Erasing Frenchtown in Maps

I have been mapping historic French LA for 8.5 years.

It's harder than it looks. Among the many, MANY changes to the street grid, the intersection of Alameda and Aliso was erased, with Aliso rerouted into Commercial at Alameda Street in the 1950s to accommodate the 101 Freeway.

I get a lot of questions about this, and I think it's easier to explain with maps.

Aliso Street always had a bend in it - now it's more of a long diagonal. Here we see, from top to bottom, Main, Los Angeles, and Alameda Streets intersecting with Aliso. This is from 1894.

As you can see, Aliso and Commercial Streets are still parallel (and would be for about another 60 years), and Frenchtown still had plenty of houses.

This 1894 map detail shows the Maier and Zobelein brewery, formerly the El Aliso winery, in the bottom left corner. By this point, Jean-Louis Vignes' vineyard (formerly ground zero for the French community in LA) had been thoroughly developed into a mostly-residential neighborhood, and was still full of French residents like the Ducommuns, the Lazards, and Joseph Mascarel (who died in his Lazard Street home just a few years after this map was made). Maier and Zobelein was rebranded as Brew 102 in the 1940s, with the brewery tanks easily visible from the freeway and in photos.

Zoom in and you can see that Ducommun Street (misspelled here as "Ducummen") and Lazard Street were once two separate streets. Today, it's all Ducommun and it no longer reaches all the way to Alameda Street.

Republished in 1923, this map detail shows Aliso and Commercial are still parallel. Lazard Street is now Ducommun, which may be related to the fact that Ducommun Industries was, by then, headquartered along Ducommun Street (a bus parking facility now occupies the old Ducommun Yard).

North of Aliso, Marchesseault, Apablaza, Napier, and Juan Streets still existed in 1923, although multiple corrections to this map (originally published in 1906) show Old Chinatown/Little Paree gradually being torn down. Today, this is Union Station, the Metropolitan Water District, a park, and (what else...) a parking lot.

This revision, added in December 1937, shows Union Station in place of Old Chinatown/Little Paree, and shows the rerouting of Bauchet Street and the disappearance of Marchesseault Street (renamed East Sunset Boulevard). A local Chinatown historian once told me that if you could walk Marchesseault Street today, you'd more or less be walking into Union Station's front door.

Venturing northeast to where Frenchtown, the Plaza, and Old Chinatown formerly collided, we can see that Sanchez Street used to be longer. The Jennette Block, which housed the Hotel du Lion d'Or and the Hotel de Paris at different times, is now gone, along with the western wing of the Garnier Block. (The Garnier Block houses the Chinese American Museum, and ironically now needs to be expanded because too much of the building was lopped off in 1953 and the Museum needs more space. Oh, the irony.) Note that the Pico House is still called the National Hotel here.

This map is from 1953. Here we see one-third of Sanchez Street missing - lost to the 101 (Hollywood) Freeway. Today, Arcadia Street stands between Sanchez and the freeway and Market no longer exists. Look for the words "being dismantled" - much of what is still shown was gone within five years. 

One more snippet from 1953 - this is closer to today's street grid, except widening of the freeway bumped this section of Aliso further south. El Aliso (the tree itself, not the winery where it stood) was about where Vignes Street dead-ends at Commercial Street today (and, again, this section is now Commercial Street).

Want to see the current street grid laid out over the old one? Wikimedia’s got you covered. (While I firmly believe that Wikipedia is unreliable and should not be used for serious research, this map corresponds with what you’ll see in old maps of LA.)

When the original street grid has been altered to this extent, mapping French LA is a bigger challenge than everyone thinks it is. On top of that, LA added numbering fairly late. I do still plan to reveal the Great Big Map of French LA someday; I'm just not sure when (or if) I'll ever be "done" enough. 

"About Where Union Station Is Today"

For years it was assumed that El Aliso - California's first commercial vineyard and winery - had stood on, or at least roughly on, the site we now know as Union Station.

As I've previously explained...that's not the case. The bulk of El Aliso, including the massive sycamore tree itself, stood south of the 101, opposite Union Station. (One of my older books also backs this up.)

