“They Tramped to Topango”
by Pablo Capra
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| Topanga pioneers celebrate the opening of the canyon road in 1898. Ben Failor checks on the horses. Columbus Cheney embraces wife Lucy. Lucy Greenleaf embraces husband Charles. Mary Failor and Tillie Manners are behind them. Mrs. Edwin Erdman sits next to Mort Allen. Eddie Erdman, 3, is behind them. Photo: Edwin Erdman / Topanga Historical Society. |
In 1889, a French fisherman named Pierre Aubriere (1835-1909) was living at Topanga Beach, according to a report that his cabin was robbed. Several days later, the robber was arrested in the hills wearing Aubriere’s clothes and watch. Aubriere had come to Topanga Beach via San Francisco, perhaps as early as 1883, when a San Francisco Examiner ad for unclaimed mail listed his name.
Aubriere’s legacy may have been to interest future landlords the Los Angeles Athletic Club in Topanga Beach. In 1894, nine members of the Club’s “Trampers’ Annex” hiked to Topanga from the new Mile Long Pier near Temescal Canyon. There they met and were entertained by Aubriere, whom they described as an “old Portuguese fisherman,” perhaps another side of his ethnicity. The Trampers returned for a second visit in 1895. Is it possible that some of these young men, nostalgic for their Topanga visits with Aubriere, inspired the LAAC to buy the land 30 years later?
Aubriere would have seen Frederick Rindge (1857-1905) directing the construction of the first road up the coast after Rindge bought the Malibu Ranch in 1897.
He also would have seen the LA County chain gang at work on the first Topanga road, and greeted the Topanga pioneers, who came down it in 1898. Unlike today, this road had an exit on what later became Topanga Canyon Lane, so the wagons would have ended up nearly at Aubriere’s doorstep. Lucy Cheney (1868-1952) was given the honor of driving the first wagon because of her persistence in making County officials recognize the need for a road. She and her husband Columbus (1851-1937) were among the first families to settle in Topanga. To celebrate, an open-pit barbecue was prepared at the lagoon by Brigadore Valdez, who had built the first house in Topanga.
However, both of these new roads were considered treacherous, and longer routes to Los Angeles were still relied on.
In 1907, a search for bandits led police to Topanga Beach, where they encountered a “halfbreed, who spoke a polyglot mixture and confessed to a name which sounded like a printer’s pi,” or Latin placeholder text. This deplorable description could only refer to Aubriere.
The detectives could not determine clearly whether it was yesterday morning or a week ago yesterday that the man had seen something, but his enthusiasm made up for the lack of small details and his testimony was encouraging.
—“Follow Clews to Vanishing Point,” Los Angeles Herald, 1907-02-14
Topanga Beach fishermen subsisted by ocean fishing. The earliest account I could find of creek fishing, from 1903, said that “some excellent catches have been reported already from the Topanga.” However, the creek was restocked by the State Fish and Game Commission in 1909 and 1922, making it likely that they’d first stocked it around 1900. This is significant, considering that one reason for evicting the Lower Topanga neighborhood in 2006 was to restore the “natural habitat” of the steelhead trout.
In 1910, car salesman E. Roger Stearns made a publicity stunt out of fishing from the seat of his red Velie, and in 1913, J. Smeaton Chase (1864-1923) wrote in his book California Coast Trails that “The stream contained some fair-sized trout,” but by 1918 the fish were gone.
If the Topango brook ever held a trout it must have been in the days when the red man roamed the hills.
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| E. Roger Stearns and his wife fishing in a Velie touring car, 1910, Los Angeles Times |
In 1921, fisherman Alexander MacKenzie proved that fish could still be found by hiking deep into the Canyon. He also noted, “Water snakes abounded, every pool containing two or three.”
The two-striped garter snake continues to make its home in the creek. It is a natural enemy of trout, as Topanga bus driver Raymond James observed in 1916.
This morning as James was driving his car down the mountain boulevard he noticed a great commotion in the stream at his left. Soon he saw a trout leap out of the water and in its jaws was a large-sized water-snake. The snake had wrapped itself around the trout and was doing its best to impede its movements.
