On sunset highways : a book of motor rambles in California

Front matter

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PROVO, UTAH

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I

Preface

It is a pleasure to turn from war-torn Europe, the theme of my previous motor-travel books, to the romantic and peaceful highways of our own Sunset Land. The wonder now is that we did not make California our goal before we crossed the ocean to find a field for motor adventure; it would have cost far less in money and yielded not less in interest and enjoyment. This will be increasingly true as Cali¬ fornia’s good-road mileage expands, and in this she will speedily surpass every other state in the Union. In scenic beauty and wide variety none can equal her ; nor does she lack for the charm of romantic history — statements to which I hope these pages will testify.

One can not get the best idea of this wonderful country from the railway train or even from the splen¬ did electric system that covers most of the country surrounding Los Angeles. The motor that takes one into the deep recesses of hill and valley to infrequented nooks along the seashore and, above all, to the slopes and summits of the mountains, is surely the nearest approach to the ideal.

I do not pretend in this modest volume to have covered everything worth while in this vast state;

neither have I chosen routes so difficult as to be inac¬ cessible to the ordinary motor tourist. I have not at¬ tempted a guide-book in the usual sense ; my first aim has been to reflect by description and picture some¬ thing of the charm of this favored country ; but I hope that the book may not be unacceptable as a traveling companion to the motor tourist who follows us. Con¬ ditions of roads and towns change so rapidly in Cali¬ fornia that due allowance must be made by anyone who uses the book in this capacity.

In choosing the paintings to be reproduced as color illustrations, I was impressed with the wealth of material I discovered; in fact, California artists have developed a distinctive school of American landscape art. With the wealth and variety of subject matter at the command of these enthusiastic western painters, it is safe to predict that their work is destined to rank with the best produced in America — and I believe that the examples which I show will amply warrant this prediction.

In making acknowledgment to the photographers through whose courtesy I am able to present the beautiful monotones of California’s scenery and his¬ toric missions, I can only say that I think that the artistic beauty and sentiment evinced in every one of these pictures entitles its author to be styled artist as well as photographer. These enthusiastic Califor¬ nians — Dassonville, Pillsbury, Putnam, and Taylor — are thoroughly in love with their work and every photograph they take has the merits of an original composition. I had the privilege of selecting, from many thousands, the examples shown in this book and while I doubt if forty pictures of higher average could be found, it must not be forgotten that these artists have hundreds of other delightful views that would grace any collection. I heartily recommend any reader of the book to visit these studios if he desires appropriate and enduring mementos of California’s scenic beauty. Dassonville and Pillsbury are in San Francisco, Putnam & Valentine in Los Angeles, and Taylor in San Diego and Coronado.

Acknowledgment is also due on my behalf to the Automobile Club of Southern California for many courtesies shown me as a visiting motorist and also for the use of its splendid copyrighted state road map which appears at the end of this volume.

THE AUTHOR

January 1, 1915.

Contents

I A MOTOR PARADISE . 1

II ROUND ABOUT LOS ANGELES . 17

III ROUND ABOUT LOS ANGELES . 44

II

ROUND ABOUT LOS ANGELES When we first left the confines of the city we steered straight for the sunset; the wayfarer from the far inland states always longs for a glimpse of the ocean and it is usually his first objective. The road, smooth and hard as polished slate, runs for a dozen miles between green fields, with here and there a fringe of palms or eucalyptus trees and showing in many places the encroachments of rapidly growing suburbs. So seductively perfect is the road that the twenty miles slip away almost before we are aware; we find ourselves crossing the canal in Venice and are soon surrounded by the wilderness of “attrac¬ tions” of this famous resort.

