Regular readers will know a bit about Cerro Gordo from my entries on Victor Beaudry and Remi Nadeau. The silver lead bullion mined at Cerro Gordo helped to put Los Angeles on the map, since Remi shipped it via the port of San Pedro.
Cerro Gordo has been in the public eye here and there lately, since the town came up for sale in 2018, was featured on "Ghost Adventures", and opened to day visitors.
Co-owner Brent Underwood, who lives in Texas, came to Cerro Gordo a few months ago so the town's caretaker could check in on his wife in Arizona when the coronavirus outbreak began. It was supposed to be a short visit, but Brent was quickly snowed in and has now been in Cerro Gordo for about three months. Read some transcribed Zoom interview questions with Brent here (look for a picture of Victor Beaudry's smelter!).
Two days ago, a fire broke out in Cerro Gordo. Dry mountain air + very old, very dry wood frame buildings = highly destructive fires.
The American Hotel, Crapo House, and Ice House all burned down. There were a few hundred buildings in Cerro Gordo during the town's heyday, but fewer than 20 buildings are left.
The town needs volunteers to help clean up the mess from the fire. Brent and his business partner Jon Bier also need money to build a new hotel. The hotel's blueprints have survived, so the goal is to build a new hotel with electricity and running water while paying homage to the lost American Hotel. (As it stands, Cerro Gordo doesn't have running water at all.) When such a hotel is completed, the town will be able to accept overnight guests. (No, I haven't been to Cerro Gordo yet. Yes, I definitely want to go.)
Contact Brent and Jon via the Cerro Gordo website or on Instagram.
Showing posts with label Cerro Gordo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cerro Gordo. Show all posts
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Sunday, March 1, 2020
The Crazy Life of Rémi Nadeau
Born in Canada to French parents, Rémi Nadeau is the one forgotten Frenchman every Angeleno should know about. After all, he helped to put sleepy little Los Angeles on the map.
Anglos called him "the crazy Frenchman". French Angelenos called him "crazy Rémi".
Was he really crazy? Was he hypersane? Or was he an eccentric visionary with a head for business?
We may never know the answer. But we do know his big dreams and "crazy" ideas made him rich.
Rémi Nadeau moved to Los Angeles in 1861. He quickly settled into the local French community - and secured a $600 loan from Prudent Beaudry.
With that loan, Rémi bought a wagon and a team of mules and set up his own freighting company.
Initially, Rémi made supply runs to faraway Salt Lake City - which took more than a month each way in those days. Harris Newmark reported that Rémi spent a few years in San Francisco, returning in 1866.
Rémi owned an entire city block - the same one where the Millennium Biltmore Hotel now stands. In his day, the land held his house, a stable, a corral, and a blacksmith shop.
Rémi's reputation as an eccentric was well earned: the Nadeau family's housekeeper wasn't allowed to clean the master suite. Mrs. Nadeau would do it herself. One day, when Mrs. Nadeau had fallen ill, Rémi's young niece Melvina Lapointe came over to help with the cleaning. While dusting, Melvina came upon a vase of fake flowers that seemed unusually heavy for its size. She pulled several wads of yellowed newspaper out of the top of the vase. To her surprise, the vase was filled with gold pieces! Mrs. Nadeau came into the room and instructed Melvina to put the vase back EXACTLY as she had found it so Uncle Rémi wouldn't change the hiding place.
In 1869, Rémi landed a very desirable contract: hauling silver and lead ore from the Cerro Gordo mines (near Lake Owens) to the Port of Los Angeles, where they would then be sent to San Francisco via ship for refining. (One of the partners in the Cerro Gordo mines was, of course, Victor Beaudry.)
The land in between Cerro Gordo and Los Angeles was rough, uninhabited, and in those days, devoid of roads. Rémi developed a large, heavy wagon with wide metal wheels that would be pulled by teams of twelve or more mules (depending on the load, twenty or more mules might pull a single shipment). The mines produced so much bullion that Rémi soon had 32 mule teams making regular runs to Cerro Gordo.
To maximize profits, Rémi sent the wagons to Cerro Gordo loaded with grain and other provisions. These would be sold to the miners, and the wagons would be reloaded with silver ingots for the return trip to San Pedro.