And yet, for so long it has commonly been assumed that the Union Station site, or a spot very close to it, had been Jean-Louis Vignes' vineyard. Even the LA Times made this claim as recently as 2015.

Why?

Matthew Keller - "Don Mateo" to early Angelenos - was an Irish immigrant who had lived in Mexico and befriended Andrew Boyle (who became his brother-in-law) while he was south of the border.

Keller moved to Los Angeles in 1851, buying a 10-acre plot from Don Manuel Requena at Alameda and Aliso Streets. Which is awfully close to Union Station.

Don Mateo built a house, planted an orchard and a vineyard, and established the Los Angeles Vineyards winery, which is said to have extended towards the river.

Tellingly, Keller Street runs well behind Union Station, parallel to the river. (Mateo Street, also named for Keller, runs north-south through the Arts District.)

There was indeed a vineyard "about where Union Station is today", or at least very close by. It just wasn't El Aliso. It was Don Mateo Keller's Los Angeles Vineyards.

BREAKING NEWS: El Aliso Vineyard was NOT on the site of Union Station!

Most sources - including older ones - state that Jean-Louis Vignes' vineyard, El Aliso, was "about where Union Station is today."

Here's the problem with that statement: it wasn't. 

A Gizmodo post by historian Nathan Masters mentions the former location of the giant sycamore tree that gave the vineyard its name. According to landscape architect John Crandell (who according to Masters has researched the matter extensively), if the tree were still standing today, it would be here, growing out of a raised island separating the Vignes Street onramp from the 101 freeway.

For months, I tried and failed to find a boundary map for El Aliso. I knew it was along Aliso Street, and (of course) the 101 Freeway arrived roughly a century after Vignes did. Using the river as a reference was completely out of the question - the LA River shifted its course due to severe flooding, and has since been rerouted by the Army Corps of Engineers. I reasoned that the freeway, which separates the former core of Frenchtown from Union Station, had simply cut through Vignes' property - 104 acres IS a good-sized chunk of land, after all.

Not exactly.

The other day, James Lawson, a seventh-generation Californian (and descendant of the Reyes, Alanis, and Casenave families) reached out to me with a LOT of information to share. This information included an 1849 map of LA showing property boundaries and an 1869 map of the Alanis vineyard tract.

James - who just so happens to be an urban planner - walked me through his research into the location. Basically, Aliso Street's transition into Commercial Street corresponds closely to (now-gone) Labory Lane, which was originally the access path from Alameda Street to the Alanis property - surrounded on three sides by Vignes' land.

Flip the 1849 Ord survey to correctly point north, layer it over the modern street grid using the former Labory Lane as a reference, trim away most of the surrounding properties to better see modern LA's streets, and you get this:

(Yes, I had to print these out and play cut-and-paste. I don't have, let alone know how to use, Photoshop. I should note that the 1849 map printed out a little too big - it's not easy to match the scales on two old maps, with no scale given on either - let alone on an uncooperative 8-year-old laptop.)

This location also makes more sense than Union Station. The giant tree still fits into the property's footprint, we can clearly see Aliso Street in reference to the property, and the property's true location explains why Vignes Street is so far south of Union Station. The (admittedly approximated - and now I have to re-draw it) shaded area to the right, representing the Ballesteros Tract, supports this location - the Ballesteros family, as you can see, owned land right next door to Vignes.

I live for "OH MY GOD" moments like this.

Merci, James.

The Incredible Sainsevain Brothers

(Image courtesy of the California State Archives. View more here.)

There were four Sainsevain brothers in all, but two of them - Pierre and Jean-Louis - had a strong impact upon Los Angeles and other areas of California.

Their mother, Marie Vignes Sainsevain, was the sister of Jean-Louis Vignes. In 1838, thirteen years after her brother was compelled to leave France, she sent twenty-year-old Pierre, a carpenter, to California to see if his uncle was even still alive. Eight months after the ship left France, Pierre landed in Santa Barbara and continued on to Los Angeles.

Jean-Louis Vignes was doing quite well, in fact - so much so that much of the extended Vignes/Sainsevain family relocated to Los Angeles.

