Prudent Beaudry (Probably) Didn't Name Bunker Hill After All

A few years ago, after one of my earliest public talks, one attendee asked me why I didn't mention that Prudent Beaudry had named Bunker Hill after the Revolutionary War site, out of gratitude for becoming a U.S. citizen.

Well, first of all, the subject of French and French-speaking Angelenos is a pretty deep rabbit hole to fall down, and the original draft of my talk was over three hours long. I had to cut a LOT of material to whittle my notes down to a 50-minute presentation. (My walking tours, when they're up and running, take 2.5 to 3 hours, depending on stoplights, traffic, and walking speeds.)

Second, I knew Prudent Beaudry had bought and developed Bunker Hill, but to this day have yet to see any proof that he was the one who actually named the hill Bunker Hill, let alone in tribute to the Revolutionary War location. Longtime readers already know how fussy I am about getting the details right. 

Well...enter Nathan Marsak's latest book, Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Essence of Sunshine and Noir.

My copy (finally!) arrived today. It is, of course, impossible to discuss Bunker Hill's history without a mention of Prudent Beaudry, and sure enough, sixteen pages in, Marsak states:

"With Bunker Hill Avenue crowning the hill after 1873, it has been generally surmised that the general geographic region took on the name 'Bunker Hill' about this time or soon after. However, an investigation of newspaper accounts reveals that through the remainder of the century, the area was generally referred to as 'the western hills' and 'the hill section' or 'hill district', and property owners often designated as 'hill dwellers.'" (Emphasis mine.)

A newspaper account credits Beaudry with naming Bunker Hill Avenue, possibly in reference to the famous battleground. However, Marsak notes that the hill might also have gotten its name from the bunkers (fortifications) dug into the hill by the Mormon Battalion in 1847 (about a year after Beaudry first joined his youngest brother Victor in Los Angeles, so the name may have been floating around before Beaudry even bought the hill).

Additionally, Beaudry bought the land in 1867. He had become a U.S. citizen four years earlier in 1863. It may be a bit of a stretch to claim he named Bunker Hill out of gratitude for his new citizenship, as it wasn't new at that point. 

Furthermore, Beaudry's body was repatriated to Canada when he died (he is buried at Montreal's Notre-Dame des Neiges, like his brothers). This suggests, to me at least, that even after so many years in Los Angeles (including two terms as Mayor and developing much of downtown), Quebec might still have been "home". (The word "home" still transports my brain to a specific tree-lined postwar tract in Sherman Oaks, even though I haven't lived there for a very long time.)

According to Marsak, the first recorded use of the term "Bunker Hill" describing the entire area did not occur until the Los Angeles Times published a blurb regarding a proposed "Bunker Hill Engine-House" on June 28, 1900.

Prudent Beaudry passed away in 1893. It's possible he didn't live to see Bunker Hill Avenue lend its name to the entire hill.

While Prudent Beaudry did indeed name Bunker Hill Avenue, no one seems to have called the hill itself Bunker Hill until many years later (and possibly not even within Beaudry's lifetime). 

It has been widely assumed that Beaudry named the entire hill. But the evidence says "not so fast". 

(Also, you should buy the book. My mom - who saw Old LA slowly being torn down as a child - already asked to borrow my copy.)

Integrity: Judge Julius Brousseau

A previous entry was about Frenchtown's own Renaissance woman, Dr. Kate Brousseau. Today, we get to meet her father, Julius - an impressive Angeleno in his own right.

Julius Brousseau was born in New York in 1835. His parents were French Canadian immigrants.

Brousseau became an attorney. His career soon took him to Michigan, where he married Caroline Yakeley. Oldest child Kate was born in 1862. The Brousseaus moved to Illinois and had three more children (Mabel in 1871, Edward in 1875, and Ray in 1877) before moving to Los Angeles in 1877.

A few words should be said about Los Angeles in the 1870s: it was still the wild, wild west. The Brousseaus arrived less than seven years after Michel Lachenais was lynched (by his fellow Frenchmen, no less) and about six years after the deadliest race riot in U.S. history - the Chinese Massacre. In the 1860s, greater Los Angeles averaged 20 murders per year (with a population of about 7,000 people) - up to 20 times the murder rate for New York City at the time. Just three years prior to the Brousseaus' arrival, notorious bandit Tiburcio Vasquez was finally caught in modern-day Santa Clarita. Los Angeles had a well-deserved reputation for being tough, lawless, and just plain scary.

Somehow, that didn't deter the Brousseaus.

Julius set up a law office in units 56 and 57 of the ornate Baker Block (which would later be demolished in 1942 to make way for the 101 freeway). If you are driving on the 101 through downtown, the building would have been in the middle of the northbound lanes just north of where the freeway crosses Main Street.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Brousseaus joined the French Benevolent Society. In 1878, after just a year in LA, the Society selected Julius as a committee member (Constant Meyer, who had to leave town for an extended period of time, was stepping down).

