"524 August Alley," Old Chinatown, L.A.

Chinese Angeleno Margaret Quon Lew began her oral history interview with this statement: “I was born in Los Angeles on 524 August Alley.” She added that she was born in the year 1917. Her recollections were recorded in 1986 by Suellen Cheng from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.

Image courtesy Los Angeles Public Library

Where was August Alley located? How did the name originate?

Her transcript provided more clues: “The back part of the Hop Sing Tong was on the August Alley side.” “The August Alley was a narrow alley.”

This blogpost explores the area once bound along the west by North Los Angeles Street (hereafter referred as North L.A. St.); northerly Marchessault Street (today nonexistent); easterly Alameda Street; and on the south by Ferguson Alley (gone).

A Proposed Union Terminal at Plaza

Margaret’s neighborhood was doomed before she was born. A 1915 headline in the Los Angeles Tribune read “Union Station Near Plaza Endorsed by Roberts” referring to Councilman W.A. Roberts. The plaza being the city’s historic core meant there were dilapidated structures, including the 1830 Olvera Adobe which was torn down the same year of Margaret’s birth. A 1920 Times article underscored how the proposal would impact her community.

Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1920
Courtesy Newspapers.com

“August Alley” on the Map

On an 1891 Dakin map, an alley did not exist due to the configuration of the buildings, though there seemed to be pockets of interior open spaces.

From Glen Creason's Chinatown on the Map
Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library

The 1905 Baist’s atlas below showed an alleyway, unnamed. Soon two new structures would sandwich the 1838 Vicente Lugo adobe house at 520 ½ North L.A. St.: the “Fook Wo Lung Curio Co.” and the “Gee Ning Tong Block.”

Note: At least by 1908, “August Alley” was recognized by the U.S. Post Office.

From Glen Creason's Chinatown on the Map
Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library

From the 1921 Baist’s real estate atlas page, August Alley is clearly on the map.

Courtesy David Rumsey Map Collection,
David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries

The 1930 1924 Sanborn map also showed the alleyway.

From Glen Creason's Chinatown on the Map
Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library

How “August Alley” Came About – and Surrounding Buildings

A Chinese Theater

From the 1891 map, one can imagine where the “future alley” would appear, with its entrance on Marchessault Street, along the length of the Chinese theater. This theater might have been the 2nd one to operate in Old Chinatown, and this location may have begun in 1884. Though the balcony was removed sometime after 1934, the entire building stood until the 1951 wrecking.

A Curio Business Corner

The unnamed alley in the 1905 map is aligned with a red corner lot at North L.A. St. and Marchessault (526-528 North L.A. St.) for which all the historic photos I have seen it appeared to be a two-story building with a distinctive parapet sign “Fook Wo Lung Curio Co.” However, newspaper articles and city directories alternately indicate the “China (or Chinese) Oriental Curio Co.” at that location in the earliest years starting on January 27, 1900. The owner, Yip Bow Yuen, described as a wealthy merchant and resident of 20 years, died in 1908.

In 1909 the “Fook Wo Lung Curio Co.” starts appearing in historic reference sources and continuing throughout the teens, twenties and early thirties. “Suie One F. Co.” takes over the location (which I spotted in the 1934 city directory). “Suie One” stays here until the building was tagged for demolition in 1951. It is still a thriving business today.

Note: An earlier store “Tong Sang” advertised a firecracker sale of Chinese silk goods and merchandise in the Times in the summer of 1890. They were here at 526 North L.A. St. probably in an original single-story building and at least into 1897.

Lee Shing Properties

To the south of the former Lugo adobe were more Chinese businesses including a long-operating drug store, Gee Ning Tong, owned by druggist Lee Shing who was reported in the Times to have been in the city for 18 years and a total of 31 years in America. He decided to spend $12,000 for a modern structure, called the Gee Ning Tong Block, a 3-story, pressed brick building for retail and professional offices (510, 512 & 514 North L.A. St.).