Within a year of arriving at the El Aliso vineyard, Pierre was traveling to Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco by ship, seeking new buyers for Uncle Jean-Louis' popular wine and brandy. He succeeded in making the very first wholesale wine transactions in the history of California. The following year, he was running Uncle Jean-Louis' sawmill near San Bernardino.

Bigger things were in store for Pierre: in 1843, Governor Manuel Micheltorena granted him Rancho Cañada del Rincon en el Rio San Lorenzo - nearly 6,000 acres in what is now Santa Cruz County. California was still part of Mexico, and normally land grants were only given to Mexican citizens. Pierre did become a naturalized Mexican citizen in 1844 (he is sometimes referred to as "Pedro Sainsevain"), and Governor Pio Pico confirmed the grant in 1846.

In 1843, Pierre built a sawmill near the rancho with another French carpenter, Charles Roussillon, as a business partner. In 1844, he opened a flour mill. In 1845, he married Paula Suñol, daughter of Antonio Maria Suñol (owner of Rancho Los Coches in modern-day Santa Clara County). In 1846, Pierre and Roussillon built a schooner, the Antonita, on the beach at Santa Cruz (and sailed her to Hawaii to have a copper bottom installed). Pierre and Paula's son Jose Miguel was also born that year.

Every schoolkid in California knows that gold was discovered near Coloma in 1848. Pierre went to the mines with his father-in-law and Roussillon. Although the mining town of Don Pedro Bar was named for Pierre (he was nicknamed "Don Pedro" as a mark of respect by Spanish-speaking friends), the party soon tired of mining, and moved to Stockton to sell supplies to Gold Rush miners.

The town of Don Pedro Bar no longer exists, but the Don Pedro Dam and Don Pedro Reservoir still bear Pierre's name.

In 1849, Pierre and Roussillon went to San Jose, the original state capital of California, and built a large two-story adobe on Market Square. They intended to run a hotel, but instead, the building became California's first State House. Ever the achiever, Pierre also served as a delegate to the California Constitutional Convention that year.

In 1855, Jean-Louis, an engineer, joined his brother and uncle in Los Angeles, and the family expanded production at El Aliso. The brothers had their own storefront selling Sainsevain Brothers wine in San Francisco by 1857, with a wine cellar producing Champagne (well, California's first sparkling wine, anyway). Pierre even hired Monsieur Debanne, a former Champagne maker for Veuve Clicquot, to make Sainsevain Brothers Champagne. The following year, El Aliso was leading the state in wine production, turning out 125,000 gallons of wine and brandy.

Jean-Louis also had a personal accomplishment in 1855. He went to France to visit his two sons, who he had not seen for nearly seven years (remember, international travel was significantly harder, longer, and more expensive then than it is now). During this trip, he met and married the widow of a sea captain (I can only assume Jean-Louis' first wife had died at some point). Jean-Louis left his younger son, Paul, and his stepson, Charles Lepaon, in France to complete their schooling (many of LA's earlier French families sent their sons to school in France, so this was hardly unusual), but returned to Los Angeles with his older son, Michel, his new wife, and his stepdaughter, Honorine.

Meanwhile, on the business front, Champagne/sparkling wine production is always risky. It's often more cost-intensive than still wine, San Francisco does not get as cold in the winter as the Champagne region does (Champagne's cold winters create a dual fermentation process, which means more bubbles), and in those days it was MUCH more common for Champagne bottles to break or explode.

To make matters worse, the Sainsevains used Mission grapes (which weren't quite acidic enough to get the desired result), the Champagne was only aged for one year (five or six years is customary), and during the first year of production, one out of every five bottles exploded. While it's true that Champagne bottles have always had some risk of exploding, this level of loss is extremely high, and Sainsevain Brothers' employees had to wear protective gear in the wine cellars to avoid being badly injured by flying shards of glass. The Champagne experiment, while seemingly successful at first, ended up costing the brothers $50,000 (about $1.4 million today) and had to be shut down by 1862.

It wasn't all bad news while the experiment lasted - the brothers sold 300 cases a month, shipping some of them to New York and Philadelphia. They sent Champagne to President James Buchanan, who praised its taste and thanked them generously for it in a letter. When the French government opened its Los Angeles consulate in 1860, Sainsevain Brothers Champagne was served.

