Goldfish on Wintersburg Avenue Part 2: The living jewels of the Furuta Gold Fish Farm

ABOVE: Toshiko Furuta holds her sister, Grace, with Kazuko and Etsuko Furuta, near the Wintersburg Avenue frontage of the Gold Fish Farm, circa 1928.  The children are east of the barn, behind the Furuta bungalow.  An automobile can be glimpsed just inside the barn.  Yukiko Furuta recalled her husband buying a Chevy, in which she was a little nervous to ride at first.  (Photograph courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

   Did you ever wonder why goldfish and koi ponds have been a long tradition in landscapes around Orange County?  Most likely, the trend owes its roots to Wintersburg.

   One of Wintersburg's most unique business enterprises were the goldfish farms, all owned by Issei (Japanese immigrants).  While there was a long history of goldfish farming in Asia, this was a fairly new enterprise for America.  The glittering fish delighted the American public and ignited a trend that remains popular today.

   By the 1920s, Charles M. Furuta had established goldfish ponds on his property in Wintersburg, with help from his brother-in-law, Henry Kiyomi Akiyama.  Henry Akiyama had tried a small goldfish pond as a hobby and found the fish multiplied easily.  

ABOVE: Goldfish have been bred in captivity for more than 1,500 years according to the Goldfish Society of America.  They reportedly made their way into the United States by at least the mid 1800s--perhaps earlier--and the public never lost their fascination.  This 1909 feature in the Los Angeles Herald describes goldfish aquariums as an "old time interest." (Image, Los Angeles Herald, January 17, 1909) 

   C.M. and Yukiko Furuta and Henry and Masuko Akiyama had been working and living in a large house on the Cole Ranch, off present-day Wintersburg (Warner) Avenue and Gothard Avenue.  The Cole Ranch is within short walking distance of the Furuta farm site and is the site of present-day Ocean View High School.  The Furutas were saving money while working on the Cole Ranch in order to develop their own property.

The first goldfish ponds
   The Furutas moved back to their property around 1914-1915 and began working the farm site.  Henry Akiyama and his wife, Masuko (Yukiko Furuta's sister), began living in a small house C.M. Furuta previously had moved to his property (once lived in by the Terahata family). The goldfish ponds on the Furuta property may be the first commercial goldfish ponds developed in Orange County.

   Interviewed in 1982 for the Honorable Stephen K. Tamura Orange County Japanese American Oral History Project, Henry Akiyama recalled there were only three major goldfish farms in Orange County, all starting in Wintersburg: the Furuta Gold Fish Farm, the Asari Gold Fish Farm (owned by Tsurumatsu Asari), and later the Pacific Gold Fish Farm (owned by Henry Akiyama)---all three active members of the Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission.  

   The only other major goldfish business Henry Akiyama knew of was in Los Angeles. (Editor's note: by 1928, Orange County City directories show a few stores in Santa Ana and Costa Mesa selling a variety of birds, cages, goldfish and aquariums, including "the pioneer bird man of Orange County," the Orana Bird and Goldfish Company in Santa Ana.) 

   The farmers took barrels of goldfish to Orange County, Long Beach and Los Angeles buyers, and later, goldfish were shipped in barrel containers by train to buyers around the country.  (Read about an early mishap trucking goldfish, Goldfish on Wintersburg Avenue part 1, http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/02/goldfish-on-wintersburg-avenue.html)

A walk on the Furuta Gold Fish Farm
   Henry Akiyama recalled some of his relatives in Japan had raised koi (carp) and had watched their farming practices.  When his hobby pond proved successful, he and C.M. Furuta increased the pond acreage at the Furuta farm site to cover three or more acres of the five-acre site.  The rest of the acreage included the Furuta home, Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission complex, and food and flower crops.

   The Furuta Gold Fish Farm ponds contained a variety of species, indicating local goldfish farmers were  specializing to accommodate growing market demands for the exotic fish.  In addition to the more common Comets, there were Black Moors, Fantails, Shubunkin, and Nymphs.  A fresh water well on the Furuta farm and a network of irrigation piping kept the pond acreage filled.