The owners of the Cerro Gordo mines demanded a reduction in freighting fees when Rémi's contract expired in 1871. Believing no one else could handle the task as well as his employees, he refused.
Barley prices had risen, and feeding hundreds of mules became very expensive. Rémi had taken out a loan from H. Newmark and Company to expand. Uncertain of his ability to pay the balance, he offered to turn over the freighting business to them. The company, believing in Rémi's ingenuity, encouraged him to find another contract instead.
Surely enough, a new opportunity soon arose when large deposits of borax were discovered in Nevada, and Rémi landed the contract. Boxes of 20 Mule Team Borax still reference Rémi's mule teams to this day.
When Rémi refused to renew his contract at a low rate, the mine owners had to route the silver bullion through other freighters in San Buenaventura (Ventura) and Bakersfield. Neither town could handle the output, and silver ingots began to pile up.
The Los Angeles business community wanted the silver trade back (it was the town's biggest moneymaker at the time), and tried to negotiate with the Southern Pacific Railroad - which announced a raise in freighting rates that would have made the plan too expensive.
Finally, the mine's owners (and the newly formed Chamber of Commerce) had to eat their humble pie and work out a fair contract with Rémi. He agreed to resume freighting silver bullion - on the condition that the mine's owners put up $150,000 to build freighting stations along his routes.
The Cerro Gordo Freighting Company soon had 65 stations ranging from San Pedro to Nevada to Arizona to San Francisco. Each station was a combination of hotel, trading post, blacksmith shop, and wagon repair shop, with stables and corrals for mules. Nadeau eventually had over 300 employees, and was so busy he put his brother-in-law, Michel Lapointe, in charge of the wagon works.
If you don't mind a 275-mile drive, Cerro Gordo is now open for tours (reservations required).
Some of the freighting stations grew into towns. In fact, one of them became the desert suburb of Indian Wells.
Eventually, railroads began to stretch across the Mojave Desert, reducing demand for mule teams. The Cerro Gordo Freighting Company sold off its mules and equipment, and Rémi began his next enterprise.
Anglos called him "the crazy Frenchman". French Angelenos called him "crazy Rémi".
Was he really crazy? Was he hypersane? Or was he an eccentric visionary with a head for business?
We may never know the answer. But we do know his big dreams and "crazy" ideas made him rich.
Rémi Nadeau moved to Los Angeles in 1861. He quickly settled into the local French community - and secured a $600 loan from Prudent Beaudry.
With that loan, Rémi bought a wagon and a team of mules and set up his own freighting company.
Initially, Rémi made supply runs to faraway Salt Lake City - which took more than a month each way in those days. Harris Newmark reported that Rémi spent a few years in San Francisco, returning in 1866.
Rémi owned an entire city block - the same one where the Millennium Biltmore Hotel now stands. In his day, the land held his house, a stable, a corral, and a blacksmith shop.
Rémi's reputation as an eccentric was well earned: the Nadeau family's housekeeper wasn't allowed to clean the master suite. Mrs. Nadeau would do it herself. One day, when Mrs. Nadeau had fallen ill, Rémi's young niece Melvina Lapointe came over to help with the cleaning. While dusting, Melvina came upon a vase of fake flowers that seemed unusually heavy for its size. She pulled several wads of yellowed newspaper out of the top of the vase. To her surprise, the vase was filled with gold pieces! Mrs. Nadeau came into the room and instructed Melvina to put the vase back EXACTLY as she had found it so Uncle Rémi wouldn't change the hiding place.
In 1869, Rémi landed a very desirable contract: hauling silver and lead ore from the Cerro Gordo mines (near Lake Owens) to the Port of Los Angeles, where they would then be sent to San Francisco via ship for refining. (One of the partners in the Cerro Gordo mines was, of course, Victor Beaudry.)
The land in between Cerro Gordo and Los Angeles was rough, uninhabited, and in those days, devoid of roads. Rémi developed a large, heavy wagon with wide metal wheels that would be pulled by teams of twelve or more mules (depending on the load, twenty or more mules might pull a single shipment). The mines produced so much bullion that Rémi soon had 32 mule teams making regular runs to Cerro Gordo.
To maximize profits, Rémi sent the wagons to Cerro Gordo loaded with grain and other provisions. These would be sold to the miners, and the wagons would be reloaded with silver ingots for the return trip to San Pedro.