By 1886, Julius had partnered with D.P. Hatch in a law firm. Brousseau & Hatch were based out of units 31, 32, and 56 in the Baker Block (presumably, Julius had kept his old office upstairs). Their names occasionally appeared in the real-estate transaction section of local newspapers - including  two plots of land in the San Gabriel Valley's Arcadia tract that year to Prudent Beaudry.

Julius was a patron of the Acacia chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, a Masonic organization which is open to both men and women. The 1887 city directory also lists him as "Master of Robert Bruce Chapter, no. 6, Rose Croix". Julius was also a Shriner, belonging to the Al Malaikah Temple. Today, the Temple is headquartered at the Shrine Auditorium.

The fabled Brousseau Mansion - one of the first grand homes on Bunker Hill - was built around 1878.  Located at 238 South Bunker Hill Avenue (between Second and Third Streets), this was the house where eldest child Kate began her decades-long teaching career. Sadly, the house was torn down in 1966. The Broad now takes up most of the block.

Oddly for a man known for good moral character, Julius appeared on a list of delinquent taxpayers for a lot in the Starr tract and some personal property in 1893. He was on the list again the following year for two lots in the Leonis tract and some land in a subdivision. It isn't clear if the delinquent properties were all his or if the matter was related to his occasional handling of real estate transactions.

After Miguel Leonis died, much of his massive estate went to attorneys' fees. Per an 1896 newspaper article, one of those attorneys just so happened to be Julius Brousseau. One-sixth of Rancho El Escorpion was claimed by the Domec sisters - Espiritu Chijulla Menendez Leonis' sisters - but their claim was disputed by a Robert S. Baker.

Judge Clark also changed the guardianship of a minor heir during litigation proceedings, making Julius the child's guardian ad litem. The Domec sisters - one of whom was the mother of said child - considered this a conflict of interest. They asked Julius to step down and allow Montgomery & Son to represent them.

When Julius declined, he was accused of making disparaging comments about Montgomery, which he denied. As if the Leonis case weren't already convoluted enough, the accusations and the alleged conflict of interest had to be hashed out in court. Rabble-rousing Major Horace Bell, who was Baker's attorney, pointed out that he himself was in a similar position.

Brousseau, at one point, appeared confused about exactly how much of Rancho El Escorpion his clients were claiming. Judge Clark asked for clarification about how much of the rancho the Leonis estate was entitled to. Brousseau responded that if he had made a mistake in his earlier statement, he would amend his answer. He also asked to be relieved of his duty as the minor heir's guardian ad litem.

A few months later, a different newspaper article identified Julius Brousseau not just as an attorney, but as a judge. His father Julius Brousseau Sr., by now 83 and a widower, had been defrauded out of his house and property by Mrs. Lizzie Sage - Julius' sister.

Judge Brousseau testified in the ensuing fraud case. He gave his age as 61, prompting many in the courtroom to comment that he didn't look over 50 (many French people don't age...my own family is proof of this). He stated that before and after his mother's death the previous year, his father (who until then had consulted with him on financial matters) had behaved in an uncharacteristically irrational manner.

Dr. D.J. Le Doux, who had been the late Mrs. Brousseau's attending physician, backed up Judge Brousseau, stating that the elder Brousseau appeared to be mentally unbalanced by his wife's illness and death. Ultimately, the deed of conveyance was deemed null and void. Mrs. Sage was ousted from her father's house on Star Street, and the case effectively estranged her from her father and brother.

On October 15, 1903, Judge Julius Brousseau, who had been suffering from Bright's disease, passed away at his daughter Mabel's house. His obituary identified him as a former president of the Los Angeles Board of Education and a former Democratic nominee for Superior Judge (despite the judge's popularity and spotless reputation, he lost the election because Los Angeles was overwhelmingly Republican at the time). Brousseau's obituary added "No citizen of Los Angeles had a better reputation for integrity and good citizenship than Brousseau. Both as a lawyer and as a citizen, he commanded the respect of all who knew him, and he was greatly loved by his friends and intimate associates."

Six members of the Bar Association were appointed as pallbearers. The Brousseau sisters asked that as many members of the Bar as possible attend the funeral. The Masons took on the responsibility of transporting Judge Brousseau's body to Evergreen Cemetery and concluding the funeral ceremony.

If only every attorney in Los Angeles had Brousseau's good character...

Deed Restrictions and the Renaming of Frenchtown

Last weekend, I gave a presentation on the French in Southern California at San Diego Mensa's Regional Gathering in Palm Springs (video coming soon - IF I can get the darn thing uploaded).

The first, and most revealing, question in the Q&A concerned why LA's historically French neighborhoods are now associated with other ethnic groups.