In 1859, Pierre sold his rancho. Uncle Jean-Louis sold his nephews the El Aliso vineyard for $42,000 - about $1.06 million in 2016 dollars - by far the highest price ever paid for a single property in California at the time. In 1861, with California wines being sold on the East Coast for the first time, another Sainsevain Brothers shop opened - this one on Broadway in New York.

Unfortunately, there were more financial problems: Jean-Louis Vignes' adult children sued their own cousins, accusing Pierre and Jean-Louis of underpaying for their father's vineyard. This may sound hard to believe, considering the brothers paid more for it than anyone else had ever paid for land in California at a time when Los Angeles was still a dusty pueblo, but it did indeed happen, and the brothers lost in court. Pierre and Jean-Louis dissolved their winemaking business and sold El Aliso in 1869. The brothers were so financially devastated by the Champagne failure and the lawsuit that the county sheriff auctioned off their possessions and remaining wine stock to cover their debts. (Trademark documents in the California State Archives suggest that the San Francisco wine store and the rights to the name Sainsevain Brothers were likely sold to another team of vintners, Mercado and Marsh.)

Jean-Louis was a Mason, and according to one source, was the first Grand Master of the city's first Masonic lodge, located in the original pueblo. A different source conflicts with this; the facts may well be lost to history. We do know, however, that he was a major player in Los Angeles' eternal struggle: water.

In 1863, Jean-Louis was awarded a contract to improve the city's primitive water system (and I do mean primitive; zanjas, or open ditches, were still in use). However, it proved so difficult and costly that he quit. Two years later, when another contractor gave up after only eight months, Jean-Louis was offered the contract again.

This time, Jean-Louis called for help: Damien Marchessault, former mayor and Water Overseer, partnered with him. In an area called "The Cornfield", now Los Angeles State Historic Park, Jean-Louis built a dam and water wheel to feed one of the city's first backup supplies of water, the Sainsevain Reservoir (long since replaced by Radio Hill Gardens). He and Marchessault also began replacing the city's first pipes - hollowed-out logs - with iron pipes. Unfortunately, in 1868, severe flooding undid all of their hard work. This final failure would be a factor in Marchessault's tragic death. An improved water system would eventually succeed under Prudent Beaudry, Solomon Lazard (both French), and John S. Griffen (more on that later).

It may be difficult for modern-day Californians to imagine a time when the state didn't have one out of every eight U.S. residents crammed into its boundaries, but in the 1860s, California had a seemingly endless supply of wide open spaces presenting new opportunities. One of them was Rancho Cucamonga.

Pierre bought the Rancho Cucamonga vineyard in 1860, and Jean-Louis began managing it in 1867. The brothers introduced "new and better" varieties of grapes, according to Harris Newmark. However, their vines were destroyed by grasshoppers in 1870 and 1871, causing more financial trouble. Despite several ownership changes, Jean-Louis was kept on as the vineyard's manager. A bottle of his own sweet white wine won first place at the 1877 Southern California Horticultural Fair.

The brothers, undaunted, also built houses in San Bernardino (it isn't clear whether any of these houses still exist; they'd be well over a century old by now).

Pierre moved back to Santa Clara County and produced wine (under the Menlo Park label) successfully. His claret won "Best Wine" at the county fair in 1868. By 1870, he was making 20,000 gallons of wine per year, but he closed the operation in 1874. That year, Pierre and Jean-Louis bought land in Hawker Canyon, building a large stone house and reservoir.

Jean-Louis owned a lumberyard at the corner of Alameda and Jackson Streets, although the dates are unclear (much of Jackson Street is now gone, meaning the corner itself no longer exists). The brothers shipped lumber up and down the California coast via schooner. In 1869, Jean-Louis sold a different property to Eugene Meyer (despite the German-sounding name, Meyer was also French), who built the Aliso Tract on it.

The ever-restless Pierre went to Central America (some sources say Peru) in 1874 or 1875, returning to San Jose in 1880. He began producing wine again, and invented a steam-powered stemmer crusher (a device that de-stems and crushes grapes) in 1882. When Paula died in 1883, Pierre returned to France.

