I TOLD Bell the Electro-Dynamic Transmitter-Receiver Would Be Nothing But Trouble

June 26, 1907
Los Angeles

07phoneJohn Richie, contractor of East Fourteenth Street, has an unsavory record.  Richie used to, daily, beat his son with a rake handle, until such time as the boy became an idiot.  This finally drove Richie’s wife insane, and she died in an asylum, whereafter Richie got drunk and danced about in the room where the casket had been placed.

But now he’s gone too far.  He’s making rude phone calls.

Richie was hauled before Justice Rose to defend a complaint sworn by Mrs. Rose Mustactia, Richie’s grocer:

“He has been annoying me for some time.  At first he just said spiteful things, but at last his actions became unbearable.  Saturday afternoon he called up the store and told me his name and then he began to abuse me.  He called me names and my husband names and said we were bums and that all our groceries were stale and that most of the stuff we had in the store was second hand.  The next time he called up, my daughter answered the ‘phone.  He told her the same thing, abusing us all and saying hard things about us.  Twenty-five times during the afternoon and evening he called us up and used bad language until we refused to answer the ‘phone any more.”

Richie was convicted of a misdemeanor.

The Mysterious Ms. Pulva

June 23, 1907
Los Angeles

 

pulvaheadlineWhat can one say about pretty young Eva Pulva?  She lived in a lonely cottage on West Fifty-Fourth, and though her mother and sister lived on East Fifty-Seventh, she told people she had no kin.  Her gentleman friends knew little of her.  The police knew her best of all—watching as she, a ward of the probation department, came to the verge of trouble via men of low character.  But she’d secured her nice little cottage, and things seemed to be going well…

…until she shaved her head and disappeared.  The cops looked for her to offer her protection from whatever trouble she was in, but didn’t find her until she had a self-inflicted bullet in her chest.

Her note read “Dearest Sister:  You will find my trunk at 2739 Budlong avenue.  Please don’t tell the lady you are a relative of mine.  I told her I had no relation.  So let me go knowing that one person on your Sunny Earth don’t think me a liar.  I am sorry I don’t leave espense money but (I belong to a gang that have my money) and when they hear I am goine most likely you will get it.  Don’t tell mother.  I wrote anything.  Put me anywhere sister.  I do don’t care where.  I know you understand and my dear I am no good here…I am a coward to live but not a coward to die.”
 

Visitation of the Rambler

June 19, 1907
Los Angeles

John Sheres has graced Los Angeles with his presence. The professional adventurer, or, as he self-describes, “chronic loafer,” boasts that he has never done a month’s of real work in his life. Sheres says he has been a wanderer ever since he was able to walk, and as such was promptly arrested and given a short jail term on his arrival in our Fair City.

Town to town, jail to jail, Sheres wanders, or “beats;” he was beating his way to San Francisco looking to jump some vessel bound for New York. He is hoping to reach England, from where he intends to finagle passage to South Africa or India.

Released to-day from our local gaol, the itch to move is upon him, and so we shall bid farewell to Mr. Sheres. We wish him a fulfilling life of beating, unburdened by the terrible specter of work. He states he expects to die a professional tramp.

In the news: God DAMN the stucco man; the dead walk on Fort Moore

Two juicy links courtesy of good ol’ LA Observed:

As work continues on that ginormous construction site near Sunset and Grand, a 19th century cemetery is being disturbed, with caskets, bones and artifacts shining grimly in the sunlight they were never meant to see. Nothing good can possibly come from this.

And in happier news, the Echo Park Historical Society is looking for a once-wood, now-stucco’d home to serve as a demonstration for how the creeping crud can be stripped off and the home’s original lines renewed.

 

***
Addendum, from wee Nathan:
hollywood freeway grave
Arrow points to bones of pioneer California soldier unearthed as Hollywood Freeway excavation cuts into the old Fort Moore Hill Cemetery. Soldier had been buried in full uniform, including silver spurs. Several caskets have been exposed. Photo dated: April 2, 1951.

Sleeping Like A Baby

June 14, 1907
Sonoratown

Mrs. Santos Rodriguez (nee Galvies) has a lover, Virde Parra. She also has a little 3-year-old daughter, and watching the babe was putting a crimp in her romantic life. A quick trip down to the druggist provided mama with what was almost certainly a bottle of lauadanum, that effective blend of opium and alcohol so beloved by Coleridge and de Quincey. As the child slipped into a powerful sleep illuminated with extraordinary visions, Santos slipped out of her little house at 643 Buena Vista Street and met Virde for a quickie at the La Guerra Hotel on North Main Street near Market.

But the lovers’ plans were thwarted when the lady’s husband, having heard rumors of her evening wanders and Parra’s visits, came home for an early dinner and discovered his child insensible. Patrolmen Leon and Murphy were called, and the child-doper and her honey were quickly found and placed in police custody, where the lady gave her maiden name and refused to talk about the case.

 

 

A Bohemian Lazarus

June 6, 1906
Los Angeles

Last February Antone F. Lieblich, a well-off Bohemian of middle years, sold his property in Eudunda, near Franklin Harbour, Australia and sailed back home to Austria. He never made it. After going ashore in Genoa, Lieblich vanished, and when a man’s body washed up soon after, it was duly identified and Lieblich’s family informed of his passing. His property was split up, and the mourning for the long-lost kin commenced.

Until July, that is, when Lieblich’s Australian attorney received a letter from his client–return addressed 2416 East Ninth Street, Los Angeles–with instructions for a few final real estate transactions. The Australian police became interested, and made inquiries through the police of many nations, but the mysterious Herr Lieblich was nowhere to be found. The Los Angeles police visited the Ninth Street address, and learned that a man fitting Lieblich’s description had been staying there last July, but he had made no friends in the neighborhood, and no one knew where he had gone.

So look carefully about you, Los Angeles! That dark, well-built man with the slightly graying beard and the odd accent might just be Antone Lieblich, come out of his mossy grave and wondering where all his money’s gone!

A Theater Rises on Broadway


June 2, 1907
Los Angeles

The Hamburger Department Store announces plans for a theater just south of its new building on South Broadway at 8th Street, designed by the architecture firm of Edelman and Barnett.

According to plans, the horseshoe-shaped theater is to seat 1,600 people, with a balcony and a gallery. The stage is to be 40 feet by 80 feet, with a proscenium 36 feet wide and 32 feet high.