—“Battle Royal Between Fish and Reptile” Santa Monica Bay Outlook, 1916-07-14
In 1902, the US Board on Geographic Names settled on the name Topanga… “Not Tobanao, Tobanca, nor Topango.” Confusingly, “Topango” was still preferred for decades, and Topanga Beach was considered to be part of Santa Monica because it belonged to the old Rancho.
Before 1911, there was rarely more than one cabin at Topanga Beach, yet many sightseers were drawn to the end of the public road, and to the 30-foot Arch Rock that spanned it at the present-day site of Mastro’s Ocean Club. Countless photos were taken in front of this popular proto-Instagram backdrop.
Native and Latin American histories said that Arch Rock had once been much bigger, and recalled the roar of the ocean as it rushed through at high tide.
Frederick Rindge perceived Arch Rock as the natural gateway to his Malibu Ranch, even though the actual gate was at Las Flores Canyon.
This rock was the especial favorite of the late F. H. Rindge, who, when letting the contract for the grading of the road up the beach, inserted a special clause in the memorandum of agreement with the contractor that Arch Rock was to be neither defaced nor disturbed in any particular.
—“Arch Rock Mystery,” Los Angeles Daily Times, 1906-03-26
One plan to protect Arch Rock from a proposed railroad was to build a tunnel under what is now Sunset Mesa.
Rindge’s connection to Arch Rock strangely continued in death. Both grew weaker in the winter of 1905, and both collapsed within half a year of each other. Rindge fell into a diabetic coma and never recovered. Arch Rock fell in a storm.
The heavy rainfall of last night proved too much for picturesque Arch Rock…. Little by little it has been crumbling and melting away. The storms of last winter weakened the arch and when the road graders removed the crumbling portions it was seen that it could not endure much longer.
—“Pretty Arch Rock Is No More,” The Daily Outlook, 1906-03-24
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| Site of Arch Rock just after it fell, 1906, Santa Monica Public Library Image Archives |
Before cars, the favorite mode of transportation to Topanga Beach was a hayride. The Arcadia Hotel in Santa Monica regularly toured guests there. Leo Carrillo (1880-1961), later a famous actor, enjoyed picnics and deer hunting there.
On June 27, 1906, over 150 Methodists held their annual picnic at Tuna Canyon. Their caravan included five large wagons draped in bunting for the young people with G. W. Schutte’s Boys’ Brass Band playing in the first wagon. On the way home, the girls stopped to play baseball at the mouth of Topanga.
Another noteworthy excursion happened in September 1910, when a wagon-full of chaperoned teenagers camped for a week at Topanga Beach.
There were a couple of kodaks in the party, and some interesting pictures were taken of the interesting places around the camp and of the different members of the party.
—“In Social Circles,” The Daily Outlook, 1910-09-19
The accidental repetition of “interesting” is fitting since this was the summer of the Stanford field trip, W. W. Coolbaugh’s homestead, and the Native American burial mound. If only we had those pictures!
The last large gathering of this period was on July 16, 1911, when 75 guests attended “an old-fashioned Rhode Island clam bake” for employees of Levy’s Cafe, the humble name of Los Angeles’s biggest restaurant. Located downtown, it could seat 1% of the city’s population, and had its own house orchestra. Owner Al Levy (1860-1941) hosted the beach party, with assistance from manager B. W. Singer, cashier “Fat” Henry, and head waiters Arthur Godfrey and Will Canon. After lunch, the “Levy negro minstrels” entertained with song and dance. Levy was an enthusiastic member of the Elks, and likely attended their rodeo at Topanga Beach in 1923.
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This is an excerpt from the book Topanga Beach: A History, 1820s-1920s. Author Pablo Capra is a former Lower Topanga resident, and continues to preserve the history of that neighborhood on his website, www.brasstackspress.com, and as a board member of the Topanga Historical Society, www.topangahistoricalsociety.org.
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