The grand opening on January 25, 1906, coincided with the lunar new year. Lee’s own shop, Gee Ning Tong, resumed to operate on the ground floor. Lee died in 1912, but the business continued for decades and into New Chinatown as a tenant of Margaret and her husband.

Courtesy Herman J. Schultheis Collection, Los Angeles Photographers Collection,
Los Angeles Public Library

Lee expanded in 1907 by purchasing a single-story building on Alameda Street from the Bauchet estate so he could complete a multi-story addition to connect to the rear side of his other building. This effort likely fortified “August Alley” with a dead end. On the 1921 Baist’s map, the notation “Lee Shing Prop” can be seen.

Vicente Lugo Adobe

Lugo descended from settlers to Spain-held California. The building became an important center of Chinese community life after 1890 and housed a Buddhist temple, the Hop Sing Tong headquarters and businesses. The Hop Sing Tong (the big clue provided by Margaret) had its address at 520 ½ North L.A. St., and other numbers corresponding to the adobe were 516, 518, 520, 522, 522 ½, and 524 (shown on the 1921 map).

But individual street numbers for “August Alley” are not detailed on maps. Historical references indicate persons resided at 516, 516 ½, 518, 522-524 and 526 August Alley. Update: hold on! The numbers appear on the 1924 Sanborn (purple) map: 518, 520, 524, 526. The apartments were in the converted old theater!

In late 1950 supporters rallied to save the adobe, the last symbol and cultural monument of Old Chinatown. But they did not win against Christine Sterling (the brainchild of the 1930 tourist attraction Olvera Street). The impending erasure of nearby Ferguson Alley also captured public attention, but August Alley remained invisible in the shadow of the Lugo adobe.

Next door to the Lugo house was the Fook Wo Lung Curio Co. building. Circa 1915
"August Alley" was behind these two buildings.
Courtesy Ernest Marquez Collection, Huntington Library

Ferguson Alley, and the Dragon’s Den

The 1905, 1921 and 1924 maps all show Ferguson Alley. From about 1897 onward Chinese lived here. The property was owned by William Ferguson, an Arkansas settler from 1869.

“Nov. 8, 1946 View is West into Ferguson Alley from N. Alameda St. L.A. Calif." Courtesy L.T. Holman Gotchy Collection, Chinese Historical Society of Southern California

At the rear of the Fook Wo Lung Curio building (by 1934 occupied by Suie One F. Co.) was a basement that became social hot spot. It was next to "August Alley." See image below.

The Dragon’s Den restaurant gained popularity after opening in 1935 especially due its eye-catching artistic façade and interior murals painted by Tyrus Wong and his cohorts from art school. Stories of the restaurant and the renowned artist Wong were introduced to us through Lisa See’s On Gold Mountain, the One Hundred-Year Odyssey of a Chinese-American Family (1995) and filmmaker Pamela Tom’s documentary Tyrus (2015). Upon arriving in the city, Tyrus’ first home after reuniting with his dad was on Ferguson Alley.

1949. Courtesy Water and Power Associates

The above photo is about 1950. Courtesy Harry Quillen Collection, Los Angeles Photographers Collection, Los Angeles Public Library.

Who Owned the Land in Old Chinatown?

Covered so far have been the neighborhoods west of Alameda Street. On the east side of the street there were other parts of Old Chinatown removed in the early 1930s to establish the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, known as Union Station, which opened in 1939. Those areas became occupied by Chinese residents who moved or extended further away from the plaza. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 prompted new Chinese arrivals to the city, too. Streets included China Alley; Marchessault Alley; Mary Lane; and Apablasa (Apablaza), Benjamin, Cayetano, Concha, Jeanette, Juan (John), and Napier streets.

Along the “Union Station” vicinity, the land was owned by the Apablasa family and the Mathew Keller estate. Deed maps indicate Caroline and Alice Shafer inherited in 1891 from their father Mathew. The Shafers were California-born 2nd generation Irish.

The above survey is from 1890. Note the Chinese theater on the corner of Marchessault Alley and Alameda. Courtesy Huntington Library.