LEFT: This diagram was hand-drawn by C.M. Furuta in 1935, revealing the layout of the goldfish ponds on the Furuta farm site.  The top of the diagram is south, the bottom is north.  The Furuta home on Wintersburg Avenue is located at the bottom of the drawing; the unmarked site of the Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission is located west (to the right) of the Furuta home. (Image courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

   The Furuta Gold Fish Farm continued to operate up until World War II.  President of the Smeltzer Japanese Association at the time, C.M. Furuta was incarcerated along with other community and religious leaders* at the U.S. Army's Lordsburg, New Mexico detention center while his family was sent to the Poston, Arizona Relocation Center.  He later joined them at Poston, after a year's separation.  During their confinement at Poston, the Furuta family rented their house to a local family and asked they maintain the ponds.  Upon their return from internment, their home was in fairly good condition however the ponds were dried up and filled with silt.

   The Furutas did not restore the ponds for goldfish.  Instead, they recovered the former ponds' lily flower roots and began farming water lilies.  

   One of the rear additions on the Furuta barn holds what appear to be shallow sorting troughs.  Norman Furuta--grandson of C.M. Furuta and a graduate of Huntington Beach High School--recently said preparing cut water lilies is "a pretty labor-intensive process."

   "Each flower had to be 'waxed' by my parents (Ray and Martha Furuta) by dripping a candle around the center of the flower while it was open," explained Norman Furuta.  "If this was not done, the lily completely closes when the sun sets, and doesn't open again until morning."

   Norman Furuta notes his family's farm was "to the family's knowledge, the only source of cut water lilies in the United States during the last half of the 20th century. We were aware of other commercial sellers of water lily plants, but my father (Ray Furuta) said he wasn't aware of anyone else producing cut water lilies for commercial use."

   During those years, area florists selling water lilies undoubtedly purchased them from the Furuta farm.   This crop, along with sweet pea flowers, proved to be a successful enterprise for the Furuta family from the post World War II years through the end of the 20th Century.

Identifying the fish on the Furuta Gold Fish Farm

   Using the hand-drawn diagram of C.M. Furuta, we can identify some of the species of goldfish raised on the Furuta Gold Fish Farm.

 

Comets: The Furuta Gold Fish Farm diagram identifies some ponds holding "comets" and others "black comets."

 

 Fantails:  A Western form of the Ryukin goldfish species.

 
Moors:  Considered one of the "fancy" goldfish species, Moors have telescope or protruding eyes, referred to as kuro demekin in Japan.

Nymphs:  Considered half "fancy" and half "common," and related to the fantail goldfish.

Shubunkin:  Typically splashed with calico pattern colors, the Shubunkin name translates as "red painted" or "red brocade."  The fish is said to have been first bred in Japan by Yoshigoro Akiyama by the early 1900s (unknown if he is related to Wintersburg goldfish farmer Henry Akiyama).  It is a popular outdoor pond fish that can grow up to a foot or more in length.   

Paradise: Not a goldfish, a Paradise gouramis is a fish tolerant of most water conditions and can live in outdoor ponds.  It is an agressive fish and not usually put in the same aquarium or pond as goldfish.  Eating insects and larvae, it was an ideal mosquito fish.

   One Huntington Beach resident recently remembered the Furuta farm as a wonderful garden filled with sweet pea flowers and water lilies.  Another resident who grew up in the Ocean View neighborhood near the farm recalls it as a magical place for local children.  Congregants at the Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission complex remember church carnivals held on the farm site.

   While most Wintersburg farmers grew food crops needed for kitchens around the country, the Furuta farm cultivated beauty in the form of the living jewels and flowers wanted for our homes.

ABOVE: Grace Furuta, C.M. and Yukiko Furuta's daughter, on an adventure in the Furuta Gold Fish Farm ponds, circa 1935. (Photograph courtesy of the Furuta family)  © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

*No Japanese Americans were involved in wrong doing, as confirmed during Congressional hearings in the 1970s and 1980s. Those first interrogated, arrested and incarcerated typically were land owners, civic leaders, teachers and religious leaders. In Wintersburg Village, that included Charles Furuta and Reverend Sohei Kowta.

©  All rights reserved. No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced without prior written permission from the author, M. Adams Urashima.

A note of thanks

   Historic Wintersburg wishes all our readers a very Happy Thanksgiving!  We will return after the holiday with a story about the Furuta Gold Fish Farm in Wintersburg.

   We would like to express our thanks to all who supported the recent event for Historic Wintersburg, the screening of Lil  Tokyo Reporter.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: 

Lil Tokyo Reporter producers,director and cast---we are grateful for your kindness and interest in our shared history. You have created a truly moving film.  Everyone left the theater loving the film and wanting to know more!

Little Tokyo Historical Society---it has been a wonderful experience getting to know you.  We look forward to seeing you again!