The original Frenchtown - bordered by Main Street, 1st Street, Aliso Street, and the LA River - is now largely split between Little Tokyo and the industrial core, with the Civic Center bleeding into the northern end of the neighborhood.

As Frenchtown expanded to the north, it grew to include modern-day Chinatown. Why is Joan of Arc standing outside Chinatown's only hospital? Because it was the French Hospital until 1989, and until the 1930s, it was a French neighborhood. Naud Junction, the Fritz houses, and Philippe the Original (creators of the French Dip sandwich; in that location since 1951) are all in Chinatown for the very simple reason that it wasn't always Chinatown. (LA's original Chinatown was demolished in 1931 to build Union Station - long after the Sainsevain brothers lost their uncle's vineyard).

Pellissier Square is now called Koreatown. Why? Because much of central LA declined after the 1930s, making it an affordable place for Korean immigrants to live and start businesses by the time the Korean War ended.

They weren't the first Koreans in Los Angeles. Historically, Korean Angelenos tended to live in Bunker Hill.

(Incidentally, "Koreatown" is something of a misnomer. HALF of Koreatown residents are Latino, and only about one-third are Asian. Korean Angelenos do, however, account for most of the area's businesses.)

There are still clues to Koreatown's French origins. Normandie Avenue, one of the longest streets in Los Angeles County (stretching 22.5 miles between Hollywood and Harbor City), runs smack down the middle of Koreatown. The Pellissier Building, including the legendary Wiltern Theatre, proudly towers over Wilshire and Western. And if you look at the neighborhood's architecture - sure, it's largely Art Deco, but some of it is also French-influenced.

In the early days, Los Angeles was a fairly tolerant place. It wasn't a utopia by any means (case in point: the Chinese Massacre of 1871), but Los Angeles was more tolerant of non-WASPs than most North American cities.

By the 1920s, a plague began to infest Los Angeles on a grand scale.

Deed restrictions.

Sometimes called restrictive covenants, deed restrictions barred ethnic and/or religious groups from buying homes in particular areas.

Why? Who would do something so hateful?

Let's start by rewinding the clock to the 1850s.

In 1850, California became a state. Legally, Los Angeles should have started opening public schools at this point (due to separation of church and state), but LAUSD wasn't founded until 1853. By this time, there was a growing number of Protestant families - most of them Yankees - in town. The few schools that did exist in the area were all Catholic, and Protestant parents objected - loudly - to the idea of sending their kids to Catholic schools. (Many Catholic schools do accept non-Catholic students, and many non-Catholic parents may prefer them if the local public schools aren't good enough. But things were a little different 164 years ago.)

Fast-forward to the 1880s.

When railroads first connected Southern California to the rest of the United States, newcomers flooded the area. Most were WASPs, and the majority were from the Midwest.

Guess where else deed restrictions were common? That's right - the WASPy Midwest. (No offense to any WASPs or Midwesterners who may read this, but I don't believe in hiding the truth. I sure as hell have never pretended French Californians were perfect.)

Before too long, deed restrictions barred people of color from much of the city. Some even excluded Jews, Russians, and Italians. Homeowners' associations and realtors often worked together to keep restricted neighborhoods homogeneous. (My skin is crawling as I write this.)

Excluded ethnic and religious groups, therefore, tended to live in areas that weren't restricted against them.

French Angelenos, however, were a pretty tolerant bunch.

The first baker in the city to make matzo was Louis Mesmer, who was Catholic. His daughter Tina married a Protestant.

Harris Newmark - German and Jewish - was one of Remi Nadeau's best friends.

Prudent Beaudry's sometime business partner Solomon Lazard - French and Jewish - was so popular among Angelenos of all ethnicities that Spanish speakers called him "Don Solomon".

French Basque Philippe Garnier built a commercial building specifically to lease it to Chinese merchants, who weren't considered human beings by the United States government at the time.

No one batted an eye at the fact that quite a few of LA's earlier Frenchmen (including Louis Bauchet, Joseph Mascarel, and Miguel Leonis) married Spanish, Mexican, or Native American women.

Frenchtown didn't have deed restrictions. (It's true that we don't always get along with everyone, but you won't find many French people willing to do something that asinine.)

The original core of Frenchtown was largely taken over by the civic center and industry when the area was redeveloped in the 1920s (and when the 101 sliced through downtown). But part of it became Little Tokyo. Why? No deed restrictions.

In fact, when Japanese American internment emptied Little Tokyo during World War II, African Americans (many working in the defense industry) poured into the neighborhood, and for a time it was known as "Bronzeville". Again, it was still one of the few areas with no deed restrictions. (On a personal note, the original paperwork for my childhood home in Sherman Oaks - built in 1948 - included a restriction against selling to African Americans. No other ethnicities were excluded. Which should give my dear readers a rough idea of what African American home buyers faced at the time - and renters had even fewer choices. Deed restrictions were legally struck down in California in 1947 and nationwide in 1948, but in Los Angeles, they persisted into the 1950s. Nationwide, it was probably worse.)