Returning back to the vicinity of “August Alley” and the surrounding buildings, the landowner was Levi Newton Breed. He was a latecomer to L.A. (1881), served as city councilman and subdivided in Boyle Heights where today Breed Street runs. He died in 1908, and when his wife died two years later his daughter Lillian May Moore inherited the property valued at $75,000.

In 1899 and 1900, newspapers reported Breed’s building permits on Marchessault for repairs as well as $3,500 for a building in September 1899. These details play into the next section on how "August Alley" might have gotten the name.

L.A. County Public Works map CF0209, 1890. Note in yellow highlight on the right side are two properties of L.N. Breed where "August Alley" stood. Highlighted in the center is a lot for Wm. Ferguson. To the right of that, see also two unhighlighted lots of Meyer Newmark and Delphina Varelas

Did the Alley Name Originate from a Baker, a Judge or an Architect?

I learned that the name August or Augustus or Agustin was rather common among early L.A. settlers.

Was it attributed to Philadelphia-born August Ulyard who arrived at the close of 1852, rented a place near the Plaza and then opened a bakery?

Was the alley named for Judge Agustin Olvera? While he was living he was graced with the naming of Olvera Street in 1873. He acquired an 1830 adobe on Marchessault Street that was not far at all from “August Alley,” and the adobe was razed in 1917.

Or did the alley name somehow stuck because prominent architect August Wackerbarth knew a lot of people through his clients and being a Scribe (key officer) in the Masons fraternal organization?

Both Levi Newton Breed and William Ferguson were members of the Masons.

Wackerbarth practiced as an architect in L.A. since the early 1880s. Breed was a client of Wackerbarth in a 1906 property at 308 South Broadway.

Wackerbarth also had a Chinese customer: in 1900 he was the architect for Chee Kong Tong Co. (a powerful fraternal group which had the offshoot Bing Kong Tong) for a property on Apablasa Street.

He was also active in the L.A. County Pioneer Society, and in 1926 on behalf of the Society he endorsed the Union Terminal at the Plaza site. He died of a heart attack in 1931 and did not live to see the rise of Union Station.

My money bet is with August Wackerbarth.

The Legacy of Margaret Quon Lew

According to the oral history, Margaret married Tony Quon Lew at 20 years of age and started a retail business with her husband at 21. That was 1938 the year before Union Station’s grand opening. The Lews found opportunities in New Chinatown along North Spring Street. 

Their ventures, which began with a market, then included investment properties, a restaurant and a theater in 1962 called Sing Lee. The theater provided a hub for Chinese opera fans, beauty pageants, and of course, motion pictures imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan. 

Now the old theater space at 649 North Spring Street is undergoing its own stages of life and death – new generations of public historians are keeping the stories alive – especially Janet Louie, Harvard University Ph.d. candidate whose film screening series, Echoes from Spring Street, is ongoing through March 22nd at the Billy Wilder Theatre in the Hammer Museum. Read also Janet’s blog post on the history of the Sing Lee Theatre and followed by UCLA Motion Picture Curator Todd Wiener’s efforts to save hundreds of film reels from destruction.

Addendum: Commission on Housing & Immigration; WPA Census Records, 1939

Government authorities surveyed living conditions in 1915 and homed in on "August Alley" and vicinity:

The Work Projects Administration (WPA) sent out census takers in 1939. Here are several records of "August Alley" and North L.A. St. households from the WPA Household Census Cards and Employee Records, Los Angeles, University of Southern California Digital Library:

Fantastic Sources:

Chinese Historical Society of Southern California’s Digital Repository

Counter, Bill. Los Angeles Theatres Blogspot

Estrada, William David. The Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and Contested Space (University of Texas Press, 2008)

Greenwood, Roberta S. Down By the Station: Los Angeles Chinatown 1880-1933 (Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, 1996) PDF available online

Kines, Mark Tapio. Los Angeles Street Names

Water and Power Associates Museum

Image was before 1934. August Alley on the right next to a Chinese theater along Marchessault Street.
Courtesy Chinese Historical Society of Southern California

Beneath Terminal Annex: an L.A. Neighborhood "North of Macy Street"

All the hullabaloo is at Union Station.  Being a public space and still glowing from its 75th anniversary back in 2014, a lot of attention is paid there.