Special thanks also to our sponsors:

• HILTON WATERFRONT BEACH RESORT

• REGENCY THEATRES

• KIM KRAMER AND THE HUNTINGTON BEACH DOWNTOWN RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION

• HUNTINGTON BEACH AUTOMOBILE DEALERS ASSOCIATION

• SCOTT LAND PHOTOGRAPHY

Thank you for your generosity----we could not have done it without you!

The Sei Fujii legacy, Little Tokyo and Wintersburg

"Sei Fujii lived spectacularly and died spectacularly. It's like an opera," says Fumiko Carole Fujita, a founding member of the Little Tokyo Historical Society. 
                                                                                      Pacific Citizen, September 2, 2011


~Updated March 2015~

   In a unique collaboration, the Little Tokyo Historical Society, along with the producers, director and cast of the new film, Lil Tokyo Reporter, are coming to aid the preservation efforts of Historic Wintersburg.  

   Sei Fujii, on whom the narrative film is based, must be smiling.  

   The Pacific Citizen describes Sei Fujii's life, "with Depression-era drama, violent run-ins with gangster gamblers, stabbings, shootings, Supreme Court battles, a dramatic death — and not just one, but two scandalous lovers — (his) life has the makings of a juicy soap opera, or at least an interesting documentary."

The story of Sei Fujii
    Sei Fujii arrived in the United States in 1903.  Earning a law degree in 1911 from USC, he battled to protect Japanese American farmers, like those in Wintersburg.   Unable to practice law because he was a non-citizen, Sei Fujii started the newspaper, Kashu Mainichi, and began educating the Japanese community.  

   Through his newspaper, Sei Fujii warned farmers of gangsters running the Little Tokyo Club.   Many of the single, Japanese male farmers looking for a place to eat, drink sake and socialize were losing all their money in rigged card games.  Sei Fujii contronted the corruption, as relayed in Lil Tokyo Reporter.  

  What happened next has the makings of a great movie----and, it is real life.  The gangsters running the Little Tokyo Club tried to kill him.  Sei Fujii--trained in judo--fought them off and managed to survive.  Carol Fujita, one of the film's producers and a key researcher on Sei Fujii's life, said he was "found on Second Street near First in front of the New York Hotel by a pimp."  The pimp took him to the Japanese Hospital he had helped found in 1929. 

   Sei Fujii continued reaching out to the Japanese community to educate them and help them assimilate to American life.  He was known to travel to Orange County to meet with local farmers.

   With World War II, his active role in the Japanese community led to incarceration at the  Department of Justice Detention Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  (Note: Fountain Valley's first mayor James Kanno's father, Shuji Kanno, and goldfish farmer Charles Mitsuji Furuta---both Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission congregants---were taken to the U.S. Army's Lordsburg, New Mexico, detention center before being allowed to join their families at the Poston Arizona Internment Center.)

   Upon his release in 1946, Sei Fujii famously purchased a small piece of land in Los Angeles County and challenged California's Alien Land Law of 1913.  Through his efforts--and that of his long-time law school colleague and friend, J. Marion Wright--the law was overturned by the California Supreme Court in 1952.  Two years later, and only 51 days after being granted U. S. citizenship, he died.

ABOVE: Little Tokyo, circa 1935, the time period of Lil Tokyo Reporter. (Photo, Frasher Foto Collection, Pomona Public Library)

Memories of Little Tokyo
   Wintersburg farmers worked long days, so a trip to Little Tokyo was a special occasion.  Yukiko Furuta, Clarence Nishizu and Henry Kiyomi Akiyama, all Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission congregants, talked about Little Tokyo in their 1982 oral history interviews*.  Akiyama said he traveled into Los Angeles a couple times a month to watch baseball.

   "Other people from (Wintersburg) went to Los Angeles often, mostly to buy clothes or to see movies, and some people visited their relatives," explained Akiyama.  "There was already an established Japan Town in Los Angeles, which wasn't yet called Little Tokyo; the people called it Nihonjin Machi at that time, and it was already the center of Japanese laborers, who stayed in Imperial Valley in May and moved to Fresno in July or to Smeltzer (next to Wintersburg in North Huntington Beach) in October to work on farms." 

