Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyingwedge
As Harris Newmark wrote in his Sixty Years in Southern California (1913), "Among the meat-handlers, there were several Sentous brothers, but those with whom I was more intimately acquainted were Jean [1837-1903] and Louis [1839-1911], father of Louis Sentous [Jr] the present French Consul, both of whom, if I mistake not, came about the middle of the fifties. They engaged in the sheep business; and later Louis had a packing-house of considerable importance located between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, where he also owned over a thousand acres of valuable land which he sold some time before his death. They were very successful; and Sentous Street bears their name. Jean died in 1903, and Louis a few years later."
http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-en...of-h-hci.shtml
FWIW, this March 21, 1906 news article about the new Sentous Co. meat packing plant (the company had been sold by the family the year before) refers to Louis already being deceased:
http://physics.usc.edu/Undergraduate...Sentous%29.pdf
The confusion might be explained by this article, which says that Louis Sentous Jr. was the son of Jean Sentous, not Louis Sentous Sr:
http://books.google.com/books?id=YMU...entous&f=false
Anyway, I believe this is a postcard of the meat packing plant "between Los Angeles and Santa Monica" that Mr. Newmark wrote about :
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ADVERTISIN...p2047675.l2557
The reverse side:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ADVERTISIN...p2047675.l2557
This 1903 map shows where the Sentous meat packing plant was apparently located:
![](http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q593/Goalie48/Old%20Downtown%20Los%20Angeles/Downtown%20Commercial/1903HenryRueger_zpsd3f9c09b.jpg)
Historic Mapworks - http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/...03/California/
You see the Sentous properties in the middle of the map ("Louis Sentous" and "[V] and E Sentous") . . . the "Y" intersection in the lower right of the Sentous rectangle is Washington and Adams. The squiggly line below that is Ballona Creek, and the railroad line running through the Sentous properties (upper right to lower left across the map) is the Los Angeles-Pacific RR referred to in the 1906 news article above and which would become the future path of Venice Blvd:
![](http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q593/Goalie48/Old%20Downtown%20Los%20Angeles/Downtown%20Commercial/1903maptoday_zps9f90a082.jpg)
GoogleMaps
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2
|
There definitely was, at least from 1912 on, a Sentous Station on the old Los Angeles and Independence/Santa Monica Air Line/eastern half of Expo
Line, just east of La Cienega on the south side of Jefferson Blvd. It's on plenty of maps, including the one
Tovangar2 posted above, and it's on this
c. 1920 Pacific Electric map (note, per caption above, that the line east of Sentous was not electrified until 1911):
![](http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q593/Goalie48/Old%20Downtown%20Los%20Angeles/Downtown%20Commercial/1920PEmap_zps87c5d57e.jpg)
Calisphere -
http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb638nb72q/
However, in my previous post I was attempting to pinpoint the location of the Sentous meat packing plant. As you can see from the postcard in
my earlier post, the Sentous meat packing plant was a stop on the Balloon Route excursion. Here are a couple more views of the same postcard,
with date and location notes:
![](http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q593/Goalie48/Old%20Downtown%20Los%20Angeles/Downtown%20Commercial/sentouspackingco_zpse130af7f.jpg)
Penny Postcards from California -
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/losan...la/sentous.jpg
![](http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q593/Goalie48/Old%20Downtown%20Los%20Angeles/Downtown%20Commercial/631154130_o_zpse9db79eb.jpg)
Auctiva.com/Ebay -
http://www.auctiva.com/hostedimages/...ats=0&format=0
So if the Sentous Packing Company was on the Balloon Route, where was the Balloon Route?
