When I started exploring this thread a photo of the Hotel Nadeau caught my eye. I can't find that page now (despite much searching!), but would like to reply to it and add some comments.
I like ghost towns and in reading about them the name Nadeau comes up again and again. Remi Nadeau was a French-Canadian entrepreneur who came to California in 1861. He built up a very successful freight operation that catered to the burgeoning silver and gold mines in eastern California. This was quite brilliant - the mines went boom and bust, but Nadeau's stage company always stayed busy. In most cases, gold. silver, lead, and other metals were brought from the mines to San Pedro by Nadeau's animal teams, and then went to San Francisco by ship. (Back then there was no efficient route over the Sierras.)
He also built a large hotel in L.A., which had the city's first elevator. It was at 1st and Spring, where the L.A. Times building is now.
The great grandson of Mr. Nadeau is an accomplished historian who has published many excellent books about the early days of L.A., California, and the mining camps.
There are a lot of great images in the book - I'll start with some images of hotels and Chinatown.
The first two images here are from USC and LAPL, the rest are from City-Makers, The Story Of Southern California's First Boom 1868-1876 (pub. 1965).
Here are an line drawing of Downey Block, the Lafayette Hotel "bus"
and Chinatown:
(I wonder what hill that is in the background?)