(An Early) Winter Ode to Spring...Street, Los Angeles, Cal.

Photo taken in 2010

Spring Street was named for Trinidad Serafina Ortega, a girl who just turned 17 when Ord and Hutton were situated in Ciudad de Los Angeles conducting the city's first American land survey.

Her nickname was "La Primavera," and the survey listed Calle Primavera or Spring Street.  Below is a portion of Henry Hancock's 1857 survey of the city's confirmed limits but shows Primavera misspelled:

Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research (GC1310-[0856])

Several historical references state that she was the Santa Barbara girlfriend of surveyor Lieutenant Edward O.C. Ord, but this blog posting disputes that observation.  The L.A. Times also linked her romantically to Benjamin Wilson ("Don Benito" born in 1811 from Tennessee and traveled with the Workman-Rowland Party to California in 1841).  Their paths probably crossed, but it seems unlikely that Wilson wooed the 17-year old; he was widowed in 1849 when his 21-year old wife Ramona Yorba died after a five-year marriage; he soon remarried to Margaret Hereford; one of their grandkids was George S. Patton (the military general).

Probably Trinidad was a beloved girl in the small town, and her nickname was a generally known term of endearment.

Spanish Lineage

Trinidad was the great-granddaughter of a Guanajuato, New Spain soldier Jose Francisco Ortega, who traveled to California with Franciscan priest Junipero Serra and Captain Gaspar Portola.  He was a pathfinder or scout who helped to establish the sites of missions in upper California, and he is known as the discoverer of today's San Francisco Bay.

Her heritage was linked more directly to other Californios.  Born in San Diego in the year 1832, her father Jose Joaquin Geronimo Ortega was a ranchero of SantaYsabel.  Trinidad's mother was Maria Casimira Pico, a younger sister of Pio Pico.  Trinidad was the youngest of six children.

In 1849, Trinidad may have been staying in her uncle's household instead of San Diego.  It is not known whether the dirt road was already referred to as La Primavera, or if Ord picked up this information from local townspeople while surveying and named the street accordingly.  This blogger once came across a reference stating that Ord was rooming in the Ortega house during the summer of 1849.  (Pio Pico's official residence was sold in May, 1849 to Benjamin Wilson.)

Pio Pico, the last governor of California under Mexican rule, with
his wife Maria Alvarado and their nieces Maria Anita Alvarado (far left)
and Trinidad Ortega (far right), in 1852
(GPF.0350 courtesy of the Seaver Center)

Trinidad Gets Married

Edward Ord had reported to Governor Bennet Riley (military governor of the California Territory in 1849) that the local women preferred the "newcomers" to the Mexican men.  Californio women had been marrying inter-culturally with European and American men for many years by the time of Ord's observation.  Trinidad, though, did not.  She married into the De la Guerra family, a wealthy and powerful Spanish family of Santa Barbara.  Her husband, Miguel De la Guerra was the fifth son of thirteen children.  She bore him eight children before he died in 1878.



Trinidad De La Guerra about 1864
(P-157-2-78 Courtesy of the Seaver Center)

At a time when the world was much smaller, Trinidad and Ord later became related by marriage.  Ord's physician brother James Lycurgus Ord married in 1856 to Trinidad's widowed sister-in-law, Maria de las Angustias De la Guerra.

Marriage also provides a link between two historic streets (Spring and Olvera):  Trinidad's oldest sister Maria Refugio married Agustin Olvera - second marriages for both widowed Maria Refugio and Agustin.

 

Race, Politics, and Irony at Play with Trinidad's Brother-In-Law

 

Pablo De la Guerra, Trinidad's brother-in-law, was one of the signers of the California Constitution, as were a good number of Californios.  He even served a year as Acting Lieutenant Governor of California in 1861.  In 1869 he ran for the elected office of District Judge of the First Judicial District.  Opponents filed suit on the grounds of disqualification, arguing that De la Guerra was not a citizen.  The state Supreme Court ruled in favor of De la Guerra.  (Though he was born in Santa Barbara, Alta California, the treaty resulting from the war of 1846-1848 granted all Californios the option of automatic citizenship of the new regime.)

