How Signal Hill Got Its Name and Some Mysteries

What Name??    

  Most histories of Signal Hill report the name came about because early California Native Americans used the hilltop for signal fires. But all this was disputed back in 1941 when pioneer family members, Philip and Llewellyn Bixby voiced a different story.
     They told reporter Walter Case (Sun 7/24/1941) they believed Signal Hill was so named because for many years ships at sea took their bearings from a large landmark tripod which stood atop the hill. Both Bixbys remembered the tripod, but it was so long ago they couldn’t remember about its placement. Case questioned sailors about this fact and they said it would have been entirely practicable to have established such a point atop Signal Hill where, with a glass, it could be seen from long distances in various directions.

There is no tripod on the Hill,
 but you will find this monument.

     Also noted was the fact that in early days the Hill was known as “Cerritos Hill.” In her book Adobe Days Sarah Bixby Smith mentioned that the Spaniards called the Hill “El Cerrito” (the Little Hill) and she expressed keen regret over the change of the name to Signal Hill.
      My own research discovered another hill in Los Angeles (at the head of First Street) named “Signal Hill.” I also found that it wasn’t until 1892 that the term “Signal Hill” came to replace “Cerritos Hill” in the press. From 1890-1892 the two names were both used to describe the same location, after 1892 only “Signal Hill” was used. I haven’t been able to find anything else about the tripod on the Hill, but I did come across a story about a survey marker.

Survey Marker

     Residential development of Signal Hill began in May 1905, but shortly before then E. P. Dewey, assistant city engineer, surveying residential lots near the top of Signal Hill was approached by an old man. The stranger asked his assistance in locating a monument he had placed on the summit 50 years earlier. The two men searched for the stone, but it took a few days to locate it, and only then it was discovered by accident. Engineer Dewey, at the summit of the hill, attempted to drive a stake into the ground and found the monument two inches below the surface. It was granite, 8 inches square and 18 inches long with a drill hole exactly in the center.
     The old man introduced himself as John Rockwell, a visitor to the city. He told Dewey he had been a member of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey crew whose mission was to plot latitude and longitude of prominent points in California after it became a state in 1848. The first few years they spent plotting points for light houses, but by 1853 they started to concentrate on other high points including the hill then known as "El Cerrito.”
 

In 1905 the summit of Signal Hill became a park.

    At the summit, at an elevation of 364 feet, they planted one of their markers. They built a fence around the marker to keep out the horses and cattle that roamed everywhere. They also posted several handbills printed on cotton cloth written in both English and Spanish, telling the public the marker was the property of the United States and requesting that it not be disturbed. Evidently the fence and signs didn't work, since the ground around the marker was plowed many times. In 1905, however, the Signal Hill Improvement Company decided to set aside a 60 x 130 foot area on the summit as a public park. In the center of the trees and flowers rested the monument along with a tablet telling its history. Also included were the coordinates: Latitude 33 degrees, 48 minutes north; longitude, 118 degrees, 9 minutes, 46.7 seconds west from Greenwich; height above mean sea level, 365.64 feet (Evening Tribune 5/3/1905).

Mystery of the Spanish Armor & Buried Treasure

     I came across two interesting stories I have been unable to substantiate in the book Southern California Treasures (1969) by Jesse Rascoe.
     Rascoe states that Southern California papers reported an interesting find in 1937, saying in part, “A Spanish breast plate from an old suit of armor was found near Signal Hill two weeks ago. It was identified as belonging to the period of the 1770s and 1780s.”

Did the Spanish explore the Hill and leave armament behind?

     I did a thorough search through California and national newspapers and found no such story. Could it have been true?
     In the days before flood control the area north of Signal Hill was marshy and known as “water lands.” It wasn’t an area early explorers would generally choose to visit unless  they needed to survey the terrain and sea. In fact when Dana Burks and Henry Barbour obtained an option on land in the west part of Long Beach in 1905 they considered dredging the existing slough around Signal Hill to Alamitos Bay. Long Beach would have become an island. Instead Burks and Barbour decided to build a harbor. It would have been lovely if Rascoe had included a bibliography or footnote in his book to trace the story, but he did give a citation to another.
     In the Association Newsletter, Oscoda, Michigan, January 1969 issue, Rascoe received this report: “K/B reports that her son-in-law found a dandy catch of silver and gold coins with his detector on Signal Hill near Long Beach, California. K/B lives in Colorado and her son-in-law lives in California.”
    Again, a search through local and national newspapers, did not report the story. I’m sure it’s a story the local press would not have overlooked. So....did Spanish explorers once visit the Hill and did they, or someone else, leave behind a catch of valuable coins? Well, Signal Hill would have been relatively hard to get to in earlier times, but that in itself might have made it a recognizable and relatively safe place to leave behind armor and treasure. What do you think?

