton Savings Bank.

Charles William Blattner was born in 1860 in Chicago, where his Swiss-born father ran a saloon.  For many years, Blattner was a commission agent for Bell Telephone and Telegraph, but left the industry and Chicago for Orange County, where he purchased a 10-acre orange grove on Commonwealth Avenue east of downtown Fullerton in Spring 1909.

A year later, he sold the property and then bought a 40-acre property in the new community of Yorba Linda, in partnership with his brother, Oscar (a brick company owner in Chicago who retired to South Pasadena.)  Blattner, who was married with children and divorced about 1910 (he filed on the grounds that his devout Roman Catholic wife, Mary Flannagan, could not remain with Blattner, who had become a Mason--so they lived apart for some twenty years), remarried and remained at his ranch until he died on 24 July 1924, just six weeks after the La Vida Springs application was filed by him.

Charles E. Price was profiled here before with respect to the Carbon Canyon Oil Company, which after its incorporation in 1900 drilled some wells near where Carbon and Soquel canyons meet at today's Olinda Village.  Price was also discussed on this blog concerning his name being on a 1924 map of the canyon--this, of course, being the same year as the La Vida Springs application.  So, it appears that, long after the failure of the oil company, Price kept his ownership of land in Carbon Canyon and was then a partner in the La Vida Springs project.

Frederick J. Cline was born in 1878 in Fresno to a farming couple, Samuel and Elizabeth Cline.  By 1900, the family had relocated to San Pedro, then an independent city, and Fred was employed as a day laborer.  Married and with a family, Cline became a real estate agent in San Pedro, which was annexed to the city of Los Angeles, during the following decade.  Then, he and his family moved to King City, near Salinas in Monterey County, where he was employed as a lumberman.

Sometime after 1920, however, Cline relocated back to southern California and not only became a part-owner of the La Vida Springs, but was its manager, as noted in this blog previously.  In the 1930 census, he is listed as a water company manager, perhaps for the La Vida mineral water bottling enterprise  While his involvement with the resort seems to have ended by sometime in the 1930s, he remained in Placentia, selling insurance during the Great Depression years and he died in 1945, at the age of 67.

The last trustee of the La Vida resort was Arthur L. Lewis, who was born in the remote area in Monitor Pass in Alpine County, southeast of Lake Tahoe—a county that is the smallest in population of the 58 in California.  His father, Lafayette, was a stable keeper and his mother was Ellen Potter, with both hailing from New York.

During the 1870s, the Lewis family resettled in Anaheim, where Lafayette continued his line of work with the Fashion Livery Stable (and, from 1903-1907, owned the Workman Ranch in the La Puente area, now the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, but his destruction of the old cemetery on the ranch led to a lawsuit verdict against him, requiring Lafayette to rebuild what he tore down.  Consequently, he sold the property) and Arthur joined his father in the business for a period before turning to the new occupation of electrician.  By 1900, he was working in that field and maintained that vocation through the 1910s.  By 1920, Lewis relocated his family to Norwalk, where they took up farming and, presumably, this is what he was doing when he joined the La Vida enterprise.

By the end of the Twenties, Lewis and his wife, Louise, moved to Seal Beach, but their stay on the coast was relatively brief and, prior to 1935, the couple bought an orange grove off Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim and resided there, presumably, until Arthur's death in 1949 at age 86.

It appears from the list of trustees found on the application that Charles E. Price was the owner of the land where La Vida was founded, perhaps purchasing this from Edward F. Gaines, who was associated with a more rudimentary operation of a resort there from at least 1915.  Then, a syndicate of orange growers and farmers with strong northern Orange County connections came in and joined Price in creating the La Vida Springs or La Vida Mineral Springs resort.  Within a short time, however, it appears that Miller consolidated control with Cline serving as manager--at least for a while.

From sometime in the 1930s, Miller looks to have been sole proprietor of the springs, although having the restaurant run by Archie Rosenbaum, and then, in the early Forties, turned over the property to his daughter and son-in-law, the Dickensons, who operated La Vida for some thirty years.

This application adds significant new information to the evolving story of Carbon Canyon's most notable historic element, thanks to Phil Brigandi's unearthing of the document in the county archives.

Personal Recollections of La Vida Mineral Springs

Recently, correspondence with Roberta Wright, whose family operated the La Vida Mineral Springs resort on the Brea side of Carbon Canyon for nearly fifty years, included information that helps provide a fuller picture of the history of that facility.