This c. 1910 Balloon Route brochure shows Sentous Station on the Venice Short (Venice Blvd.) Line between the Hammond and Hauser stops, not on
the Los Angeles and Independence RR/Santa Monica Air Line/eastern half of Expo Line:
![](http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q593/Goalie48/Old%20Downtown%20Los%20Angeles/Downtown%20Commercial/MLPSI-Pierce-Balloon-Route-3_zpsf148ddba.jpg)
PacificElectric.org -
http://www.pacificelectric.org/pacif...brochure-1910/
This Balloon Route ad from the March 17, 1907, LA Herald shows Sentous Station with more detail regarding neighboring stations. It's four stops east
of Ivy Park (today's Culver Blvd./Venice Blvd. intersection) and just west of the Whitworth and Hauser stops (remember, the single-track Santa Monica
Air Line was not yet electrified east of Sentous, so it could not have been used on the Balloon Route):
![](http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q593/Goalie48/Old%20Downtown%20Los%20Angeles/Downtown%20Commercial/Mar171907LAHerald_zpse0c4fe18.jpg)
Library of Congress -
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...d-1/seq-96.pdf
Let's take another look at that 1903 map, with some landmarks highlighted:
![](http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q593/Goalie48/Old%20Downtown%20Los%20Angeles/Downtown%20Commercial/1903RincondelosBueyes_zpsd9c831e4.jpg)
Historic Mapworks -
http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/...03/California/
Blue X = Venice/National (National is about 4/10 of a mile east of Culver/Venice, and today's Ivy Street -- possibly the same as
Ivy Road on the 1907 ad -- is about 1/10 of a mile east of National)
Red X = Washington/Adams
Green X = La Cienega/Jefferson
Magenta underline = Whitworth property; likely site of Whitworth stop on Venice line
Yellow underline = Hauser properties; future site of Hauser Blvd. and Hauser stop on Venice line
(BTW, Hauser Blvd. was apparently named after another meatpacker, Julius Hauser:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0hc...ngeles&f=false)
I'm not sure about the spacing between the street car stops, but the Sentous station probably would have been in or near the northern part
of the Louis Sentous property that adjoins the "V and E Sentous" property (Vincent or Vincente and Exupere, Louis' brothers and meatpacking partners),
maybe about where the
S in
Bueyes is.
There's also a reference to a late-19th-century abattoir in the area ("Arnaz also raised cattle, pasturing them in the area bounded by Pico,
Washington, Robertson and La Cienega boulevards. Three times a year he sent steers to the slaughterhouse at the intersection of Washington
and Adams Boulevards") in this 1939 article about Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes:
http://www.expogreenway.org/History_...a%20Rancho.htm
So, I think the evidence clearly points to the existence of two Sentous Stations -- perhaps concurrently, perhaps not -- one of which was near
the site of the Sentous Packing Company plant on the Venice Short Line/Balloon Route, north of the Washington/Adams intersection,
on land owned by the Sentous family.
It's the other Sentous Station that I can't figure out. The Sentous family sold their packing company in 1905; in July 1906 a name change was
proposed from Sentous Packing to Southwestern Packing:
http://books.google.com/books?id=DvY...entous&f=false
And this 1908 article refers to an accident at the "
Southwestern plant, Sentous Station":
http://books.google.com/books?id=U8k...entous&f=false
There is one reference to Southwestern Packing Company in the 1909 LA City Directory, but not in the 1915 directory or any after that.
If the Sentous Packing Company and Sentous Station were on the Venice Short Line, why would there be a Sentous Station on the Santa Monica
Air Line as well? Wouldn't that invite confusion? (with a Sentous packing house on each line that would make sense, but that seems unlikely)
If the Sentous Station on the Santa Monica Line opened after the one on the Venice Line closed or was renamed, why transfer the name if there
was no Sentous Packing plant there? I found no map earlier than 1912 showing Sentous Station on the Santa Monica Air Line.
Anyone with questions/doubts about Sentous Station is welcome to dig further.
P.S. Upon further review, since the Santa Monica Air Line predates the Venice Short Line (c. 1875 vs. 1902), perhaps the Jefferson/La Cienega Sentous Station was built first and got that name because at that time it was the nearest stop to the Sentous Packing Company a short distance away at roughly Washington and Adams, even if the Sentous family didn't own the land where that RR stop was. Since the stop on the Venice line was apparently on Sentous property and even closer to the Sentous plant, it would make sense for that stop to be named Sentous as well.