Cabeza de Baca-Moral Renovation-Tijuana Role

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Order Number 9137321

M oral renovation of the Californias: Tijuanas po litical and

econom ic role in A merican-Mexican relations, 19201935

C. de Baca, Vincent Zachary, Ph.D.

University of California, San Diego, 1991

Copyright 1991 b y C . de Baca, Vincent Zachary. A ll rights reserved.

UMI300 N. Zeeb R&Ann Arbor, MI 48106

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'N'yERSITYOcr*..__

-5 1-L.

/??/

> V

Moral Renovation of the Californias:

Tijuana's Political and Economic Role in American-Mexican

Relations, 1920-1935

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

in History

by

Vincent Z. C. de Baca

Committee in charge:

Professor Ram6n E. Ruiz, ChairProfessor Carlos Blanco-AguinagaProfessor Jaime ConchaProfessor Ram6n GutierrezProfessor Michael MontednProfessor Eric Van Young

1991

ro du ced with perm ission of the copyright owner . Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.

A31822006436737B


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Copyright 1991

by




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The dissertation of Vincent Z. C. de Baca is approved, and

it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on

microfilm:

!_

b.air

University of California, San Diego

QO

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Table of Contents

Signature Page...................................... iiiTable of Contents................................... ivPreface.............................................. v

Vita, Publications and Fields of Study............ viiiAbstract............................................. ix

I Introduction......................................... 1

II Geo-politics of the California BorderRegion....... 24

III Tijuana Rising in the Prohibition Era.............. 70

IV Economic Miracle of Governor Rodriguez............ 110

V The Decline of Tijuana.............................. 139

VI Tijuana's Colorful Legends......................... 173

Bibliography........................................ 183Appendices.......................................... 199Appendix A................. 200Appendix B .......................................... 206Appendix C .......................................... 208

iv

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PREFACE

Human beings are territorial creatures and they

create borders to define real and symbolic limits to their

influence and security. Over time, borders expand or recede

in response to man-made ornatural catastrophes like

depression, war and famine. More important, stronger

nations often impose conditions on weaker neighbors that

reduce the political and economic significance of borders.

Territorial limits are effective barriers or they are

exposed as a political fiction.

The concept of border goes beyond territoriality to

distinguish between cultures and governments. Yet in

practice, cultural boundaries transcend national borders

whenever different peoples establish formal or informal

social, political and economic ties. Many historians are

concerned with howinstitutions work within given

jurisdictions, as if cultural spheres were fixed to

geographical points. But, in the process, the social and

economic relationships between peoples living on the margin

have been ignored to a great extent. Given the modern

demographic and information revolutions, borders blend

cultures rather than isolate them.

For two centuries, Mexico and the United States have

had periods of conflict and distrust that were followed by

relative peace if not friendship. By 1848, wars and

treaties had established a 2,000 mile-long border between

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the two countries that became both a blessing and a curse.

Families and merchants spread across it while fugitives and

smugglers took advantage of diplomatic vagaries to the

detriment of both societies. Yet increasingly, northern

Mexico and the southwestern United States forged links that

contradicted national values. Some Mexicans and Americans

even began to worry that a bicultural society might be

rising along the border which would become independent of

both nations.

Tijuana, the subject of this thesis, became a

thriving metropolis in the shadow of America's most

prosperous state. Tijuana was created because of its

location near the powerful urban centers of California. Its

proximity to the U.S. and its geographical isolation from

Mexico City left it in the cultural and economic periphery

of cities across the border. Without means of its own,

Tijuana became a sanctuary for American tourists early in

this century. In the interim, Tijuana became thoroughly

dependent on foreign visitors. The resulting society was

disowned by mexico and the U.S., yet both derived benefits

from its existence.

As a life-long "borderlander," I have been curious

about Tijuana's origins and its development. Though born on

this side of the border, I played in Tijuana streets,

attended family parties and accompanied my father to the

Agua Caliente racetrack. Without knowing why, the

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bordertown influenced my life, so this study has been a

personal discovery as well as an intellectual challenge.

Luckily, my dissertation advisor, Dr. Ram6n Eduardo Ruiz,

help me narrow the scope of this work. If credit is due,

Dr. Ruiz deserves my eternal appreciation for urging me to

finish this task.

