Book Report: The Holy Land
Book: Holy Land by D.J. Waldie
In 1897, William A. Clark of Montana bought 8,139 acres of farmland (near Los Angeles, California) from the Bixby family. Clark was one of the 10 richest men in America. He had been an architect of Montana statehood, he owned a silver mine there, and he eventually “bought” the Montana state legislature and became a U.S. senator. Clark also owned the nation’s richest copper mines in Arizona (when he died in 1925 he left an estate worth $200 million dollars).
The Brixby family sold Clark a small corner of a remnant of the land given to Manuel Nieto in 1784 for his service as a soldier of Spain in California. In 1784, then governor of California, who had received the right of possession from the king Spain, gave Nieto all the land between the San Gabriel and the Santa Ana rivers and from the Pacific Ocean to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The grant was a pointless grandeur since it was four or five hundred square miles.
Clark began buying farmland in Southern California (near Long Beach, California, and what is now the city of Lakewood, California ) because of the money that was to be made in sugar beets. The government had instated a protective tariff that encouraged domestic production. However, that venture came to an end after a wireworm infestation eventually ruined the crop, the government lowered the tariff, and foreign supplies drove the price of sugar down.
In 1904, Clark organized his Southern California holdings as the Montana Land Company with his brother, J. Ross Clark. Later, they made Clark Bonner, J. Ross Clark’s nephew, president of the company.
In 1926, after the sugar beets business was no longer fruitful, Clark Bonner closed their sugar mill and leased the company’s former beet fields to tenant farmers who grew acres of lima beans, alfalfa and carrots. A few years later, in 1929, Bonner began subdividing the company’s farmland. In 1920, Long Beach had flourished because of an oil boom,
In 1897, William A. Clark of Montana bought 8,139 acres of farmland (near Los Angeles, California) from the Bixby family. Clark was one of the 10 richest men in America. He had been an architect of Montana statehood, he owned a silver mine there, and he eventually “bought” the Montana state legislature and became a U.S. senator. Clark also owned the nation’s richest copper mines in Arizona (when he died in 1925 he left an estate worth $200 million dollars).
The Brixby family sold Clark a small corner of a remnant of the land given to Manuel Nieto in 1784 for his service as a soldier of Spain in California. In 1784, then governor of California, who had received the right of possession from the king Spain, gave Nieto all the land between the San Gabriel and the Santa Ana rivers and from the Pacific Ocean to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The grant was a pointless grandeur since it was four or five hundred square miles.
Clark began buying farmland in Southern California (near Long Beach, California, and what is now the city of Lakewood, California ) because of the money that was to be made in sugar beets. The government had instated a protective tariff that encouraged domestic production. However, that venture came to an end after a wireworm infestation eventually ruined the crop, the government lowered the tariff, and foreign supplies drove the price of sugar down.
In 1904, Clark organized his Southern California holdings as the Montana Land Company with his brother, J. Ross Clark. Later, they made Clark Bonner, J. Ross Clark’s nephew, president of the company.
In 1926, after the sugar beets business was no longer fruitful, Clark Bonner closed their sugar mill and leased the company’s former beet fields to tenant farmers who grew acres of lima beans, alfalfa and carrots. A few years later, in 1929, Bonner began subdividing the company’s farmland. In 1920, Long Beach had flourished because of an oil boom,