“Bootleggers Shoot It Out”
by Pablo Capra
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| A basking shark caught by Topanga Beach fishermen, 1929. Photo c/o Los Angeles Times. |
The raid on William Edward Harris and H. D. Smith’s speakeasy in 1925 did not break up the bootlegging ring, as was claimed, because one year later “higher-ups” John W. Yeuk (1874-1946) and his wife Elizabeth (1876-1943) were arrested for selling whiskey.
Yeuk, who went by York, had been living at Topanga Beach since at least 1923, when he was arrested for “disturbing the peace” in Santa Monica. He was also arrested at the speakeasy raid, but apparently not recognized then as the kingpin.
In 1932, a fire burned two cabins he owned on Topanga Canyon Lane. It started in the cabin that York rented to L. W. Medina when wind blew embers from the fireplace into the drapes. Even though it was pouring rain, the cabin burned to the ground. The fire went on to damage the homes of York and film electrician Thomas P. “Teddy” Santee (1905-1963), who’d been arrested at the speakeasy raid, and to burn part of the hillside. Assistant Fire Warden Thomas Cheney (1889-1959), the older son of Topanga pioneer Columbus Cheney, suffered an eye injury when he slipped on a roof and fell face first into the stream of a high-pressure hose.
A less significant arrest was made of two men passing out “moonshine” at The Yellow Cab Company’s beach picnic in May 1927. The cabbies’ two-day party is worth mentioning anyway because of its parade of decorated taxis and its swimsuit contest for the girls in the office.
However, things turned violent in February 1928 when three “rum-runners” were surprised unloading liquor from a speedboat early in the morning. Officers sprang from a hiding place in the rocks to arrest them, but quickly dove back behind the rocks to escape “a hail of bullets.” A. B. Clift, 37, and Allen C. Smith, 29, were captured, but the third man escaped in the speedboat.
Around this time, Topanga Beach gas station owner Clayton Rust (1886-1974) and Greek fisherman John Fonducas benefited from a foiled bootlegging plot when they discovered three barrels of whiskey floating offshore after a storm. The Topanga Lane neighbors brought the barrels home to enjoy in secret.
In January 1929, two other Greek fishermen, Christ Yianulis and Mike Leonis (b.1892), made an unexpected discovery two miles offshore when they found a 20-foot basking shark in their net. With the help of Captain Spear, they fought with the shark for four hours, almost swamping their boat before making it back to Topanga Beach. Hundreds of drivers stopped to look at the nearly 3,000-lb. shark in amazement.
In June 1929, a new Justice of the Peace, John L. Webster (1875-1962), was determined to rid Malibu of its reputation as a hideout for bootleggers. He was particularly upset by a recent raid on Topanga Lane, where residents had been kept up by “the offensive carousal of a liquor party.” Three men had been arrested, and brought before him at “the ghostly hour” of 2:30 a.m., which reportedly sent Webster “over the top in a war against peace disturbers who make the nights hideous with hilarious liquor parties.”
Other criminal activity included a “Possum Bandit” who played dead in the road to get drivers to stop. In 1926, in the Pomona area, the Possum Bandit managed to scare all his victims away by jumping up too quickly to rob them. In 1927, he tried again at Topanga Beach, but the people he intended to stop were spooked because of the late hour, and drove around him instead. They reported the sighting at the nearest telephone, but the Possum Bandit was gone when deputy sheriffs arrived.
In 1929, the Possum Bandit (or a copycat) did finally rob someone in Los Angeles. This time he teamed up with a gunman, who hid behind a telephone pole, and they made off with the driver’s car and wallet.
A crime with a twist happened on February 5, 1928.
Courtney Worthington, 20, and Margaret McDonald, 17, went for a drive up the coast with double-daters Rupert Duncan and Loretta Burger, both 17. They were forced to stop at the Topanga intersection after something popped two of their tires. While the boys made the repairs, the girls went for a walk on the beach.
The girls never returned, and after searching for two hours, the boys reported them missing. Speculations ran wild. Had they drowned? Had they been kidnapped? Had they run away, even though their parents could think of no reason why they would?