Many other people contributed to this study and they

deserve recognition. I acknowledge the support of a

University of California President's Dissertation Fellowship

that facilitated study in Mexico City. I am grateful to the

staffs of the Archivo General de la Nacidn, the Tijuana

Public Library, the San Diego Historical Society and the

Special Collections at UCSD and UCR for all their help. The

Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA gave me access to

their newspaper collection. Special thanks goes to Dr.

Arturo Madrid and Dr. Ray Garza at the Tomcis Rivera

Institute for their encouragement. My family and friends

gave me emotional strength during trying time. In the end,

this work is dedicated to the Tiiuanenses who struggled to

build a proud city against all odds.

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VITA

May 29, 1950 Born, San Diego, California

1972 - 1974

1981

1984 - 1986

19861990 - 19911991

U.S. Marine Corps

B.A., University of California, SanDiegoM.A., University of California, SanDiegoInstructor, MIracosta College, Vista, CAInstructor, Mesa College, San Diego, CAPh.D., University of California, SanDiego

PUBLICATIONS

"Review of Dirk Raat and Sara de Mundo Lo," La Red/The Net

72 (September, 1983).

"The Peasant Mystique of the Mexican Revolution," AztleinXII:2 (Fall, 1981), pp. 193-209.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: History of Latin AmericaStudies in Modern MexicoProfessor Ram6n Eduardo Ruiz

Studies in Colonial Latin America

Professors Eric Van Young and Benjamin Keen

Studies in American SouthwestProfessor Ram6n Gutierrez

Studies in Modern South AmericaProfessor Miguel Montedn

Studies in Spanish American LiteratureProfessors Carlos Blanco-Aguinaga and Jaime Concha

Vlll



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A BS TR A C T OF THE D I S S ER TA TI ON

Moral Renovation of the Californias:

Tijuana's Political and Economic Role in American-Mexican

Relations, 1220-1935

by


Doctor of Philosophy in History

University of California, San Diego, 1991

Professor Ram6n Eduardo Ruiz, Chairman

Tijuana, Mexico became a North American marketplace

for vice activity due to the "moral reformation" of

California by the American Progressive movement. More

important, the prohibition of liquor in the United States

made Tijuana world-famous for the "high life" of its "golden

age" (1920-1935). Mexico's 1910 Revolution

institutionalized moral renovation yet the government

authorized Tijuana's development as a tourist haven in

exchange for "sin taxes." Not surprisingly, U.S. citizens

usually owned, operated and patronized the saloons,

brothels, drug dens and casinos that grew on Mexican soil.

Over time, an American and Mexican elite made fortunes while

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Tijuana residents earned meager wages that were high by

Mexican standards. It was ironic that Tijuana's "black

legend" stigmatized town residents who had no control over

the illicit trade. American puritans and Mexican

nationalists protested against the vice cartels but they had

limited success. In the 1930s, Tijuana's "golden age" was

ruined by global political and economic changes. In many

minds, the "sin city" declined to a second-rate "hell-hole"

until WWII mobilization revitalized tourism under Mexican

owners and staff.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

IIn its youth, Tijuana, Mexico became a wild

bordertown due to moral and political changes in the United

States. Once only a sleepy village, it was modernized into

a foreign tourist resort, complete with saloons, casinos,

brothels and drug dens. American capitalists and tourists

lavished riches on the young city during the era known as

Prohibition. Border vice activity, moreover, afflicted

Mexican politics at local, district and national levels of

government. Most importantly, Tijuana's residents, known as

Tiiuanenses. had socio-economic relations with foreign

tourists. The bordertown's social structure was affected

since the tourist resorts hired American and Mexican

employees. Not surprisingly, Tiiuanenses held ambivalent

opinions toward vice activity when moral issues and

pragmatic needs conflicted.

II

Following the "moral reformation" of California

early in this century, Tijuana became the North American

marketplace for vice. Americans and Mexicans quickly

created Tijuana's network of gambling, liquor, drugs and

prostitution. The bordertown grew into an international

fun-spot famous, in its "golden age" from 1920 to 1935, for

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its "high life" and the instant fortunes that could be made

there. Generally, United States citizens dominated both the

supply and demand of illicit commodities sold on Mexican

soil. Although moral reformers condemned conditions in

Tijuana, they could not stop the expansion of vice activity.