   Yukiko Furuta remembered living in a hotel in Little Tokyo in 1912, while her husband, Charles Mitsuji Furuta, built their new home in Wintersburg.  New to America, she ventured out to  Fugetsu-do, a Japanese confectionary store, and went  back to the hotel room to enjoy the treats.  She recalled her husband leaving her money for sweets when he left for work in Huntington Beach.  Later, living in Wintersburg and a little more acclimated to America, Yukiko Furuta would ride the Pacific Electric Railroad into Little Tokyo for shopping.

Left: Fugetsu-do opened in 1903 and still exists in Little Tokyo, an historic, artisan sweet shop.  Now at 315 E. First Street, http://www.fugetsu-do.com/  The mochi is worth the trip.

   "Let me tell you a little about that area during the time we lived there. Transportation in Little Tokyo was by yellow streetcar," relayed Nishizu.  "I remember that all fire engines were drawn by horses, not mechanical engines. There were two to three teams of horses in front of the fire engine which had a big water tank in the middle of the fire wagon. When there was a fire, the wagon rang a bell like the church bell."

    "I was born in an apartment building on the southwest corner of Jackson Street and Central Avenue. On the south side of this street, just north of the present Los Angeles police station's parking lot, there was a two-story building with a big community hall, where they used to have shibai, Japanese shows," continued Nishizu, who moved to Orange County as a small child.  "I remember taking a box lunch, bento, like they do in Japan, and watching Kabuki plays."

   Nishizu remembered Sei Fujii coming to Orange County and recalled the Little Tokyo gambling that concerned him.

   "Gambling among the Issei was quite extensive. Most of the gamblers were the single Japanese farm workers who traveled up and down California working on farms. These workers used to call themselves “blanket katsugi” (blanket carriers)," said Nishizu.  "Frequently they lost all of their earnings to the professional Issei gamblers from Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento, and other cities where Japanese farm workers stayed between jobs."

ABOVE: Huntington Beach's Holly Sugar Company, circa 1910.  (Photo, USC Libraries)

Wintersburg and Little Tokyo
   Some of the children of Wintersburg's Issei farmers went on to help develop not only Orange County, but also Little Tokyo.   During his oral history interview, Clarence Nishizu remembered Yasuo Goto, who farmed 180 acres of sugar beets for the Holly Sugar Company.

   "Goto was the father of  Dr. James Goto, M.D., who (maintained) a medical practice on East Second Street in Honda Plaza, part of the Little Tokyo district," recalled Nishizu.  "Dr. Goto has informed me that his father came to the Wintersburg area...and settled right next to Mr. Tsurumatsu Asari, the father of Harley Asari, who operated a goldfish farm on Warner Avenue east of Beach Boulevard..."(Note: this Honda Plaza area is now part of the Sawtelle Japantown district.)

   Goto lived near and most likely knew all three of Wintersburg's goldfish farmers, including T.M. Asari, Charles Mitsuji Furuta and Henry Kiyomi Akiyama. 

   "(Yasuo) Goto first was in the labor camp business. He arranged room and board for many Issei laborers from Japan who worked in Orange County," explained Nishizu to interviewer Arthur A. Hansen.  "From the labor camps, he transported the laborers on wagons pulled by horses, of course, to different farms in the area. This was in about 1910. The next year, 1911, Dr. Jim Goto was born. Later, the senior Goto went into farming California chilies, celery, cabbage, melon, and other vegetables."

   From farming roots, Dr. James Goto, went on to graduate from UCLA and then USC's medical school.  He set up his medical practice--West L.A. Medical-Dental Offices-- on the corner of Sawtelle and Mississippi, the former "Little Osaka", now designated Sawtelle Japantown, as of 2015.

The return of Sei Fujii to Orange County
   Sei Fujii, yet again, comes to the aid of farmers.  The Orange County film premier of Lil Tokyo Reporter will help raise funds for preservation of Historic Wintersburg, the five-acre home and farm of Charles Mitsuji and Yukiko Furuta, and the Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission complex.  Screening times are 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 17, and 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 18.  The cast, director and producers will be at every screening.

   The film's cast includes Academy Award® winner Chris Tashima (VISAS AND VIRTUE), Keiko Agena (GILMORE GIRLS), Eijiro Ozaki (LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA), Ikuma Ando (LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA), Sewell Whitney (BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, CSI-NY), with direction from Jeffrey Chin.  