 

Glamour and Romance

20th century local society remembered Trinidad, who passed away in 1903.  Club ladies honored her through costumed reenactments.  In 1931, a pivotal year for Los Angeles, being the 150th anniversary of the founding of the city, the Times published this glamorous illustration:

 

 



Pio Pico: a Different Tribute on September 11th

On September 11, 2011, the country will reflect on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11.

Another anniversary stems from September 11, 1894, the day when the last governor of Mexican California, Pio de Jesus Pico, passed away in Los Angeles.  His birthday (May 5, 1801) falls on a day of significance (Cinco de Mayo) and his day of death now does also.

Within the span of time, Pico's long life offers much symbolism today as we confront age-old struggles with race, class, imperialism and power.  Pico was born at the San Gabriel Mission when California was governed by Spain, and his father served as a mission soldier.  He was a young man when Mexico gained independence from Spain (1821).  He subjugated over Indian peoples; he was deemed deceitful and unfair; and in his later life the tables turned on him.  He lived more than four decades after he fought against the Americans culminating in a U.S. victory in 1848. 

California's Native Son

A copy of the new biography borrowed from the Whittier Public Library

Pico built wealth, power and influence as a native son of California under three nations.  According to Carlos Manuel Salomon's book Pio Pico, the Last Governor of Mexican California, Pico was appointed mission administrator in San Diego County at Mission San Luis Rey from 1835 until 1840.  This was during the difficult transition period when the mission system was slowly being dismantled, yet control of the Indian labor force was still maintained.  The Indians protested against Pico for many reasons, one being his manuevers to take control of certain Indian pueblos, such as Temecula, according to Salomon's book.

By the time the U.S. annexed California, Pico was a land-rich, wealthy rancher.  Eventually, due to careless attention to business and bad luck on his part, but by collusion and legal victories on the part of a long-time jurist adversary, Pico was gradually stripped of all his land by the twilight of his life.

There are reminders of Pico in many Southern California places:

Early Street Name Tribute

Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles started out as Pico Street sometime before the 1870s, along with other early L.A. streets being named after Mexican governors of California:  Micheltorena, Alvarado, Figueroa, and Echandia (Echeandia).

"Pico Street" was a very early naming tribute that occurred in American Los Angeles.
The politically-influential Pico had his detractors, but he also had respectful allies.

Final Resting Place

Entrance to the museum that includes a private cemetery, El Campo Santo.
Courtesy of the Homestead Museum, City of Industry, Cal.

Pico outlived his wife Maria Ygnacia by about forty years.  In 1894 he was laid to rest at the Catholic Church burial grounds in Los Angeles where Cathedral High School is today.  But it would not final.  The old Cavalry Cemetery was by then in neglect.  Within a couple of years a new Cavalry Cemetery was opened in East Los Angeles, and the relatives who afforded were moving their loved ones' remains to the new cemetery.  In 1921 the threat of closure of the old burial grounds prompted the disinterment of Pico's and his wife's remains to a final, private burial place at the original homestead of his friend William Workman in the former Rancho La Puente.

The Walter P. Temple Memorial Mausoleum.
Temple was responsible for having Pico's remains moved here.
Image courtesy of the Homestead Museum, City of Industry, Cal.

A photo taken inside the mausoleum. Courtesy of the Homestead Museum, City of Industry, Cal.

El Ranchito in Whittier, Cal.

Pico acquired Rancho Paso de Bartolo by the late 1840s as his country estate which he referred to as El Ranchito.  In 1907 Harriet Strong and others rallied to save the structures from destruction, and the property was given to the state in 1917.  In the following years, the neighborhood around the house was seedy, tough and run down.  A newspaper reported that the area was known as "Guadalupe Hidalgo," a biting and stinging reference, since the downfall of Mexican California was sealed by the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in Mexico between U.S. and Mexican officials on February 2, 1848.

