Part I of a continuing series about
HISTORY On the Hill
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 1 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune dated Sept 28, 1990.
The first Indians to occupy the Signal Hill area were a Hogan-speaking people who survived as hunters and gatherers. These people were driven out of the coastal basin by another tribe, the Gabrielinos, named after the San Gabriel Mission region they inhabited. The Gabrielinos occupied roughly 100 miles of Southern California coastal region, from Aliso Creek, Orange County to Malibu. Although this group began moving into the area from as early as 500 B.C., they were not established as a dominant culture until 1200 A.D.
The Gabrielinos spake Shoshonean, a language shared by the Hopis people of the Arizona mesas. Today, little remains of their language but a few phrases, religious terms and area names such as Azuza, Cahuenga, and Topanga.
This peoples’ complex religion centered around the village of Puvungna, located near the present site of the Bixby house on Rancho Los Alamitos. it was here, two miles inland from Alamitos Bay, that the god and lawgiver Chinigehinich declared himself, according to Gabrielino mythology.
The Gabrielinos gathered seeds, acorns, wild plants, greens and nuts to supplement their meaty diet of deer, fish, shellfish, rabbits, catepiillars, grasshoppers, grubs and birds. They hunted small game, fish and birds with nets. Larger quarry was caught by using bow and arrow, snares, and stone fish hooks.
Indian housing consisted of summer huts made of a framework of wooden poles covered by tule (cattail) mats. These structures were portable. For winter, the Gabrielinos constructed permanent domed huts made from poles and brush covered with earth. Villages typically included sweat houses and female segregation huts.
It was the Gabrielinos who first discovered a sticky goo they called "capapote" and used to waterproof their canoes, baskets, and robes. Capatote, otherwise known as crude oil, came up through fissures in the ground on Signal Hill, and up from the ocean floor. Little did the Indians realize that capapote would one day forever change the history of the Hill.
What did forever change the lives and history of the Gabrielinos, however, was the arrival of two Spanish ships into San Pedro Bay, led by the Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. The date was October 8th, 1542. For the Gabrielinos, it marked the beginning of the end of their culture, their lifestyle, and their future;
To Be Continued . . .
Part II
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 2 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune dated Sept 28, 1990.
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
In 1542, Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo led two Spanish ships. ELSalvador and LaYittoria into what is now known as San Pedro Bay. The Gabrielinos, Indians, native to this coastal region (and Signal Hill), would not again encounter Spanish explorers until 1602. On November 24th of that year, they three-ship mapping expedition of Sebastian Vizcaino arrived at Santa Catalina Island.
The Indians welcomed Vizcaino and his crew with baskets full of fresh drinking water. They.were repaid for their hospitality with an act of senseless violence: One of the expedit.ion’s Spanish soldiers spotted two very large crows on the Gabrielinos’ ceremonial grounds, aimed at them with his garquebus (a long gun), and shot them. To the Indians, these crows were sacred. "When the Indians saw this, they began to weep and display great emotion," reported a Spanish padre. The incident was on amen of the Gabrielinos’ future at the hands of invading Europeans.
. The natives of Signal Hill and the surrounding area remained undisturbed by outsiders until 1769. In that year, Jose de Galves, the vistador-general of New Spain, initiated a plan for the occupation and settlement of California. As part of this plan, Franciscan missions were established along an island expedition route which linked San Diego to Monterey Bay. The Indians who lived near Signal Hill resided within the jurisdiction of the Mission of San Gabriel and were called “Gabrielinos" by the missionaries, a name which has stuck with these natives ever since.
Although the Spanish Missions of California existed for only 60 or so years (from 1769 to the late 1820s), they eradicated the Indian’s former way of life. According to historian Ruth Mary Underhill’s Red Man Americaa.
The Franciscans were devoted missionaries, vowed to poverty and service. Their solution for the Indians was to gather them in villages around a mission which should consist of church, school, and shops. Here they would be taught Christianity and civilized trades and at last would live like white people.‘This might have worked with an agricultural people, used to living in one place… (but) wanderers grew sick with the unusual confinement and the heavy clothing … The worst tragedy came when Mexico, which then included California, gained her independence and ceased to support the missions. The Indians were turned out to support themselves, but they had lost all capacity for it. Used to taking orders and having all plans made for them, they were helpless against the whites who were now occupying the land.
The Gabrielinos were also decimated by infectious diseases introduced by the, Europeans, against which they had no immunities. Measles, various poxes, and venereal disease, worsened by crowded living conditions and inadequate treatment methods, caused widespread mortality among the Indians.
Mexico became independent from Spain in 1822 and ruled California for the next 26 years. When California was annexed by the United States at the end of the Mexican-American War, the Indians of this area were powerless and landless. Not until l875 did the Yankee government establish a few reservations in Southern California. In the meantime, the once proud and self-sufficient Indians wandered for nearly a century. as outcasts, a broken people.
to be continued...
