Hello, and welcome back to This Week in History! A few issues ago, I started a new format for the column, calling it “Zooming in.” The premise is simple: Rather than skimming over history, I’ll do my best to dive deep into an event that unfolded this week in history. So, with a bit of an unfortunate theme for the past few weeks, this issue will cover an explosive start to October 1910 in the city of Los Angeles.
Throughout this week, two separate — though intertwined — stories converge in one tragic ending. On Sept. 30, a Western Union telegraph operator, William Firman, noted that there was a faint smell of gasoline in the air. He was working a late-night shift to produce the Oct. 1 issue of the Los Angeles Times, alongside around 100 other writers, producers and editors. They were covering results from the exciting Vanderbilt race, the first major car racing cup in the U.S.
That night, Firman detected a leak in the gas pipes within the Los Angeles Times Building, an old stone structure built in 1887 on the corner between two major roads in the city. It was the chief operational building for the newspaper, known by locals as the “fortress.”
Images of the structure certainly tell an eerie tale of their own, as the building’s facade and size tower over the corner of the street, and the slabs of stone that complete several archways look almost like a medieval citadel.
Within the “fortress” halls walked the chief editor and owner of the Los Angeles Times, the Union veteran Harrison Gray Otis. Born in 1837, Otis was in his mid-70s on the night of Oct. 1, 1910. But due to his age, Otis experienced a remarkable number of events that stand out on the pages of history books. In 1860, Otis, as a delegate from Kentucky, was present when the Republican National Convention nominated Abraham Lincoln for president. Likewise, once the Civil War finally split open a deeply fractured America, Otis left his work at the Louisville Courier-Journal to volunteer in the Union Army. He served bravely through many pivotal battles of the Civil War and was promoted seven times, ending the conflict as a lieutenant colonel.
Otis remained a Republican, though he became known for his staunch conservatism, which showed itself in his editorial work. The Los Angeles Times and Otis entered Los Angeles in the 1880s, when the city was made up of some 12,500 people. In an extraordinary shift, the city boomed to over 300,000 by 1910. Otis, an old-timer, was now heading a newspaper critical of the changes taking place in the city: a paper critical of the unending ways of people coming and living in slums, picketing for jobs, wages and clogging city streets.
It came to be that Otis’ stone Los Angeles Times Building remained a fortress among crowded and dirty streets. Naturally, Otis’ paper was critical of the change, and most vehemently critical of the organizations fighting for the welfare of the influx of people. He even controlled the Merchants Association, changing it into the Merchants and Manufacturer’s Association (M&M), using it to attempt to end the rising labor unions in Los Angeles.
While Otis strolled his halls, a young man strolled down to the Los Angeles Times Building, holding nothing but a briefcase. He had been tasked by his older brother with a simple objective.
Briskly walking down “Ink Alley,” the young man set the briefcase down near a storage of printer’s ink. Perhaps a slight clicking noise could be heard if one put their ear up to the briefcase.
The man, named J.B. McNamara, next made his way to another location — Otis’ home — and placed a briefcase on the premises. Afterwards, he went to the home of Felix Zeehandelaar, a staff member at M&M. J.B. then left the city by train.
All three of the briefcases were successfully placed, but only one was successfully discharged. At 1:07 a.m., on Oct. 1, 1910, the “fortress” would be crushed as 16 sticks of dynamite erupted in “Ink Alley,” a quiet alleyway near the Los Angeles Times Building. Firman noted the smell of gas the night prior, and indeed, another individual complicit in the explosion, Ortie McManigal, had supposedly opened a gas valve to ensure the explosion was destructive.
The explosion, though not destroying the entire building, was a terrifying scene. The late-night staff, which the mastermind of the plot and J.B.’s older brother, J. J. McNamara, did not know were occupying the building, scrambled desperately to survive. Some jumped out of windows to escape the devastating gas fire, which ignited nearly instantly, while others rushed down the stairs of the building to no avail. While the fire raged on, it took the lives of 21 people in the building. Otis, who survived the attack, went on the next day to print a scathing issue at an auxiliary printing station in LA, set up specifically for an event such as this.
Otis used his connections paper to his full advantage, printing about the attack over the next few days, as well as having coverage from other papers such as the “El Paso Herald.” Soon, the city of LA and M&M would supply a nearly $75,000 reward for whoever turned in the plotters of the attack. Over the course of the next few weeks, and sadly outside of the scope of this column, the series of events that took place on Oct. 1, 1910, would have lasting implications on the history of organized labor and the power of unions in LA. The McNamara brothers would be caught in raids on the union headquarters, and both would go through lengthy court proceedings, all but destroying the presence of the labor movement in the city. The Los Angeles Times would continue to be led by Otis and his family well into the mid-20th century.
Ultimately, what one judge called “a veritable reign of terror” ruled that 38 of the 40 defendants in the trials following the bombing were guilty. Union membership would decline drastically, with lasting effects even in the 21st century.
So, that concludes This Week in History. What I’ve come to learn through this “Zooming in” premise, is that every event is actually a series of hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller events. The fun in history isn’t just memorizing dates or reading a bullet point to learn a “fact” or two. Rather, the joy of history comes from stringing together the tiniest of events to finally get a glimpse at the bigger picture. Until next time.