The owners of the Cerro Gordo mines demanded a reduction in freighting fees when Rémi's contract expired in 1871. Believing no one else could handle the task as well as his employees, he refused.
Barley prices had risen, and feeding hundreds of mules became very expensive. Rémi had taken out a loan from H. Newmark and Company to expand. Uncertain of his ability to pay the balance, he offered to turn over the freighting business to them. The company, believing in Rémi's ingenuity, encouraged him to find another contract instead.
Surely enough, a new opportunity soon arose when large deposits of borax were discovered in Nevada, and Rémi landed the contract. Boxes of 20 Mule Team Borax still reference Rémi's mule teams to this day.
When Rémi refused to renew his contract at a low rate, the mine owners had to route the silver bullion through other freighters in San Buenaventura (Ventura) and Bakersfield. Neither town could handle the output, and silver ingots began to pile up.
The Los Angeles business community wanted the silver trade back (it was the town's biggest moneymaker at the time), and tried to negotiate with the Southern Pacific Railroad - which announced a raise in freighting rates that would have made the plan too expensive.
Finally, the mine's owners (and the newly formed Chamber of Commerce) had to eat their humble pie and work out a fair contract with Rémi. He agreed to resume freighting silver bullion - on the condition that the mine's owners put up $150,000 to build freighting stations along his routes.
The Cerro Gordo Freighting Company soon had 65 stations ranging from San Pedro to Nevada to Arizona to San Francisco. Each station was a combination of hotel, trading post, blacksmith shop, and wagon repair shop, with stables and corrals for mules. Nadeau eventually had over 300 employees, and was so busy he put his brother-in-law, Michel Lapointe, in charge of the wagon works.
If you don't mind a 275-mile drive, Cerro Gordo is now open for tours (reservations required).
Some of the freighting stations grew into towns. In fact, one of them became the desert suburb of Indian Wells.
Eventually, railroads began to stretch across the Mojave Desert, reducing demand for mule teams. The Cerro Gordo Freighting Company sold off its mules and equipment, and Rémi began his next enterprise.
Rémi owned 3400 acres in South Los Angeles (the area is still referred to as Nadeau, or Nadeau Station), and tried his hand at growing sugar beets and refining the sugar. Unfortunately, it was a disaster. Harris Newmark, who was one of Rémi's best friends, recalled that "it was bad at best, and the more sugar one put in coffee, the blacker the coffee became."
Undaunted, Rémi turned to (what else...) wine, replanting the sugar beet fields with eight varieties of grapes (with a whopping two million grapevines total) and enlisting vintner Francois Escallier as supervisor. He also built a winery, and was successful at first. Unfortunately, the grapevines were destroyed by a sudden and unexpected insect infestation.
During the brief period of time that the Nadeau vineyard existed, it was believed to be the largest vineyard in the world.
Rémi also planted barley on the Centinela Rancho (modern-day Inglewood)...until extreme heat and a drought put an end to the barley crop.
In the 1880s, the Plaza and surrounding streets were still the city's primary business district. Rémi bought land at First and Spring Streets, and even Harris Newmark - Rémi's close friend and greatest supporter, who knew firsthand how smart and capable he was - called him crazy for buying land so far from the Plaza.
As per usual, Rémi didn't care what anyone else thought.
Initially, he planned to build a grand opera house or theatre with 1500 seats. (Even I think that was a crazy idea, considering Los Angeles' 1880 population was less than 12,000.) But that idea gave way to the city's tallest and grandest building of the era - a four-story business block, equipped with Southern California's first passenger elevator (made by Otis) and four fire hydrants on each floor, with apartments and office spaces planned for the upper floors and storefronts planned for the ground floor. No expense was spared, and the building was even equipped with twenty bathrooms - a VERY high number of bathrooms for the time.
Everyone laughed.
Everyone called the plan "Nadeau's folly."
Everyone said Rémi Nadeau, the crazy Frenchman, was crazier then ever.
Then "Crazy Rémi" leased the entire building to Ed Dunham, an experienced hotelier.
And just like that, everyone who was anyone checked into the Nadeau Hotel when they stayed in Los Angeles. It was the first truly first class hotel in the city. (Sorry, Pio Pico, but the Pico House didn't have an elevator, let alone twenty bathrooms.)
