News and Business


Motorcycle Hits Her

Miss Gertrude Young, who lives at No. 525 Wall St., was knocked down by a motorcycle yesterday as she stepped from a streetcar at 7th and Hope streets. The rider of the machine hastened away. Miss Young was taken to the Clara Barton Hospital.

No Milk Spilled

The horses attached to a Eureka Dairy wagon became frightened on South Main Street yesterday by an approaching streetcar and ran. A passenger on the streetcar leaped to the street, seized the bridles of the animals and stopped them. Not a drop of milk was spilled.

Paid for Collision

J. Hall of No. 655 S. Hill St., was hurled from a bicycle in a collision with an automobile driven by D. G. McMasters of 1010 W. 38th St. yesterday. The accident happened on Broadway between 3rd and 4th streets. Hall sustained slight bruises and his wheel [bicycle] was demolished. McMasters paid the lad for his wheel.

May Be Insane

Seizing James Harper by the throat and hurling him to the floor of the office of a lodging house at 127 Wilmington St., George May struck him violently several times last night, it is said. May was arrested on a charge of insanity. He is a miner who has been in an insane asylum, his friends say. He will be examined today by police surgeons.

Boy Seriously Hurt

Morrison Woodhill, 13, who lives with his mother at 410 W. 43rd St. was injured in an accident yesterday afternoon at Washington and Main streets. He was riding a bicycle and collided with a streetcar. He sustained a brain concussion and was treated at the Receiving Hospital. His mother came to Los Angeles from Montana a few months ago. Recently, she sent for her son and he arrived in the city on Monday. He was on his way to buy schoolbooks when the accident occurred.

Arrested for Spanking

John Vasey, 820 E. 17th St., was arrested last night on a battery charge because he spanked William Duncan yesterday. For some years, Vasey has been employed by Mrs. Tina Johnson of 749 E. 42nd St. as a gardener. He was unable to furnish bail and is held in the City Jail.

P.E.O. Sisters Boosted on Budlong

May 1, 1907
Los AngelesThe Sisters of the P.E.O. are a mysterious bunch. So much so that no-one knows what the initials P.E.O. stand for. What began as an Iowa sorority has morphed into a powerhouse of sisterhood, its guarded secrets forever hidden from the world of men.More mysterious, however, was the daylight robbery at the P.E.O. meeting held in the home of Sister Frederika Friend, 2302 Budlong Avenue. Sister Friend had made elaborate arrangements for a delightful afternoon, and as the Sisters talked business, and the cateress and coffee-colored assistants prepared the luncheon, Mrs. W. H. Faust of 2869 West Eighth Street strode upstairs to the dressing-room on the second floor where the ladies had left their wraps and pocketbooks. Mrs. Faust opened her clutch to get money with which to pay her dues, and found twenty dollars missing. She appeared white-faced at the top of the stairs, and in trembling tones exclaimed “Sisters! We have been robbed!”

The sisters rushed upstairs and drove their hands into their pocketbooks and indeed, most every sister had lost some of their cash contents. Police were summoned but they could find no evidence of a “second-story man,” and further determined that no-one could have gained ingress through the rear door without detection. At this information, Sister Friend reportedly broke down and cried. She was joined by others. A search was made of the house (and of the aforementioned cateress and “coffee-colored assistants,” we assume) to no avail. With this, the patrolmen departed, and the sisters sat down and cried some more, after which ice cream was served.

Of course, no suspicion attaches to any member of the Sisterhood.

And there the mystery rests.

New Heroine, Old Story

May 1, 1907
Los Angeles

“I love him, judge, and I just can’t keep away from him,” said winsome Grace Evans as tears coursed down her cheek. But she promised Justice Austin never to go near him again.

She was a simple country girl, caught in the swirl of gay city life, when she was led into a career of sin by one Alfred Medina. He taught her innocent twenty year-old mouth the ways of wrapping around an opium pipe. She stole twenty-three dollars to feed her habit, was popped for grand larceny, and spent a week in jail before being hauled before Austin. It was the contention of Deputy District Attorney Pearson that she had been more sinned against that had sinned, urging that she should escape sentence if she returned to the country to begin life anew.

And so it came to be that she promised never to see Medina again. But a young girl in the throes of having her innocence destroyed can scarcely be believed, though in time perhaps she may be redeemed.

In other Court news, Jesus “Bar Wielder” Suega was convicted of disturbing the peace and sentenced to twenty-five days in the City Jail. Suega had run amok in the Llewellyn Iron Works earlier in the week, attacking the workmen with a heavy piece of iron and driving all employees en masse from the establishment.

