Imperial (193 page)

Epigraph: “A map of the real world . . .”—Torre and Wiegers, p. 77 (Alberto Blanco, “Maps,” 1998; trans. Michael Wiegers). The translation gives “the real world,” but I have changed the definite article based on the original Spanish on the facing page.

“Most of present-day Riverside County was within 1850 San Diego County . . .”—Marschner, p. 34.

Areas of the two main pieces of Riverside County (printed in roman within the italics of the Marschner quotation) —After Coy, to whom the reader is advised to refer for detailed delineation of each California county.

Discrepancies in the size of Riverside County in comparison to Massachusetts—Holmes et al., pp. in text.

Footnote: “When I first came to Riverside . . .”—Elliott,
History of San Bernardino and San Diego Counties
, p. 376.

W. E. Elliott’s map of California in 1883—Elliott,
History of Tulare County
, frontispiece.

A philosopher: “A space is something that has been made room for . . .”—Heidegger, p. 154 (“Building Dwelling Thinking”).

Riverside County Directory’s remarks—Bynon and Son, rear endpaper, pp. 85 [81], 115 [111], 19 [335], 3-81 [151-230], 180 [336]. (Page numbers in brackets are the rationalized additions of the modern editor.)

A county history: “Though large parts of this may certainly be reclaimed by the waters of the Colorado . . .” —Elliott,
History of San Bernardino and San Diego Counties
, p. 153.

34 . The Direct Gaze of the Confident Man (1900)

Epigraph: “We have only one standard in the West, Mr. Holmes . . .”—Wright, p. 93.

Photograph of W. F. Holt by the railroad track—ICHSPM photograph, cat. P92.59.

35. Advertisement of Sale (2002)

Epigraph—
Imperial Valley Press and Farmer
, vol. II, no. 44 (Imperial, California, Saturday, February 14, 1903), p. 2 (“The Imperial Boom”).

Excerpts from the advertisement of sale—
Calexico Chronicle
, Thursday, September 26, 2002, p. 11.

36. Imperial Towns (1877 -1910)

Epigraph: “He saw the country already dotted . . .”—Wright, p. 145.

“During our passage across it, we saw not a single bird . . .”—Pattie, p. 207. Fray Font’s description of the area (p. 117, 8 May 1776) is not much more appetizing.

Commencement of grazing in southwestern Imperial Valley (“early nineties”)—Hunt, p. 454.

Appearance of towns decade by decade on the map of Imperial—Based on the maps in Berlo, “Population History Maps,” with other dates given in Tout, Laflin, and Holmes et al.

Ogilvy’s 21 residents—San Diego City and County Directory (1901), p. 326.

Westmorland as “one of the state’s top cotton-producing areas”—ICHSPM, document cat. #A2002.154.2, Ball Advertising, pamphlet: “Visitors’ Recreation Guide Book to Imperial County California: 36 Pages of Information” (
ca.
1964), p. 16.

An old lady in 1956: “The rattler was the most dreaded thing . . .”—ICHSPM, document cat. #A2000.23.1 Letter from Estelle Dalla, 11/8/56, to “My dear Betty.” 1 sheet, verso side.

The sour mid-twentieth-century author: “A halfway Utopia of civilized development” and “Blacksmiths’ shops were community centers for men . . .”—Lilliard, pp. 49, 52.

Description of Cameron Lake, 1896—ICHSPM photograph, cat. #P9
I.
57I.

Chinese railroad workers in 1887—The Great Basin Foundation Center for Anthropological Research, vol. 1, p. 39.

Workers around Indian Wells—The Great Basin Foundation Center for Anthropological Research, vol. 1, “Chronology” sec., entry for 1877.

Date of first homestead in Indio—Lech, p. 293.

Renting an adobe house from the Indians of Palm Springs—Elliott,
History of San Bernardino and San Diego Counties
, pp. 73-74.

Date of first artesian well in Mecca—Laflin,
Coachella Valley
, p. 38. This first artesian well in the Coachella Valley may actually have been in Indio. Cf. Senate Committee on the Colorado River Basin (1925), p. 53 (statement of Dr. Jennings, member of the Board of Directors of the Coachella Valley Water District).

Footnote: Sales information on Palm Springs—Lech, pp. 280-81.

Various founding dates of Tecate—Niemann, p. 68.

Mexicali once a village of Cocopah Indians—Ruiz, p. 40.

Holdings of Andrade in 1888—DeBuys and Myers, p. 142.

Information on Colonia Lerdo—Kerig, p. 54.

Information on Tijuana
ca.
1890—
An Illustrated History of Southern California
, p. 40.

Tijuana as “the El Paso of California” whose hot springs are as good as those of Arkansas—Dumke, pp. 154-55.

1901 residential listings for “Tia Juana”—San Diego City and County Directory (1901), p. 333.