LA's original Chinatown was emptied and razed to build Union Station. Where did all the Chinese Angelenos go? The area now known as Chinatown was full of French Angelenos first. Wikipedia incorrectly states that it was originally Little Italy. It's true that Italians did live in the neighborhood, but the French arrived before the first Italians did, and made up a larger percentage of the population. Why did the demographics change? No deed restrictions to keep out Chinese residents - or, for that matter, Italian residents. (Catholics of all origins occasionally clashed with Chinese Angelenos over religious differences, but the French community welcomed newcomers from Italy. Case in point: two of the French Benevolent Society's founding members were Italian. And the French Hospital did accept Chinese patients at a time when most hospitals wouldn't.)

LA's Jewish community was largely based in Boyle Heights for many years. Guess who else lived in Boyle Heights back in the day? There were Anglos, sure, but there were also Basque farmers. In fact, Simon Gless' big Victorian house was used as office space for the Hebrew Shelter Home and Asylum for many years (the last time I checked, it was a boarding house for mariachi musicians). Once again - no deed restrictions. (Why does Los Angeles County have so many Jewish residents? Because Jews have, historically, been more welcome in Los Angeles than in many other places. Los Angeles was a tiny frontier town when the first Jewish residents arrived, and in the Old West - where people had to work together to stay alive - how you treated people mattered more than what house of worship you attended.)

I haven't found anything on whether Pellissier Square ever had deed restrictions or not, but there's a reason Korean Angelenos originally clustered in Bunker Hill. Prudent Beaudry - who developed for everyone - developed Bunker Hill. Like Angelino Heights, Bunker Hill was unrestricted.

How did Frenchtown cease to be called Frenchtown?

Simple. As the city expanded westward, and as many French Angelenos moved west or left the city entirely in search of land for grazing livestock/farming/growing grapes, people who weren't welcome in other areas moved to the historically French - and historically unrestricted - neighborhoods.

If you were in the same situation, wouldn't you?

International Women's Day Special Edition: Dr. Kate Brousseau

I realize this blog doesn't have a strictly linear timeline. Sometimes, one location will have a story spanning centuries; sometimes several generations of one family will have so many accomplishments that it makes no sense to split them up by date.

Also, the calendar sometimes encourages a change of plans.

I promise I will write a post about Judge Julius Brousseau soon. In honor of International Women's Day, today's post recalls one of the judge's four children: Dr. Kate Brousseau.

Kate Brousseau was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan on April 24, 1862. Her father, Julius, was born in New York to French Canadian parents; her mother Caroline (née Yakeley) was of German and English extraction. The Brousseau family moved to Los Angeles in 1877.

Kate enrolled in Los Angeles High School. But she wasn't done learning when she graduated. Not by a LONG shot.

Kate enrolled at the State Normal School (now known as UCLA). At the time, the university's campus was located on the present site of Central Library.

When she was about twenty years old, Kate began her teaching career, offering private French lessons for 75 cents each (50 cents per person for groups of 3 or 4) in the Brousseau family mansion at 238 South Bunker Hill Avenue.

As for her own education...Kate went on to further studies at the University of California, the University of Minnesota, University of Chicago Law School (!), an unspecified university in Germany, and the University of Paris (where she was the only woman in a Greek class of sixty students). I don't even want to THINK about how much money her education must have cost.

Kate returned to the State Normal School in 1891, this time as a French professor. She often translated French literature for the Los Angeles Times. But there were far better things in store for that brilliant bilingual mind of hers.

She returned to the University of Paris, this time earning a Ph.D in psychology in 1904. Her doctoral thesis, which concerned the education of African American children, can be read here in French (do note that she dedicated the book in part to Dr. Hubert Nadeau). In 1907, Dr. Brousseau became Professor of Psychology at Mills College in Oakland. Her specialty, little understood at the time, came to be called abnormal psychology. In time, she became head of the Department of Philosophy and Political Science.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kate was a suffragette. She was one of eight directors of the College Equal Suffrage League of Northern California, elected in 1911.

From 1914 to 1915, Dr. Brousseau conducted a psychological survey of the inmates at the Sonoma State Home for the Feebleminded, giving psychological examinations to about 1400 developmentally disabled children. At a time when such children were widely considered an embarrassment or a burden, Dr. Brousseau sought to understand their minds.

In 1917, with World War One raging, Dr. Brousseau left to assist the American Fund for the French Wounded, serving with the French Army (she was 55 years old at this point - I wonder if she knew Georges Le Mesnager!). She served as directrice des Foyers du Soldat ("director of soldiers' footsteps") on the front in Lorraine, then served with the French Army of Occupation in both Germany and war-torn areas of northern France. She put that Ph.D. in psychology to work rehabilitating traumatized soldiers after the war's end, and assisted the famed surgeon Dr. E. Toulouse in examining French women called into war service (as factory workers, railway employees, and other traditionally masculine jobs) in Paris. For her services to France, the French minister of war awarded her the Medaille Commemorative Francaise de la Grand Guerre.

