Category: Neighborhoods

Catalina Landings Complicated

July 30, 1907
Avalon, Catalina Island 

Who owns the sea, the islands and their calm coves? Is it god, or man who lays claim upon places of value in the world?

On Santa Catalina Island, a consortium run by the Banning family has seized control of most of the landable sections of the Avalon cove, and demands a 12 1/2% cut of all ship’s profits for the privilege of using the wharves. Most of the island’s boatmen agreed to pony up for the Santa Catalina Island Company surcharge, but a few rebelious sorts sniffed they’d find their own landings, thankyouverymuch.

Pity the unfortunate passengers who go out fishing with these rebels, quite unaware that permission to land on dry wood does not come with the price of passage! At Avalon today, an independent boatman named "Chappie" returned with a party of four and sought to land at the wharf, as a lady was aboard. He got into a physical altercation with an officer of the SCIC, and clouted the man with his gaff hook, then was swatted with a billyclub and knocked unconscious for ten minutes.

The lady was allowed to disembark onto the wharf, where is was discovered she had suffered a nasty wound straight through the web of her hand, from someone’s swinging blade unseen. The punchy "Chappie" meanwhile put his male passengers ashore along the beach, a most ignoble end to a day’s sport fishing.

Notes from the Hydrocarbon Front

July 19, 1907
Los Angeles

After Doheny hit oil near (what’s now) Dodger Stadium back in ’92, Los Angeles went brea-happy, depressing world oil prices with its outstanding production and eventually producing 3/4 of the world’s supply after the 20s hits in Wilmington, Dominquez Hills, Huntington and Long Beach, et al.

In 1907 everybody was getting into the act. Including the mayor. Mayor A. C. Harper has announced the formation of the Los Angeles-Utah Oil Company, the other directors of the corporation a coterie of mayoral cronies picked from the Police and Fire Commissions, and, interestingly, there’s a Councilman by the name of Clampitt. The Mayor has been spending much of his time not in City Hall, but in his new oil company offices at the Bank of Commerce, across from the Times building. (Though "Clampitt" should be a propitious name in the oil production game, Utah’s Virgin Valley field never really pans out–which taught the mayor not to go wildcatting outside of LA [or perhaps their failings were due to the misspelling of Clampett.])

Meanwhile, a grassroots movement has started in the Seventh Ward to throw oil refineries and storage tanks out of the city in and into the country. The Eighth Ward, also known for tanks with 500+ barrel capacity (21,000 gallons) has joined in to make noise about a tank’s ability to incinerate large swaths of the city should a refinery explode. (Of course, it was the location of these tanks that brought manufacturing and worker’s housing to southeastern Los Angeles in the first place.)

While everyone was worried about being blown up by oil storage tanks, today one Ernest Malcom, of the Los Angeles City Dye Works, was cleaning a suit of clothes in some distillate…when there was a tremendous flash and a roar. He was thrown thirty feet backward and into a door, which gave way and he tumbled into the street uharmed. A series of tremendous inflammable cleaning fluid explosions incinerated the rest of the building, although firefighters were able to save the surrounding houses.

Tong War Continues

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July 18, 1907

Anaheim 

One more tong war post, and then I’ll return to our regularly scheduled horrors committed by, I don’t know, Dutch people.

Anaheim, California: best known for Disneyland and the Pond, or, at least, known for the winemaking prowess of Victorian Bavarians, and having been run by the Klan in 1924. And I’d like to remind you that on this day in 1907, Anaheim was the scene of a particularly grisly murder.

Mock Fat was an Anaheim vegetable salesman and a particularly card-carrying, dues-paying member of the Hop Sing. But Anaheim is largely Bing Goon territory, and as such, the aged Fat a prime target.

Classic tong style: shot twice in the back, he fell on his face. A knife was stabbed repeatedly into his back and left there. Of course, a hatchet was used to cut up his head.

As usual, the police have been dispatched to the train stations. While imported highbinders are escaping detection by hiding out in downtown Japanese rooming houses, cops have nevertheless managed to nap Visalians Tai Choy and Lin Poon, implicated in the killing.

Los Angeles Celebrates Its Past


July 14, 1907
Los Angeles

Led by the Rev. Juan Caballeria (or Cabelleria), the city is preparing to celebrate its 126th anniversary Aug. 2 with concerts, Mass in the Plaza church and cannon fire. The old artillery piece will be lit by Gen. Jose Aguilar, a former member of the Mexican army who battled the Americans and later joined Gen. John C. Fremont.

Wearing his uniform and sword, Aguilar, who is nearly 100 years old, will fire the cannon when the flags of Spain, Mexico and the United States are raised in the order they appeared over the city. The cannon will also be fired at noon and sunset.

The Times notes that Caballeria has played a crucial role in removing more recent modifications to the old church and is restoring it to the way it appeared in its prime.