The bordertown declined when international political and

economic advantages disappeared. Finally, in 1935, a

Mexican president, L&zaro CArdenas, outlawed gambling and

closed down Tijuana's casinos while he launched a campaign

of national renovation. As a result, Tijuana's development

stagnated until U.S. mobilization in World War II

revitalized border vice and tourism.

Ill

Since 1848, the northern district of Baja California

was Mexican in name but existed within the orbit of American

California. Local residents looked to California for their

daily needs and for help in times of crisis. Tijuana .grew

within this orbit and had stronger ties to San Diego and Los

Angeles than to mainland Mexico. Families, friends and

businesses nurtured social and economic links across the

border region; the bordertown also harbored smugglers and

fugitives from both countries. Tijuana's business

activities relied on the demands of American customers.

Since American and Mexican authorities proved unable or

unwilling to stop contraband, Tijuana's location encouraged

investors and criminals alike to expand their activities

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beyond governmental control.

Tijuana offered no resistance to the spread of

American industry. San Diego's railroad/ electricity and

telephone lines entered Tijuana as almost natural

extensions. In 1885, the Santa Fe Railroad linked Los

Angeles and downtown San Diego and, by 1890, a local line

covered the last 15 miles to the border. San Diego tourists

could take the National City and Otay Railway (NC&O) to the

southern end of the line. The NC&O made its final stop at

Tia Juana, U.S.A., the last settlement north of the border.

Tijuana's urban infrastructure was linked to San

Diego and its industrial leaders. Millionaires John and

Adolph Spreckels, who owned the NC&O and the United Light

and Power Company, also invested in Tijuana's first

ohippodrome. The Spreckels brothers used their newspaper,

The San Diecro Union, to promote a one-dollar, round-trip

fare between San Diego and the border. In 1903, importer

Juan V. Apablasa was first to connect his Tijuana brokerage

house with the San Diego telephone system. And, in 1914,

Manuel and Ruben Barbachano incorporated the Cia. El


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these American systems, thereby linking Tijuana more closely

to the Mexican nation.

Tijuana entered the twentieth century as a quiet

Mexican bordertown, lacking almost any tourist appeal.

American visitors still rode horse-drawn carriages from the

border. Miracle-seeking "one-lungers" suffering from

tuberculosis came to Tijuana's Hot Springs Hotel, eager to

test the curative powers of the town's famous mineral water.

Tijuana's commercial district contained two general stores,

six saloons, some curio shops, two hotels and a few

"Spanish" restaurants spread along the main street called

Calle Olvera. The ruins of Tijuana's adobe church, flooded

in 1895, reminded Americans of the early Spanish missions.

The appeal of the Old West drew vacationers in

search of a bygone lawlessness. Visitors could drink Carta

Blanca beer at The Club, a cantina owned by American-born

Jos6 R. Alvarez. They could purchase postcards from the

George lbs or the Alexander Savin curio stores to satisfy"

doubting friends back home. Traditional Mexican rodeos and

cockfights took place at the Charles S. Hardy livestock

corral. On Sunday afternoons, from June through September,

bullfights attracted crowds to the Calle Olvera arena. Even

these innocent distractions gave rise to a flurry of

criticism of Tijuana's infant tourist industry.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, moral

reformers pressured Mexico to place some restrictions on



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sports events. In 1903, San Diego's leading spiritualist,

Katherine Tingley, and her theosophical followers sent

Mexico City protests against Tijuana's annual bullfights.^

Local authorities discounted the charge of animal cruelty as

the muttering of cranks. American protests against border

tourist attractions increased over the first quarter

century.

Mexican officials did not have the same passive

attitude toward gambling in their jurisdiction. In 1907,

the territorial government of Baja California, enacted a

gambling law, the Recrlamento de Jueaos. to control gambling

and raise revenue. It explained the fee schedule and the

licensing procedure, and clarified the types of games

considered legal.4 Gambling machines were banned, but

Mexico never outlawed the vice.