There is little to remind us of its Italian namesake save the wide stretch of sea that breaks into view and an occasional gondola on the tiny canal; in the main it is far more suggestive of Coney Island than of the Queen of the Adriatic. To one who has lost his boyish zeal for “shooting the shoots” and a thousand and one similar startling experiences, or whose curi¬ osity no longer impels him toward freaks of nature and chambers of horror, there will be little diversion save the multifarious phases of humanity always manifest in such surroundings. On gala days it is interesting to differentiate the types that pass before one, from the countryman from the inland states, “doing” Cali¬ fornia and getting his first glimpse of a metropolitan resort, to the fast young sport from the city, to whom all things have grown common and blase and who has motored down to Venice because he happened to have nowhere else to go. Venice seems to be one of the favorite haunts of the latter class and their drunken joy-rides have resulted in many wrecks on the fine highways leading to the city. On our first trip we passed a badly disabled car by the roadside and saw several others at various times later. Most of this sorry business occurs in the small hours of the night, making it exceedingly difficult for the police to deal with. In case of one wreck, for instance, in which several were injured and a large car was burned, the parties were spirited away before the officers reached the scene of the disaster, to keep their names from the public.

But to return from this little digression — and my reader will have to excuse many such, perhaps, when I get on “motorological” subjects — I was saying that we found little to interest us in the California Venice save odd specimens of humanity — and no doubt we ourselves reciprocated by affording like entertainment to these same odd specimens. After our first trip or two — and the fine boulevards tempted us to a good many — We usually slipped into the narrow “Speed¬ way” connecting the town with Ocean Park and Santa Monica. Why they call it the Speedway I am at a loss to know, for it is barely a dozen feet wide in places and intersected with alleys and streets every few feet, so that the limit of fifteen miles is really dangerously high. The perfect pavement, however, made it the most comfortable route — though there may be better now — and it also takes one through the liveliest part of Ocean Park, another resort very much like Venice and almost continuous with it. These places are full of hotels and lodging-houses, mostly of the less pretentious and inexpensive class, and they are filled during the winter season mainly by Eastern tourists. In the summer the immense bathing beaches attract crowds from the city. The Pacific Electric brings its daily contingent of tourists and the streets are constantly crowded with motors — sometimes hundreds of them. All of which contribute to the animation of the scene in these popular resorts.

In Santa Monica we found quite a different atmos¬ phere; it is a residence town with no “amusement” features and few hotels, depending on its neighbors for these useful adjuncts. It is situated on an eminence overlooking the Pacific and to the north lie the blue ranges of the Santa Monica Mountains, visible from every part of the town. Ocean Drive, a broad boulevard, skirts the edge of the promontory, screened in places by rows of palms, through which flashes the blue expanse of the sea. At its northern extremity the drive drops down a sharp grade to the floor of the canyon, which opens on a wide, sandy beach — one of the cleanest and quietest to be found so near Los Angeles.

This canyon, with its huge sycamores and clear creek brawling over the smooth stones, had long been an ideal resort for picnic parties, but in the course of a single year we found it much changed. The hillside had been terraced and laid out with drives and here and there a summer house had sprung up, fresh with paint or stucco. The floor of the valley was also platted and much of the wild-wood effect already gone. All this was the result of a great “boom” in Santa Monica property, largely the work of real estate promoters. Other additions were being planned to the eastward and all signs pointed to rapid growth of the town. It already has many fine residences and cozy bungalows embowered in flowers and shrubbery, among which roses, geraniums and palms of different varieties predominate.

Leaving the town, we usually followed the high- 20 way leading through the grounds of the National Soldiers’ Home, three or four miles toward the city. This great institution, in a beautiful park with a wealth of semi-tropical flowers and trees, seemed indeed an ideal home for the pathetic, blue-coated veterans who wandered slowly about the winding paths. The high¬ way passes directly through the grounds and one is allowed to run slowly over the network of macadam driveways which wind about the huge buildings. At the time of which I write, there were some thirty-five hundred old soldiers in the Home, few of whom had not reached the age of three score and ten. Their infirmities were evidenced by the slow and even pain¬ ful manner in which many moved about, by the crowded hospitals, and the deaths — which averaged three daily. True, there were some erect, vigorous old fellows who marched along with something of the spirit that must have animated them a half century ago, but they were the rare exceptions. Visitors are welcomed and shown through all the domestic ar¬ rangements of the Home ; the old fellows are glad to act in the capacity of guides, affording them, as it does, some relief from the monotony of their daily routine. So perfect are the climatic conditions and so ideally pleasant the surroundings that it seems a pity that the veterans in all the Homes over the country might not be gathered here. We were told that this plan is already in contemplation, and it is expected, as the ranks of the veterans are decimated, to finally gather the remnant here, closing all other soldiers’ homes. It is to be hoped that the consum¬ mation of the plan may not be too long delayed, for surely the benign skies and the open-air life would lengthen the years of many of the nation’s honored wards.

