DIVISION SIX — BUSINESS. 417 



In a few years it became desirable or necessary to put the management 

 of the colony's water business into the hands of business men on the 

 ground ; and on July 11, 1883, a deed was made by the original I^ake Vine- 

 yard Co. and the Orange Grove Co. to A. O. Porter and others as a syndi- 

 cate. January 29, 1884, the people on the L,ake Vineyard side formed a new 

 organization under the name of ' ' Pasadena Lake Vineyard Land and Water 

 Co.," with $75,000 subscribed, and on February 5 filed their articles of in- 

 corporation with the county clerk. Capital stock, $250,000, in 5,000 shares 

 of $50 each. The incorporators and first board of directors were S. Town- 

 send, C. C. Thompson, C. C. Brown, Samuel Stratton, G. T. Stamm, C. A. 

 Clark, J. W. Wood. Townsend was elected president, Brown, treasurer, 

 and H. W. Magee, secretary. There were now three different water com- 

 panies besides " the syndicate " doing business in Pasadena, and the "water 

 question " became a strangely mixed muddle of confusion. The Union of 

 March 15, 1884, said : " About 250 feet of the main ditch [cement] on the 

 Lake Vineyard Co. 's lands were washed out by the late storm. A wooden 

 flume is being put in ; and an assessment of 45 cents per share has been 

 levied to repair damages." 



April 26, 1884, the Union mentioned that "over 3,000 shares of the 

 P. L. V. L. and W. Co.'s stock had been subscribed, or about $150,000." 

 Yet the same paper of September 6 said complainingly : ' ' Six months 

 have elapsed since the new company was chartered, yet only about half the 

 old company stockholders have attended to changing their stock." 



In the Union of September 27, 1884, three members of the syndicate, 

 H. W. Magee, Geo. K. Meharry, and James Clarke, offered to sell to the 

 new company their holdings in the L. V. Association at a pro rata on $5,000 

 for the entire property — springs, flumes, ditches, pipes, reservoirs, etc. 

 And accordingly the Unio?i of December 20, 1884, contained an official 

 notice that an election would be held by the new company on January 10, 

 1885, to accept or reject this proposition from these men, and from any other 

 holders of the old stock who might offer it on the same terms before the day 

 of this election. The paper of same date contained also two other notices 

 by the new company — one of an assessment of twelve cents per share to 

 pay debts necessarily incurred, amounting to $351.75 ; and one for an elec- 

 tion of a new board of directors on January 26, 1885, to serve one year 

 from February 4. The election of January 10, on the syndicate proposition, 

 resulted in 1166 shares voted for accepting it, and 135 shares against. 



But this vote did not seem to settle anything ; and for some months 

 following there was warm discussion, sometimes even acrimonious, through 

 the newspaper by a variety of water doctors, each making his own diagnosis 

 of the colony's water ailments, and prescribing his own infallible cure-all. 

 The two principal companies were designated as "west-side" and "east- 

 side"; they owned certain water-bearing lands or springs in common, with 



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