Dr. Brousseau had some close calls during the war, which she related to her colleagues in letters. Before her steamer even reached France, a German submarine attacked, deploying a torpedo. Fortunately, gunners on board the ship hit the submarine. Dr. Brousseau was aware that she was in danger, but stated that she was more angry than afraid. Until the ship docked, the lifeboats were stocked with emergency supplies - just in case. A couple of months later, while serving in Paris, Dr. Brousseau was caught up in a zeppelin raid. She also wrote of the suffering experienced by French civilians - families living in basements, a child killed by a bomb while playing, German soldiers kidnapping a mother and her daughters. Still, she ended on a hopeful note, writing of the many American college students (including a group of young women from Smith College) who had volunteered to restore and rebuild villages and towns ravaged by bombs, and noting that the American army had arrived.

The Oakland city directory continued to list Dr. Brousseau as a Mills College professor during her absence. (The college, realizing her extensive education, expertise in psychology, and French fluency made her a valuable asset to war-torn France, kindly granted her a leave of absence.)

The professor returned to her teaching career at Mills College in 1919. During this time, she published additional books on race and education, and created a course in marriage and family living about fifteen years before other colleges saw the need for one. In 1925, Dr. Brousseau created "a psychological clinic for the diagnosis and treatment of problem cases in the Oakland public school system" (layman's terms: she taught schools how to help troubled kids). She did not retire until 1928.

Oh, and she supported her peers in academia. Dr. Brousseau belonged to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of University Professors, American Association of University Women, American Women's Overseas League, and the Ligue d'Hygiene Mental de Paris.

Despite extensive travels and living in Oakland for the bulk of her career, Kate kept close ties to Los Angeles, and returned when she retired. In 1930, Dr. Brousseau was one of four former students who arranged a memorial service for Chloe Blakeman Jones, a Los Angeles High School teacher who had passed away.

Dr. Kate Brousseau passed away in 1938 and is buried at Evergreen Cemetery. There will never be anyone else quite like her.

He Built This City: Mayor Prudent Beaudry

Possessing boundless energy, exceptional business sagacity and foresight, Prudent Beaudry amassed five fortunes and lost four in his ventures, which were gigantic for that time, and would be considered immense today.

- Le Guide Francais, 1932

Have a seat, everyone...the lifetime I'm chronicling this week is best described as "epic".

Jean-Prudent Beaudry was born July 24, 1816 in Mascouche, Quebec - close to Montreal. When he was a young boy, the family moved to the neighboring town of Saint-Anne-des-Plaines.

There were five Beaudry brothers (and three Beaudry sisters). All of the Beaudry brothers worked hard and got rich, but Prudent, Jean-Louis, and Victor would make the history books. (Victor, the only other Beaudry to settle in Los Angeles, will be covered in another entry, because this one is going to be LONG.)

The Beaudrys, an industrious family of traders, sent their sons to good schools in Montreal and New York. Prudent and his brothers had the benefits of a great education and English fluency when they went into business for themselves.

Which they did, many times over.

Prudent started out in his father's mercantile business, then went to work at a different mercantile house in New Orleans, returning to Canada in 1842 to partner with one of his brothers. By 1844, he left the business to join Victor, the youngest Beaudry brother, in San Francisco. The Gold Rush was a few years away, but Victor had already established a profitable shipping and commission business in the city. Before long, the brothers were in the ice business (Victor later partnered with another future mayor, Damien Marchesseault, in distributing ice harvested in the San Bernardino Mountains). Perhaps not surprisingly for a native of Quebec, Prudent also got into the syrup business. Two years later, after Prudent had lost most of his money on real estate speculation (and more of it when insufficiently insured stock was destroyed in a fire), Los Angeles beckoned.

I'll let Le Guide Francais take it from here:

Starting with $1,100 in goods and $200 cash in a small store on Main Street, where the City Hall now stands, it is said that he cleared $2,000 in thirty days, which enabled him to take a larger store on Commercial Street. From that time on, Prudent Beaudry was one of the preeminent men of the economic, social, and political life of the Southwest.

(The book, just to clarify, refers to the current City Hall, not the old Bell Block down the street. After Beaudry vacated the Commercial Street shop, Harris Newmark moved in. Ironically, Beaudry sold his dry goods business to Newmark twelve years later.)