Across the street Terminal Annex was a federal building purposed for a post office and mail processing center but is no longer publicly accessible.  This blog post explores the earlier community "north of Macy Street" from about 1828 long before the arrival of Terminal Annex. 

The footprint of the future post office will be covered - where Date and Ogier Streets once were - the crossroads of L.A. from the time it was a Spanish pueblo, to a Mexican ciudad and towards a settling-in period as an American city.  Other areas to be analyzed are roughly bound by North Main on the west, Alhambra Avenue on the north and the L.A. River on the east. 

Gilbert Stanley Underwood designed the building that stands near the corner of Alameda Street and Cesar E. Chavez Avenue (name changed from Macy Street in 1994).  Construction began in 1939, expanded and altered several times into the 1970s and operated until 1989 when a larger facility was built in south L.A.  Underwood applied elegant details to numerous federal and rail projects nationwide, including train stations like the neglected East Los Angeles Train Station and the former Ahwanee Hotel at Yosemite National Park, California.



The area outlined in red is "north of Macy" from E.S. Glover's Birdseye View of Los Angeles, 18571877. 
(The orientation is a view looking southeast)
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research, Natural History Museum of LA County)

Macy Street originated after 1851 with the arrival of Massachusetts-born Dr. Obediah Macy with family in tow following their overland journey.  He bought the Bella Union hotel, and he opened the Alameda Baths before passing away in 1857.

One could consider Terminal Annex as part of the southernmost, "Civic Support" portion of the North Industrial District or Dogtown, covered on Eric Brightwell's blog. 

The proximity of this neighborhood to downtown made it a vulnerable target for change by city planners, impacting residents of modest or limited means.  As Brightwell points out, acres of residences were cleared out in Dogtown about 1941-1942 and a city public housing project - the William Mead garden apartments - was built and continues to exist today.  Brightwell writes about a continued loss of homes in Dogtown during the early 1950s with authorities citing crime, delinquency among youth and disease as the impetus to clear everything out.

Homes at 337 and 401 Bauchet Street, ca. 1930s
(Photo added 6.27.2021. Courtesy Pacific Rim, Huntington Digital Library)

Terminal Annex and the concurrent development of Union Station, with its supporting infrastructure, all led to the gradual obliteration of the residential places north of Macy.  Development chipped away this area while at the same time Old Chinatown was dismantled for the train station.  In the 1950s the residents at Elysian Park's Chavez Ravine were pushed out, but in the next two decades more blocks north of Macy would go away.  For an in-depth historical read on the racial and political reasons that led to the removal of primarily the Mexican (and Chinese) from these parts, consult The Los Angeles Plaza, a Sacred and Contested Space, by William D. Estrada, 2008.

Lumber Yards and an Orphanage

An historic map dates the Jackson, Kerckhoff & Cuzner lumber yard as early as 1881 at the spot of the future post office.  There were other lumber businesses nearby.  South of Macy Street was the orphan asylum started by the Sisters of Charity in 1856 on property bought from Benjamin Wilson (he being an emigrant from Tennessee in 1841.) 

The area along Macy, included with the greater North Industrial District, comprised parts the Eighth Ward, a voter district of the city.  Within the Ward the areas were divided into four precincts, A through D.  During elections after 1889, the polling place for precinct B was Kerckhoff & Cuzner's office (the business name, Jackson, had been dropped off by then.)  A son of French pioneer Louis Bauchet served as a judge of the precinct - more on the family below.