The book from 1887: “On the southeast, at Tia Juna . . .”—Gunn, p. 38.

Letter to Collector Wadham: “I advise that you carefully search every person that crosses the line . . .”—N.A.R.A.L. Record Group 36. Records of the U.S. Customs Service. Tijuana Customs Office. Letters Received from San Diego and Los Angeles (l-62). February 6, 1894-July 29, 1922. Box 1 of 1. Folder: “Letters Rec’d from Collector—San Diego 1894-1896.”

37. The Boomers (1880 -1912)

Epigraph: “They sold hundred-dollar property . . .”—Dumke, p. 221.

Mrs. John Kavanaugh: “He stood staunch as Mount Signal” and “He founded Holtville and El Centro . . .” —Harris, p. 25.

A few of Holt’s real estate transactions—California State Archives. Microfilmed Imperial County records, 1851- 1919. Roll #1433101. Index to Grantors, 1851-1907; Index to Grantees, 1851-1907. References to transactions in the following order: Book 11, p. 308; Book 3, p. 145; Book 19, p. 119; Book 4, p. 211; Book 18, p. 398; Book 4, p. 301; Book 19, p. 117; Book 19, p. 118; Book 18, p. 252; Book 3, p. 145; Book 5, p. 3; Book 7, p. 179; Book 2, p. 133; Book 18, p. 326; Book 23, p. 28. (On November 20, 1905, Charles T. Collier is the grantor; the Holton Inter-Urban Railway Co. is the grantee. On May 3, 1906, S. A. and Emma G. Adams are the grantors; W. F. Holt is the grantee.)

Holt’s reputed 18,000 acres—DeBuys and Myers, p. 82.

Imperial Valley as “Holt country”—E Clampus Vitus website (narrative by Milford Wayne Donaldson).

“One of Mr. Holt’s first moves . . .” and details of Canal No. 7 and the Holton Power Co.—Groff article, p. 527.

Letter from Holt re: water stock—ICHSPM document, cat. #A2003.46.2.

Mr. Holt’s “firsts” and his financing of the Barbara Worth Hotel—ICHSPM document, cat. #A85.118.1, “Information on Mr. Holt prepared by Mrs. John Kavanaugh for use of Mr. Howard Rose of Pacific Telephone Company in dedication of plaque in El Centro Building April 20, 1955,” pp. I-II.

Holt’s accomplishments, 1905-06, and his purchase of the
Imperial Valley Press and Farmer
(1902)—
American Biography and Genealogy
, p. 82.

“ ‘The Little Giant’ is a modern Moses . . .”—Groff article, pp. 527-28.

The Holts’ Redlands home, and the Redlands capitalists—Groff article, p. 528.

“The fog of this particular kind of war . . .”—DeBuys and Myers, p. 208.

Holt and Wright, 1907 and after—Wright, p. 369 (Appendix I).

“A look of quiet power . . .”—ICHSPM document, cat. #A85.89.1,
Redlands Federal Standard
, 1-11-11—12-19-17, p. 531 (Frances A. Groff, “Western Personalities: The Emperor of Imperial Valley”).

“He works too hard . . .”—Howe and Hall, p. 118

On the subject of Progress—On June 1, 1850, Alpheus B. Thompson, now of Santa Barbara, writes to his mother, Mrs. Lydia Thompson, who dwells back east in Topsham, Maine: “Lands, Buildings and house lots have gone up since the great rush of Emigrants to this territory to enormous prices. I sold a dwelling House for the Cattle alluded to (in Barter) 15,000 [dollars] which cost me eight thousand dollars when built; therefore you can see the difference caused by the discovery of Gold . . .” (D. Mackenzie Brown, pp. 52-53 [Alpheus B. Thompson, Santa Barbara, to his mother, Mrs. Lydia Thompson, Topsham, Maine, June 1, 1850.]) Progress assures me that when one kind of gold runs out, there will be another—land, citrus culture, housing subdivisions, big-box warehouses, you name it! And, as you’ll surely see, each change will be for the best.

