60 EXPLORATION OF BURTON MOUND [PTH. ANN. 44 
mainland and their ancestors in bygone days were able to walk there dry shod. 
The query is presented to my mind, as to whether the Indians who used the 
“Mound” as a burial place were not inhabitants of the Channel Islands... . 
OWNERSHIP BY LEWIS T. BURTON, SEASIDE HOTEL ASSOCIATION, POTTER 
HOTEL COMPANY, AMBASSADOR HOTEL CORPORATION 
In 1860 Mr. Hinchman sold the tract to Lewis T. Burton, who 
was, like Captain Nidever, a native of Tennessee. Mr. Burton made 
the place his home for the remainder of his life, and from him the 
mound has taken its name in later years. Upon his death in 1879 
the tract came into possession of the Seaside Hotel Association and 
the immediate building of a hotel on the mound was planned. This 
plan was, however, not consummated until 20 years later, when 
Milo M. Potter was the leader in a new movement for the erection 
of a beach hotel on the site. In the meantime the old adobe house 
on the mound was inhabited by a number of consecutive tenants, 
some of whom were interviewed with interesting results. The Potter 
Hotel was erected in 1901 and 1902, and the grounds were graded 
and landscape-gardened and made one of the most beautiful spots on 
the coast. The hotel was sold in 1913 and became the property of 
the Ambassador Hotel Corporation. It burned to the ground in 
1921. 
INTERVIEW WITH M. AMAN 
Mr. Max Aman lived in the Burton adobe house during the three 
years prior to the construction of the hotel; he was its last occupant. 
As he remembers it, the total length of the house proper was about 
80 feet, and it was 20 feet wide, not including the veranda, which 
ran around the northern, eastern, and southern sides and was itself 
some 10 feet in width. The rooms were, therefore, about 20 by 20 
feet, but the parlor, which ran across the entire eastern end of the 
house, was larger and may have been 20 by 40 feet. 
Mr. Potter turned the first earth in the construction of his hotel 
in the spring of 1900. The adobe house was, however, not torn down 
immediately, but was allowed to remain standing for a year or more— 
in fact, until the hotel foundations were put in. 
When the house was torn down, sheet lead was found laid hori- 
zontally at the base of the walls all around. The purpose of this 
was to keep the moisture of the ground from creeping up into the 
adobe walls. When the lead was seen by the workmen they became 
excited and for a moment thought it might be silver. 
Tt was said that one of the workmen found a silver brick buried 
under the adobe house, but that Mr. Potter heard of the fact and took 
it away from him. 
The sulphur spring which supplied the bathhouse, which Mr. Aman 
ran most profitably for three years, was covered up and it happened 
