Urban Lowlands by Steven T. Moga

Author:Steven T. Moga [Moga, Steven T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS000000 History / General
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2020-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 5.3. The Southern Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads took control of the west side of the Los Angeles River, while the Terminal (later Salt Lake and Los Angeles) Railway ran along the east side. Railroad company officials, city leaders, and engineers oversaw the straightening of the river’s path, levee building, and the construction and replacement of river bridges and viaducts between 1880 and 1940 (compare to figure 5.2). Map by Julie Kim.

Prominent Los Angeles families had lived on the Eastside for decades. Among these families was the Missouri-born businessman and politician William H. Workman, who would later become mayor of Los Angeles. Workman developed real estate in Boyle Heights and the Flats, overseeing the transition from primarily agricultural uses to industrial and residential ones.36 His own family history reflects this change. His uncle, also named William Workman, owned Rancho la Puente. Moving to Los Angeles with his family at age fifteen, Workman’s father and one of his brothers died soon thereafter. Aided by his uncle, he partnered with his other brother to operate a saddlery business. In 1867, he married Maria Elizabeth Boyle and when his father-in-law, Andrew Boyle, died in 1871, he inherited the Boyle family’s land, including vineyards and orchards on the east side of the river and a house on the bluffs.37 Workman subdivided the land, procured the water supply, and named Boyle Heights in honor of his wife and his deceased father-in-law in 1876.

Workman became one of the most influential figures in the city.38 His father-in-law had served as a city councilor, and Workman followed him into local politics, serving several terms on the council beginning in 1872. Over his long political career, Workman held the offices of city councilor, city treasurer, park commissioner, member of the board of education, and mayor. According to historian Rockwell D. Hunt, Workman was, in addition to his influence as an elected official and a land developer, “directly instrumental in securing or aiding the construction of every steam railroad which entered Los Angeles.”39

From the old adobes and new Victorian homes on the river bluffs, Workman would have looked out over the river’s floodplain toward downtown and Bunker Hill. After 1889, new bridges and transit services encouraged hundreds more residents to move to Boyle Heights, purchasing cottages and bungalows in the neighborhood. Below the bluffs, dozens of new homes went up in the Flats.

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