Although I can find no record of Jean-Louis marrying for a third time (hell, I can't even find a record of his first marriage), a court record from 1882 suggests he was married to a Florence Matilda Sainsevain (another source suggests she was Charles Roussillon's sister). The Los Angeles Herald described him as an "old pioneer" in his death notice (2/17/1889).

Jean-Louis died in Pasadena in 1889. Pierre died in France in 1904.

The 1883 Los Angeles City Directory lists an "M. Sainsevain" operating a feed store at the corner of Turner and Alameda Streets. However, there were already so many Sainsevains in Los Angeles by 1883 that it isn't clear who exactly this was. Pierre's son Jose Miguel was sometimes called Michael, and Jean-Louis had a son named Michel (to complicate things further, in French, "M." is an abbreviation of "Monsieur"). I had considerable difficulty fact-checking this entry because there were multiple Jean-Louis Sainsevains in the Sainsevain family, nearly all living in Southern California.

Multiple old maps list Sainsevain family property in Fontana (the city gave it the official address of 14804 E. Summit Ave.). The Sainsevain surname, albeit with a savagely butchered spelling, is sprinkled across the Inland Empire. Etiwanda, Fontana, Jurupa Valley, and Rancho Cucamonga all have places named after the brothers. There was a Sainsevain (spelled correctly) station on the Southern Pacific rail line near Rancho Cucamonga, but I have not yet been able to determine its precise location or its fate.

The Sainsevain brothers led incredible lives - and incredibly, no one remembers them. Case in point: Los Angeles used to have a Sainsevain Street*, but now it's a distant memory just like its namesakes.

*An 1868 map shows Sainsevain Street ran between Aliso and Commercial Streets, with Alameda and Vignes as cross streets. Comparing that map to modern maps, it appears that Sainsevain Street was realigned and incorporated into Commercial Street. As the original location runs very close to what are now freeway ramps, the street was most likely moved/destroyed to make room for the 101.

Jean-Louis Vignes: Father of French Migration to California

Jean-Louis Vignes (pronounced "vines") was born in Béguey, France (in Bordeaux's wine country) in 1780. In 1827, at the age of 47, he traveled to Marseilles and boarded the Jeannette, leaving his wife and five children behind.

French king Charles X (the monarchy was briefly restored), an ultra-royalist who believed government positions should be held by nobles, did not take kindly to people like Vignes, who had managed the census in Cadillac and was often a witness to marriages and contracts. To make matters worse, Vignes was having financial problems. A letter written by Father Alexis Bachelot, Vignes' priest in Los Angeles (more on him in the future) seems to support this reason for departure: "Vignes was driven to leave his country after troubles caused by his loyalty, misunderstood considerateness, and too much facility to be of help." (In layman's terms, no good deed goes unpunished.)

The Jeannette was bound for the Society Islands via the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), but made a stop at the port of San Pedro (Joseph Mascarel, a young cadet on the same ship at the same time, will make a major appearance in a later entry). Vignes did some trading while in port, but continued on to Hawaii.

In Hawaii, Vignes managed a rum distillery (he had been a cooper in France), grew sugar cane, and raised livestock. When the distillery closed, he left for California, arriving in Los Angeles via Monterey in 1831. He was 52 years old.

Realizing grapevines could thrive in Southern California's mild climate, Vignes used the money he had earned in Hawaii to buy 104 acres on the west bank of the Los Angeles River.

Vignes' new property included an ancient and very famous local landmark: a giant sycamore tree more than sixty feet high and 200 feet in diameter. The tree can be seen in the background image for this blog (which just so happens to be the earliest known photograph of Los Angeles).

Vignes quickly established one of California's first commercial vineyards (since Louis Bauchet also established his vineyard in 1831, no one knows who was first), calling it El Aliso ("sycamore" in Spanish). He built his wine cellar in the shade of the massive tree, aged his wine in oak casks he'd made himself, and was dubbed "Don Luis del Aliso" by his Spanish-speaking neighbors. An article in The Upland News (October 9, 1968) calls him "Southern California's first truly expert winemaster".

Vignes was entertaining fellow Angelenos before long, throwing parties and hosting meals at his home on the vineyard's grounds. He also became godfather to Francisco "Pancho" Ramirez, the son of a neighbor. Vignes taught the boy to speak French (formal schooling did not yet exist in the area). At the tender age of sixteen, Pancho was hired as editor for the Spanish-language pages of the town's first newspaper, the Los Angeles Star.