Mrs. Wright's grandfather, William Newton Miller, was the owner of La Vida from about 1924, as first noted here from an Orange County Register history timeline.  The source, however, stated that Miller operated the resort from that date with an unnamed son-in-law.  What Mrs. Wright clarified was that the son-in-law was, in fact, her father Robert L. Dickenson, who, with his wife, Lois Miller, owned La Vida with the other Miller children and managed the site for some thirty years.  A post on this blog showing a 1960s postcard of one of the pools at La Vida included mention of a 1957 Los Angeles Times article that quoted "R.L. Dickenson" talking to the paper about the opening of the second pool at the resort.  At the same time, some online references to Brea city council meetings from 1963-1967 included material about Dickenson petitioning the council for hearings about issues like property tax valuation and costs for new water delivery systems at La Vida.



This 1951 photo provided by Roberta Wright looks from near the hotel at La Vida Mineral Springs westward across the pedestrian footbridge and towards the restaurant, in front of which are some parked cars.  Visible is the light snowfall that was remembered vividly by Mrs. Wright, whose grandfather became owner of the resort in the 1920s and whose parents managed the facility until it was sold in 1973 or 1974.

Mrs. Wright observed that, "in 1924 the property was owned by a boxer named Archie Rosenbaum.  Some time after that my grandfather came into the picture."  Earlier posts here discussed that Rosenbaum, a native of Russia, was a restaurant owner in Los Angeles and could be tracked as being at La Vida from 1926 until the early 1940s.  It turns out that this corresponds for the most part with William Newton Miller's tenure at the resort.  Perhaps Rosenbaum bought the resort and then Miller came in shortly afterward, because much of Rosenbaum's years specifically identified him with the café at La Vida, while Miller, then, managed the mineral springs and lodging side--the 1940 census showed Miller as "manager" of the springs.  Mrs. Wright stated that "we did not move there until 1944," to counter the misinformation in the timeline that her father, who was born in 1914, helped Miller open the site in 1924 (Dickenson was only 10 years old then!)

She also commented that "my grampa was in the oil business and lost a fortune when the crash hit.  The only thing he came away with was the springs, very sad time for the family."  She noted that Miller, who was listed in the 1930 census as an "oil operator" was a partner in the Pugh-Miller Drilling Company and was a trustee in the Bank of America, as well as being involved in other organizations.  Recent poking around found maps showing that the firm had oil wells near Topanga Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains and, more importantly, in Signal Hill near Long Beach, which was a hugely successful oil field in the 1920s and afterward.  The crash of the stock market in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression is what Mrs. Wright referred to as affecting Miller's financial situation, leaving him with only La Vida.

Later, her account continued "my grandfather's shares were distributed evenly among the 4 siblings.  The older 3 had also purchased some shares but my mom and dad had the most after grampa died."  William Newton Miller, who was born in 1889, died in 1974, so those shares came some fifty years after he first became owner of La Vida. 

She went on to say that "there were also 3 cabins across the street from the parking lot many years before me, but when I was young there were still remnants of the cabins on the ground.  There also was a cabin on the hill across from the lower bath house which was below the restaurants about 20 yards of more.  I used to work at the old bath house."  As for this information, the first part seems to refer to structures, including one noted in several older (1920s or 1930s) real photo postcards of La Vida and one of these was lived in by the family of James Williams, who operated the resort from about 1915, a decade or more before Miller.  William's descendant, Nick, shared some of that history and some photos of the family house perched on the hill across Carbon Canyon Road from the facility.

As for the old bath house, this is another structure found on La Vida postcards from the 1920s through the 1940s or 1950s, of which several examples have been posted here.  Mrs. Wright recalled that "in the old bath house each tub had its own little room."  One of the posts quoted from a Los Angeles Times report in the late 1950s about a disastrous boiler explosion that destroyed the original bath house and seriously wounded several persons.  In the newer bath house, she remembered, "families would come in and go into the tub area and all of them would get in the tub together.  The tubs were Roman sunken and you went down a few steps to get fully in."  There is also a 1960s postcard, highlighted here in the past, that showed these tubs in the new bath house.

Mrs. Wright also stated that "there used to be a bottling plant down by where the old water tank sits on the hill and they bottled soda pop."  This location would be on the far west side of the property where the tank, still sporting the La Vida logo, is the last major physical reminder, aside from bridge support bases and sidewalk remnants, of the facility.  There was, however, also a La Vida plant in downtown Fullerton, as noted in some of the previous posts here.

She went on to say that, "around 1945-48 the soda pop company was sold to a man named Charley Shook (or Shuck)" who had once worked for Dr. Pepper.  The earliest indications of the existence of the La Vida bottling company is from the late 1920s, about the time Miller became identified with the site, and there was a considerable expansion of the business during that era and well into the 1930s, when La Vida products were also bottled in northern California.  Other posts here have featured La Vida bottles from such places as Sacramento and have spotlighted advertising efforts from the company in magazines and newspapers in the western states.  Mrs. Wright then said that, "after that [the mid to late 1940s] they only bottled the spring water for a time and then that was also abandoned."  Again, there are other posts here that feature La Vida bottles that appear to be from late 1940s to early 1950s era, when Shook (Shuck) appears to have expanded his efforts to market the soda.