Dakin's Tract Maps of Los Angeles, Volume 1, 1888

(Courtesy of the Seaver Center)

Fruit, Wine, Vineyards, Gardens and a Lover's Lane

Louis Bauchet

Those who lived here north of Macy Street are recorded in part by extant street names and more names uncovered on historic maps.  Bauchet Street is still prominent, after the area underwent many configurations including removal of streets and the redesigns of existing streets.  Louis (or Luis) Bauchet (or Bouchette or Bochett) owned chunks of land north of Macy and east of Alameda.  Thomas Pinney (A History of Wine in America, 1989) wrote that Bauchet was "a cooper by trade and a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, came to California in 1828 1827 and must have been one of the earliest of the newcomers to plant a vineyard."  He also fought in Mexico's revolt to defeat Spain.  He died in 1852 1847 but his wife and children continued to live at 716 Date Street (son Rafael was listed in city directory as late as 1897). 

Louis Bauchet established a vineyard a little earlier than the another Frenchman, the well-known Jean-Louis Vignes - when Vignes arrived, he met several French settlers, including Bauchet.  They both appeared in Los Angeles' first census of 1836.

Bauchet wed to Maria Basilia Alanis, a Californio and granddaughter of a Soldado de Cuera of 1781, Maximo Alanis - he was one of the Spanish soldiers on the expedition leading the Los Angeles Pobladores to Mission San Gabriel. 

Bauchet married into an elite family.  (Scotsman Hugo Reid wrote about the social affairs - dinners with Abel Stearns and his wife Arcadia Bandini de Stearns followed by dancing across the street at the ballroom of Doña Basilia, where large dances were always given.)  This was in the 1840s when the Bauchet adobe was on Calle Principal.  She died of old age in 1889 at her residence on Date Street.

In the period before a war was ignited by President James Polk, grape-growing was an active industry in Mexican Los Angeles. From north of Macy Street one could peer south towards Aliso Street at Vignes' property, the Domingo vineyard and nearby Mateo Keller's vineyard, too.  It is not too far-fetched to imagine the bucolic scenery measuring up to present-day Temecula Valley.

North of Macy became home to European immigrants and American settlers, after the war - in 1849 and in the decade of 1850 after California was admitted to the United States.  The gardens nourished by new settlers in the dusty, new American city are profiled in the 2003 book Tangible Memories:  Californians and Their Gardens, 1800-1950 by Judith M. Taylor & Harry M. Butterfield.

Leonce Hoover

Swiss doctor Leonce Hoover arrived in 1849 after serving as a surgeon to Napoleon Bonaparte's army.  He too started a vineyard, and his home was noted for its beautiful gardens and plantings.  Members of the California State Agricultural Society visited the area in 1858 and were so impressed by Hoover's property that a complementary write-up appeared in the Society's report.  (The Society observed that Dr. Hoover drank "the juice of the grape" all day long.)  His son Vincent became a businessman, land developer and served on the Common Council (city council of the time.)



Vignette from an 1857 map by Kuchel and Dresel
(Courtesy of the Huntington Digital Library)

Thomas J. White

Another settler in the 1850s was from St. Louis.  White was the first Speaker of the state's Assembly in 1849 at San Jose, California.  He bought 50 acres north of Leonce Hoover's property.  In 1857 he served as vice-president of the State Agricultural Society.  The Society's 1858 report said this about his property:  "In 1858 he was growing nine varieties of figs, white sapote, avocado, mango, tamarind, lemon, lime and orange."  "Picture Dr. White's old garden:  the dwelling is situated about five hundred yards from the street and approached by a drive bordered by English walnuts and luxurious pomegranates to within a hundred feet of the house where it branches and encloses an oval containing a large fountain, ornamented with sea shells, coral, evergreens, and flowers."

I.S.K. Ogier

Nearby at Macy and Date Streets was the six-acre property and home of Judge Isaac Stockton Keith Ogier and his second wife, Anna.  They had at least two Indian servants.  The style of his house was a departure from the architecture of the former Mexican city.  His two-story adobe had a faux blue stone façade.  A fountain was set in the front with well-placed shrubs.  The visiting State Agricultural Society wrote "The lady of the mansion appears as much home in her garden as His Honor on the bench of the United States District Court."  More on the importance of Judge Ogier to follow below.