Search parties were sent into the hills and along the beaches. People began calling in with tips. A passing driver said that he’d seen the girls being stopped on their way to the beach by a man in a “large roadster.” A taxi driver said that he’d driven the girls and two men from a Silver Lake apartment to a street corner in Glassell Park, where the girls lived.
The strangest part was when Police Lieutenant William L. Fore and one of his officers accepted the help of mystic Sidney R. Deacon (1860-1952) and his “mysterious wand for finding lost persons.” Deacon’s invention was “composed of 10 or 15 tiny tubes of different lengths,” and supposedly could locate hidden minerals and oil as well. Millionaire Joseph Hemmel came along for support, assuring Fore that Deacon had once found his wife all the way in San Diego during a test of the wand’s powers.
To make the wand work, Deacon had to wear the shoe of one of the lost girls on his left foot. Fore swore that when Deacon put the shoe on, the wand “quivered and strained in the inventor’s hands as on a leash.” After three hours of wandering around the beach, the group ended up at the nearly finished mansion that Austrian businessman Leon Kauffman (1873-1935) was building for his wife Clemence (1886-1932) to fulfill her dream of having a castle by the sea. Today, the Villa Leon, above the entrance to the Getty Villa, is a coastal landmark.
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| Villa de Leon, the castle of Leon and Clemence Kauffman, 2018. Painting by Hashi Clark, IG: @_markmaker. |
On February 8th, the missing girls were found safe in San Pedro. When Fore called Deacon to tell him how far off he’d been, Deacon pondered for a moment, then suddenly remembered that his belt buckle was made of the same ornamental metal as was on the Kauffmans’ fancy stove. He took off his belt and assured Fore that his wand was now pointing to San Pedro (but he didn’t say if he was still wearing the girl’s shoe). Deacon begged Fore to let him prove his invention in the next missing person case, but Fore never called him again.
Police found the girls in a room at the Maryland Hotel with three men, one of whom had secretly tipped off Burger’s father about her location. Moving between hotels under fake names in Los Angeles, Bell, Watts, and now San Pedro, the girls confessed, with more giggles than tears, to having run away.
[Courtney and Rupert] took too long to change the tires, so we walked to the beach. A couple of nice boys gave us a “lift” to Ocean Park. We went to a dance hall, and then home on a street car. There were lights in the house, and we were afraid to go in…. We got a kick out of seeing the kidnaping story in the papers.
—“Two Kidnaped Girls Found in San Pedro” San Pedro Daily News, 1928-02-09
Another irresponsible youth who caused a scare was Charles Hudson, 20, a high school student body president, despite his college age. Coincidentally, he lived blocks away from the runaway girls in Glassell Park.
On May 5, 1928, Hudson’s fraternity threw a full-moon party at Topanga Beach. A warm breeze blew, the ocean was calm, and the night was bright enough to see Catalina Island. Anchored just offshore, a white canoe glowed in the moonlight. Hudson felt a rush of adventure, and imagined that he could sail it to the island on a night like this. His classmates laughed, turning his reverie into a dare. Impulsively, Hudson retrieved the canoe, propped up a sheet of tin that he found on the floor, and sailed off.
The next day, after no word had come from Catalina or elsewhere, Hudson’s classmates reported him missing. Fortunately, he was soon found safe on Point Dume. He described the ordeal that landed him there, after 13 hours in the water.
I left the beach… about 11:30 o’clock Saturday night…. I got about 15 miles out and clouds hid the moon; then a heavy fog descended, the compasses went haywire, and all I could do was paddle….
—“Youth Lands in Canoe at Point Dume, Will Try Catalina Again,” Santa Monica Evening Outlook, 1928-05-08
Grateful to be alive, Hudson ached all over, and spent the next day in bed. “But I am not discouraged,” he assured. “I am going to try again when I am 21.”
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| Frank Hudson with son Charles, c/o Los Angeles Evening Express, 1928-05-07 |
Another newspaper quotes Hudson saying that he’d been planning the trip for six months, but how well-thought out could it have been if he left with someone else’s canoe in the middle of the night?
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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.
