Work begins on Owens River project

Luxury hotel is almost ready for a grand opening
Crowded city schools honor two great presidents and two mediocre poets
Ex-Police Chief Elton is in jail for failing to support wife and children
Long Beach loses bid to take over Terminal Island

Los Angeles in the 1900s

February 1906

by
George Garrigues
From the Los Angeles Express, February 2, 1906

NEW HOTEL WILL OPEN ON TIME

Alexandria Will Begin Its Career With Every Room Occupied and Long Waiting List — S. Whitmore Is Manager

So nearly completed in every detail is the new Hotel Alexandria, at Fifth and Spring Streets, that not the slightest obstacle appears in the way of its opening on the date fixed, February 11.

. . . the grandeur of the interior is especially visible.

Scores of persons who have applied for tables . . . will dine, there will be music by the house orchestra and the hotel will be crowded with guests.

. . . the Alexandria . . . has already a long waiting list, in addition to having reserved every room in the house for the Salt Lake Elks.

Four hundred of these Elks are coming to town, and there are but 360 rooms in the new hotel for them. . . .

Manager Samuel Whitmore today announced his staff. . . .

The Alexandria will be conducted strictly on the European plan [the rates include only the charges for a room and not for meals], and the lowest rates will be $2 a day.

Seventy-five percent of the rooms are supplied with baths.

The building is partly eight stories, part of it nine stories, with walls and steel for a twelve-story building.

[It] . . . was erected by . . . A.C. Bilicke and R.A. Rowan . . . at a cost of more than $1 million. . . .

The lobby and entrance to the dining room is a masterpiece of decorative art in marble, bronze, white and green.

Settees are to be placed in the lobby, and after-dinner coffee will be served there.

Music hours are: in the dining room from 12 noon to 2:30 o’clock; in the dining room from 6 to 8:30 o’clock; in the dining room from 10:30 to midnight. . . .

•

The Palm Court (originally called the Franco-Italian Dining Room), with its original stained glass ceiling still in place, is a Historic-Cultural Monument of the City of Los Angeles.

Images are from http://www.usc.edu/dept/geography/losangeles/lawalk/old/alex.html .
(The Alexandria, which over the decades became a seedy single-room occupancy hotel, is now being restored as part of Downtown’s gentrification.)

The overhead view of Downtown is from http://memory.loc.gov/
•
From the Los Angeles Express, February 21, 1906

WORK BEGINS ON GREAT CONDUIT

Preliminary work has been begun on the conduit to bring the waters of the Owens River to Los Angeles.

Several score of workmen with teams have been employed and, under the direction Engineer Young, excavating is going on at Charlie’s Butte.

The trench is forty feet wide at the bottom and will carry seven feet of water.

Charlie’s Butte is where the conduit’s intake will be.

The trench now being constructed will be used at this time for the irrigation of portions of the Rickey Ranch, the property of the city and under the management of former Mayor Eaton.

The Owens River before the Aqueduct.

Image is from the Los Angeles Public Library.
For the current revegetation plan of the Inyo County Water Department and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power at Charlie’s Butte, go to this site.
•  
From the Los Angeles Express, February 13, 1906

CROWDED

The School Situation in Los Angeles

Boy at left: Oh! Stop your crowdin’.
Girl on ground: I wish I could go inside.
Boy on ladder: Any place for me up there?

EXERCISES IN CITY SCHOOLS

Public-school children in Los Angeles celebrated the birthdays of four great Americans — Washington, Lincoln, [Henry Wadsworth] Longfellow and [James Russell] Lowell — this afternoon. After the exercises the schools were dismissed for the remainder of the week.

Exercises were held in all the schools of the city, and in most cases the various grades combined when there were accommodations for all the pupils. . . .

The teachers read historical selections from the lives of the four great men, the pupils recited and, in some cases, spoke.
•
From the Los Angeles Express, February 21, 1905

CHARLES ELTON IN JAIL CELL

Former Chief of Police of Los Angeles Is Paying Penalty
for Non-Payment of Alimony to His Wife

How Charles Elton, former chief of police of this city [1900-1904], now confined in the County Jail, is to regain his liberty is a question that is worrying his lawyers.

Elton was arrested yesterday by Deputy Sheriff Franklin by order of Superior Judge Conley for contempt of court. . . .

[The suit was] instituted last year by his wife, Anna de F. Elton, to whom he owed $605 for the maintenance of herself and numerous children. . . .

Judge Conrey was convinced that Elton could pay his wife if he wanted to. . . .

Last Saturday the ex-chief of police returned to Los Angeles and walked the streets unmolested until yesterday, when he was haled to jail. . . .

Elton has said he will rot in prison before he pays the money. . . .

His attorneys have exhausted their legal resources, and it is now a case of “put up or shut up.”

Ex-Chief Charles Elton
•
From the Los Angeles Express, February 21, 1905
TERMINAL ISLAND NOT PART OF LONG BEACH

Superior Judge Bordwell today decided that the annexation of Terminal Island

by Long Beach at an election held August 16, 1905, was an illegal proceeding. . . .The property in question is the same which San Pedro wanted to annex in July last year.
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For a personal look at Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s, click for a new book by George Garrigues
He Usually Lived With a Female: The Life of a California Newspaperman
Los Angeles history