At the turn of the century, the United States was

prosperous yet Americans complained how industrial growth had

ruined urban life, resources and national values. The

Progressive movement (1900-1924) wanted to perfect

capitalist America and abolish the monopolies, corruption,

vices, crime, immigration, poverty and fear that polluted

society. With notable exceptions, scholars have

characterized Progressives as young White men who were from

Protestant, middle class, urban and Republican backgrounds.^

They felt alienated from their society, but they also

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believed that the state could effect orderly social change

with progressive guidance.

Movement leaders included Theodore Roosevelt,

Senator Robert La Follette, Woodrow Wilson, writer Ida

Tarbell, Justice Louis Brandeis, muck-racker Upton Sinclair,

reformer Jane Addams and Samuel Gompers. Californians like

Governor Hiram Johnson, financier Rudolph Spreckels,

Stanford president David Starr Jordan, Berkeley president

Benjamin Wheeler, temperance leader Sara Dorr, editor

Fremont Older, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Hichborn, Lincoln

Steffens and Chester Rowell were leaders of statewide

progressive politics. It had support from Republicans,

Democrats, Independents, women's groups, trade unions,

social workers, eugenics societies, Christian

fundamentalists, anti-vice zealots, nativists and civic

reformers among others.

Then, in late 1909, the California legislature

prohibited book-making on horse races through the Walker-

Otis Act. When California gamblers contemplated their

business options, a Tijuana race track was considered a

viable alternative to the California climate of reform.

However, a San Diego newspaper reported that American

puritans complained to the Mexican government and "caused

r

the race track idea to be abandoned, at least temporarily."0

For the moment, Tijuana gambling houses were potential

havens, but political events in California would change this



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situation forever in the second decade of the twentieth

century.

Moral reformers gained political ascendance in

California in 1910, when progressive Republican Hiram

Johnson won the election for governor. Johnson and his

allies took immediate steps to eradicate the state's

thriving vice industry and the corrupting influence of the

Southern Pacific Railroad. State laws to ban prostitution,

gambling and political corruption were enacted between 1910

and 1915. In the Harrison Act of 1914, moreover, the U.S.

Congress tried to eliminate the drug trade through its

newly-won power to interdict narcotics smuggling across the

border. California prohibitionists compromised in 1912,

when a Local Option Law continued to tolerate "wet"

communities in the state. When the U.S. entered the First

World War in April 1917, the entire nation went virtually

"dry," especially after the Eighteenth Amendment and the

Volstead Act became effective on January 16, 1920.

California's liquor industry found itself surrounded on all

sides. While the reformers thought they could abolish vice,

its purveyors discovered renewed opportunities across the

border.

San Diego Progressives were intimately linked to

national and statewide political activity. Local leaders

included merchant George Marston, attorney Edgar Luce,

developer Ed Fletcher. As was true of most Progressives,



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the San Diego group fought against a perceived "secret

conspiratorial plutocracy," in this case, industrialist John

Spreckels and boss Charles Hardy. Local progressives

struggled with the Spreckels-Hardy machine for control of

the city. It echoed the national Republican Party struggle

between the young progressives and the "old guard."

Marston, Luce and Fletcher were founders of the Lincoln-

Roosevelt League which defected from the Republican Party to

join the ill-fated Progressive Party.

From 1900 to 1924, many San Diegans crusaded against

vice on both sides of the border and hundreds of letters in

Mexico City testify to this fact. Other local partisans

included Mayor John Sehon, minister William Crabtree,

physician Charlotte Baker, heiress Ellen Scripps, builder

Roscoe Hazard, horticulturalist Kate Sessions and minister

John Woods. The San Diego movement worked with Methodist

Episcopal churches, Women's Christian Temperance Union

(WCTU), Purity League and Vice Suppression Committee. In

the 1920s, the Law Enforcement League had as its motto:

"Remove the menace of Tijuana and keep San Diego County a

clean, safe, law-abiding community." Sometimes anti-vice

campaigns were supported by local officials, police, the

Chamber of Commerce, the Ad Club, Kiwanis, unions, teachers

and even vigilantes. Democrats, Catholics, Jews, ethnics

and radicals avoided contact with puritanical groups. But

the Progressives had a grass-roots apparatus that could



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flood Mexico City or Washington with protests about Tijuana

vice activity.

