DIVISION SIX — BUSINESS. 467 



during the winter of 1879-80. In a letter written by D. M. Graham, Feb- 

 ruary 23, 1880, to the horticultural paper then published at Riverside, he 

 says : ' ' Mr. Griswold had several applications for rooms in his new hotel 

 before the plaster was dry." This was the only allusion to it that I found 

 in any of the early documents. In 1882, this house with fifteen acres of 

 land was bought by Isaac Banta, but he soon found that it was too far away 

 from the village, or " The Corners," as the business center was then called, 

 to make any success as a hotel — and it was also too small and inconvenient 

 to serve the growing demand for such accommodations. He, therefore, in 

 1882-83, bought from Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr a 3-acre lot where the First 

 National Bank, the Arcade Building, the City Hall, and other business 

 blocks are now located, and built there the Los Angeles House, on the 

 corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado street — the same house which 

 now stands at the corner of Colorado and Delyacy streets. (This new hotel 

 was opened in July, 1883.) Mr. Banta' s son-in-law, Wm. T. Pierce, then 

 took the Lake Vineyard House ; and he also soon learned that as a hotel for 

 this enlightened country, its location, style of architecture, etc., foredoomed 

 it to failure. The Union of March i, 1884, said : "Mr. Butler has sold 

 his interest in the Lake Vineyard House to a Mr. Granger, who will take 

 possession at once." In 1885 the property was sold to Milford Fish ; he 

 altered the house into a dwelling and now resides there, corner of Marengo 

 Avenue and Florence street. 



The Raymond Hotel. — In 1883, Mr. Walter Raymond, who was 

 then engaged in operating the ' ' Raymond Excursions ' ' from Boston to 

 California and return, conceived the project of building a great hotel some- 

 where in South California especially to accommodate the tourist travel, and as 

 a winter resort preferable to Florida, New Orleans, or Cuba. He examined 

 eligible sites at San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Los Angeles 

 and Pasadena ; and finally decided on what was then known as Bacon's hill, 

 on the Marengo ranch at Pasadena, as offering on the whole the best pros- 

 pect for success in such a great enterprise. And accordingly he bought the 

 site, which comprised fifty-five acres of land, including some springs and 

 portions of a brook. Mr. Raymond had no personal experience in the 

 hotel business, but in his excursion business he had gained a pretty good 

 knowledge of what tourists from the colder sections of our country wanted 

 in the way of hotel comforts, and he associated with himself, Mr. Gluck of 

 the International Hotel at Niagara Falls, and J. H. Littlefield, an experi- 

 enced architect of San Francisco, as co-workers on structural details of the 

 great hostelry building. Work was commenced in November, 1883, toward 

 cutting the hill down thirty-four feet lower than its original summit to make 

 a level plateau large enough for the foundation and the necessary driveways 

 and adjunct buildings, which would require a space of about five acres. 



The grading contract was let at a given price per cubic yard for re- 