Edward M. Robbins — Man of Mystery, Suicide of Curiosity

 
Los Angeles
April 30, 1907
 
Sixtysomething Edward M. Robbins was a Civil War vet and long-time resident of his little house at 2728 Council Street.  No one ever entered the threshold of his hermit home; he never spoke to his neighbors nor made sign of recognition when he passed them on the street.  He was a quiet and at all times inoffensive man, save for those occasional spells when he would go on a colossal drunk. Then he would be seen through the uncurtained windows strumming an old guitar for a time, until he broke into mad fits of rage, pacing and singing at the top of his voice.
 
Given his hermit-like ways, it was no wonder that Robbins’s ten-day disappearance went unnoticed.  But then passersby observed the multitude of flies on the windows…
 
Police broke in to find Robbins on a bed he’d covered in wrapping paper. Bowie knife, razor and pair of scissors were all nearby, all besmeared with blood, as Robbins had used them all on his wrists and ankles.  But what led to his self-destruction was a “queerly fashioned double barreled pistol of ancient make” that Robbins still gripped tight in his decomposing hand, one barrel having been discharged to form a gaping hole in his neck.
 
Perhaps Robbins suffered from the mania associated with the  “flashing back” of memory common to veterans of the War of Northern Agression.

If It Isn’t One Poison, It’s Another

April 29, 1907
Hollywood
 
Hollywood has been rife with excited talk over the recent death of area man T. C. Hoagland.  Hoagland, of Olive Street, raised the interest of locals when his formerly attending physicians, unsure of the cause of this life’s cessation, refused to sign a death certificate after Hoagland’s demise. Hoagland’s cadaver was handed over to a Dr. G. W. Campbell, who therefore performed an autopsy.  The rumors afloat among Hoagland’s Hollywood neighbors were lessened somewhat when it was revealed that there had been no foul play; rather, Hoagland had simply died of alcoholism.  This should have come as a surprise to no-one, given Hoagland’s reputation for heavy drinking, but the rumors remain unquelled.  An inquest has been ordered and the Coroner shall further investigate Hoagland’s death.

Give Them What They Ask

April 28, 1907
Los Angeles
 
Tamalaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
 
That is the call of the tamalera, they known to those of us who reside in the Hispanic neighborhoods, a siren song that wakes us to church, to industry, but mostly to meat and masa in husk.  But treat these folk well; James Couts, a sash and door worker playing a game of ball at 38th and Santa Fe yesterday, was knifed repeatedly by a tamale peddler after some trouble about payment.
 
In other news, the rash of burglaries continues to increase as Fiesta nears.  A. C. Nagle was brutally assaulted, and robbed of his diamond ring and Elks pin, at Ocean Park last night.  Rings were stolen from 936 East 31st, and silverware and clothing from 210 East 16th. 
 
Nearer town, in a restaurant on North Main Street, James Selagar and Pedro Fierros fought a furious knife duel, sending both, after their arrest, to Receiving Hospital for treatment.

Steve Harvey featurette in today’s L.A. Times

Welcome, readers of Steve Harvey’s Only in L.A.!

Past Horrors Await Bus Tour, Provided Today’s Don’t Intervene

"Nightmares of Bunker Hill" is a bus tour for those who revel in the murders, suicides, brothels, gambling palaces and opium dens of 19th century L.A. — you know, the good old days.

"The city was so strange and wide open back then," said co-operator Kim Cooper. "But they had a lot of the same problems as we do now. Wild kids … men and women not getting along…. "

Naturally, it takes a certain mind-set to be entranced by, say, a story about a woman throwing acid in the face of her lover (Chinatown, 1887). But the market evidently exists. The last group who signed up for an excursion were invited by Cooper and partner Nathan Marsak to pick a date. Easter Sunday was chosen. "Oh, you delightful sickniks!" the duo responded on their website, 1947project.com. And so the holiday was observed, in their own way.

The next scheduled jaunt is June 10. Cost for the five-hour experience is $47, which includes snacks and beverages.

Cooper and Marsak, incidentally, make this disclaimer: "Although it is extremely unlikely, the organizers reserve the right to postpone the tour in the event of extreme weather, riot, act of war or plague."

We’re talking, after all, about L.A.

Stupid criminal tricks, mid-20th century style: Cooper and Marsak recently completed a project in which they documented, for the fun of it, "the offbeat and criminal history of 1947 Los Angeles." A few excerpts:

•  Busboy James Edwards, 57, who distrusted banks, was conked on the head by a thug and awoke to find $75 stolen from his wallet. What the robber hadn’t noticed was that Edwards was also wearing a cartridge belt holding $3,843, plus $1.17 in change.

•  A taxi driver, saying he was "feeling sleepy," asked his passenger to take the wheel. The passenger, a young Marine named Patrick Crawford, did so — and drove to the Santa Ana police station. There officers arrested the somnolent man on suspicion of having shot the cab’s real owner earlier in the day.

•  When forgery suspect Robert Putter, 49, was arrested in Alhambra, police found in his possession an 18-page how-to booklet for others in the trade. Ironically, he failed to observe one of his own rules: "When you don’t succeed in passing a check, get out of town but fast."