Tijuana became a favorite home to Yankee gamblers as

Mexico suffered the ravages of the 1910 Revolution. During

that time, Baja California, remained aloof from the violent

rebellion by virtue of its physical isolation and its sparse

population. In fact, the entire region enjoyed peace,

stability and prosperity. One strong man emerged to protect

these characteristics. In 1915, Colonel Esteban Cantu, who

had survived power struggles between the insurgent factions,

became the iefe politico and military chief. Cantu declared

his desire to keep the peace and to maintain a territorial

government without the benefit of support from national

authorities in Mexico City. He believed that regulating

expatriated American vice could provide the revenue needed

to operate government and fund new public services. When

the time came, Americans paid high fees, taxes and duties to

Cantu, and Tijuana became an oasis of vice beyond the

influence of California laws.

The critics insist that Cantu opened Tijuana to

7gambling and other vice activities. As mentioned earlier,

a primitive level of illicit enterprise already existed. In

1915, as a harbinger of things to come, Cantu issued his

first gambling casino permit to Mexico City financier

Antonio Elosua, who operated card games at his Tijuana

Regional Fair facility. Cantfi granted the concession on

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his own without seeking approval from the central

government, yet the. 1907 territorial gambling law required

that local officials at least notify the capital about all

new permits. Elosiia was not the only person interested in

gaining a gambling license, and others applied as well. The

gates of Tijuana were unlocked and many permits were issued.

Numerous Californians who wished to continue their

illicit endeavors flocked to Tijuana to escape the

reformers. The five most successful American gamblers in

Tijuana became known as "border barons." In 1913, three men

closed their Bakersfield, California gambling halls when

they were outlawed. In 1915, Marvin Allen, Frank Beyer and

Carl Withington opened the Tivoli bar in Tijuana under the

ownership of their ABW Corporation. Two years later,

Antonio Elosiia sold his gambling permit to the ABW

Corporation, which began operating the Monte Carlo casino in

Tijuana.

The Baja California Investment Company had tried to

encourage the construction of a Tijuana race track under the

auspices of the Lower California Jockey Club. The company

found no investors until James W. Coffroth, an influential

boxing promoter from San Francisco, arrived in San Diego to

explore Tijuana's potential. In 1915, Coffroth and Baron

Long took over the Lower California Jockey Club and began

their first racing season in Tijuana on January 1, 1916.

Together, these five "border barons" controlled much of



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Tijuana's gambling and liquor, and they would later

collaborate to build the town's most famous resort.

The federal government in Mexico City watched these

developments with concern and, in 1920, the central

government of Interim President Adolfo de la Huerta asserted

control over Baja California. Colonel Cantu, who had

offered token loyalty to every president holding office

throughout the decade-long rebellion, had the distinction of

governing the most stable territory in the country. He had

ruled largely without the help or hindrance of the central

authority, displaying such a spirit of independence that

many thought him capable of separatist tendencies, an

accusation he denied until his death. Popular accounts of

the day even referred to the "Principality of Cantu," and

with good reason.

After Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico in

1916, Cantia had declared Baja California neutral in the face

of direct U.S. military intervention. His usurpation of

Mexico's diplomatic initiative drew criticism, as did his

failure to report his revenues and expenses to the capital.

When President De la Huerta ordered Cantu to hand over his

authority, he initially refused to comply. The President

used diplomatic pressure, the intercession of mutual friends

and the threat of military force to convince Cantu to

obey. On August 18, 1920, Cantti disarmed his troops,

surrendered his offices and retired to Los Angeles. The



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political stability he had preserved offered new economic

opportunities to subsequent governors.

General Abelardo L. Rodriguez, successor to Cantu,

assumed control of Baja California, on September 1, 1920.^

A native of Sonora, he had the support of the ruling Sonora

clique, and the "border barons" found him to be an

energetic, influential and eager business partner.

Rodriguez helped them to organize Tijuana's vice-centered

economy while illicit activities reached new heights of

efficiency and profitability.

Throughout the 1920s, Rodriguez and Baja California

prospered as Prohibition and moral reform in the United

States became more rigid. Rodriguez protected Tijuana vice,

both during his tenure as military governor of the territory

and during his two years as interim President of the

Republic. Meanwhile, Tijuana's vice activities drew angry

protests on both sides of the border. Throughout Tijuana's

"golden age," protesters condemned activities perceived as

exploitative, immoral and inhuman. A profile of Tijuana's

opponents showed diversity across race, class, gender,

nationality, ideology and religious belief. Rodriguez

usually managed to blunt criticism of his regime, but

occasionally events in Tijuana defied even his ability to

keep the peace.