     

Gold and Other Forgotten Facts About Signal Hill

     Though “black gold” would be discovered on Signal Hill in 1921, did you know that the “glittery stuff” was also found there in 1905?  In my research I’ve come across a number of interesting discoveries and “might have beens” about Signal Hill.  Here are a few of them.

Gold was found on Signal Hill in 1905.

Gold found on Signal Hill

     The years following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake had been difficult for Signal Hill real estate promoter George W. Hughes.  Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, property sales in Southern California came to a virtual standstill.  Finances once available for development were funneled northward to rebuild the city.

     Hughes, a real estate agent, had purchased 35 acres on the summit of Signal Hill in September 1904 for $20,000.  In October 1904 he formed the Signal Hill Improvement Company, of which he was president, to develop the land and make it “one of the beauty spots of the coast.”   On May 25, 1905, Hughes placed the lots he had subdivided on the market. 

     The May 7, 1905 Los Angeles Herald reported:

“Another recent big thing for the beach is the platting of 150 acres on and around the top of Signal Hill, two miles north and east of the city. Signal Hill is 353 feet above the sea level, and from the summit a view of twenty-seven towns can be had. Much of the development and improvement work has been completed and soon the lots will be on the market. Lots are of uniform size, 60 x 130 feet. The prices will range from $500 to $1800 each. On the crown of the hill a space of four acres has been set apart for a park and the site for a big hotel. President G. V. Hughes, and Secretary F. A. Crowe are at the head of the Signal Hill Improvement Company having the Signal Hill enterprise in charge.”

     Opening day was a rainy one but still, the Los Angeles Herald reported (5/28/1905), over 500 people attended the opening and $60,000 was realized from sales. Hughes had made sure that Signal Hill “happenings” were prominently in the news. Much was going on at Signal Hill, according to the news reports funnel to the press by Hughes.  A vast gravel deposit (of the finest quality, the Evening Tribune reported) was discovered in February 1905 and an artificial stone factory was being planned in August 1905.  A trolley line up the hill was in the works in November 1905, but it later failed to materialize because of the steep grade up the hill.    But by 1910 development had slowed.  There had been growth as 13-year old Mable Anderson of the Burnett school, wrote to the Los Angeles Herald in January 1910.

 On the very top of Signal Hill is a very nice house which has a very nice yard. There are also 2 or 3 other little buildings. In the spring it is pretty and green and here there are a few wild flowers. Here and there in little ravines you will see some cactus growing.

     The “very nice house: Mable Anderson mentions belonged to George Hughes.  The sales brochure. Signal Hill: the most beautiful home site in Southern California, describes the home:

At the apex of the hill is located the palatial home of Mr. George W. Hughes, unquestionably one of the show places of Southern California. Facing the south, the mansion looks out upon the quiet and beauty of the ocean; commands a magnificent view of the city of Long Beach which lies at the very foot of this charming mountain retreat...

     But more than nice flowers and a few buildings were needed to keep the real estate market on Signal Hill alive.

     Coincidently, perhaps, an amazing discovery was unearthed on Signal Hill on September 21, 1910, on property owned by no other than George Hughes.  Hughes, convinced that there was gold in the west slope of Signal Hill, took a Los Angeles assayer to the site to pan for the valuable mineral.  To verify the claim Hughes asked Jonah Jones and James A. Miller to witness assayer Nelson in action.  Nelson proceeded to pan gold out of dirt taken from the side of a hole which had been dug 10 feet into the ground on Hughes’ property near Cherry Avenue.  The witnesses swore it had not been salted. The assayer confirmed gold was present, but went on to add that at this particular point there wasn’t much of it. Considerable excitement followed the announcement of the discovery, according to the Long Beach Daily Telegram. However, nothing more was heard of Hughes’ gold discovery after the initial article appeared in the press, and there are no records to indicate if sales in Signal Hill increased because of the possibility of gold. George Hughes was not one to give up.  If money wasn’t available for housing development why not build a university?

UCLA at Signal Hill?

UCLA being built in 1919. It could have been
on Signal Hill.