Having earned a well-deserved vacation, Prudent left Los Angeles for Paris in 1855. The chief items on his itinerary were seeing the Exposition Universelle and consulting the great French oculist Dr. Jules Sichel. Prudent visited Montreal on his return trip to visit his brother Jean-Louis, who would serve as Mayor of Montreal for a total of ten years between 1862 and 1885. The Beaudrys, needless to say, were just as prominent in business, politics, and society in Quebec as they were in Southern California.

While Prudent was away, Victor was capably managing his brother's business interests. Prudent had purchased a building on the northeast corner of Aliso and Los Angeles Streets in 1854 for $11,000. Victor spent $25,000 - an absolute fortune at the time - on remodeling and improving the building. In this case, it was money well spent. After the Beaudry Block was improved, it was considered the finest building in Southern California for the time. Rents increased from $300 per month to $1,000 per month.

Prudent returned to Los Angeles in 1861 (Victor had been offered a contract to supply the Army of the Potomac and found it difficult to manage his brother's business interests at the same time). He continued in the mercantile business until 1865. Due to stress, he retired...but not for long. The Beaudrys just weren't capable of being unproductive.

In 1867, Prudent Beaudry made one of his greatest real estate investments. The steep hill above New High Street, which he purchased at a Sheriff's Department auction for the pittance of $55 (I can't believe it either), was known as Bunker Hill. It would soon become famous for its Victorian mansions.

This purchase set Beaudry on a path that made him California's first realtor and first large-scale developer, in addition to an urban planner. Before long, he was buying extensive tracts of land, dividing them into lots, and selling them, working out of an office opposite the Pico House. One 20-acre tract, between Charity (Grand) and Hill from Second to Fourth, cost $517 and netted $30,000. Another tract, consisting of 39 acres bordered by Fourth, Sixth, Pearl (Figueroa) and Charity (Grand), earned $50,000.

The Beaudry brothers (smartly) kept buying land. They predicted - correctly, and beyond their wildest dreams - that after railroad lines connected Los Angeles to San Francisco and the East Coast, new settlers would pour into Southern California in droves. (If they could only see how right they were!) Prudent also bought land in modern-day Arcadia and near the Sierra Nevada mountains (building aqueducts to redirect mountain streams to his properties), and helped to found the cities of Pasadena and Alhambra.

One newspaper advertisement from 1873 lists 83 (yes, 83!) separate lots for houses, in addition to two full city blocks, multiple city tracts, and large land parcels in Rancho San Pedro, Verdugo Ranch, and the Warner and de la Hortilla land grants. A similar ad from 1874 notes, in bold, which of the streets with lots for sale had already had water pipes installed. It's no wonder Beaudry was able to keep his real estate business going every time he lost most (or all) of his money.

Severe flooding in January 1868 had undone nearly all of Jean-Louis Sainsevain and Damien Marchesseault's hard work on the city's primitive water system. As a developer, Beaudry was very concerned about improving the city for its residents. On July 22, 1868, a 30-year contract for the water system was granted to the newly-established Los Angeles City Water Company. The three partners in the Company were Dr. John Griffin, French-born businessman Solomon Lazard, and, of course, Prudent Beaudry (most of the employees were also of French extraction - chief amongst them, Charles Lepaon, Charles Ducommun, and Eugene Meyer - more on them in the future).

The Los Angeles City Water Company replaced Sainsevain and Marchesseault's leaky wood pipes with 12 miles of iron pipes, and continued to regularly make improvements on the water system until the contract expired 30 years later (the city purchased the system for $2 million - in 1898 dollars!). Although nothing could cancel out the previous water problems or Marchesseault's tragic suicide, the city of Los Angeles finally had a reliable water system that wouldn't turn streets into sinkholes. (If you live in Los Angeles and you like having running water, thank a Frenchman. Seriously, you guys owe us.)

You're probably wondering how Prudent managed to supply water to his hilltop property. In those days, hills weren't desirable places to build homes because water had to be transported in barrels via trolley or other vehicle. The city water company wasn't interested in solving the problem. But in case you haven't noticed yet, Prudent was smart, resourceful, and didn't give up easily. He knew that if running water was available, prospective homeowners would be more likely to consider hilltop lots and pay a good price for them. So he constructed a huge reservoir and a pump system that supplied water from LA's marshy lowlands to Bunker Hill. The pump system worked perfectly - and so did his plan. (I'll bet every land speculator in Southern California wished they had thought of that.)

Before long, Bunker Hill became THE place to build grand homes. At least two of its fabled Victorian mansions were built for other French Angelenos - entrepreneur Pierre Larronde and model citizen Judge Julius Brousseau.

Let it be known, however, that Beaudry developed for everyone. It's true that he built mansions and had a keen interest in architecture, but he also built modest homes on small lots for working families. And because he made modest properties available for small monthly payments, he made home ownership possible for buyers with lower incomes. He made considerable improvements to his land - paving roads, planting trees, and providing for water usage.

And Beaudry just kept developing land for the rest of his life. This Lost LA article includes an 1868 map showing five tracts recently developed by Beaudry.