Sadly, it would be the final time Rémi got the last laugh. Less than a year after the Nadeau Hotel's 1886 grand opening, he passed away at age 68.
Rémi left the hotel property to his second wife, Laura, along with enough money to pay off its mortgage so she wouldn't have to come up with payments. His children from his first marriage (to Martha Frye) felt this was too generous a bequest for their stepmother and contested the will (sound familiar?).
The Nadeau Hotel was torn down in 1932 for the Los Angeles Times building.
Laura Nadeau decided to honor Rémi's memory with a 30-foot-high monument, topped with a marble statue of an angel, at the Nadeau family plot in Angelus Rosedale Cemetery.
Unfortunately, the Nadeau family plot happens to be very close to a rather large mature tree. Several years ago, according to a docent (who couldn't pronounce "Nadeau" correctly, plainly stated that she didn't know what Rémi did for a living, and rudely blew me off when I mentioned that he was a freighter...), a particularly windy rainstorm sent a very heavy tree branch crashing right onto the Nadeau plot. Every time I've visited Angelus Rosedale, a large and heavy chunk of monument has been in the same spot on the ground at a cockeyed angle. I was told that Rémi's living relatives couldn't justify the high cost of having it repaired. I get it - stonework is expensive.
When the monument was unveiled, the Los Angeles Herald claimed that Rémi's own accomplishments were the only monument needed to keep his memory alive. Rémi’s business interests accounted for ONE QUARTER of all exports leaving Los Angeles between 1869 and 1882. An earlier article in the Herald claimed Nadeau “has given employment to more men, and purchased more produce, and introduced more trade to Los Angeles than any other five men in this city.”
You'd think that would be enough. Sadly, you'd be as mistaken as the Herald.
Rémi's name is forgotten today, surviving only in the family plot and on street signs - Nadeau Street, in the Florence/Nadeau neighborhood, and Nadeau Drive (which most likely honors Dr. Hubert Nadeau, no relation), in Mid-City.
Now THAT is crazy.
During the brief period of time that the Nadeau vineyard existed, it was believed to be the largest vineyard in the world.
Rémi also planted barley on the Centinela Rancho (modern-day Inglewood)...until extreme heat and a drought put an end to the barley crop.
In the 1880s, the Plaza and surrounding streets were still the city's primary business district. Rémi bought land at First and Spring Streets, and even Harris Newmark - Rémi's close friend and greatest supporter, who knew firsthand how smart and capable he was - called him crazy for buying land so far from the Plaza.
As per usual, Rémi didn't care what anyone else thought.
Initially, he planned to build a grand opera house or theatre with 1500 seats. (Even I think that was a crazy idea, considering Los Angeles' 1880 population was less than 12,000.) But that idea gave way to the city's tallest and grandest building of the era - a four-story business block, equipped with Southern California's first passenger elevator (made by Otis) and four fire hydrants on each floor, with apartments and office spaces planned for the upper floors and storefronts planned for the ground floor. No expense was spared, and the building was even equipped with twenty bathrooms - a VERY high number of bathrooms for the time.
Everyone laughed.
Everyone called the plan "Nadeau's folly."
Everyone said Rémi Nadeau, the crazy Frenchman, was crazier then ever.
Then "Crazy Rémi" leased the entire building to Ed Dunham, an experienced hotelier.
And just like that, everyone who was anyone checked into the Nadeau Hotel when they stayed in Los Angeles. It was the first truly first class hotel in the city. (Sorry, Pio Pico, but the Pico House didn't have an elevator, let alone twenty bathrooms.)
Sadly, it would be the final time Rémi got the last laugh. Less than a year after the Nadeau Hotel's 1886 grand opening, he passed away at age 68.
Rémi left the hotel property to his second wife, Laura, along with enough money to pay off its mortgage so she wouldn't have to come up with payments. His children from his first marriage (to Martha Frye) felt this was too generous a bequest for their stepmother and contested the will (sound familiar?).
The Nadeau Hotel was torn down in 1932 for the Los Angeles Times building.
Laura Nadeau decided to honor Rémi's memory with a 30-foot-high monument, topped with a marble statue of an angel, at the Nadeau family plot in Angelus Rosedale Cemetery.
