The President of Bunker Hill

Happy Presidents’ Day! Yes, I know it’s really Washington’s Birthday (it irks me George is not celebrated specifically, he being my first cousin) but, I’ll accept it. After all, who morphed Washington’s Birthday into Presidents’ Day? The mighty Angeleno, that’s who: among those many things invented in Los Angeles, Presidents’ Day is among them, as it exists due to the tireless efforts of one Mr. Harold Stonebridge Fischer, he of Compton, California.

What do presidents have to do with our topic at hand? Well, among the many notable folk who have lived on or visited Bunker Hill—my recent post about Anna May Wong being one example—it is asserted by some that President William McKinley has a connection to the Hill. McKinley purportedly stayed in one of its most recognized landmarks, the Melrose Hotel, or, at least, made a Very Important Speech from the Melrose’s porch. Heck, I reported as much in this 2008 post.

The source of that information is a couple of unnamed little-old-ladies who got to chatting with Times reporter Ray Hebert on Grand Avenue in June 1957.

While chatting with Hebert, and the fellow salvaging sinks and whatnot from the doomed Melrose, one of the ladies stated she remembered standing on that very sidewalk watching McKinley on that very porch, “as if it were yesterday.”

McKinley on Bunker Hill would be a huge deal for us Bunker wonks. Love him or hate him—many being divided over his annexation of Hawaii, freeing Cuba, or purchasing the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico—McKinley was arguably the first “modern” president, and we must admire his administration for its monetary policy and a trade reciprocity that shrewdly pulled America out of the crippling 1890s economic depression. All that notwithstanding, I just get all giddy over the fact that McKinley was on Bunker Hill in one of my favorite buildings.

But, of course, it never happened. It’s a neat story, but then so is “there was a streetcar conspiracy!” and “the Dodgers kicked people out of Chavez Ravine!” and those tales aren’t true, either. More analogous is the assertion that “Teddy Roosevelt stayed at the King Edward Hotel!” which, as has been pointed out, didn’t happen either. (Not that no-one ever stayed at the Melrose; it was the hotel of choice for any number of illustrious personages, e.g. Marshall Independence Ludington, though, he’s not exactly McKinley, is he.)

At this point, you might be wondering, what is this Melrose Hotel which McKinley did not in fact visit?

The Melrose was built in the spring of 1889, for Marc William Connor, designed by the firm of Joseph Cather Newsom. For reasons I go into here, I’m of the opinion that it is from the hand of Walter Ferris, Newsom’s draughtsman.

The Melrose soldiered on through the decades, gaining a second building to its north in 1902, remaining elegant to the end, before its 1957 demolition by the County.

There were a few notes in the news about the end of the Melrose. The 1957 Times article that spoke of McKinley’s presence described the old gal as grotesque and alarming and not unlike a snake, but worst of all, “out of place,” the true sin in mid-Century America:

In April 1957 the papers had made note of Lucy Davis, sole remaining resident of the venerable Melrose, being removed from her long-time home. In those blurbs, not only McKinley but old “Rough and Ready” Roosevelt himself bunked therein!

As I linked to above, Teddy Roosevelt was comfortably ensconced in the Westminster, not the Melrose (nor the King Edward). The question then being, if McKinley didn‘t stay at the Melrose, where was he?

McKinley made his way to the Van Nuys, two blocks south and five blocks east, well off of Bunker Hill.

Mind you, McKinley didn’t stay at the Van Nuys; he bunked with fellow Ohioan Harrison Gray Otis at The Bivouac. Members of his entourage, like George Cortelyou, though, stayed at the Van Nuys. A good summation of the 1901 McKinley trip is here.

But still, the little-old-ladies of 1957 insisted they had seen a McKinley speech. And they did, delivered from the balcony of the Van Nuys Hotel:

During his welcome reception at the Van Nuys, McKinley decided the throngs deserved an impromptu address, and asked Milo Potter where he might find the nearest suitable balcony. The President was ushered to the balcony of room 22, near the northeast corner of the second floor. That would be here:

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So. No McKinley on Old Bunker Hill. “Awww,” you say, “now I’m sad. Surely at least one president visited Bunker Hill…”

Well, fear not! In October 1880 we were graced by the presence of Rutherford B. Hayes, who stayed at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, on Main near Temple, and then visited the northern reaches of Bunker Hill when he attended the agricultural fair at the Horticultural Pavilion. (You may claim that the Pavilion having been north of Temple Street, its location should rightly be called Fort Moore Hill rather than Bunker Hill, but, I consider the Fort Moore area a northern district of Bunker Hill, and, it being my blog, so there.)

Hayes spoke to a packed pavilion and then went off to look at all the boostery produce. Then he and his party dined at the New England Kitchen in the pavilion. Even in 1880, Los Angeles had theme restaurants; forty years before the immersive experience of the Jail Café, the ladies of the New England Kitchen dressed in Colonial garb.

Naturally, I contacted the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library, asking after any images that might exist of his Los Angeles trip. Unfortunately, while library archives contain some images of Hayes on his 1880 Western Trip, those images are of his adventures around Yosemite and Menlo Park.

As for the Horticultural Pavilion: it is oft said that the structure burned down, as so stated by Sarah Bixby in Adobe Days. However, its end was in actuality much less dramatic. The pavilion could never meet its mortgage, and it was pulled down in the spring of 1882. The area on which it stood was redeveloped as residential:

There has been no shortage of presidential trips to Los Angeles over the years, but I’m yet to discover further evidence of presidential appearances in predemolition Bunker Hill, apart from Hayes.

Bunker Hill adjacent, though…

Presidents still come to our fair city, visit downtown, and it often gets saucy, but none have the moxie (nor the mighty beard) as President Hayes, our Chief Executive of Old Bunker Hill.