   More about Lil Tokyo Reporter at http://ltreporter.com/blog/  Advance ticket sales online at http://www.regencymovies.com/movieRunDetail.php?movieRunId=17901&movieId=3432&theaterId=7 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Lil Tokyo Reporter producers,director and cast---we are grateful for your kindness and interest in our shared history.  Special thanks also to REGENCY THEATRES and to the HUNTINGTON BEACH AUTOMOBILE DEALERS ASSOCIATION, KIM KRAMER and the HUNTINGTON BEACH DOWNTOWN RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION, and SCOTT LAND PHOTOGRAPHY for sponsoring the Lil Tokyo Reporter screenings.  Additional thanks to the HILTON WATERFRONT BEACH RESORT for sponsoring the after-hours reception Saturday, Nov. 17. Thank you for your generosity!

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*The oral histories of Clarence Nishizu, Yukiko Furuta and Henry Kiyomia Akiyama were conducted in 1982 by the Historical and Cultural Foundation of Orange County, the Japanese American Council, and California State University-Fullerton Oral History Program, Honorable Stephen K. Tamura Orange County Japanese American Oral History Project.

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.  

The plunder of Buck Ranch

ABOVE: The late 1800s Buck Ranch was in Wintersburg, in the vicinity of Edwards Street and Varsity Drive (Talbert Avenue alignment).  A 1901 Bolsa Land Company map identifies it in Wintersburg's lowlands east of "Rabbit Island" and the Bolsa Chica Gun Club. (Photo, February 2012) © All rights reserved.

~Updated June 2017~

   "During the season of flowers, the females and children decked themselves in splendor; not only entwining them in the hair, but stringing them with the stalks and leaves, making boas of them."

                              The Indians of Los Angeles County: Hugo Reid's letters of 1852,

                             the Tongva ("people of the earth", aka Kizh or Gabrieleno)

     What lies beneath Wintersburg?  More than the eye can see and much that has been lost.

   It was December, 1930.  Workers on Wintersburg's old Buck Ranch--then being referred to as the Callens Ranch--found over a dozen skeletons and several large stone bowls.  The Orange County Sheriff was called and sent deputies to inspect the site the next day.  Their conclusion: it was a Native American burial ground.  Someone contacted local collector Frederick R. Aldrich and later, collector Herman Strandt, who is reported as supervising the remainder of the "dig".

ABOVE: The Santa Ana Register first reported the find as a front page headline in its Sunday, December 28, 1930 edition.  The next day, hundreds descended upon the site. (Image, Santa Ana Register, December 28, 1930)

   The Huntington Beach News reported on January 1, 1931, that "N. Acevedo, intelligent Spanish employee of the ranch and W. Peters, American employed on the ranch, plowing three feet deep in the field discovered the burial mound, Friday, December 26, when their plowshare turned out a skull."  The men grabbed shovels and found more skulls and human bones. 

More than 500 people descended on the site
   
   More than 500 people descended on the burial site, carting away "skulls and other relics."   At least 100 skulls were found, according Paul Chace, Locating the Buck Ranch Prehistoric Burial Ground (Pacific Coast Archaeology Society, Vol. 40 No. 2 2008).  Thousands of years of human history were picked apart and carted away to private collections.  

LEFT: The Santa Ana Register published an image of the "dig" on their front page, which brought hundreds of artifact hunters to the farm. (Image, Santa Ana Register, December 31, 1930)

RIGHT: "Trinkets" or "relics" carted away from the burial site by the general public and workers on the property, a revealing attitude of the times that Native American burial sites were open to plunder.  Skulls were reported by the Santa Ana Register as being sold for 50 cents.  Some artifacts made their way to the Bowers Museum eventually. Many may be lost forever in private collections. (Image, Santa Ana Register, December 28, 1930)


Read the Cole Ranch and the Universe Effigy part 1, http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/02/cole-ranch-and-universe-effigy.html and part 2, http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/04/cole-ranch-and-universe-effigy-part-two.html to learn about another find in Wintersburg, on display at the Bowers Museum.

LEFT: Yukiko Furuta and son, Raymond, feeding chickens on the Cole Ranch in 1915, once the site of a Tongva settlement and home to today's Ocean View High School.  The Cole Ranch was a short distance from the Furuta family's farm and the Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission, off Wintersburg (Warner) Avenue. (Photo, California State University-Fullerton Center for Oral and Public History, PJA-310) © All rights reserved.

 Confusion and stereotypes
   In The Case of the Missing Buck Ranch Mortuary Remains: A Mystery Partly Solved (Pacific Coast Archaeology Society, Vol. 41 No. 2 & 3, 2009), Henry C. Koerper writes "the first announcement of the discoveries appeared in a Santa Ana Register, December 27, 1930 article that was repeated by the paper on Monday followed by a December 29 story giving more specifics."

