Velsir Street and the Old Mission Colony, South El Monte, Cal.

 

The route along Durfee Avenue still feels like traveling on a country road, but the strawberry field has been converted into a heavy-duty staging area of the Whittier Narrows Dam Safety Modification Project.

The Velsir Street sign caught my eye. Its location does not pop up on a Google Maps keyword search…that was the first anomaly encountered along my research.  

Google Map image 2012

The short street is perpendicular to Durfee - just west of a former school ground and today the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers local headquarters. Around 1952 the federal government took over the one-acre “La Puente” school, established in 1868 when F.P.F. Temple donated the land. (See Paul Spitzerri’s finely researched, exhaustive 4-part study of the school on the Homestead Blog).

 

Map, 1886, arrow pointing to school site
Courtesy of LA County Dept of Public Works
Land Records Information

The takeover was a big step for the federal government towards constructing the Whittier Narrows Dam. Understandably many residents resisted having their homes condemned, and they fought for years.

L.A. street names expert Mark Tapio Kines said the Velsir name was present in the 1930s. The earliest year I found is from a circa 1947 Hearnes Brothers map.

Polyconic projection map of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County in three parts - this part is the East Portion, ca. 1947 Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library

Velsir is also seen on my circa 1955 Thomas Bros. street atlas below. Note the orange star symbol indicating a school.

Property casualties included 11048-11049 Velsir; and 11122 Velsir, all referenced in 1950s issues of Whittier News. Those 1930s references pointed out by Tapio Kines were mostly in the 2700 block, which make no sense to me because the street does not extend to a great length.

The Old Mission Colony

Though the tagged residential properties (and the school) were vacated in 1951 and 1952, the neighborhood streets were still in the pages of this Thomas Bros. edition shown above. Noteworthy is Velsir, but also a cluster of names (Primavera, Verano, Otono, Invierno, Campanillo) that formed a neighborhood within this unincorporated county area. The newspaper called it the Old Mission Colony. Read about La Misión Vieja through numerous posts on the Homestead Blog such as this one. The artificial Legg Lake is situated there now.

 

July 1, 1951
Courtesy LAPL's ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times

Who was Velsir? 

Or, as Tapio Kines said, Van Velsir is the more common surname.

Was the street attributed to capitalist James Velsir (b. 1836)?

He was a one-time member of the Los Angeles Common Council and investor in a new San Gabriel Valley town called Alosta. He lived on Buena Vista Street in L.A. with his wife Josephine. She filed divorce in 1886, and James tried to kill her in 1889 following their divorce.

Maybe not. Keep digging.

Was it one of three generations of Irving Van Velsir’s?

Irving, Sr. (b. 1860) had a son, Irving, Jr. was born in Compton in 1887. (Compton could have been a common factor since F.P.F. Temple and Fielding W. Gibson founded the city of Compton in 1867.)

Maybe not. Irving, Jr. was an itinerant salesman. Keep digging.

The next generation of the Van Velsir clan produced another Irving (b. 1906). This Irving might have been “I. Van Velsir,” a clerk for the Los Angeles County Road Department around 1926. He would have been 20 years old, and he was on staff to compile historic real estate abstracts. He had by-lines on numerous L.A. County real estate abstracts.

The below image shows I. Van Velsir worked on two entries including an oddly coincidental one pertaining to Fielding W. Gibson.

L.A. County Department of Public Works
Land Records Information

 

I suspect Irving lent his name to make up Velsir Street in 1926. There was a lot of land subdividing throughout this decade to keep the road department busy. He married in 1928. The 1930 federal census shows he was employed as a draftsman at an oil company.

The lost homes and streets affected homeowners and renters of all socioeconomic stripes. Erased are street signs that could have served a tangible reminder of the Mission Colony along these former San Gabriel Mission lands.

What remains is the rather inconsequential Velsir Street, a survivor of the Whittier Narrows Dam construction completed nearly 70 years ago.