We passed through the grounds of the Home many times and stopped more than once to see the aviary — a huge, open-air, wire cage filled with birds of all de¬ grees, from tiny African finches half the size of spar¬ rows to gorgeous red, blue, green, and mottled par¬ rots. Many of these were accomplished conversation¬ alists and it speaks well for the old boys of the Home that there was no profanity in the vocabulary of these queer denizens of the tropics. This and other aviaries which we saw impressed upon us the possibilities of this pleasant fad in California, where the birds can live the year round in the open air in the practical freedom of a large cage.

Returning from the Home one may follow Wilshire Boulevard, which enters the most pretentious section of the city, surrounding the beautiful little West Lake Park; or he may turn into Sunset Boule¬ vard and pass through Hollywood. A short distance from the Home is Beverly Hills, with its immense hotel — a new resort town where many Los Angeles citizens have summer residences. A vast deal of work has been done by the promoters of the town ; the well-paved streets are bordered with roses, geraniums, and rows of palm trees, all skillfully arranged by the land¬ scape-gardener. It is a pretty place, though it seemed to us that the sea winds swept it rather fiercely during several of the visits we made. Another unpleasant feature was the groups of oil derricks which dot the surrounding country, though these will doubtless some time disappear with the exhaustion of the fields. The hotel is of a modified mission type, with solid concrete walls and red tile roof, and its surroundings and ap¬ pointments are up to the famous California standard at such resorts.

Hollywood is now continuous with the city, but it has lost none of that tropical beauty that has long made it famous. Embowered in flowers and palms, with an occasional lemon grove, its cozy and in some cases palatial homes never fail to charm the new¬ comer. Once it was known as the home of Paul de Longpre, the flower painter, whose Moorish-looking villa was the goal of the tourist and whose gorgeous creations were a never-failing wonder to the rural art critic. Alas, the once popular artist is dead and his art has been discredited by the wiseacres; he was “photographic” — indeed, they accused him of producing colored photographs as original compositions. But peace be to the painter’s ashes — whether the charge of his detracters be true or not, he delighted thousands with his highly colored representations of the blooms of the Golden State. His home and gardens have undergone extensive changes and im¬ provements and it is still one of the show places of the town.

The Hollywood school buildings are typical of the substantial and handsome structures one sees every¬ where in California; in equipment and advanced methods her schools are not surpassed by any state in the Union.

Sunset Boulevard, skirting the foothills that crowd up to the northern boundary of Los Angeles, was often our homeward route from Hollywood. So rapid is the march of improvement in this section of the city that it would be folly to write of it in a book — all would be obsolete before it could come from the press.

No stretch of road in California — and that is al¬ most saying in all the world — is more tempting to the motorist than the twenty miles between Los Angeles and Long Beach. Broad, nearly level, and almost straight away, with perfect surface and not a depres¬ sion to jolt or jar a swiftly speeding car, Long Beach Boulevard would put even a five-year-old model on its mettle. It is only the knowledge of frequent ar¬ rests and heavy fines that keeps one in reasonable bounds on such an ideal speedway and gives leisure to contemplate the prosperous farming lands on either side. Sugar beets, beans, and small grains are all green and thriving, for most of the fields are irrigated. There is an occasional walnut grove along the way and in places the road is bordered with ranks of tall eucalyptus trees, stately and fragrant. Several fine suburban “estates” adjoin the boulevard and it is doubtless destined to be solidly bordered with such.