LEFT:  By Tuesday, December 30, the burial was reported in the Los Angeles Times, which noted  it was "believed to be the oldest in the State of California."  Along with early land maps and newspaper accounts, the location of the Buck Ranch is known today.  The ranch was in the outskirts of Wintersburg Village, part of the peatlands and wetlands near the Bolsa Chica Gun Club.  At the intersection of Varsity Drive and Huntington Beach Central Park, there is now residential and park land.  Within the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and mesas, there are documented Tongva burial and settlement sites.  Approximately one block west of the Historic Wintersburg property--on the present-day Ocean View High School property--was a Tongva settlement. (Image, Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, December 30, 1930)


   "Much of the archaeological information was in error," notes Koerper, of the Santa Ana Register report, "such as the idea that some of the deceased had been buried standing up, that all were male, that the area had possibly been the site of a great battle, and that these Indians raised corn."

    "On December 30, the Huntington Beach News published its story and touted the Indian cemetery as 'believed to be the oldest in the State of California' yet later gave the estimated age of the burial ground as only about 200 years," continues Koerper.  The Santa Ana Register published a photograph "showing an excavator holding a skull in front of human skeletal remains in situ."

   The dig went on through January 1931, when the Huntington Beach News again reported on the finds.  Koerper writes that the article stated "the cemetery contained women, children and men, but erroneously reported that these people had raised corn, potatoes and tobacco."

RIGHT: Mrs. James V. Rosemeyre, reported as one of the last Tongva language speakers and an informant for the ethnographer C. Hart Merriam. (Photo, Bakersfield, California, circa 1905, WikiCommons)

History intertwines
   History intertwines:  at the time of the discovery, the Callens brothers were working oil leases on the Buck Ranch.  Joseph Callens later served on the first Fountain Valley city council in 1957 with Nisei Charles Ishii and  James Kanno, the first Japanese American mayor in the mainland United States.  Charles' father, Kyutaro Ishii, and James' father, Shuji Kanno, both Issei, were elders with the Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission.  

   In the peatlands communities of Wintersburg, Talbert, Bolsa and Smeltzer, everybody knew everybody and the Buck Ranch find was front-page news.

----------------------------------

    "...the writer found both oblong and pyriform polished stones, such as have hitherto been considered, and described, as 'plummets, plumb-bobs, sinkers, and weights.' An old Tobikhar said that such stones would require too much time and labor to be used only to cast into the sea. The Indians term them 'medicine stones,' and consider them as possessing medicinal properties."
                            The Indians of Los Angeles County: Hugo Reid's letters of 1852

The portable cosmos
   Besides human remains, finds at the site included cogged stones, jewelry, abalone, arrowheads, and a "portable cosmos" crafted by the Tongva, a multi-holed steatite tablet.  Carved of stone most likely mined on Tongva quarries on Santa Catalina Island, references to the multi holed stone tablet in newspaper reports were the subject of mystery to archaeological researchers until they realized it was "hiding in plain site."  

LEFT: Tongva steatite (soapstone) quarry on Santa Catalina Island, near the island's airport.  The rounded formations are said to be partially carved stone bowls. (Photo, LASplash.com)

   "This object had been described in contemporary newspaper accounts covering the Wintersburg dig, as having a constellation of features so distinct that it could easily be identified if rediscovered," write Henry Koerper and Joe Cramer, Additional Multi Holed Tablets from the Fred Aldrich Collection, (Pacific Coast Archaeology Society, Vol. 42, No. 2 & 3, 2009).  "The artifact is a thin tablet possessing 70 drilled holes."

  The January 1, 1931 edition of the Huntington Beach News, Indian Burial Ground is unearthed on Buck Ranch, reported in a front page article that "there was a stone found which was four by five inches with the edges slightly rounded, and 70 small holes in even rows on the stone, the holes being near a quarter of an inch in diameter.  That stone was either used in some game or for some unknown purpose.  People versed in Indian lore said they had never seen such a relic."

   It is on display at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California.  Much like the remarkable Universe Effigy found on the Cole Ranch in Wintersburg, it has been right in front of us.

    Other multi holed tablets have been found and are included in the Bowers Museum collections.  And, like the cogged stones found in Wintersburg and the Bolsa Chica, there is a lot of guessing about the purpose of the multi holed tablets.  