Lovers Lane

The L.A. City Archives has preserved an 1871 map of a long thoroughfare called "Lovers Lane", drawn by the county surveyor, William P. Reynolds.  Glen Creason, map expert at the Central Library, suggested in his 2010 book, Los Angeles in Maps, that the road had been re-named to Date Street in 1877.  This is the same Date Street that once ran at about a 45 degree angle beginning at Macy Street.

Garibaldi Hall was located at 746 Date Street, the meeting place for Italian Unione Frattelianza Garibaldina Society.  The Bauchet children sold a lot to the organization in 1888 for $2,000.

Baist's Real Estate Atlas, 1921

(Courtesy of the Seaver Center)

The First Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California

A significant historical aspect at this place, north of Macy, under Terminal Annex, was the spot in the newly American place chosen by Isaac S.K. Ogier to regard as his home.  He was born 1819 in Charleston, South Carolina, where his English-born father and French-born grandfather both lived and died.  Charleston contains a street called Ogier.  Ogier ancestors were Huguenots.  Judge Ogier's father owned nine slaves, as listed in the 1830 census. 

He moved to New Orleans to practice law.  While there he enlisted and served twice in the Louisiana infantry during the war with Mexico.  The Gold Rush turned him into a Forty-Niner.  He was a widower, got on a ship and left behind a young daughter to get to California. 

He stayed in northern California briefly, and became a member of California's first Assembly, representing San Joaquin.  A bill he introduced to bar the admittance of free Blacks to California failed to pass.  Ogier arrived in Los Angeles about 1851 and in 1854 was appointed Judge of the federal court for the southern district of the California. 

He never lost his gold fever - when southern California's big gold strike occurred in 1861 at Holcomb Valley, San Bernardino, he secured an Ogier mine.  He was visiting the mine in May of 1861 when he died of apoplexy - a month after the start of the American Civil War.

Court historian and former judge of the southern district himself, George Cosgrave, provided a lively account of Ogier's life, his journey and career in Early California Justice, the History of the United States District Court, 1948.  Prior to becoming a judge, in 1851 he partnered with a Spanish-speaking Peruvian attorney, Manuel Clemente Rojo, so as to drum up clients of land claim disputes and petitions.  He also served briefly as U.S. district attorney for the southern district in 1853.  During his brief capacity as district attorney, a noteworthy dispute that Ogier investigated involved the state foreign miners' tax.  American miners had a quarrel with Mexican miners in Mariposa.  Historian Cosgrave wrote that Ogier reported accurately and without bias that the Americans' dispute was baseless. 

Since the Bay area was included in the southern district, Ogier was the presiding judge for some of the first cases for Mexican grants:  he ruled in favor of the petitioners of grants encompassing today's Oakland and Alameda County.

Cosgrave and others have written about Ogier's role (and his unconventional manner) in the adjudication of land rights and rancho claims, particularly to conform with the 1848 war treaty, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  The treaty, in simplest terms, afforded Californios the right to retain their land.

A major appeal heard by Judge Ogier was Antonio Maria Lugo's 29,500-acre Rancho San Antonio.  (Claimants had the right to appeal any delays or denials and be heard by the U.S. District Court.)  Lugo's heirs thankfully received a land patent.  Historian Paul Gates, in Land and Law in California, 1991, argued that Ogier was "reputed to be more lenient than the northern district judge, Ogden Hoffman, so the success of Los Angeles claimants may be a reflection of judicial preference as well."

On the bench he was unorthodox.  He rarely wrote legal opinions to support his decisions, lacking citations of authority.  However, Cosgrave drew an instance that exemplified Ogier's sense of duty and high regard for the integrity of the court:  Pacificus Ord, as a U.S. district attorney, failed to object to a land claim.  Ogier found out soon that Ord himself had interest in the particular piece of land and therefore was operating unethically - the land claim was never confirmed.

He was active in the L.A. community - he was a part of a committee to form a Protestant society in 1859 that lead to the establishment of the first Protestant church which he did not live to see in 1864.  He was also a member of the semi-vigilante, semi-social citizen crime enforcement group, the Rangers, to help curb the rampant lawlessness.