Unfortunately, the Nadeau family plot happens to be very close to a rather large mature tree. Several years ago, according to a docent (who couldn't pronounce "Nadeau" correctly, plainly stated that she didn't know what Rémi did for a living, and rudely blew me off when I mentioned that he was a freighter...), a particularly windy rainstorm sent a very heavy tree branch crashing right onto the Nadeau plot. Every time I've visited Angelus Rosedale, a large and heavy chunk of monument has been in the same spot on the ground at a cockeyed angle. I was told that Rémi's living relatives couldn't justify the high cost of having it repaired. I get it - stonework is expensive.
When the monument was unveiled, the Los Angeles Herald claimed that Rémi's own accomplishments were the only monument needed to keep his memory alive. Rémi’s business interests accounted for ONE QUARTER of all exports leaving Los Angeles between 1869 and 1882. An earlier article in the Herald claimed Nadeau “has given employment to more men, and purchased more produce, and introduced more trade to Los Angeles than any other five men in this city.”
You'd think that would be enough. Sadly, you'd be as mistaken as the Herald.
Rémi's name is forgotten today, surviving only in the family plot and on street signs - Nadeau Street, in the Florence/Nadeau neighborhood, and Nadeau Drive (which most likely honors Dr. Hubert Nadeau, no relation), in Mid-City.
Now THAT is crazy.
Monday, February 24, 2020
Rémi and the Bandit
Rémi Nadeau - freighter, hotelier, entrepreneur - is the one dead Frenchman every Angeleno should know about.
In the next entry, I'll cover what we know to be true about Rémi's remarkable life. Today, I'll tell you a story - a legend, really - about two very different people who (allegedly) formed an unlikely friendship.
In the days when most of California was undeveloped, bandits often preyed upon stagecoaches, freight wagons, and anyone who dared travel too far from civilization. The most notorious bandit of them all was Tiburcio Vasquez.
Strangely, Rémi Nadeau's freighters were never attacked by Vasquez or his gang.
Ranchers and business leaders assumed he was just lucky. But the story - if it's true - is more interesting than sheer dumb luck.
One day, while accompanying a mule team through the treacherous desert, Rémi Nadeau came upon a wounded man who was stranded with no food or water, a broken wagon, and a damaged harness. He was too weak to mount his own horse.
Rémi tended to the man's injuries, carried him to the next freighting station, and left instructions that the man be cared for there. He also instructed his employees to fix the stranger's wagon and harness.
The stranger greeted Rémi when he arrived at the station on his return trip, offering payment for his board and the repairs to his wagon and harness. Rémi declined, saying he didn't want to be paid for what anyone would do for him in those circumstances.
The stranger asked Rémi if he had ever heard of the bandit Vasquez. He had.
The stranger revealed, "Mr. Nadeau, I am Vasquez, and I will tell you now, so that you may rest at ease in your mind, so long as I live none of my men will ever bother you or your teams or any of your property, and I will pass the word along to others that I, Vasquez, wish Nadeau and whatever is his to be respected."
And with that, the stranger rode off.
Supposedly, Rémi's wife scolded him for not turning Vasquez over to the authorities. (Vasquez had escaped from San Quentin.)
Rémi's take? "Freighting is my business and so long as my freighters are not bothered by Vasquez, Vasquez is not bothered by Nadeau."
Fast forward to 1874.
According to legend, Nevada Senator William Stewart won a silver mine in the Cerro Gordo area (it isn't clear which one) in a card game. Upon hearing that the losing players planned to get their revenge by stealing the next shipment of silver, the Senator thwarted them by having the shipment cast in two enormous ingots weighing 500 pounds each.
After a few hours, the would-be thieves gave up. The Senator arranged for Rémi Nadeau to transport the ingots to Los Angeles with two teams of mules, each wagon carrying one of the massive silver bars.
The mule teams were intercepted by Vasquez en route. History doesn't record HOW Vasquez managed to steal a 500-pound silver ingot (this is a legend, after all), but supposedly, he took only one of the ingots and left the other.
Vasquez was captured May 18, 1874, at his desert hideout, now known as Vasquez Rocks. He was tried and sentenced in San José not long after his capture.
Despite being guilty of numerous crimes, Vasquez was a very popular figure, and had many visitors while behind bars awaiting execution. One of those visitors was, supposedly, Rémi Nadeau.
It's said that Rémi asked "I saved your life once, mi amigo, and we had an agreement that you would never rob my freighters. Why did you do this?"
