Month: May 2006

Those Sporting Ladies!


Los Angeles
May 15, 1907

Curious neighbors noticed recently that a large number of well-dressed women have been taking the streetcar to the end of the line at 54th Street and South Central Avenue while still others are arriving in automobiles. Upon investigation, Patrolmen Walsh and Murphy discovered that the women are gambling on horse races at a bookie joint set up next to the Ascot Park billiard parlor in a vacant lot surrounded by a high board fence.

Owners J.W. Carr and W.J. Murphy restricted the clientele to women, so police had a difficult time obtaining evidence, but finally officers raided the place and found 50 stylishly dressed women playing the ponies.

Mad Mama!

May 14, 1907
Highland Park

Yesterday’s claim by young  Merrill "William" McCormick that his mother Janette had been falsely dragged off to the bughouse as part of an elaborate interfamilial inheritance scam has been roundly denied by Arthur Randall, real estate man and the owner of the home on Avenue 66 from which the lady was seized.

Randall not only refutes any cousinship to the unhappy Mrs. McCormick, but insists that she is no heiress, but rather a con-woman with a long history of defrauding innkeepers and imposing upon the kindness of friends.

Mrs. McCormick is described as about 45, and handsome woman and a good talker, who is estranged from her family and separated from her husband. She was a cousin to the deceased husband of Randall’s sister, Mrs. H.K. Pratt, who lives next door to her brother and their sister Mrs. Mabel Bennett. Out of consideration for that slim tie, McCormick and her son were recently welcomed into the Bennett-Randall manse when her habit of masquerading as a woman of means in order to secure fancy hotel lodgings for which she could not pay reached its inevitable conclusion.

But after a few days residence, McCormick’s odd, oftimes abusive behavior became distressing to the siblings. They believed her to be insane, and while sympathetic, demanded that she find alternate lodgings. She responded with a threat upon Randall’s life, so he swore out a warrant for her arrest. The lady ran away ahead of the Sheriff, but returned to break a window, whereupon she was captured.

Randall expressed concern for 15-year-old Merrill, a strong boy who ought to be working rather than following his mad mama from hotel to hotel, absorbing her weird fantasies and parroting them back at police officers. Randall offered to help the boy, but Merrill refused, insisting he would stay with friends and fight for his mother’s freedom and the vast fortune of which she was being deprived.

News N’ Notes

May 13, 1907
Los AngelesCheck the barometer: rising suicide, murder and drunkenness let us know there’s a good chance of 1907 to-day.Lena Rossester lived in a bungalow at 604 Vitmer with a younger man–some would say her son, but the gentleman won’t give his name and begs that Lena’s recent fatal carbolic cocktail be suppressed by the press (no such doing here!); D. Orlackey made a move to murder his family at 1021 E. 54th, but his wily wife locked him in the closet until authorities could arrive; and Thomas Dunn, of no fixed address, made a bed of the Hollywood Electric tracks until rudely awakened by the fender of a trolley that took a good chunk out of his head (he’ll be fine–nothing a visit to the oft-mentioned Receiving Hospital can’t fix).

Ah, the touchstones of our time.

Mad Mama?

May 13, 1907
Highland Park

15-year-old William McCormick visited the police to make a panicked plea for the salvation of his mother Janette, removed yesteday from 228 South Avenue 66 to the lunatics’ ward of the County Hospital. His mother is, William swears, quite sane, and her confinement the result of a family plot to steal her inheritance.

Mrs. McCormick is the primary beneficiary of a million dollar estate based in Denver, although much of the family lives on the west coast, including cousin Arthur Randall, in whose home the McCormicks had been staying.

Although no warrant for the woman’s arrest was ever produced, Superintendant Barber of the County Hospital accepted the word of the deputy sherrifs who brought the shrieking woman into his ward that such a warrant was in the hands of the Sheriff, and he refuses to release his captive until the case is investigated today.

Young McCormick explains, "After the death of my grandmother, mother and I came to the Coast. When our relatives learned that the greater portion of the property was left to mother and me, they began to plot. While we were in San Diego, Mrs. Belle M. Auston, who now lives in Black River Falls, Wis, and is my aunt, tried to kidnap me and was unsuccessful."

After this shock, the pair moved on to stay with a lady cousin in Ocean Park, then moved in with cousin Arthur. "He is the one who is making this trouble for mother. She is sane and has never been troubled with any symptoms of insanity. I believe that my uncles N.M. Phelps and A.D. Merrill of Denver have hired Randall to try to get mother in an asylum, so as to get her fortune! Phelps was left only $5000 by my grandmother’s will and Merrill was not mentioned. I am not very old, but I don’t want to see them harm mother."

The police sargeant told the youngster to contact the District Attorney.

Horse Abuse At the Fiesta

May 9, 1907
Los Angeles

The spies of the SPCA were watching closely as the Fiesta electrical parade wound its way down Broadway last night, ready to spring forward in defense of the poor animals on whose shoulders so much of the festivities rests.

Sure enough, rider W.S. Voorsanger was spotted at 2nd and Broadway, spurring his horse so violently that blood showed on its flanks. Officer Mitchell approached Voorsanger to rebuke him, but the man galloped away, then pushed his mount into a run. Commissioning a nearby automobile, the SPCA officers gave chase, capturing their quarry near Fourth and Main. Voorsanger will stand trial in Police Court today on a charge of animal abuse; he claims he did not realize he was harming the horse, and gives no excuse for running.

Voorsanger… isn’t that Dutch for "to make bloody"? 

Shriners Present a Colorful Array

What, you might ask yourself, did Shriners do before the advent of those little cars and Harley- Davidson Electra Glides? The elaborately costumed men staged precision, close-order drills accompanied by marching bands.

The effect, according to The Times, was stunning, inspiring the unidentified author to summon forth his (or possibly her) own gaudiest prose.

A Fish Story

May 8, 1907
Long Beach

While fishing off the Long Beach pier, Harry Hamilton, a visitor from Prince Edwards Island, Nova Scotia, made a spectacular catch, which required a hard and frenzied battle to drag the creature from its briny home up to pier-level. It was only after subduing the finny fellow that Hamilton realized that his valuables–$325 in cash, a ticket home, and a diamond ring–were no longer in his pocket.

It is unknown if his property fell into the water while Hamilton was preoccupied with his catch, or were they snatched by a pickpocket, but the sad fact remains that Harry Hamilton, who was this morning well equipped to enjoy his stay in Fiesta-time Los Angeles, now possesses just his luggage and a large fish. Anyone who wishes to buy said fish may contact Hamilton c/o this website.

The Packing Padrone

May 8, 1907
Long Beach

The Padrone must run a tight ship. Juan Acosta is a Padrone. He has a shotgun.

Just east of the city, at the Bixby Ranch, he discharged four men from one of his tents for reasons unmentioned. These gentlemen returned before daybreak and one of them, a Juan Diaz, stabbed a sleeping Acosta through the arm, and then stuck him in the breastbone and forehead. Acosta still managed to grab his shotgun and unload onto Diaz’ abdomen at point-blank range.

El Padrone’s brother managed to tackle and hogtie another assailant, one Luciano Morro, who was found bound at the entrance of the tent by local Marshals. The two others, Mssrs. Bartello and Rodriquez, now have warrants out for their arrest.

Padrone Acosta is expected to pull through. The outlook for Diaz is not as rosy.