Banty the Rooster and a Menagerie in Lincoln Heights, Cal.

This post begins at a Lincoln Heights house built in 1912 and now preserved by Paul Greenstein.  Shared here are some fragments of past life there - one of the characters is a fireman, another a rooster.  This post will segue to involve the East Los Angeles alligators, a camel, ostriches and a whale that all made their way to these parts.

A dog's chew toy at the house provides the spirit of Banty

Paul is meticulously restoring the interior back to the time period.  He uncovered layers of flooring, stripped away coat after coat of white wall paint, and analyzed the traces of floor markings to detect the original layout.  He also learned about the original owners who constructed the house:  Arthur and Mabel Bilderrain.

In the photo above, Paul pedals the pedals of the 1912 Metrograde piano and fills the room with a very happy tune.  Gary Leonard is seen in the background.

There would not be stories to tell had Paul not saved this house.  To his advantage was the protection afforded to this house in 2004 when the city established an historic preservation overlay zone around it.  A potential buyer who wanted to build four units on the lot got discouraged, so Paul landed the property along with the hundred-years-old plumbing.

Fireman at Engine Company 4

Arthur Bilderrain was appointed fireman in 1900.  He married Mabel Davis in 1910.  In 1913 he retired from the fire department - one year after completing the house.  The couple may have gotten into the restaurant/catering trade later.

A portrait of Arthur on upper left
From the 1908 Album, Los Angeles Fire Department Collection
Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research,
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

A Chinese Massacre in Los Angeles

Arthur was born not long after the most lawless episode in city history – the Chinese Massacre in October of 1871.  His father, Jesus Bilderrain, was a cop working that evening when fighting erupted in Chinatown, and he was injured in the melee.  

Mexico-born Jesus moved to Los Angeles around the time when the city was on the cusp of transitioning from a Mexican ciudad to an American city - the peace Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 led the way for the change in government.

Every account of the Massacre invariably includes Jesus.  He passed away in 1901, but he seemed to have achieved immortality in contrast to the nameless Chinese victims.  Last year the Asian American community commemorated the 150th anniversary amidst a current climate of anti-Asian racism.

Banty the Rooster

In 1935 Arthur and Mabel’s rooster had its day in court.  Young and boisterous, Banty's early morning unceasing crowing impelled neighbors to file a lawsuit of $1,000 in damages.  The Bilderrains seemed to fan the flames as they were quoted as saying “they would gladly part with Banty if Banty were not so adept at bothering Mrs. Struck and her tenants.”  Judge Ambrose visited Banty’s habitat at his home before ruling in his favor.

Los Angeles Times, March 27, 1935
Courtesy of ProQuest

According to the city directories by 1940 Arthur and Mabel were living in a multi-family unit in the Ambassador Heights tract of Los Angeles (at the vicinity of the 1921 built Ambassador Hotel).  Subsequent residents of the Lincoln Heights house happened to be Chinese, from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and perhaps later as well.

The East Los Angeles Animal Farms

When the area was still called East Los Angeles, animal farms took root along Mission Road by Eastlake Park (today's Lincoln Park).  The Los Angeles Ostrich Farm started about 1907, and the California Alligator Farm opened about that time as well.

A star gator was Pontchartrain Bill, promoted as weighing 220 pounds, at 80 years old and captured in 1907 by Frank Earnest out of Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana.  Frank's granddaughter Marjorie remembered Billy as extremely docile, allowing tourists to have their pictures taken while sitting on his back.

The Earnest family eventually took over the ostrich farm.  The alligator farm stayed put until 1953 when it pulled out and headed to Buena Park.  Read more about the history here from an article I put together.

Marjorie Eade riding atop Pontchartrain Bill
Image courtesy of the Seaver Center

Topsy the Camel at the Selig Zoo

Early film producer William Selig established a zoo on Mission Road in 1915 about a block north of the animal farms.  From Kat Halsey's wonderful article chronicling Topsy, a female, bactrian (two-humped) camel, it is likely that Topsy stayed for a time at the Selig Zoo.  