Part III
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 3 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune dated Sept 28, 1990.
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
The Early Rancho Era
The territory encompassing Signal Hill was first colonized as Alta California in the late 1700s. Back then, the area was ruled by King Carlos III of Spain, who appointed Pedro Pages its governor. To encourage and manage the settlement of Alta California, the Spanish government instituted a system of land grants.
In 1784 and 1790, Cpl, Manuel Perez Nieto, who served under Pedro Pages in the Spanish colonial army, requested and received two parcels of land. Nieto’s land grant of 300,000 acres covered the area between the San Gabriel and Santa Ana Rivers, and extended from the ocean to the hills above Mission San Gabriel. But, after a series of land disputes with neighboring land grantee Juan Jose Domingues and Mission San Gabriel, Nieto’s grant was reduced to about 167,000 acres, which he used to raise cattle and horses.
Manuel Nieto died in 1804, leaving, his property to his four children. After four years of joint ownership, in 1834 Nieto’s land was divided into six parcels: Rancho Santa Gertrudes, Rancho Las Bolsas, Rancho Palo Alto, Rancho Los Coyotes, Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos. The dividing line between Rancho Los Cerritos (Ranch of the Little Hills) and Rancho Los Alamitos (Ranch of the Little Cottonwoods), known now as Alamitos Avenue, was placed to give each Rancho equal access to the vantage point from Signal Hill.
Juan Jose Nieto, son of Manuel Nieto, received the 26,00() acre Rancho Los Alamitos. Shortly thereafter in 1834, he sold this Rancho to Governor Jose Figueroa for $500 (less than 2 cents per acre.) The 27,000 acre Rancho Los Cerritos went to Manuel Nieto’s daughter Manuela. After her death, the property passed to her husband, Guillerrno Cota.
To be continued…
Part IV
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 4 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune dated Sept 28, 1990.
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
The Yankee Dons
In the 1840s the area now called Signal Hill, contained within the Ranches of Los Alamitos and Los Cerritos, fell into the hands of merchants Abel Stearns and Jonathan Temple. Stearns bought Rancho Los Alamitos in 1842 for $6,000. One year later, Temple purchased Ranches Los Cerritos for $3,025.
Stearns and Temple were of a class of immigrants to California known as “The Yankee Dons." Both had migrated from a New England, converted to Roman Catholicism, and become naturalized citizens of Mexico. (In the 18405 Mexican citizenship was required of all California landowners.) Both merchants learned to speak Spanish and married daughters of local prominent families.
Stearns married 14-year-old Arcadia Bandini in 1841. In those days it was not unusual for young women to marry early. Stearns, however, was 43. Despite the couple's age difference, it was said to be a happy marriage.
Stearns, also known as "Don Abel" to the locals, renovated a four-room adobe on Rancho Los Alamitos for his young bride. On a bluff overlooking the Rio San Gabriel, "Duan Juan" Temple built the central adobe structures of Rancho Los Cerritos: a 100-foot long, two-story main living area adjoined by_two 140-foot long wings.
Stearns and Temple both ran successful cattle ranches which, until 1848, supplied a lucrative hide and tallow market. That year, after the California Gold Rush began, Stearns and Temple switched to raising feed cattle, to supply meat to the rapidly growing population of Northern California. Stearns recorded that during this population boom about 25,000 to 30,000 cattle were sold annually from Los Angeles County, at prices as high as $75 per head (compared to a pre-1848 price of $3 per head.)
During the heyday of The Yankee Dons, a friendly rivalry broke out between Stearns and Temple. Each of their Ranchos staffs, including field hands, cooks, maids, dairymen, blacksmiths and vaqueros (cowboys), would gather in late spring atop Signal Hill for an annual horse race. These racing festivities including ‘feasting, drinking wine and dancing. Betting was heavy.
Their racetrack was a dirt path that ran from the crest of Signal Hill to the bluff overlooking the ocean (near the current site of the Villa Riviera on Ocean Boulevard.) There, the horses would round a stake and race back up to the Hill. The most famous winner of these races was "El Beserero",'a prize bay owned by Don Juan Temple.
By the mid 1860’s, the prosperity of Stearns and Temple came to an end. Successive years of flooding and severe drought killed thousands of cattle. Facing financial ruin, Steams defaulted on his mortgaged Rancho Los Alamitos in 1866. The Rancho passed into the hands of Micheal Reese. That same year, Temple sold Rancho Los Cerritos to a land company, Flint, Bixby and Co., for $20,000. In a little over‘ 20 years time; both Yankee Dons had made and lost a sizable fortune.
To be continued…
Part V
HISTORY On the Hill
Written by Julie Bendzick-Sin.
This is a reprint 5 of 24 articles first published in the Star Tribune dated Sept 28, 1990.