Long Beach is the largest of the suburban seaside towns and is more a place of homes than its neigh¬ bor, Venice. Its beach and amusement concomitants are not its chief end of existence; it is a thriving city of pretty — though in the main unpretentious — homes bordering upon broad, well-paved streets, and it has a substantial and handsome business center. You will especially note its churches, some of them im¬ posing stone structures that would do credit to the metropolis. Religious and moral sentiment is strong in Long Beach; it is a “dry” town, having abolished saloons by an overwhelming vote, even refusing to license its big resort hotel, the Virginia, despite the representations that such a policy would drive away considerable patronage. The town is preeminently the haven of a large number of eastern people who come to California for a considerable stay — as cheaply as it can possibly be done — and there are many lodg¬ ing-houses and cottages to supply this demand. And it is surprising how economically and comfortably many of these people pass the winter months in the town and how regularly they return year after year. Many others have become permanent residents and among them you will find the most enthusiastic and uncompromising “boosters” for the town — and Cali¬ fornia. And, indeed, Long Beach is an ideal place for one to retire and take life easily; the climate is even more equable than that of Los Angeles ; frost is almost unknown and the summer heat is tempered by the sea. The church and social activities appeal to many and the seaside amusement features are a good antidote for ennui. There are not a few old fellows who fall into a mild dissipation of some sort at one or the other of the catch-penny affairs along the promenade. I was amused at one of these — a grizzled old veteran, who confessed to being upwards of seventy — who could not resist the fascination of the shooting galleries; and I knew another well over eighty who was a regular bather in the surf all through the winter months.

A little to the east of Long Beach is Naples, another of the seaside towns, which has recently been connected with Long Beach by a fine boulevard. It gives promise of becoming a very pretty place, though at present it does not seem much frequented by tour¬ ists. About equally distant to the westward is San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, and really a part of the city, a narrow strip some two miles wide con¬ necting the village and metropolis. This was done to make Los Angeles an actual seaport and to en¬ courage the improvement of San Pedro Harbor. The harbor is largely artificial, being enclosed by a huge stone breakwater built by the Government. The ocean is cut off by Catalina Island, which shelters San Pedro to some extent from the effects of heavy storms and makes the breakwater practicable. Still, it lacks the natural advantages of San Diego Harbor, for in¬ stance, and the distance — about twenty miles — to the main part of the city makes it doubtful whether it will ever be a port of first magnitude, though much has been prophesied upon the opening of the Panama Canal. A broad boulevard now joins the widely separated parts of the city and a large proportion of the freight traffic goes over this in motor trucks, which, I was told, give cheaper and quicker service than the steam railroad. From San Pedro sail the Catalina and other excursion steamers and also the palatial boats which ply between Los Angeles and San Fran¬ cisco. It is visited by tourists only as a port of arrival or departure, the town itself having nothing to interest or detain one. The boulevard to the north leads directly into Main Street of Los Angeles; it is nearly level and passes through a rather unattractive country.

The new boulevard from San Pedro to Redondo, however, has quite enough of beauty to atone for any lack of it on the way to the harbor town from the city, especially if one is fortunate in the day. In spring¬ time the low rounded hills on either side are covered with verdure — meadows and grain fields — and these are spangled with great dashes of blue flowers, which in some places have almost gained the mastery. The perfect road sweeps along the hillsides in wide curves and easy grades and there is little to hinder one from giving rein to the motor if he so elects. But we pre¬ fer an easy jog, pausing to gather a handful of the violet-blue flowers and to contemplate the glorious panorama which spreads out before us. Beyond a wide plain lie the mountain ranges, softened by a thin blue haze through which snow-capped summits gleam in the low afternoon sun. As we come over the hill just before reaching Redondo, the Pacific breaks into view — deep violet near the shore and shimmering blue out toward the horizon.

