My 50 Years in Palms

My 50 Years in Palms
by David I. Worsfold

This is the third in a series on the history of Palms written by Mr. Worsfold, a recognized historian and civic leader who celebrated his 50th year in Palms on October 8, 1964.

On May 22, 1915, Los Angeles voted the approval of the annexation of Palms. Los Angeles had gained 200 per cent in population from 1900 to 1910, then increased from 319,000 in 1910 to a half million in 1915, so the annexation of Palms helped.

In May Dad helped tear down the old Palms School. He found two pigeon squabs in the belfry and brought them home. We raised the pigeons for many years.

Dick and I, with other kids from the neighborhood, played cow pasture baseball on the vacant lots in the block. We roamed the valley, the Baldwin Hills, and the Palms Hills (now called Cheviot Hills), the other Gill ranch, which is now Westwood, Holmby Hills, U.C.L.A., Westwood Village and Century City. This was really the Wolfskill Ranch; the Gills were tenant farmers. Most of the ranch was purchased in 1919 by Arthur Letts, founder of the Broadway Department Store. The Gills dry farmed lima beans and barley until 1922, when the subdivision started. When bean threshing time came we often went to the various farms where Gills threshed for other ranches so I got acquainted with most of the valley. We covered area by much walking, some riding on horses and mules, and in Gills' Stoddard-Dayton auto. We knew the irrigation ditches, the walnut groves, the grape vineyards, the watermelon patches and anything else we found interesting. Sometimes we picked walnuts for a few cents, and after the thresher moved to a new location we picked up many pounds of beans.

I found a gopher snake that had been run over by a streetcar and so I dragged it home. All the curious cats approached the snake and I whipped that snake at them, but then came along the Messick toddler and I whipped the snake just toward him. My father saw the action and I was whipped. This the only spanking I can remember in my life.

We had fun sailing boats in the gutter during a heavy rain. We built coasters and coasted down the steep unpaved Lowe's Hill - now Overland Avenue. And when we overturned we were buried with fine dust. I learned how to swim in Ballona Creek back in early 1915. Our favorite swimming pool was at the end of Jackson Avenue. The area between P. E. Del Rey Line and the creek was part of Palms long before Harry Culver started his subdivision. On hot days, after crossing the railroad, we would take off our clothes and run naked to the creek. Last one in was a dirty name.

About at the end of Irving Place there was a ford crossing of the creek, and downstream from the ford to Jackson Avenue the creek was wide and deep, plainly showing that it was once the channel of the Los Angeles River. Near to Jackson Avenue was the flume where some water was diverted into the irrigation ditch. That ditch once went west to about Lincoln Boulevard, and the street south of Venice High still bears the name Zanja Street because it followed the zanja. To the Spanish and Mexicans the zanja was very important, as water was the life of the ranches.

The creek was always sparkling clear, except after a storm. It was a charming setting with sycamores, many willows, cat tails and rushes, some shallow pools with sandy bottoms, some deep pools with mud bottoms and mud turtles. It is a shame that some of that natural beauty was not preserved.

Along the creek on Chris Machado's property was a big pear tree and several fig trees that supplied fruit for the kids. Wise Chris knew that it was to give the kids some corn an watermelons than to shoot them and get into trouble, as did of the Lowe family, who paid dearly for shooting one boy.

The city changed 5th street to Vinton Avenue and nearly all the other names. In 1916, the big thing was tearing up the oil roads and construction of sidewalks, curbs, paving and electroliers. Palms changed from an old fashioned rural farm town to a modern community with much better streets than the new Culver development.

Part 4