Digitally Preserved by the Signal Hill Historical Society for future generations
The Bixbys
Beginning in 1864, a relentless drought hit California, eventually wiping out this area's cattle industry. At that time, the parcel we now call Signal Hill straddled the Ranches of Los Alamitos and Los Cerritos. Both Ranches fell upon hard times because of the drought of the 1860s. Both
would pass into the hands of the Bixby family.
In 1866, Rancho Los Cerritos was purchased by Flint, Bixby & Company, a partnership formed by three cousins from Maine. Partners Thomas and Benjamin Flint, and their cousin Lewellyn Bixby, shrewdly took advantage of the collapse of California's cattle ranches to purchase Ranches Los Cerritos, including its fine house and Italian gardens for 75 cents per acre (or $20,000-for 27,000 acres.)
Lewellyn Bixby’s brother, Jotham, was made manager of Rancho Los Cerritos, and began raising sheep for wool. By 1869, Jotham bought into the property and formed his own company, J. Bixby & Co. Jotham Bixby and his wife, Margaret Hathaway, were also from Maine. Together, they prospered on Rancho Los Cerritos. They left the property in 1881.
In 1870, Jotham’s cousin, John Bixby, came from Maine to help out at Los Cerritos. There John met and fell in love with houseguest Susan Hathaway, sister to Margaret Hathaway. This Bixby-Hathaway attraction was a family pattern; a total of three Bixby men would marry 4 Hathaway women.
John Bixby and Susan Hathaway were married. They gave birth to Fred H. Bixby in 1875. Three years later they leased Rancho Los Alamitos from Michael Stearns, a bankrupt cattle rancher.
Under the Bixbys, Rancho Los Alamitos supported herds of sheep, cattle, and a cheese and dairy factory. Droughts in 1872 and 1876-77 continued to decimate livestock, despite the use of wells on the property. At its peak, the Rancho supported nearly 30,000 sheep which produced 200,000 pounds of wool annually.
In 1881, John Bixby purchased Rancho Los Alamitos in partnership with I.W.Hellman and the Jotham Bixby Company. They paid $125,000 in gold for approximately 26,000 acres. The Rancho continued to be managed by John Bixby, until his premature death in 1887, at the age of 39. He was survived by his widow Susan, son Fred, and daughter Susanna.
A year, later, Rancho Los Alamitos was divided three ways. The middle portion, which included the ranch house, went to Susan Bixby and her two children. The name Rancho Los Alamitos stayed with this portion and its structures. By 1910, John Bixby's son Fred had inherited the remaining portion of Rancho Los Alamitos. Fred H. Bixby continued to operate the property as a working ranch until 1952.
to be continued...
More about the Bixby’s from: wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Beach,_California
In 1866 Temple sold Rancho Los Cerritos for $20,000 to the Northern California sheep-raising firm of Flint, Bixby & Co, which consisted of brothers Thomas and Benjamin Flint and their cousin Lewellyn Bixby. Two years previous Flint, Bixby & Co had also purchased along with Northern California associate James Irvine, three ranchos which would later become the city that bears Irvine's name. To manage Rancho Los Cerritos, the company selected Lewellyn's brother Jotham Bixby, the "Father of Long Beach".
Three years later Bixby bought into the property and would later form the Bixby Land Company. In 1880, Bixby sold 4,000 acres (16 km) of the Rancho Los Cerritos to William E. Willmore, who subdivided it in hopes of creating a farm community, Willmore City. He failed and was bought out by a Los Angeles syndicate that called itself the "Long Beach Land and Water Company." They changed the name of the community to Long Beach, at that time. The City of Long Beach was officially incorporated in 1897.
Another Bixby cousin, John W. Bixby, was influential in the city. After first working for his cousins at Los Cerritos, J.W. Bixby leased land at Rancho Los Alamitos. He put together a group: banker I.W. Hellman, Lewellyn and Jotham Bixby, and him, to purchase the rancho. The Alamitos Rancho was once the largest cattle ranch in the U.S.
J.W. Bixby began the development of the oceanfront property near the city's picturesque bluffs. Under the name Alamitos Land Company, J.W. Bixby named the streets and laid out the parks of his new city. This area would include Belmont Heights, Belmont Shore and Naples; it soon became a thriving community of its own. J.W. Bixby died in 1888 of apparent appendicitis.
The Rancho Los Alamitos property was split up, with Hellman getting the southern third, Jotham and Lewellyn the northern third, and J.W. Bixby's widow and heirs keeping the central third. The Alamitos townsite was kept as a separate entity, but at first it was primarily run by Lewellyn and Jotham Bixby, although I.W, Hellman (who had the largest single share) had a significant veto power, an influence made even stronger as the J.W. Bixby heirs began to side with Hellman more and more.
When Jotham Bixby died in 1916, the remaining 3,500 acres (14 km) of Rancho Los Cerritos was subdivided into the neighborhoods of Bixby Knolls, California Heights, North Long Beach and part of the city of Signal Hill.