Why did Holt’s enterprise flow down into Southside, and not the reverse? I am not the first to note that “Iberian Catholicism’s fatalism and its insistence that life on earth was a time of tribulation” (Pike, p. 79) hardly mobilized Mexico’s Ministry of Capital to undertake the conquest of Arid America! In American Imperial, God will reward us for our Protestant works of natural improvement. In Mexican Imperial, He will find nothing to reward them for. Accordingly, Mexican Imperial lacks boomers. Her new settlements come to life as Los Angeles did, not with a land rush but with an official expedition of salaried or subsidized colonists escorted by soldiers. A Mexican historian concludes that Southsiders “confined their settlement to regions that seemed to be naturally destined by Providence for man’s benefit” (Edmundo O’Gorman; quoted in Pike, p. 114). As for the other regions, such as the Mexicali Valley, Anglo-American capitalists have already begun to study them. They know that Porfirio Díaz is a good man to do business with. He’ll give them something for virtually nothing, in hopes of future revenues. The rival systems may be more akin than they appear; for Northside’s most successful boomers find their own friends in officialdom. The heroic American cowboy who “civilizes” the desert surely benefits a trifle from the government’s more than generous leases of public rangeland; and Imperial County’s All-American Canal will in due course be built by the taxpayers. This proposition is contested by my friends in Imperial County. But between 1935 and 1970 the Bureau of Reclamation advanced $64 million on its projects and collected $11 million (Bureau of Reclamation [1970], part i, p. 27). In 2006 I asked the Imperial County native Kay Brockman Bishop her opinion on the 160-acre limitation, and she replied: “My Dad went over and testified against it. They proved that we didn’t fall under it because we were not subsidized by the federal government. The All-American was completely paid for by other sources” (interview of December 2006).—Meanwhile here is Paul S. Taylor’s opinion (1979): “In 1928 the good people of Imperial County asked Congress to subsidize and build their projects. Congress complied. Now that the courts are holding that “the 160-acre limitation” must be complied with, they are asking Congress to . . . rescind the conditions on which they received the subsidies.” (UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Carton 4. Folder 4:29 “Imperial Valley, Notes, Drafts.” Unnumbered small white sheet, clipped to yellow sheets, dated 1979.) All the same, Southside’s hierarchy presses on in obedience to some more or less misinformed project of central authority; whereas Northside’s tax giveaways, however much they might be believed in by her Roosevelts and other decisive captains, appear in considerable proximity to this or that boomer’s schemes of personal enrichment.—“Iberian Catholicism’s fatalism and its insistence that life on earth was a time of tribulation . . .”—Pike, p. 79.—Southsiders “confined their settlement to regions that seemed to be naturally destined by Providence for man’s benefit.”—Edmundo O’Gorman; quoted in Pike, p. 114.

“In line with his genius for development and expansion . . .”—
American Biography and Genealogy
, pp. 82-83.

The tale of Widtsoe—
Salt Lake Tribune
, 25 August 2002, p. B2 (Will Bagley, “Utah’s Many Ghost Towns a Testimony to Broken Dreams and Faded Glory”).

Description of Mr. Morrison in Redlands—G. Harold Powell, p. 46 (letter of 21 February 1904, to Gertrude Powell). Redlands sprang into being in longing emulation of Riverside; so did Corona. By 1883, the population of that valley was 3,000. At the 1885 World’s Fair at New Orleans, Riverside won out against Florida for best oranges in the world, best oranges in America, and best lemons in the world! By the 1890s, 6,000 carloads of oranges a year rolled out from Riverside’s eponymous city. Now, things like that don’t just happen; it takes the direct gaze of a confident man! By the time Imperial County was born, things really boomed in Riverside; there was an increase in assessed valuation of more than 30% in 1911-12 alone . . .—
American Biography and Genealogy
, pp. 63, 69, 72; information in the Imperial Valley Directory (1912), p. iii (“Our County”). Next comes a most inspirational Imperial Valley success story: Seeley, whose “remarkable growth from not even under cultivation to the rank of a third-class post office seems to have been largely due to the foresight of Mr. Ferguson”—Allen R. Ferguson, that is—“a splendid example of the men of courage and enterprising spirit, who divided his holdings into town lots and laid off streets and sold most of the lots in the townsite.” Good boy, he started with 160 acres! “Mr. Ferguson has financial interests,” the biographer crows, “and maintains a fine summer home in Burbank, California.” This tribute was published in 1918, a dozen years after the Salton Sea accident washed much of Seeley away. I suppose that wasn’t Mr. Ferguson’s problem.—Farr, p. 361.

Biography of L. M. Holt—Call him mover and shaker of the Chicago Citrus Fair in 1886, for there and then he persuaded the Inter-Ocean Cold Storage Co. to make iced freight cars available for Riverside citrus! Born in Ann Arbor in 1840, Superindentendent of Schools in Vinton, Iowa, during the Civil War, he had by 1873 moved to Los Angeles, where all boomers must go, and fell into a convenient secretaryship of the Los Angeles Immigration and Co-operative Association. He helped the Association found Artesia in 1875, Pomona in 1877. In January 1880 he arrived in Riverside and began to exert a more direct effect upon the entity that I call Imperial.—The Great Basin Foundation Center for Anthropological Research, vol. 1, p. 3 (Harry W. Lawton, University of California, Riverside: “Riverside’s First Chinatown and the Boom of the Eighties”), fn.; Patterson, p. 98.; 1902 photograph in Patterson, p. 87.