We have had several posts over the years on the interesting early Angeleno Conrad Hafen and the two
Hafen Houses. Newmark gives us a quick summary on Mr. Hafen: “Conrad Hafen, a German-Swiss, reached Los Angeles in December, 1868, driving a six-horse team and battered wagon with which he had braved the privations of Death Valley; and soon he rented a little vineyard, two years later buying for the same purpose considerable acreage on what is now Central Avenue. Rewarded for his husbandry with some affluence, Hafen built both the old Hafen House and the new on South Hill Street, once a favorite resort for German arrivals. He retired in 1905” (end of Chapter 25 in his
Sixty Years in Southern California). He died in 1910, and “is survived by one son and two daughters, Louis Hafen, Mrs. Eliza Price and Mrs. Jacob Dieterich, all of Los Angeles, together with eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren” (
L.A. Herald, November 1, 1910).
There is also, at one remove, a noirish shadow in this. Son-in-law Jacob Dieterich, (“born 1867, Stuttgart, Württemberg, Germany. […] 1887, came to America and directly to Los Angeles, where a year was spent as a florist and landscape gardener. This was followed by being in charge of the O.W. Childs firm for a year. In 1892, he opened his [
horticultural shop at] 1142–1146 Wall St. 1893, residing at 422 E. 12th St.” (book
Roll-Call, by B.C. Dickerson, 2024, p. 125). The residence was just around the corner from the shop. In 1897, he had something of an adventure at the shop. One John McManus, at 1145 San Julian, just behind Dieterich’s shop, who “has engaged somewhat in the occupation of grubbing out trees. He removed the big pepper trees at Eighth and Spring streeets, where the new armory building is being erected” (from edited-out portion of article below), was trying to split some logs into kindling, using “giant powder” (which I take it is dynamite). I excerpt from an article:
LA Times, 9/11/1897
But, back to focusing on Dieterich. On December 5, 1926, his affairs came to a violent end. We take up the story following the article’s introductory paragraphs:
LA Times, 12/7/1926
I cannot find that the guilty parties were ever apprehended.