The liberal Hearst press, a prototype of them,

boldly declared that "Tia Juana is a plague spot and ought



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to be eradicated."1 While Hearst had only shaky evidence

to back his assertion, Tijuana had definitely become a

"problem" for the newspaper and for its readers. In the

winter of 1926, people along the entire border recoiled from

the news of a family suicide pact. One reporter called the

incident the worst in the history of the border. Before the

dust had settled, the Peteet case, as it came to be known,

grew into a major diplomatic incident.

The events were clear enough. Thomas and Carrie

Peteet and their daughters, Clyde and Audrey, arrived at

Tijuana's San Diego Hotel on Saturday, January 31, 1926, for

a five-day visit. They seemed to enjoy doing nothing more

than drinking and gambling; witnesses later admitted that

the family drank excessively and gambled all about town.

Mr. Peteet and his two daughters continued "seeing the

sights" until their last Wednesday in Tijuana, when the

three entered the Oakland Bar and drank for a few hours.

Later that night, Thomas Peteet was given a "Mickey Finn,"

while the Peteet girls were drugged, abducted and repeatedly

raped. Their father was tossed out into the street, where

his wife later found him. The couple frantically searched

for their children throughout the night. One daughter was

left in front of the hotel after midnight, and Tijuana

police returned the other to her parents the next morning.

But the family's nightmare was hardly over.



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When the Peteets were finally reunited, they

immediately crossed the border, where Mr. Peteet reported

the outrage to border agents. The family was understandably

upset and reacted impatiently to the slow pace of government

efforts. Peteet even considered getting his pistol to shoot

the Tijuana culprits rather than rely on bureaucratic

justice. Ultimately the family returned to their San

Diego home where, on Saturday, February 6, they committed

suicide.

The family was discovered later that afternoon.

When the police arrived, the parents and their daughter,

Audrey, were dead. The older daughter, Clyde, remained in a

coma for three and a half days before she, too, died.

Investigators found a hastily drawn will and two farewell

notes that gave no hint of why the family took their lives.

Their shaken neighbors could not explain why the Peteets had

been driven to this extreme.

The San Diecro Union put the blame on Tijuana. San

Diegans were shocked to learn that Tijuana's police chief,

Zenaido Llanos, and Oakland Bar owner, Luis Amador, were

among the seven men accused of raping the Peteet girls. Not

surprisingly, the community of San Diego began to

contemplate a proper response to the rampant lawlessness in

Tijuana.

American officials were indignant from the start.

Schuyler 0. Kelly, the San Diego coroner, played a crucial



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role in molding public opinion and directing the course of

political events. Kelly declared to the press that the

Peteet girls had been sexually assaulted, and sent a

telegram to the State Department protesting the Tijuana

tragedy. The California newspapers and the wire services

carried the story. Days later, a San Diego coroner's

inquest blamed Llanos and Amador for the Peteet deaths and

demanded that they be charged with murder.

Some 1,200 angry spectators lauded the ruling of the

coroner's jury, and the San Diego City Council, Governor

Friend Richardson, Congressman Phil D. Swing and Secretary

of State Frank Kellogg demanded justice for the Peteets and

a solution to border crime. Congressman Swing also

threatened federal measures if murder charges were not

brought against the defendants.

When San Diego Mayor Frank Bacon chaired a special

"mass meeting of the City Council to discuss the Peteet

case, the large crowd in attendance was unruly. On February

15, the Council passed a resolution directing the federal

government to close the border from dusk until morning to

protect U.S. citizens. Meanwhile, Americans awaited the

response of the Mexican judge in charge of the Peteet case.

Mexican authorities gave every indication that they

would take any actions necessary to prevent an international

crisis. Meanwhile, Governor Abelardo Rodriguez promised

U.S. Consul Frank Bohr that Mexican courts would expedite



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the investigation, and he pledged that the guilty would

receive the "most drastic punishment possible." On February

10, Mexican prosecutors arrested seven men; prominent among

them were Zenaido Llanos and Luis Amador.