   In the case of the Universe Effigy--or the "Keystone Cache" of cogged stones found on the Bolsa Chica--it is thought that important ceremonial objects were stored away from dwellings and included in important burials.  The Keystone Cache appears to have been buried, encased in a mud slurry, while the tablet was part of a burial site.

RIGHT: Henry W. Henshaw wrote about Perforated Stones from California in 1887, although not describing the cogged stones or multi holed tablets found in Wintersburg.  One California Native American woman he interviewed said, "we used to bury them with our dead." (Perforated Stones from California, Henry W. Henshaw, Smithsonian Institution, 1887)

   Researchers also believe one of the burials at the Buck Ranch site was for a shaman or spiritual leader, due to the ornamentation and burial remains.  The remains of a meticulously-crafted limpet shell necklace and red stone smoking pipe held at the Bowers Museum are believed to belong to the shaman.

   "There was one article made of clay.  It was possibly an Indian pipe, the clay had apparently not been burned..." reported the Huntington Beach News.  "There were Indian stone bowls, used for grinding meal and the pestles that the Indians used to crush their corn into meal.  One bowl weighed forty pounds and one pestle weighted nine pounds."

   Most of the former Buck Ranch land is now a tract of homes, developed in the 1960s-1970s.  Traces of the 1930 plunder of artifacts may be scattered about Orange County in public and private collections.

ABOVE:  A December 1946 feature in Southern California Beachcomber Magazine gives a glimpse of the Aldrich Collection, which included artifacts from Wintersburg's Buck Ranch.  Note the human skulls in the glass case to his left. (Image, Frederick Randolph Aldrich, Shells Magzine)

The Aldrich Collection
    Frederick Randolph Aldrich operated a private museum on Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach for many years.  When he passed in 1953, his "shell collection" was purchased and displayed by the Balboa Pavilion and later donated to the Bower's Museum.

   A newspaper article posted about Aldrich, One of Nation's  Finest Shell Collections Open to Public Each Sunday on Bay Island, reports his real break came "when a rancher at work with a sub soiler near the Bolsa Chica Gun Club, north of Huntington Beach unearthed an Indian bowl.  He contacted Aldrich and further probing was undertaken.  The exploration resulted in the richest Indian cemetery ever found in California, Aldrich says. It yielded human remains, and numerous household, hunting and ceremonial articles.  Aldrich has the finest relics of this find on exhibit."

   In The Case of the Missing Buck Ranch Mortuary Remains: A Mystery Partly Solved (Pacific Coast Archaeology Society, Vol. 41 No. 2 & 3, 2009), it is reported that "there are 25 adults and three sub adults in the Aldrich Collection that had almost certainly come from Buck Ranch."  Moe Gronsky (the Gronsky family owned the Balboa Pavilion) told researchers that "an unspecified number of skulls" were held and not transferred to the Bowers Museum.

ABOVE: Photos circa mid-1940s show Aldrich again standing in front of the glass case with human skulls, holding a stone pestle that was "part of the richest tribal burial find ever discovered in California," a reference to the Buck Ranch, Wintersburg discovery.  (Image, Frederick Randolph Aldrich, Shells Magazine)
 
There's more
   Archaeological finds in the mesas, lowlands and wetlands of Wintersburg indicate thriving populations with complex beliefs.  

   A recent environmental impact review for a mixed-use project at Beach Boulevard and Warner (Wintersburg) Avenue reported "the Native American Heritage Commission identified the presence of Native American cultural resources within the immediate area...and noted that the general area was considered sensitive for cultural resources...representatives from the Gabrieleno Tongva Nation (expressed) their concerns about the sensitivity of the...area for Native American resources and burial grounds."  

    The conclusion in the report was that the area is "considered to be sensitive for the presence of Native American cultural resources, including human remains."  The Beach and Warner Mixed-Use Project is approximately 1600 feet east of Historic Wintersburg, the Furuta family farm and Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission complex.

   During the 1970s, human burials were discovered on the east side of Edwards Street (CA-ORA-82).  In a report prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1989, it was noted that the "deep deposits at this site appear to reflect lengthy use." 

LEFT: "Tongva woman", believed to be Juana Maria, the last surviving member of her tribe and last surviving speaker of the Nicoleño dialect. This photograph was reportedly found alongside a picture of Maria Sinforosa Ramona Sanchez, wife of George Nidever, with whom Maria had lived while at the Santa Barbara Mission. (WikiCommons)

   A multiple burial site was found in the 1970s a scant 1320 feet northwest of the Furuta family farm and Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission complex (Shell Midden, Site Number 30000346).  In the early 1900s, the Universe Effigy--on display at the Bowers Museum in Orange County--was found just west of the property off Warner Avenue at the Cole Ranch in the former Wintersburg Village.