The Bellevue tract included a garden he dubbed "Bellevue Terrace". This early park rose 70 feet above downtown, boasting hundreds of eucalyptus and citrus trees. Beaudry eventually put the site up for sale. The State of California bought it to develop a Los Angeles campus of the State Normal School, which would later become UCLA. When UCLA moved to Westwood in the 1920s, the hill was graded down and replaced with Central Library.

A few miles away, where North Beaudry Avenue meets Sunset Boulevard, there is an oval-shaped parcel of land that currently holds a church, a restaurant, and The Elysian apartment building. In the early 1870s, this was Beaudry Park - another garden paradise on a hill, boasting citrus groves and eucalyptus trees (and vineyards!). But the Beaudrys put it on the market a decade later. The Sisters of Charity snapped it up in 1883, building a newer facility and relocating St. Vincent's Hospital (sometimes called the Los Angeles Infirmary) here.

Beaudry owned a large tract containing one block of stagnant, foul-smelling marshland. No one wanted to build on the land, and it wasn't ideally suited to building anyway. In 1870, Beaudry got the idea to drain the marsh and turn the land into a public park. Naturally, he spearheaded the plan. Originally called Los Angeles Park, the land was renamed Central Park in the 1890s...and was renamed again later.

You know this park. There's a good chance you've been there (and there's a VERY good chance you absolutely hate its current incarnation).

Give up yet?

It's Pershing Square. (It used to be a very nice park. Trust me on this.)

Beaudry's dedication to developing, planning, and improving the city got him started in politics. He was elected to the Los Angeles Common (City) Council for three one-year terms (1871, 1872, and 1873). In 1873, he became the first president of the city's new Board of Trade. His name appeared in Los Angeles newspapers frequently throughout the 1870s and 1880s - mostly in the real estate sections (and in a bankruptcy case...the Temple and Workman Bank failed and took most of his money with it).

In 1874, Prudent Beaudry became Los Angeles' third French mayor, serving two terms. At the same time, his brother Jean-Louis Beaudry was serving as mayor of Montreal.

After finishing his second term, Beaudry bought the local French-language newspaper, L'Union. (I will cover LA-based French newspapers - three or four are known to have existed - at a later date.) Beaudry was already a director of the Los Angeles City and County Printing and Publishing Company.

Nearly all of Los Angeles' Victorian houses have been torn down over the years. However, neighborhoods like Angelino Heights still have Victorian-era homes. Guess who developed Angelino Heights? That's right - Prudent and Victor Beaudry (architect Joseph Newsom designed many of the houses). Carroll Avenue, beloved by preservationists for its high concentration of surviving Victorian homes (kitsch king Charles Phoenix even includes it on his annual Disneyland-themed DTLA tour as "Main Street USA"), is well within the original boundaries of Angelino Heights.

In the 1880s, Angelino Heights was one of LA's earliest suburbs. Cars would not be commonly used for quite some time. To serve the transit needs of potential home buyers, the Beaudry brothers (with several other real estate promoters) built the Temple Street Cable Railroad. This streetcar ran along Temple Street from Edgeware to Spring (it was soon extended to Hoover Street) every ten minutes and ran for 16 hours each day, making transportation fast and simple for residents of Angelino Heights and Bunker Hill. The Pacific Electric Railway eventually purchased the line (switching from cable cars to electric trolleys in 1902), and in time it passed to the Los Angeles Railway. The Temple Street Cable Railroad - far and away the most successful streetcar line in the city's history - ran from 1886 to 1946. SIXTY YEARS. Which is especially impressive considering the Pacific Electric Railway didn't even exist until 1901, and its less-traveled streetcar lines were converted to bus routes in 1925.

Funnily enough, Beaudry had sued the Los Angeles Railway in 1891. He claimed the Railway had excavated First and Figueroa Streets without the proper authority, rendered the streets useless, and blocked access to his property. (He also occasionally sued people who damaged his properties. Can you blame the guy? Building a city is hard work.)

When "Crazy Remi" Nadeau decided to liquidate most of his freighting company's equipment, it was purchased by the Oro Grande Mining Company...which counted Prudent and Victor Beaudry among its shareholders. In the 1880s, the Beaudrys began to take on fewer and fewer projects, but they both remained vocal supporters of developing and improving Los Angeles.

Prudent Beaudry passed away on May 29, 1893, a week after suffering a paralytic stroke (Victor had passed away in 1888, with Prudent acting as executor of his sizable estate). An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County stated:

Prudent Beaudry, in particular, has the record of having made in different lines five large fortunes, four of which, through the act of God, or by the duplicity of man, in whom he had trusted, have been lost; but even then he was not discouraged, but faced the world, even at an advanced age, like a lion at bay, and his reward he now enjoys in the shape of a large and assured fortune. Of such stuff are the men who fill great places, and who develop and make a country. To such men we of this later day owe much of the beauty and comfort that surround us, and to such we should look with admiration as models upon which to form rules of action in trying times.