We enter the town by the main street, which fol¬ lows the shore high above the sea and is bordered by many pleasant cottages almost hidden in flowers. It is one of the most beautifully situated of the coast towns, occupying a sharply rising hill which slopes down to a fine beach. On the bluff we pass a hand¬ some park — its banks ablaze with amethyst sea moss — and the grounds of Hotel Redondo, elaborately laid out and filled with semi-tropical plants and flowers, favored by the frostless climate. The air is redolent with fragrance, borne to us on the fresh seabreeze and, altogether, our first impressions of Redon¬ do are favorable indeed — nor has further acquaint¬ ance reversed our judgment.

There are the customary resort features, though these are not so numerous or extensive as at Venice. Still, Redondo is not free from the passion for the superlative everywhere prevalent in California, and proudly boasts of the “largest warm salt-water plunge on earth and the biggest dancing pavilion in the state.” There is a good deal of fishing off shore, red deep-sea bass being the principal catch. Moonstones and variegated pebbles are common on the beach and there are shops for polishing and setting these in in¬ expensive styles. If you are not so fortunate as to pick up a stone yourself, you will be eagerly supplied with any quantity by numerous small urchins, for a slight consideration.

Redondo is not without commercial interest, for it is an important lumber port and a supply station for the oil trade. There are car shops and mills of various kinds. Another industry which partakes quite as much of the aesthetic as the practical is evidenced by the acres of sweet peas and carnations which bloom profusely about the town.

In returning from Redondo to the city we went oftenest over the new boulevard by the way of Ingle¬ wood, though we sometimes followed the coast road to Venice, entering by Washington Street. These roads were not as yet improved, though they were good in summer time. Along the coast between Re¬ dondo and Venice one passes Hermosa and Manhat¬ tan Beaches and Playa del Rey, three of the less fre¬ quented resorts. They are evidently building on expectations rather than any great present popularity ; a few seaside cottages perched on the shifting sands are about all there is to be seen and the streets are mere sandy trails whose existence in some cases you would never suspect were it not for the signboards. We stuck closely to the main streets of the towns which, in Man¬ hattan, at least, was pretty hard going. It is a trip that under present conditions we would not care to repeat, but when a good boulevard skirts the ocean for the dozen miles between these points, it will no doubt be one of the popular runs.

I have written chiefly of the better-known coast towns, but there are many retired resorts which are practically deserted except for the summer season. One may often find a pleasant diversion in one of these places on a fine spring day before the rush comes — and if he goes by motor, he can leave at his good pleasure, should he grow weary, in sublime indiffer¬ ence to railroad or stage time-tables. A Los Angeles friend who has a decided penchant for these retired spots proposed that we go to Newport Beach one Saturday afternoon and we gladly accepted his guid¬ ance, having no very clear idea ourselves of the where¬ abouts of Newport Beach.

We followed him out Stevenson Boulevard into Whittier Road, a newly built highway running through a fertile truck-gardening country to the pleas¬ ant village founded by a community of Quakers who named it in honor of their beloved poet. One can not help thinking how Whittier himself would have shrunk from such notoriety, but he would have no reason to be ashamed of his namesake could he see it to-day — a thriving, well-paved town of some six thousand people. It stands in the edge of a famous orange-growing section, which extends along the highway for twenty miles or more and which pro¬ duces some of the finest citrus fruit in California. Lemon and walnut groves are also common and oc¬ casional fig and olive trees may be seen. The bronze-green trees, with their golden globes and sweet blossoms, crowd up to the very edge of the highway for miles — with here and there a comfortable ranch-house.

We asked permission to eat our picnic dinner on the lawn in front of one of these, and the mistress not only gladly accorded the privilege, but brought out rugs for us to sit upon. A huge pepper tree screened the rays of the sun; an irrigating hydrant supplied us with cool crystal water ; and the contents of our lunch-baskets, with hot coffee from our thermos bottles, af¬ forded a banquet that no hotel or restaurant could equal.