Topsy is believed to have been one of the more than 30 original camels collected from various Middle East cities to form the U.S. Army Camel Corps.  Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War in 1855, organized the importation, and some historians argue that these work animals were part of his plan to expand slavery through the Southwest.

Kat Halsey summed it up in her article that Topsy "was one hundred years old. She was the last survivor of the Camel Corps. She had traveled across oceans, served in the military, worked in mines, been hit by a train, and entertained the masses in the circus, on the silver screen, and finally at the Griffith Park Zoo where she was loved by her keepers and the public alike."

Since her death in 1934 she continues to serve for public good as she has been a specimen for nearly 90 years at the Natural History Museum and used for education and research.

Could this have been Topsy?
Photo taken at Selig Zoo
Courtesy of the Seaver Center

Selig Zoo, circa 1915
Courtesy of the Seaver Center

A side street offers a remnant of the past

Lincoln Heights Whale or Mixocetus elysius

The oldest animal to visit Lincoln Heights, that I am aware, is the 10 to 11 million year-old creature that swam when Los Angeles was ocean.

Currently on exhibit at the Natural History Museum in a
special exhibition "L.A. Under Water"

Unearthed was an 8-foot long fossil skull and jaws of a mature Miocene baleen whale that had an above-average body size of approximately 32 feet long.  An article in the museum's 1984 publication, Terra (v.22 n.4), explained that when "our Mixocetus elysius fossil was a living whale, the Santa Monica Mountains, the Palos Verdes Hills, the San Jose Hills, and many other hilly regions in the Los Angeles area were flat sea bottom. The shoreline ran through locations as far inland as Newhall, Sunland-Tujunga, San Dimas, and Chino."

Mr. Maley was the plumber who discovered the bones while digging a trench for orchard irrigation on the Happy Valley property of Mrs. Blevins near Lincoln Park Boulevard.  The museum was notified immediately, and everything was collected within a couple of weeks from the time of the discovery on January 22, 1931.

Jean Louis Vignes, Catalina Island & Lincoln Heights

Vignes Street

Vignes Street is a familiar marker in downtown L.A., such as the sign along the Hollywood Freeway seen below. The street name is attributed to Jean Louis Vignes, who arrived in Los Angeles in 1831, having traveled to California from the Bordeaux region of France.

He bought a tract of land adjacent to the Los Angeles River (near the present location of Alameda Street and south of Aliso Street) and laid out El Aliso Vineyard, named for a huge, shady sycamore tree. Vignes, whose name means “vines” in French, imported fine grape vine cuttings from Bordeaux. He became the most important winemaker in the West, producing as many as forty thousand gallons a year and is today considered a pioneer of California wine-making.

Vignes at Santa Catalina Island

In 1840, Vignes and a man named Juan Ramirez petitioned the Mexican government to use Santa Catalina Island for Merino sheep raising. They argued that the sheep industry was all that was possible for the rugged island terrain.  They further persuaded that the island was absent of danger from "carnivorous animals."  Their petition may not have been granted, because Vignes was active in wine-making by that time.

Vignes in Lincoln Heights

Extended family members were encouraged to join Vignes in Los Angeles and participate in wine-making. One such person was Vital Ferdinand Vignes, a nephew. In the late 1880s, a Vignes orchard (possibly of Vital's or another relative) was established in Lincoln Heights, on an elevated piece of land above Prichard Street (now Lincoln Park Avenue.)

This area in 1873 was known as East Los Angeles, and the vast land holders included John S. Griffin (a physician of the army during the U.S. War with Mexico 1846-1848), John Downey (state governor during the Civil War and the city of Downey's namesake), and Griffin's nephew, Hancock Johnston.

Pictured below is today's Keiro Nursing Home, which resides on the hill top, a portion of the former Vignes orchards.  My dear mother-in-law and father-in-law, who both spent their last days at Keiro, would have appreciated the agricultural history of area.  When they were well they tended their own garden of citrus fruits and vegetables.

Keiro Nursing Home in Lincoln Heights.
(Click on images to zoom in)