Vasquez is said to have replied "A card dealer friend had tipped me off to the silver and I also had an obligation to him. That is why I took only one ingot from you."
We may never know how much truth went into this story (one of my older books practically treats the first half of the tale as gospel), but it's certainly a legendary story about two legendary men.
In the next entry, I'll cover what we know to be true about Rémi's remarkable life. Today, I'll tell you a story - a legend, really - about two very different people who (allegedly) formed an unlikely friendship.
In the days when most of California was undeveloped, bandits often preyed upon stagecoaches, freight wagons, and anyone who dared travel too far from civilization. The most notorious bandit of them all was Tiburcio Vasquez.
Strangely, Rémi Nadeau's freighters were never attacked by Vasquez or his gang.
Ranchers and business leaders assumed he was just lucky. But the story - if it's true - is more interesting than sheer dumb luck.
One day, while accompanying a mule team through the treacherous desert, Rémi Nadeau came upon a wounded man who was stranded with no food or water, a broken wagon, and a damaged harness. He was too weak to mount his own horse.
Rémi tended to the man's injuries, carried him to the next freighting station, and left instructions that the man be cared for there. He also instructed his employees to fix the stranger's wagon and harness.
The stranger greeted Rémi when he arrived at the station on his return trip, offering payment for his board and the repairs to his wagon and harness. Rémi declined, saying he didn't want to be paid for what anyone would do for him in those circumstances.
The stranger asked Rémi if he had ever heard of the bandit Vasquez. He had.
The stranger revealed, "Mr. Nadeau, I am Vasquez, and I will tell you now, so that you may rest at ease in your mind, so long as I live none of my men will ever bother you or your teams or any of your property, and I will pass the word along to others that I, Vasquez, wish Nadeau and whatever is his to be respected."
And with that, the stranger rode off.
Supposedly, Rémi's wife scolded him for not turning Vasquez over to the authorities. (Vasquez had escaped from San Quentin.)
Rémi's take? "Freighting is my business and so long as my freighters are not bothered by Vasquez, Vasquez is not bothered by Nadeau."
Fast forward to 1874.
According to legend, Nevada Senator William Stewart won a silver mine in the Cerro Gordo area (it isn't clear which one) in a card game. Upon hearing that the losing players planned to get their revenge by stealing the next shipment of silver, the Senator thwarted them by having the shipment cast in two enormous ingots weighing 500 pounds each.
After a few hours, the would-be thieves gave up. The Senator arranged for Rémi Nadeau to transport the ingots to Los Angeles with two teams of mules, each wagon carrying one of the massive silver bars.
The mule teams were intercepted by Vasquez en route. History doesn't record HOW Vasquez managed to steal a 500-pound silver ingot (this is a legend, after all), but supposedly, he took only one of the ingots and left the other.
Vasquez was captured May 18, 1874, at his desert hideout, now known as Vasquez Rocks. He was tried and sentenced in San José not long after his capture.
Despite being guilty of numerous crimes, Vasquez was a very popular figure, and had many visitors while behind bars awaiting execution. One of those visitors was, supposedly, Rémi Nadeau.
It's said that Rémi asked "I saved your life once, mi amigo, and we had an agreement that you would never rob my freighters. Why did you do this?"
Vasquez is said to have replied "A card dealer friend had tipped me off to the silver and I also had an obligation to him. That is why I took only one ingot from you."
We may never know how much truth went into this story (one of my older books practically treats the first half of the tale as gospel), but it's certainly a legendary story about two legendary men.
Thursday, January 12, 2017
The Forgotten Beaudry Brother
 |
| Victor Beaudry (date unknown) |
We've covered Prudent Beaudry. But Victor, the youngest of the eight Beaudry siblings, is completely forgotten today.
Like his older brothers before him, Victor was born in Quebec in 1829 and educated in the best schools Montreal and New York had to offer. And like the rest of his brothers, he had a head for business and spoke fluent English. Since he arrived rather late in his parents' lives, Victor faced a challenge his brothers did not: he was only three years old when their father died.
In the late 1840s (sources disagree on whether it was before or after the Gold Rush began), Victor (now in his late teens) moved to San Francisco and established a successful shipping and commission business. Prudent, who was thirteen years older than Victor, later joined him, and the brothers then got into the ice business.