Vignes didn't just plant 35 acres of grapes along the river - he planted the city's first orange grove (and also grew lemons, pomegranates, peaches, apples, pears, apricots, figs, and walnuts). Further, he held two Spanish land grants - one in San Bernardino and one on Santa Catalina Island. In 1839, his family sent a nephew, twenty-year-old Pierre Sainsevain, to California to check on Uncle Jean-Louis. With 40,000 vines in production and a reputation for making the finest wine in Southern California, it's safe to say he was doing well enough.

In fact, Vignes wrote to his family in France and urged them to join him in California. Three of his five children (and their families), one brother, four nephews, and several family friends settled in LA. Pierre worked on his uncle's vineyard, later joined by his brother Jean-Louis Sainsevain (the Sainsevain brothers merit their own entry; more on them down the road). By the 1850s, Vignes' estate and the surrounding neighborhood - filled with French settlers - were known as "French Town".

Since he now had some extra help, Vignes decided to distribute his wine outside of Los Angeles. Within a year of his arrival, Pierre traveled to Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco, successfully making the first wholesale wine transaction in the state. (Sorry, NorCal. A 21-year-old French kid living in Los Angeles did it first.) Vignes also owned a sawmill near San Bernardino, and soon put Pierre, who had worked as a carpenter, in charge.

In 1842, Vignes entrusted a French sea captain with a barrel of wine, asking that it be delivered to Louis Philippe of France ("King of the French" under the July Monarchy). Unfortunately, Vignes' hopes of showing what a Bordeaux native could do with California grapes were dashed when the barrel was destroyed in a fire on the way to France. (I should note that Vignes also imported French vines to improve his wine's quality: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Sauvignon Blanc.)

In addition to being California's first commercial vineyard, El Aliso was California's largest vineyard by 1849, with 150,000 bottles produced each year.

Vignes was liked and trusted by his Californio neighbors, and he is credited with helping to foster cooperation between Californios and Yankees when the Mexican-American War ended. In fact, when Don José Maria Abila's widow and daughters fled their home on Olvera Street (they didn't trust Americans), they sought refuge at Vignes' home. The diary of one Lt. Emory indicates that Vignes even supplied the Yankee troops with some of his own wine.

In 1855, at the age of 75, Vignes sold El Aliso to Pierre and Jean-Louis Sainsevain for $40,000 (about $1.06 million in 2016 dollars) - the largest amount of money ever paid for real estate in California at the time. (Try buying 104 acres of Los Angeles real estate for a million dollars now!) Ironically, Vignes' children later sued their own cousins, accusing them of underpaying for the vineyard. (Only in LA...)

In 1856, Vignes made a donation to the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul to fund St. Vincent's Hospital - the first hospital in the city - which opened in 1858. Vignes also donated funds to establish LA's first public school.

Vignes passed away in 1862. He was 82 years old.

There is an undated gravestone reading "Jean Louis Vignes" at Evergreen Cemetery. However, Evergreen opened in 1877. His body could have been moved (the city's first cemetery is long gone), or the stone could have belonged to a relative (cemetery records give a burial date from 1892, but this could be a typo).

El Aliso changed hands again after Vignes' death. For a time, it was the Philadelphia Lager brewery, owned by German immigrants. The site is gone, long ago subdivided, and for many years was believed to be where Union Station now stands (it wasn’t).

The giant sycamore itself died in 1891, unable to survive in a growing city. It was felled for firewood in 1895. According to landscape architect John Crandell, the tree would have stood on what is now a raised island separating the 101 freeway from an on-ramp. (Beret-tip to Gizmodo.)

Vignes' vineyard, orchards, and groves are long gone. Most Californians have no idea he was our state's first commercial vintner. But he does live on...via Aliso Street and Vignes Street, both near Union Station.

Vignes Street intersects with Bauchet Street in the shadow of the Men's Central Jail and the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. Although Vignes Street was originally much shorter (it was extended in 1897 and again in 1936), LA's first two Frenchmen may very well have been next-door neighbors.