Bella Union Hotel

Bella Union Hotel

Circa 1873 view of the Bella Union Hotel
Location Present-day Fletcher Bowron Square, Los Angeles[1]
Coordinates 34°3′15.09″N 118°14′28.33″W / 34.0541917°N 118.2412028°WCoordinates: 34°3′15.09″N 118°14′28.33″W / 34.0541917°N 118.2412028°W
Built 1835
Demolished 1940
Architect William Wolfskill, Joseph Paulding and Richard Laughlin
Reference no. 656

The Bella Union Hotel in Los Angeles, California, constructed in 1835, is California Historical Landmark No. 656,[1] It was effectively the last capitol building of Mexican California under Governor Pio Pico in 1845–47 and was a center of social and political life for decades. Situated on the east side of Commercial Street, one block east of Main Street, it was later known as the Clarendon Hotel and then as the St. Charles.[2][3][4][5]

Description

The one-story adobe structure was built in 1835 by "three American trappers" — William Wolfskill, Joseph Paulding and Richard Laughlin — as a home for Isaac Williams, a New England merchant who had arrived in Los Angeles in 1832.[2][4][6]

In 1851, when Horace Bell, the author of the seminal historical work Reminiscences of a Ranger, first came to Los Angeles, the hotel was owned by James Brown Winston, a medical doctor, and Alpheus P. Hodges, the city's mayor. Bell's book, published in 1881, recounted how the hotel looked when he had stayed there thirty years before:[7][8]

The house was a one-story flat-roofed adobe, with a corral in the rear, extending to Los Angeles street, with the usual great Spanish portal, near which stood a little frame house, one room above and one below. The lower room had the sign "Imprenta" over the door fronting on Los Angeles street, which meant that the Star was published therein. The room upstairs was used as a dormitory for the printers and editors.
. . . On the north side . . . were numerous pigeon-holes, or dog-kennels. These were the rooms for the guests of the Bella Union. In rainy weather the primitive earthen floor was sometimes, and generally, rendered quite muddy the percolations from the roof above. . . . The rooms were not over 6x9 [feet] in size. Such were the ordinary dormitories of the hotel advertised as being the "best hotel south of San Francisco." If a very aristocratic guest came along, a great sacrifice was made in his favor, and he was permitted to sleep on the little billiard table. [In the bar] during that time were the most bandit, cut-throat looking set [of people] that the writer had ever set his youthful eyes upon. . . . all . . . had slung to their rear the never-failing pair of Colt's, generally with the accompaniment of the bowie knife.[7][9]

A second floor was added to the hotel in 1851, and a third in 1869.[2]

Louis Roeder, later a member of the Los Angeles Common Council, who stayed at the Bella Union in 1856, recalled in 1903 that the Bella Union had been

a one-story building, with a dining-room at the rear of the bar, roofed with canvas. Adjoining was a drug store, kept by Dr. [John Strother] Griffin and Dr. Miller. Then came the private residence of Mr. [Abel] Stearns, of the Stearns ranchos, a large adobe building, between which and the Plaza were a lot of shacks, occupied by Mexicans.[10]

Notable occasions

a funny thing happened. Some leaders perpetrated a hoax on his honor. They raided the hotel[,] where Hodges gave them free whiskey. That night they carried on sham attacks till morning against a supposed foe. They men had made their plans carefully and carried them out so realistically that, according to Horace Bell, they completely hoodwinked the mayor, who actually thought the pueblo was being attacked by a mob of rebels.[8]
The talking-machine demonstration over Main St. yesterday was a success. The contraption is quite a toy and very interesting. It is a question yet with the most conservative thinking whether it can ever be put to practical use.[24]

References and notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 "Bella Union Hotel". Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved 2012-10-07.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Pacific Coast Architecture Database
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 John R. Kieliaso, Historic Adobes of Los Angeles County, LAOkay.com
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Pacific Coast Architecture Database states the hotel was built for Benjamin Davis Wilson.
  5. Its final mailing address was 314 North Main Street.
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Lee Side o' L.A.," Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1940, page A-4
  7. 7.0 7.1 Horace Bell, Reminiscences of a Ranger
  8. 8.0 8.1 Richard Simon, "Alpheus Hodges: A Name to Remember for Obscure Reasons," Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1993, page 1
  9. A nearby section of Bell's book describes the patrons of the hotel.
  10. "In Olden Times: Recollections of a Pioneer," Los Angeles Times, March 8, 1903, page A-1
  11. 11.0 11.1 William S. Murphy, "Lawyers' Papers Reveal Life in the Wild, Wild West," Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1986, page F-1
  12. 12.0 12.1 On October 27, 1958, the Los Angeles Times ran a photograph of the St. Charles Hotel with the caption "In 1849, Don Benito Wilson, who had title of County Clerk, bought the Bella Union Hotel, later known as the St. Charles and leased it to [the] county as its first Courthouse. Hotel was razed in 1940."
  13. William S. Murphy, "Then . . . . . and Now," Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1973, page F-28
  14. Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
  15. Johnston, William Preston. The life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, embracing his services in the armies of the United States, the republic of Texas, and the Confederate States. New York: D. Appleton, 1879. OCLC 289241
  16. "Dramatic Kidnap Attempt Fails," Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1923, page III-11 A fictionalized account.
  17. Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913, containing the reminiscences of Harris Newmark. Edited by Maurice Harris Newmark; Marco R. Newmark. The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1916. "California as I Saw It": First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900; American Memory, Library of Congress, page 340
  18. J.M. Guinn, Los Angeles and Vicinity, Containing a History of the City From Its Earliest Settlement as a Spanish Pueblo to the Closing Year of the Nineteenth Century Chicago: Chapman Publishing (1901)
  19. George Gardiner, Wild West magazine, quoted at HistoryNet.com, June 12, 2006
  20. Bill Murphy, "Main Street Violence, 1865 Style," Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1956, page A=14
  21. Cecilia Rasmussen, "L.A. Scene: The City Now and Then," Los Angeles Times, August 2, 1993, page 3
  22. Steve Harvey, "People and Events," Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1988, page 2
  23. Cecilia Rasmussen, "L.A. Then and Now: USC Is Early Developer's Monument," Los Angeles Times, April 2, 2000, page B-3
  24. H.G.L., "First Phone Talk," Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1941, page A-4

External links