Note that the date range ends at '1892' because two years before his death, Pico lost this land after a long property battle.

Pico's "country" home named El Ranchito was built on land that was prone to severe flooding.

Today, his legacy is threatened again:  the woes of the California State budget regularly target state parks like the Pio Pico State Historic Park to add to its expenditure chopping board.

Pico House

Lastly, an architectural legacy of Pico's life is embodied by the Pico House, located at the historic center of Los Angeles and today encompasses a part of El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park.  The structure was an elegant hotel, completed in 1870 and the first three-story building in Los Angeles.  It was designed with eighty rooms and an interior court.   The future of the Pico House appears secure since it is a state and national historic landmark.  Long after being dormant as a storage facility, renovations have progressed to enable use of the ground floor for special events.



A contemporary view of the Pico House looking south on Main Street

Harriet Strong in Whittier, Cal.

Pampas grass grows on the side of my house in unincorporated Whittier.  It is a plant that has been the target of many eradication efforts, but here it is a symbol of a local historic figure.



About a mile from my house there existed Ranchito del Fuerte, Ranch of Strong.  The ranch had a Pio Pico provenance and the mighty touch of the woman Harriet Williams Russell Strong.

Governor Pio Pico (the last Mexican governor of Alta California) had a 'country' home within his land:  Rancho Paso de Bartolo.  (My house sits on the former rancho land, too.)  In 1867, he sold 220 acres to Harriet, her husband Charles, and her brother William Henry Russell.  Harriet's life revolved around raising four daughters, but that changed after Charles committed suicide in 1883.




Harriet in the driver seat
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center
for Western History Research)

She rose from a woman who had no business, financial or farming experience to a wiz ranch owner, inventor, land sub-divider, civic leader and an early inspiration for women's rights and self-independence.  She planted oranges; English walnuts on 50 acres on what amounted to be the country's largest; and pampas plumes.  When the fad for the plumes faded, she switched to the next latest commodity, pomegranates.


Workers with pampas grass (Courtesy of the Seaver Center)

Harriet overcame the water shortage by inventing and patenting dam and reservoir designs, ones that involved irrigation, catching debris, and storing water in steep valleys.  An early patent of hers was awarded in 1887, and she received her last patent for water storage in 1894.  Not only did she use her designs for herself and for profit-making, she also advocated and testified to the government of the need for federal efforts to enact flood control measures and store water for conservation and hydroelectricity.  Years following her death in 1926, two federal projects came to fruition that were based on Harriet's principles:  the Hoover Dam and the All-American Canal.

A segue from water wrangler to land subdivider occurred in 1900 when she created the Paso de Bartolo Water Company (a company with all-women stockholders) to service the land she purchased from Arcadia Bandini's Rancho Laguna holdings.  The tract Harriet subdivided was El Carmel, the first tract in today's City of Commerce.  Simons Brick Company's plant number 3 opened nearby in 1905, and Harriet's water serviced the brick compound also.

She had a full civic plate, too.  In addition to being the Whittier representative of the L.A. County Flood Control Association, she was the founding president of the Ebell Club; she was one of the first women to enter the membership of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; she was a delegate in the 1920 Republican National Convention; she was a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the Friday Morning Club, the Ruskin Art Club and the L.A. Symphony Association.

Not for shortage of civic organizations to participate, Harriet also founded a women's Republican group called the Hamilton Club; she founded the First Christian Science Church of Whittier; she spearheaded the efforts to save Pio Pico's house from destruction, and today the house is a part of the Pio Pico State Historic Park.

H.W.R. Strong, as she referred to herself in business records, is truly a little-known and under-appreciated role model.  Today, one of the few public markers to remember her is Strong Avenue, which runs east-west between Pioneer Boulevard and Workman Mill Road.  Her house is located further south below Beverly Boulevard on Orange Drive.



(Click on images to zoom in)



This is Strong Avenue towards Pioneer Boulevard.  The land here is very level and still.
The ranch-style houses are tidy.