By 1850*, Victor was living in Los Angeles. He got back into the ice business with Damien Marchesseault, harvesting ice in the San Bernardino mountains and shipping it via mule train to Los Angeles. From the port of San Pedro, some of their ice was shipped to saloons in the faraway, but no less thirsty, city of San Francisco. Their ice house is long gone, but the area is still called Ice House Canyon. Victor also did some mining in the San Gabriel Valley and co-founded the Santa Anita Mining Company with Marchesseault in 1858. From 1855 to 1861, Victor managed Prudent's many business interests, at one point remodeling the aging Beaudry Block into Southern California's finest commercial building. He became a U.S. citizen in 1858 (beating older brother Prudent to citizenship by five years).
Three years later, Victor received a contract to supply the Army of the Potomac and joined the First Regiment of Infantry in the United States Army, fighting for the Union cause. He remained in the Army until the bitter end of the Civil War, suffering health problems for much of his life as a result of his wartime experiences.
After the war, several of Victor's good friends from the Army were stationed at Camp Independence in Inyo County, and suggested he open a store there. This was a natural enough task for Victor, since he came from a family of successful merchants.
Victor soon acquired an interest in the Cerro Gordo silver mines, partnering with Mortimer Belshaw. Due to the mines' prodigious output (An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County puts the figure at 5,000,000 pounds of bullion per year), 400 mules were needed to haul the bullion 200 miles to San Pedro, where it would be sent via ship to San Francisco. Remi Nadeau (who had started his empire by borrowing $600 from Prudent to buy a freight wagon and mules) formed the Cerro Gordo Freighting Company with Victor and Belshaw. Years later, when Nadeau liquidated most of his freighting company's equipment, it was largely purchased by the Oro Grande Mining Company - which just so happened to be partially owned by the Beaudry brothers. But we'll get into the details when we get to Remi Nadeau.
Because the Cerro Gordo mines stimulated so much business in the area (and on the route to LA), the Los Angeles & Independence Railroad was built. Before too long, the Southern Pacific Railroad also branched out to the Mojave Desert.
Victor returned to Montreal in 1872. The following year, he married the Sheriff of Montreal's daughter, Mary Angelena Le Blanc. Before long, the couple had five children (Victor, Oscar, Abel, Alva, and Mathilda). Victor returned to Los Angeles with his wife and children in 1881, building a house at 405 Temple Street (near Montreal Street, which was later renamed Hill Street) and working with Prudent in real estate development. You know this story. Angelino Heights, Temple Street Cable Railway, half of modern-day downtown...I won't rehash it here. Victor's name appeared in the real estate section of local newspapers almost as often as Prudent's (mostly regarding properties in the Angelino Heights and Beaudry Water Works tracts). The April 8, 1883 Los Angeles Daily Herald even lists Victor as the seller of Beaudry Park to the Los Angeles Infirmary (aka St. Vincent's Hospital).
Over the years, city directories and voter rolls simply listed Victor's occupation as "capitalist".
The Beaudrys returned to Montreal in 1886. Victor had experienced health issues since his stint in the Army, and by this time was suffering from inflammatory rheumatism. He passed away in Montreal on March 7, 1888. Prudent was notified by telegram that evening, and Victor's obituary appeared in the following morning's Los Angeles Herald.
For a few years after his death, Prudent and F.W. Wood, executors of Victor's estate, slowly liquidated Victor's impressive real estate holdings. (In November 1888, they were sued over an alleged one-fourth interest in the Old Cemetery tract Victor held. One of the plaintiffs was George S. Patton Sr. - General Patton's father.) Prudent is well known to local historians as a prodigious developer and real estate agent, but Victor's real estate interests were nothing to sneeze at.
The house on Temple Street is long gone. Today, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels takes up most of the block. The former site of Victor's house is very close to the Cathedral's gift shop.
When Victor is remembered at all, he is remembered as Prudent's brother. While partnering with Prudent made him even wealthier, Victor accomplished quite a lot on his own and with different business partners. He should be remembered for his own merits, not merely for being the baby brother of two mayors.
*One source says Victor spent a few years in Nicaragua for business purposes. It does sound like something a Beaudry would do - however, I can't find a proper source citation, and the older sources say 1850. In the absence of proof, I'll leave 1850 as the date.
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