Ogier Street shows up on maps like the Baist's for 1905, 1910 and 1921 (as seen in above map as well as the close-up below.)  The street appears in city directories beginning in 1897 of the ones this blogger has tracked.  Oddly, the street name appeared many years after Judge Ogier passed away, and his wife moved away to various addresses around the county in the years following his death.  Ogier Street became a casualty of the Terminal Annex construction.

Baist's Real Estate Atlas, 1921
Date & Ogier Streets represented crossroads in L.A. history beginning with the era as a Spanish pueblo in Alta California
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center)

The Sepulveda Family

Also visible in the above, larger 1921 map is the Sepulveda Vineyard Tract (where today's county jail complex stands.)  One of the Sepulveda families (descendants of a Spanish Mexican soldier who served in Alta California), namely Jose Dolores Sepulveda, his wife Louisa Domingo Sepulveda and one of their children, Plutarco, were listed at 726 Date Street as found in city directories beginning in 1895.  Their home was right at the T intersection of Date & Ogier.  There is some irony that the Sepulveda house was located probably right at the entrance gate of the Ogier house, the judge who dispensed decisions on the lands of the Californios.  (In one newspaper, the address was also cited as 307 Ogier, which was an adjacent house on the lot.)



Louisa Domingo Sepulveda with her child, n.d.
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center)



Jose Dolores Sepulveda, ca. 1860s
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center)

Jose Dolores died in 1905 and Louisa continued to reside there until her death in March, 1912, leaving behind eight grown children.  Louisa's mother was Reymunda Feliz, whose own father and mother each held respectively Rancho Feliz and Rancho Verdugo.  It was Reymunda's first marriage to a German named Johann Groningen (he adopted the name John Domingo after settling in L.A. following a shipwreck) that produced daughter Louisa.  Reymunda was lucid until the end after she moved in with Louisa to be cared for, and she died at age 99 in 1908. 

Reymunda Feliz de Domingo de Romero with son J.A. Domingo
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center)

The Los Angeles Times reporting on her death wrote that 50 years earlier, Reymunda "was rated the wealthiest woman in the southern part of the State and her home [on Aliso Street] was the center of cultured and aristocratic society."  "Señora Romero was the lady bountiful of the pueblo, and day after day used to make the rounds of the neighboring ranches, distributing provisions and delicacies and spreading cheerfulness as she went."

Religious Diversity & Tolerance

The Sisters of Charity formed a Catholic orphanage by 1856.  Probably perpetually cash-strapped, the sisters instituted a fundraising festival in 1858 whereby the ladies of the community could contribute food and handmade items to be sold.  Two of the women, Mrs. Thomas J. White and Louisa Hayes Griffin helped to spearhead the event, that brought together women from diverse denominations for the sake of charitable giving, including Jews and Protestants.  Historian Kristine Ashton Gunnell pointed out that "even Anna Ogier, who privately expressed anti-Catholic sentiments, donated items and may have taken a turn at the sale table."  The three women were the wives of prominent men in the community, and Mrs. White and Mrs. Ogier lived north of Macy.

A Public School and a Library

At the end of Ogier Street, where Macy and Avila Streets once intersected, a public school and library were proposed in 1894 to be located in the Mead Tract.  The New Macy Street School and library show up next to each other on the 1921 Baist map shown above.  (Mead was the same real estate developer associated with the William Mead Homes mentioned above in Dogtown.  He died in 1927.)

The school was the subject of a health crisis in its history.  In 1906, the Macy Branch Library was only one of eight branch libraries in the City system.

The Slaughterhouse

Further east along Macy - 808 E. Macy Street - along the river was a slaughterhouse that the City approved after a lengthy deliberation.  This site was the former home and garden of Leonce Hoover.

Cudahy Packing Company petitioned the city council in December, 1892, informing of their capacity for 500 hogs and 50 cattle a day, with employment for 400 men.

In 1904 a major fire destroyed much of the plant, at which time residents protested against having the business resurrected.  The company re-built, and Cudahy was still listed in the 1956 street directory.