Further conversation with the mistress of the ranch developed the fact that she had come from our home state, and we even unearthed mutual acquaintances. We must, of course, inspect the fine grove of seven acres of Valencias loaded with fruit about ready for the market. It was a beautiful grove of large trees in prime condition and no doubt worth five or six thousand dollars per acre. The crop, with the high prices that prevailed at that time, must have equaled from one-third to half the value of the land itself. Such a ranch, on the broad, well-improved highway, certainly attains very nearly the ideal of fruit-farming and makes one forget the other side of the story — and we must confess that there is another side to the story of citrus fruit-farming in California.

The fine road ended abruptly when we entered Orange County, a few miles beyond Whittier, for Orange County had done little as yet to improve her highways, and we ran for some miles on an old oiled road which for genuine discomfort has few equals. One time it was thought that the problem of a cheap and easily built road was solved in California — simply sprinkle the sandy surface with crude oil and let it pack down under traffic. This worked very well for a short time until the surface began to break into holes, which daily grew larger and more numerous until no one could drive a motor car over them without an unmerciful jolting. And such was the road from Fullerton to Santa Ana when we traversed it, but such it will not long remain, for Orange County has voted a million and a quarter to improve her roads and she will get her share of the new state highway sys¬ tem as well. Santa Ana is a quiet town of ten thous¬ and, depending on the fruit-raising and farming country that surrounds it. It is a cozy place, its wide avenues shaded by long rows of peppers and syca¬ mores and its homes embowered by palms and flowers. Almost adjoining it to the northeast is the beautiful village of Orange — rightly named, for it is nearly surrounded by a solid mass of orange and lemon groves. In the center of its business section is a park, gorgeous with palms and flowers. The country about must be somewhat sheltered, for it escaped the freeze of 1913 and was reveling in pros¬ perity with a great orange and lemon crop that year.

Just beyond the mountain range to the east is Orange County Park, which we visited on another occasion. It is a fine example of the civic progress of these California communities in providing pleasure grounds where all classes of people may have inex¬ pensive and delightful country outings. It is a virgin valley, shaded by great oaks and sycamores and watered by a clear little river, the only departure from nature being the winding roads and picnic conveni¬ ences. There are many beautiful camping sites, which are always occupied during the summer. Be¬ yond the park the road runs up Silverado Canyon, following the course of the stream, which we forded many times. It proved rough and stony, but this was atoned for many times over by the sylvan beauty of the scenes through which we passed. The road winds through the trees, which overarch it at times, and often comes out into open glades which afford views of the rugged hills on either hand. We had little difficulty in finding our way, for at frequent intervals we noted signs, “To ModjeskaY Ranch,” for the great Polish actress once had a country home deep in the hills and owned a thousand-acre ranch at the head of Silverado Canyon. Here about thirty years ago she used to

A CALIFORNIA TROUT STREAM <’i-om Original Painting by Thos. Moran come for rest and recreation, but shortly before her death sold the ranch to the present owners, the “Modjeska Country Club.” It is being exploited as a summer resort and is open to the public generally. A private drive leads some three or four miles from the public road to the house, which is sheltered under a clifflike hill and surrounded by a park ornamented with a great variety of trees and shrubs. This was one of Modjeska’s fads and her friends sent her trees and plants from every part of the world, one of the most interesting being a Jerusalem thorn, which ap¬ pears to thrive in its new habitat. The house was designed by Stanford White — an East-Indian bunga¬ low, we were told, but it impresses one as a crotchety and not very comfortable domicile. The actress en¬ tertained many distinguished people at the Forest of Arden, as she styled her home, among them the author of “Quo Vadis,” who, it is said, wrote most of that famous story here. The place is worth vis¬ iting for the beauty of its surroundings as well as its associations. A great many summer cottages are be¬ ing built in the vicinity and in time it will no doubt become a popular resort, and, with a little improve¬ ment in the canyon road, a favorite run for motorists.