Beaudry died a wealthy man (despite losing his fortune FOUR times), but ironically, he might have died even wealthier. A 1905 article in the Los Angeles Herald stated that nearly forty years previously (i.e. in the 1860s), he had begun to dig a well on one of his hilltop properties. After several hundred feet, he struck a deposit that "looked and smelled like tar." He promptly abandoned the half-dug well. That's right - Beaudry struck oil. But he wasn't looking for oil and had no use for it. Had he made the same discovery a few decades later, things may have been a little different.

The late Mayor's body was returned to his native Quebec. Like the rest of his family, he is buried at Notre Dame des Neiges (Canada's largest, and arguably most beautiful, cemetery). He never married and had no children, so his estate went to the other Beaudry siblings and their families.

Prudent Beaudry's importance as an urban planner and city developer is almost completely forgotten today. His work lingers in the names of Beaudry Avenue, Bellevue Avenue, and various other French-named streets in tracts he developed long ago. (Hill Street was once called Montreal Street in honor of the brothers' hometown - it isn't clear when it was renamed.)

(And, thankfully, Angelino Heights is still standing. I will lose my last remaining shreds of faith in humanity if something bad happens to those precious few surviving Victorians.)

Blended: The Larronde/Etchemendy Family

237 North Hope Street

(can you believe this was torn down for a DWP building?!)

Some people believe that single parents and stepfamilies are a modern phenomenon. That simply isn't true. For most of human history, it was far more common for children to lose a parent to illness, accidents, war, etc. than it is today.

Were there blended families in Frenchtown? Of course. Jean-Louis Sainsevain is known to have married at least twice and had two stepchildren in addition to his two sons from his first marriage.

But we've covered the Sainsevain brothers. Today we're going to meet a different blended family.

Our story begins in the Basses-Pyrénées in southwestern France. Pierre Larronde was born there in 1826; Jean Etchemendy was born there in 1830. Although the two men did not know each other early in life, they both lived in South America, mined in the California gold rush, and moved to Los Angeles to raise sheep.

Juana Egurrola was born in Marquina, Spain, in 1835, emigrating to California with her family as a child. In 1865, she married Jean Etchemendy.

Jean owned the Rancho San Pedro, raising sheep there until the day he died (the rancho's museum is said to still have samples of wool from his sheep). He was quite successful at it, and got into real estate.

Jean and Juana had three daughters - Mariana, Madeline, and Carolina. Sadly, Jean died in 1872. He was only 41.

It wasn't long before Juana caught the eye of Pierre Larronde.

Like Jean Etchemendy, Pierre Larronde had made a good amount of money mining gold in Northern California before coming to Los Angeles to raise sheep (there is some evidence that, like Jean, he may also have raised sheep at Rancho San Pedro). He married Juana in 1874.

Juana and Pierre had three more children together - Pedro Domingo, John, and Antoinette.

When the land boom hit in the 1880s, Pierre liquidated his sheep empire to invest in real estate. He had so many business dealings that by 1892, the city directory simply listed his occupation as "capitalist".

By 1887, Pierre had built the Larronde Block, a two-story brick building with one of the rarest things in Los Angeles - a basement! Stores, offices, and a tailor shop could be found on the ground floor, with apartments upstairs.

The Larronde block stood on the northwest corner of Spring and First Streets. Le Guide reported that the land was still owned by the Larronde/Etchemendy family. However, not too long after Le Guide was published in 1932, the Larronde Block was demolished to make room for the Los Angeles Times building.

In 1888, construction began on a large and beautiful home for all eight members of the Larronde/Etchemendy family. The house, located at 237 N. Hope Street, was three stories high and, appropriately for Bunker Hill, in the Queen Anne Revival style.

Pierre lived to be 70 years old, passing away in 1896. Juana died in 1920 at the age of 84.

The six Larronde/Etchemendy children stayed in the house on Hope Street, with only two of them choosing to move away.

Pedro Domingo Larronde became one of the principals of the Franco American Baking Company. Antoinette Larronde got married and had a family of her own.

Of the remaining siblings, John Larronde served the city as president of the Fire Commission. He died in 1954, as did Madeline Etchemendy. Mariana and Carolina Etchemendy lived into the 1960s, and only moved out of the house when the demolition of Bunker Hill forced them to do so.

The Larronde/Etchemendy family lived at 237 N. Hope for nearly 80 years. The house was demolished in 1957. Today, the Department of Water and Power takes up the entire block.

Jean Etchemendy, Pierre Larronde, and Juana Larronde are all buried at Calvary Cemetery - beneath one large pedestal topped by an angel statue. I can only presume that Juana wanted to be buried with both of the men she loved when she died.