   On the Huntington Beach Mesa---where present-day Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley converge---there are discoveries of "magico religious" items, charmstones, birdstones, cogged stones, and pipes at the Dobkin site near Newland and Ellis Avenues, the Heil and Newland avenues site, a site between Slater and Talbert avenues, and the Borchard Ranch, south of the old Buck Ranch. 

   And, there are the significant burial remains found at the Bolsa Chica (Cole Ranch and the Universe Effigy: Part Two, http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/04/cole-ranch-and-universe-effigy-part-two.html).  Over a dozen known archaeological cultural sites are scattered throughout the Bolsa Chica and Wintersburg lowlands alone, representing at least 9,000 years of occupation.

RIGHT: Aerial of the relatively untouched Wintersburg - Bolsa Chica area in 1928, now part of north Huntington Beach, California. (Source, County of Orange)

    Oscar L. Stricklin, an oil worker who arrived in Huntington Beach in the 1920s, talked in 1971 with the Daily Pilot Newspaper about helping a farmer who had unearthed a mass grave near present-day Slater Avenue.  Stricklin remembers this happening in the 1920s.

   "Stricklin took some of his men to the grave and helped the farmer uncover 36 skeletons whose origin remain a mystery to him," reported Rudi Niedzielski,  Oil Boom Recalled: Pioneer writes of Huntington era.  Stricklin wrote about the incident in his memoirs several years before his passing in 1974.  

   "There were that many in an area about 40 feet square.  Some of them were actually sitting up, others were stooped over and some were lying down flat.  We didn't take them out.  We'd uncover them and get all the dirt away from them and just leave them sitting there.  It was a gruesome sight," remembered Stricklin.  "Nobody knows if it was a massacre or whether they had died and were put there or whether they drowned in a flood.  We called the people from the state and they put them in a museum somewhere."

    The continual drain of historic resources to unknown places is a centuries-old problem.  With the continual "surprise" discovery of new archaeological finds--combined with the concerns stated by the descendants of the Tongva--it's reasonable to expect there will be more. 

Back to Buck Ranch
   "Of the hundreds of curious people who visited the burial spot of an unknown people, many carried away skulls and other relics."

                                                             Huntington Beach News, January 1, 1931

   The Huntington Beach News account of the Buck Ranch discovery reports "arrowheads, some quite large...were beautifully finished, the workmanship being quite smooth..." and speculates some were spearheads.  "One skull found had fangs and was undoubtedly the head of a dog...the skulls and bodies bore evidence of having been laid out in graves..."

LEFT: An account of the burial site from the Los Angeles Times, combined with oral history accounts, presents a mix of descriptions of artifacts along with terminology and analysis that is cringe-worthy today.  It is believed the Tongva walked the peatlands and wetlands over 8,000 years ago. (Image, Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, December 30, 1930)


   The January 1, 1931, article considers the site could have been a mass grave from a battle or that "there may have been a marshy spring there and the Indians disposed of their dead in deposition of the bodies in the spring or march."  This appears to be refuted by present-day scholars.  The Huntington Beach News then discusses the skulls, in ridiculous fashion.

   "One skull brought out with the shovels had jaws hard set on two rows of teeth.  The skull was smaller than the average found," writes the Huntington Beach News.  " 'That might be a woman's skull' suggested a digger. 'Impossible,' said his companion. 'No woman would ever keep her mouth shut that tight, or keep it shut that long.' "

   It continues.

   "Another small skull was found with very low forehead. 'Possibly that may be a woman's skull,' was suggested," writes the Huntington Beach News. " 'It was surely the skull of a very stupid human, but that is not a sure sign it is a woman's skull,' was the answer as the crowd of curious laughed."

   The combination of serious scientific speculation with seriously disrespectful, ethnocentric commentary is something to leave in the past, but not forget.  It is for good reason the article's author and those quoted were anonymous. 

   The Huntington Beach News ends the article, "the deputy sheriffs who visited the spot, carefully re interred the bones they found unearthed, but others who followed after have dug the skeletons out again."  

   Editor's note: It is hoped that those who believe they may have an artifact from the Buck Ranch--perhaps sitting in a family collection for almost a century--will consider coming forward.  It is time.

ABOVE: An unknown collector in Palos Verdes, California, circa 1926. 

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