A Peace Disturbed

tongwarrenewedJuly 13, 1907
Los Angeles

And you thought the tong war was all wrapped up (cf. our post of 6 July). That uneasy easy peace you felt must sadly be disturbed once more.

Chan Mon is one of the wealthiest and most influential Celestials in Los Angeles. He resides in Chinatown at 212 Ferguson Alley, and runs from 804 Juan Street his empire of vegetable wholesalers.

But at a banquet (at 421 Apablasa) last night—you’ll remember that the last tong war resulted from a banquet, where some ladies of a particular social standing were omitted—Chan Mon, a fellow traveler of the Hop Sing, was shot once in the shoulder and twice in the groin by members of the Row Wing and Bow On. 

Police were dispatched to the train stations to prevent escape of the assassins, and over one hundred officers ransacked Chinatown in a house-to-house. They never found noted highbinder Lem Au Toy, implicated in the shooting, but did arrest Lee Ming, a tailor and Hop Sing hanger-on, at 214 Apablasa.

Barring blood poisoning, Mon is expected to recover.

We will keep you posted of local developments.

An interlude from the future: 

Baravelli and Pinky arrive carrying blocks of ice. They deposit them in the wall safe. Wagstaff: That’s a fine way to carry ice! Where are your tongs? Baravelli and Pinky stick out their tounges. Looks like a tong war.

— Horsefeathers, 1932

When Boozing Was A-foot

July 6, 1907
Los Angeles 

Hot! damn but it’s been hot and humid, too, the steamiest early July since records have been kept. Sure there were hotter single days–like July 25, 1891 when the mercury topped 109–but no one can recall a week when the very dawn temperature broke 80 degrees, with no relief offered by the night.

Mrs. Carrie Gilbert’s solution to the grisly weather was to get drunk and sleep out-of-doors, not in a cosy sleepying porch at home at 617 1/2 East Sixth Street, but alongside the railway behind the commission house at First and Central Streets. Deep in the darkness her horrible screams were heard; a passing train had severed her left foot. Taken to Receiving Hospital, the lady slipped into a merciful stupor. Clever, clever dipsomaniac. Shock, they say, leaves one feeling icy cold…

Wrap-Up of the Recent Tong War

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Tong war, born of woman! Of few days, and full of trouble!

Seems there’s always a highbinder war simmering down in Chinatown. But despite the literality of that damn’d “huddled masses” business, there stays an easy peace down amongst the Celestials. Until.

When a Hop Sing Tong all-tong banquet (for those of you not in the know, a Tong could throw down on your local set) was held in the early weeks of June, the Bing Gon Tong was forbidden to attend—and as such, the Bing Gon elected to remove their slave girls from the Chinatown sex market.

And thus comes the storm.

At first the cops—informed (as they are to-day) by merchants and oldtimers who have little stake in any war—spent their time shaking down and locking up local Chinese for carrying Caliente-smuggled firearms, and having hired Caliente gunmen.

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Then Chin Hai, local laundryman and Bing Gon fellow-traveler, was shot at by the Hop Sing Tong, and cops arrested Ah Quay, Ah Mee, Ah Soo, Tom Tong and Wong Kee. After cops picked up these men and the hammerless revolver they (or one, or perhaps none) used in the shooting, two knifing attempts by highbinders went down. It was a busy night. Chinese merchants slept in their stores. They appealed for police escorts. And all cops could uncover in the Chinese interstices were some smokeless-powder cartridges for great-caliber weapons.

 

lingaukThe young and fair Ling Auk, left, who had been friendly to the Bing Gon, was surprised by Hop Sing hatchetmen on June 19. Luckily, they were scared away by her protectors. The Hop Sing Tong has always been the most warlike in the Chinese settlement. They are centered at 529+1/2 North Los Angeles Street, where they have built a walled fortress replete with intricate tunnels that repeatedly prevent their capture. That White girls retire there to smoke opium is a sad, accepted fact of modernity.

 

Outside agitators are, of course, a factor.

Tong representatives from San Francisco are urging bloodshed. storm

 stab

Meanwhile, the bloodthirsty boys of the Hop Sing have donned their mail. What looks like an ordinary quilted silk Chinese coat to the naked eye actually conceals a screen of steel links, bullet and knife and, most importantly to the tong war, hatchet-proof.

Legendary San Fran avenger Lu Fook has even arrived in town; he is storied to have survived four shots in the back while his followers killed six hatchetmen. Heavy muscle from up north always makes copper flee in LA; where in SF the Great Six Companies War Board settle tong differences, Los Angeles just has some officers watching the trains to note incoming highbinders and look on as the Oriental Quarter, centered at Alameda and Marchessault Streets, erupts in bloodshed.

Luckily, Wong Fong, mayor of the San Francisco Chinatown, was called to Los Angeles last week to settle the dispute. Sui Hoo Fow and Sam Ham Gay were named as the perps in the Chin Hai shooting, and were ostracized by their tongs. Again we settle into an uneasy, easy peace.