Month: November 2006

A Bad Way With Horses


Nov.12, 1907
Los Angeles

Half a block from his home at 1131 Westlake, John P. Shumway Jr. was badly injured when the carriage he was driving collided with the 11th Street trolley. Shumway was thrown about 20 feet, striking the pavement head-first, and the horse ran for the stable, pulling what was left of the smashed carriage, witnesses said.

Shumway was carried to his home, where his father, Dr. John P. Shumway, treated him for a concussion, bruises and cuts. A year later, the family filed a personal injury suit against the Los Angeles Railway, seeking $10,355 ($204,938.83), although The Times failed to report the outcome of the trial.

Whether Shumway was a troublesome sort before is unclear, but his problems continued. In 1909, he was arrested for passing a forged check for $25 at the Pioneer bar on North Main Street. He claimed that he was given the check for work he had performed and was freed when he promised to repay the money.

A few months later, he was fined $60 for cruelty to a horse. Witnesses said Shumway overloaded a three-horse truck in South Pasadena and

Not Worthy


Nov. 11, 1907
Los Angeles

On a trip to Topeka, Kans., to visit relatives, Lena River Packard of Los Angeles met Edgar (or Edwin) Campbell Arnold, a wealthy wholesale druggist who quickly became her constant companion and ardent suitor. Love soon blossomed and in a few months, Edgar arrived in Los Angeles to claim his bride.

A lavish wedding was arranged, bridal showers were given for Lena and the minister was brought to town from Ventura, where the Packards once lived. Edgar gave her a diamond-studded bracelet as a token of their upcoming marriage.

And then the night before the ceremony,

CourtTV rides the Crime Bus

Lisa Sweetingham of CourtTV rode the Halloween Horrors Crime Bus, and reports in with a charming little feature she calls "The bus ride to hell, and back."

LOS ANGELES — "Ladies and gentlemen, this tour should not be taken by anyone with a heart condition … We recommend you leave the bus immediately." A tour guide makes the announcement as the doors slam shut on our filled-to-capacity 56-seat cruising bus. We are rolling into Los Angeles noir, embarking on an exhaustive five-hour tour of grisly crime scenes and lesser Halloween hijinks from the ’20s to the ’50s.

The 1947project’s inaugural Halloween Horrors crime bus tour is touted as a BYOBB (Bring Your Own Barf Bag) event. And no children are allowed.

So why is there a clown breathing down my neck?

Crimebo the crime clown (aka Michael Perrick) bares his teeth and purrs in a gravelly voice as he walks down the aisle with a cauldron full of cheap candy, some shaped like eyeballs. "Something sticky?" he offers.

He pops a balloon animal and quips, "These things just keep committing suicide."

Kindly click to read on.

Dislocation, Dislocation, Dislocation

Nov. 10, 1907
South Pasadena

What sort of monument do we leave for real estate developers? For John B. Althouse, who built hundreds of homes in the Wilshire district, as well as the West Adams district and the San Gabriel Valley, the answer might be nondescript offices and vacant lots.

Here”™s the house he built for himself at Oxley and Fremont in South Pasadena, a few blocks from my home. In fact, I pass the corner every day.

Here”™s another one he built on Manhattan Place.

Don”™t rush out to look for them, though. They”™re gone, although the wall around Althouse”™s home survived.

Born in Baltimore, Althouse died in July 1939 at the age of 72 at his home, 230 S. Gramercy Place. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1886 and spent 37 years in the real estate business after operating a fruit store at 1st and Main Streets for many years. He constructed hundreds of homes in the Wilshire district and was one of the first members of the Los Angeles Realty Board.

What”™s this? One has survived in the West Adams district, 1415 S. Gramercy Place. Also read here. And here. Zillow link.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
e-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com

Update: Further research reveals the home of Daniel T. Althouse, a partner in Althouse Brothers, at 2125 S. 4th Ave., where he died of blood poisoning in 1914.

We Are Revolutionists!


Nov. 9, 1907
Los Angeles

Local sympathizers, anarchists and Socialists are organizing a mass meeting to protest the imprisonment of Ricardo Flores Magon, Librado Rivera, Antonio Villareal and L. Gutierrez De Lara, who are being held on charges of trying to overthrow the Mexican government.

After years of avoiding capture, Magon, Rivera and Villareal were arrested Aug. 23 at 111 E. Pico St. after a brawl with Thomas Furlong of the Furlong Secret Service Bureau of St. Louis, along with Los Angeles Police Detectives Felipe Talamantes, Thomas F. Rico and two deputies. De Lara was arrested by U.S. marshals at 420 W. 4th St. on Sept. 27.

The Times said of the August incident: