Editor’s Note Thank you to all my family, friends, and supporters of the first edition! It is very gratifying to know you are there. I continue to re-discover fascinating and mostly forgotten stories about our ancestral Californians and the heritage they pass down to us. For example, who knew Riverside started as a failed silk worm farm because people were shifting from beaver-felt top hats to silk ones? Who knew the braided horse-hair riatas of the vaqueros were mostly made from the manes and tails of wild horses? Or that…well, those are other stories to be told in later issues of the newsletter.
Hot Tamales! – Eating History Want to travel back in time and partake of one of the most enduring pieces of southern California history? Eat a tamale! That’s right. Tamales have been around in California since the beginning of the Spanish Mission era and, fortunately, they’re still with us. While the many adobe homes have fallen to ruins and no one remembers the name of that guy who founded the city centuries ago, the tamale continues to keep its legacy and tasty goodness alive. The tamale originated among the women cooks of the Aztec and Maya armies as an easily carried and re-heated comestible. Tamales were introduced to the Spanish conquistadores of Cortez in 1521. Centuries later, they arrived in southern California with the Portola-Serra Expedition in 1769. At the Presidios and in the earliest pueblos the tamales cooked at home in outdoor kitchens. As early as 1875, a tamale vendor with a pushcart was seen in downtown Los Angeles as evidenced by this excerpt from the memoirs of Jonathan Mansfield:
* * * * * * * * * * * ***** “My two companions, however, more fastidious than myself, became restive, and being possessed of that inquiring instinct of the Yankee to improve present conditions, encountered in their evening stroll the chicken tamale man, which at once aroused their desire for trade and the possession of the tempting morsel so deftly trussed up in corn husks.”
(left) Tamale vendor Highland Park (, a suburb of Northeast Los Angeles) in 1885 (right) XLNT Tamale vendor, c. 1890s
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EPIDEMICS: SMALL POX AND INFLUENZA One of the often unmentioned historical facts about the expedition of Rivera y Moncada to found the pueblos of Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, in 1781, is that along with the soldiers and pobladores came the scourge of smallpox, which had been ravaging Baja California. Much has been written – often historically false -claiming that the Spanish used disease as a kind biological warfare against the local indigenous tribes as a form of control. On the contrary, the opposite appears to be true from the actual records. Not only to protect themselves, but also the natives, the Franciscan friars kept the diseased newcomers in isolated quarantine some distance from the mission because several of the children were convalescing from the dread disease. This is doubly recorded in a report from Governor Felipe de Neve to the Commandante General de las Provincias in October of 1781. King Carlos III of Spain, himself, ordered a book on how to combat smallpox epidemics to be distributed throughout New Spain. This was no empty gesture. A letter of September 15, 1786, from the Military Governor of New Spain to Governor Pedro Fages in California records sending 20 copies of the book to be distributed to the missions, pueblos and presidios. A well-used copy is still in the archives of the mission at Santa Barbara. The book covers not only the practices of quarantine and isolation, but also the new method of vaccination and the importance of care of those already diseased. The second outbreak of smallpox in California came In May of 1798, when the regular supply ship from San Blas arrived in Santa Barbara with some infected passengers who were immediately quarantined. It was advised by the Governor’s office that innoculations should proceed. A special set of instructions for the procedure were circulated throughout Alta California. Vaccination by the missions’ staff was to be offered to the neophytes as well as the non-Christian Indians. -- to be continued --
OLD MAN RIVER – THE SANTA ANA , Part II Juan Crespi, “the other Father” on the Portola-Serra “Sacred Expedition” recorded that on July 29, 1769, the men and animals crossed the newly-named is Santa Ana River “with great difficulty, on account of the swiftness of the current.” Little was written about the Santa Ana for decades except that its waters were shared in the north by San Gabriel Mission and in the south by San Juan Capistrano as a water source and irrigation. Later, when the great ranchos of the period flourished, the Santa Ana was tapped by irrigation ditches, miles long to provide water for the thousands of cattle owned by the rancheros. With winter floods, the river changed course many times in its history. Generally emptying into the Pacific Ocean just slightly west of Newport Bay, in 1822, great flooding of the river radically changed its outflow to the upper bay, creating the Balboa peninsula and the sand bars that would eventually become Balboa, Lido Harbor, and the Linda Islands. By the time California became a state, in 1850, the United States Army Corps of Engineers had dubbed the Santa Ana River the worst flood threat west of the Mississippi. That amiable chronicler of his times, Judge Benjamin Hayes wrote in his diary entry for January 29, 1851 that the mail rider from San Diego arrived in Los Angeles having been ten days on the road, seven of which were spent waiting for the Santa Ana River to become passable again. But such floods must be considered minor compared to the great floods of 1861-1862. In Southern California, beginning on December 24, 1861, it rained for almost four weeks for a total of 35 inches at Los Angeles. The flooding drowned thousands of cattle and washed away fruit trees and vineyards that grew along the Los Angeles River. In what was then Los Angeles County, now Orange Page 2
FIESTA DE PICO PIO On November 5, from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM, at Pio Pico State Historic Park, 6003 Pioneer Boulevard, in Whittier, you can get your fiesta on in the grand old fashion. And it’s free! Historical Reenactors Pio Pico - portrayed by Roberto Garza Costumed docents Live entertainment (music, dancers) Adobe brick making Food and drinks
OLD MAN RIVER – THE SANTA ANA , Part II continued County , the flooding Santa Ana River created an inland sea which lasted over three weeks with water standing four feet deep up to four miles distant from the river. Still at flood levels In February 1862, the Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and Santa Ana Rivers merged. Government surveys at the time indicated that a solid expanse of water covered the area from Signal Hill to Huntington Beach, a distance of some eighteen miles. Next month – Part III
SOFT GOLD: THE FUR TRADE While the Gold Rush of 1849 garners the greatest portion of the history of California’s booms, very little is recorded about its predecessor, the fur rush. Beginning in the late 1770s and lasting until after statehood in 1850, the “soft gold” of California beaver and otter drew hardy trappers to the coastal and inland waterways and provided decades of rich findings despite Spain’s and later Mexico’s laws against it. By the 1820s, otter pelts were selling for $22 and beaver furs only slightly less. The furs were selling to China and Europe for luxury clothing and men’s beaver felt top hats and the trappers and fur traders were shipping their wares back to Louisville where they would top up their supplies and then head out once more to the wilder areas of the country for another load. It was the promise of such riches that began to draw Americans to the borders of southern California where the coastal streams and rivers abounded with game. It was on one such excursion – in 1827 – that my gr-gr-great grandfather, Nathaniel (later known as Miguel) Pryor came to southern California with the Sylvester Pattie party. Because Mexico had recently broken away from Spain, these “strangers” were first suspected by the authorities to be spies, either in the pay of Spain or the United States. Eventually proving that they were trappers, their furs were confiscated or lost. Some left back to the east, a few stayed on – still occasionally plying their illegal trade – still just as often having their fur caches confiscated when found. It is estimated that around the time of the fur trade’s heydays, some 16000 otter were to be found along the California rivers. In Richard Henry Dana’s account Two Years Before the Mast in the 1830s, he writes that his ship finally sailed from California with “several barrels of beaver and otter hides”. While it had produced fabulous wealth for some and prompted peaceful trade between Indian tribes and trappers, the change in fashion – from beaver felt top hats to ones made of silk – spelled the death knell to the major thrust of the “soft gold” rush. The next “big thing” – liquid gold: oil! – was waiting in the wings.
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SHOW ME THE HISTORY November is an ideal month to step back in time and explore the rich heritage of Balboa Park San Diego.
San Diego’s historic and cultural gem began as a scrub mesa in 1868 and developed – through strong civic investment and two world Expositions -- into one of California’s architectural showplaces. Stepping back in time here presents the visitor with the impression of what it must have been like at the first World’s Fair, the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-1916. To commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal, the park was filled with stunning buildings designed in the heavily ornamented Spanish Renaissance style. Realistic larger than life statues, bas-relief, and rococo scrollwork adorn the exterior walls of museums, artfully restored. The 1935-36 California Pacific International Exposition, held to boost the local economy during the depression, added other cultural organizations, structures and landscaping. Many of the buildings around the Pan American Plaza at the southern end of the Park were created for the 1935 Exposition and present a fascinating architectural history of the Southwest, from earlier Aztec influences through Mexican pueblo style to art deco and arte moderne. To add to the old school charm of the park, there is a vintage electric trolley car ride and the newlyrefurbished lily pad pool. Put on your straw boater or top hat, your Gibson girl picture hat and put up your fringed parasol and visit the Balboa. Don’t just see the history, become part of it! Balboa Park information and calendar of events COMING IN THE NEXT ISSUE Old Californio Christmas Traditions Old Man River – The Santa Ana, Part III And more Page 4