     In 1910 a campaign was started to establish a Southern branch of the University of California.  It was pointed out at the time that Los Angeles County alone had more high school students than San Francisco and Alameda Counties and that 25 per cent of the high school students of the State were in Los Angeles County.  Mark Keppel, then County Superintendent of Schools pointed out that the University of California had just made a request for $5 million to increase its facilities at Berkeley. He pointed out that if a Southern California branch were authorized, it would not be necessary to enlarge the institution at Berkeley. 

     George Hughes proposed Signal Hill as an ideal location for such an institution.  Garner Curran, President of the Los Angeles Federated Improvement Association, was asked to look at various locations; he agreed with Hughes that there was no better place than Signal Hill. On May 30, 1911, Hughes offered to sell 30 acres of land at Signal Hill, valued by him at $100,000 at a low figure. He also agreed to make a personal donation of $10,000, if Signal Hill was chosen as the site of the future University of California, Los Angeles.  Despite Mr. Curran reiterating his preference for the Signal Hill location, Westwood was chosen.

     Just think if UCLA had been built on Signal Hill instead of Westwood.  The revenue from oil in the 1920s and later could have paid most of the expenses of the entire UC system!

View of the Gods – The Trackless Trolley

This was the nation's first trackless trolley,
 built by Charles Spencer Mann in 1910 to promote vacation lots in Laurel Canyon.

     The Pacific Electric Company began the construction of a line up the Hill in 1906, but gave it up because the grade was too steep. In December 1910, our friend George Hughes, real estate promoter extraordinaire, convinced Signal Hill property owners that if the Pacific Electric couldn’t run trains up the Hill perhaps a trackless trolley system was needed.

     The plan called for busses equipped with 20-horsepower motors, capable of carrying a load of 3600 pounds. The motors would be heavy enough to take such a load to the summit of the Hill.  Electric lights were to be used throughout the 22-foot long, 6 foot wide cars, which would be able to hold 24 people.  The roof was to extend from the rear door to the dash, with a ladder either at the side or rear for access to the roof. Another detail according to historian Walter Case was that “the driver’s seat would be in a position back of the steering wheel, which would accommodate one person and would be trimmed with split leather or cushion and back trimmed with hair.” (Sun 12/3/1937)

     At this December 12, 1910, meeting George Hughes announced that a Los Angeles resident wanted to establish a telescope on the summit of the hill, also a lunch room, and, just possibly a dance floor. Hughes said he was willing to lease to the prospective developer a space of not more than 100x150 feet at any desirable point.

     But neither the trackless trolley nor the telescope pavilion became a reality.

Aerial Tram

     While the trackless trolley plan was being discussed another more spectacular idea was suggested to Hughes.  Los Angeles resident Fletcher E. Felts decided it was time to construct an aerial tram from Long Beach to Los Angeles and also to Pasadena. 

     His proposal was for what he called a “Suspended Auto Motor Railway,” consisting of a rail track from which would be hung cars that would have a clearance of at least 14 feet from the ground.  Towers which would provide supports for the track would be constructed “at intervals of whatever distance may be required.”

     The cars would be propelled by either electricity or gasoline and hang from wheels clamped to the rail. It would be possible said Mr. Felts, for the cars to climb almost any grade, but he stated that if the grade became as steep as 60 percent the use of cogs to prevent slipping would be advisable.

     On such a road, he maintained, a speed of two miles a minute could be obtained with no danger to the passengers. He estimated the trip from Long Beach to Los Angeles would be made in 15 minutes and that a ride from Long Beach to Pasadena would not take more than 25 minutes. Cars could be provided, he said, to carry from 20 to 100 passengers each, but he advised 50 passenger cars on the Long Beach-Los Angeles line.

     He told interested parties he had contracts by which the delivery of such cars here for the line would be assured. Such cars, he added, were then being operated in Germany. His holdings, he said were covered by 152 patents.

     The fact that the per-mile cost of the undertaking was estimated at from $20,000 to $50,000 depending on the character of the terrain on which the towers would have to be constructed contributed to the futility of Mr. Felts’ efforts to make Long Beach aerial-railway conscious.

       All of Hughes’ dreams about Signal Hill would have come true if the Hill hadn’t been so steep.  None other than Henry Huntington planned on building a large hotel costing no less than $100,000 on the summit, but he backed out when the Hill proved too steep for his electric railway.  The Los Angeles Herald (10/30/1904) reported that 115 acres of the Signal Hill tract would be open for development, while five acres would be reserved for the hotel. In addition fine gardens and many attractions were planned. But as this blog has shown, Hughes was not one to give up easily.  He lived to see the Hill transformed almost overnight when oil was discovered in 1921.  What would have happened to the hotel, university, and trackless trolley system if they had been built?  We will never know.