Mrs, Wright  continued that, regarding the water, it "is not sulphur, but mineral.  There was a small sulphur stream that came out the canyon wall just down from the restaurant but it wa sclose to the water line of the creek.  The spring is in a sort of a cave and was not drilled out by oil seekers."  This is an interesting tidbit about the two types of volcanically-derived water found not just at La Vida but elsewhere in Carbon Canyon.  Paul Nolan Hyde, a longtime resident in Sleepy Hollow, shared some of his remembrances for this blog in its early days, and specifically remembered the sulphuric content of the water in Carbon [Canyon] Creek when he was a boy back in the 1940s.

Another remarkable photo of the unusual snowfall at La Vida Mineral Springs in the winter of 1951.  Roberta Wright, who supplied the image and her recollections of her family's long ownership of the resort, stands in the parking lot near the restaurant.  In the background, behind the cars, is the pedestrian footbridge to the hotel and bath house, which dated from the 1920s and was destroyed by a boiler explosion in the later 1950s.

There was another notable tidbit shared by Mrs. Wright, namely that "we had a heavy snow in 1951 that covered everything, very pretty, it was the only snow storm ever recorded at La Vida."  This was, indeed, a rare phenomenon, when snow, albeit in small amounts, got to so low an elevation.  Mrs. Wright provided the photograph shown here documenting the snowfall over sixty years ago.

She also had an important correction regarding the pools, mentioned briefly above.  She noted that "the pools are not described properly.  The one in front with the fountain is the wading pool.  It was the original pool and was at first deep in one end, but my dad had it filled to be a wading pool and installed the fountain when they built the big one behind it."  This can be seen in the postcard here, highlighted in a previous post.

There was one other interesting Carbon Canyon tidbit shared by Mrs. Wright, namely that "my parents were part owners in the El Circulo, which was the place where the skiing ramp is."  This was the "Club El Circulo," which Allen McCombs, publisher emeritus of the local Champion newspaper, stated was opened about 1963 where the old Camp Kinder Ring was operated from 1928 to 1958 by a Jewish organization in Los Angeles. 

This new resort, Mrs. Wright went on to relate, "probably would have done well" except that there were some management issues "and the whole thing fell apart."  She went to say that "even if the skiing ramp had not worked the rest of the project was a great idea and a lot of people came there to picnic and have dinner.  There was a nice bar and restaurant and they had very good food."  El Circulo later turned into the "Purple Haze," which had a colorful history in the late 1960s/early 1970s.  The site has been, for many years, a horse stable and cattle sales facility.

The skiing ramp was known as "Ski Villa" and one of the more popular posts on this blog is about the short history of this unusual all-weather ski ramp with white needles as the base surface and the cement remains of which still are on the hillside off Canyon Hills Road just north of Carbon Canyon Road.  With, however, indications that work on the long-gestating Canyon Hills subdivision of 76 houses is finally starting, the remains of the ramp are likely to removed in the very near future.

Here is a detail showing two iron chairs, which had the La Vida name imprinted on them, in the lawn near the hotel and bath house, with part of the pedestrian footbridge in the background.  This is again from the winter of 1951 when an unusual snow storm dropped powder on the resort.  Courtesy of Roberta Wright, whose grandfather William Newton Miller purchased La Vida in the 1920s and whose parents Robert and Lois Dickenson ran the facility until it was sold in 1974.

Mrs. Wright's offer to provide some memories and information about the Miller/Dickenson family's ownership and management of La Vida for over a half-century fills in many gaps in this blog about the history of Carbon Canyon's most notable site.  She ended by noting that it was about Noon on 4 December 1988 when the hotel, located on the eastern side of the resort, burned down.  By then, the facility had been sold about 1974 to Leo and June Hayashi, who continued to own the site until it was purchased by Tadayao Hata, who owned a large mineral springs spa in Japan. 

Hata still retains ownership of La Vida, though his late 1990s plans to reconstitute La Vida in a modern spa remains unrealized.  Leo Hayashi also retains ownership of land within Carbon Canyon, though some 400 acres of steep hill lands on the south side of Carbon Canyon Road just east of Hollydale Mobile Home Estates was purchases from him by the Orange County Transportation Authority and transferred to Chino Hills State Park in a deal involving transportation mitigation funds elsewhere in the county.