Possibly in response to American protests, Mexican

President Plutarco Elias Calles ordered a moral clean-up of

Tijuana. By February 15, Tijuana's vice sweep had shut down

fifty-two saloons and some five hundred women entertainers

had been shipped out of the city. Governor Rodriguez and

Frederico Palacio, the presidente municipal (mayor) of

Tijuana, announced that anyone considered undesirable would

be arrested. Mexican political officials took swift action

while the district judicial system shifted through the

evidence presented in the Peteet case. Americans were

deported and Mexicans sent to the Islas Marias penal colony.

Mexican Judge Saturnino Urias delivered his ruling on

February 17. The state prosecutorsasked that indictments

of rape, assault, concealing a crime and murder be brought

against the seven suspects. But Judge Urias ordered only

four men held over for trial on complaints for rape and

violent assault.

The San Diego Union, oddly, reported the judge's

ruling in one breath, and in the next said that "the

announcement of the indictment came almost at the same hour

with the announcement that the United States Treasury

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Department had ordered the closing of the international line

at 6 o'clock, the ruling to go into effect at once."11

San Diego branches of the Woman's Christian

Temperance Union, the Methodist Church and the Law

Enforcement League wanted the border closed altogether, but

President Calvin Coolidge, said that he would not bar

Americans from entering Mexico. Although the evening curfew

was widely evaded and loosely enforced, the order remained

in effect until 1933.

The restriction of American visits to Tijuana

worried merchants whose livelihood depended on border

customers. One interested party, the San Ysidro Chamber of

Commerce, launched its own investigation of the Peteet

affair. Feeling trapped economically between the warring

parties, the Chamber tried to restore harmony to the region.

For their part, Tijuana businessmen sent telegrams to Mexico

City and- to Washington, D.C., to protest the curfew.

Although Governor Rodriguez agreed with his countrymen, he

said that he would ask President Calles to close Tijuana and

Mexicali in protest against the "unfriendly attitude toward

19Mexico that prevailed among California newspapers.

Luckily, the crisis did not escalate further. The

Americans began to calm down once they took a closer look at

the Peteet affair. Cooler heads investigated the family's

background and discovered that blame did not rest solely

with the Mexicans. But, in San Diego, the memory of the



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Peteets' shame endured for a generation an incident that

played a subconscious role in the sensual legends that

surround Tijuana.

The Peteet case is illustrative in that it

chronicles the origin and persistence of Tijuana's "black

legend." From 1920 to 1935, Tijuana offered an escape from

the puritanical rules that had spread across California.

But, at the same time, the city was stigmatized by its great

dependence on underground American trade in illicit

activities. Tia Juana, the city's American alter ego,

became synonymous with poverty, crime and lust. Millions of

tourists came to town with the wrong idea that anything

immoral could be had for a price. In fact, virtue remained

a scarce item on both sides of the border. To correct long

standing distortions of Tijuana's history, one must attempt

to integrate the multiple visions of Tijuana's past depicted

in official, popular and academic sources.

IV

The "official" version of Tijuana's history varies

on each side of the border. The governments of Mexico and

the United States have their own explanations. Bureaucrats,

all too often, color their reports on Tijuana according to

their private interests and attitudes on morality. Yet both

countries have used state power against border crime without

achieving lasting effects. Legal sanctions have been off

set by the taxes and bribes derived from regulated or



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protected vice enclaves. Cynical functionaries have even

been known to call prostitution a socially necessary evil.

Law enforcement/ for its part, has had the ambiguous duty of

simultaneously attacking, modifying and encouraging illegal

enterprises. Yet, politicians have reacted quickly to

crises with all due righteousness and subsequently lapsed

into complacency once public attention shifted to other

matters.

Tijuana's city fathers have recognized their image

problem for decades. In 1926, Governor Rodriguez tried to

blunt Tijuana's bad publicity by renaming it Zaragoza, for

the hero at the Battle of Puebla. However, the idea never

received popular acceptance, so the plan was abandoned and

never mentioned again. The Tijuana tourist bureau, in its

semiofficial capacity, likewise mounted a considerable

effort to improve public relations. Tourist agencies

labeled Tijuana the "Gateway to Mexico." Yet these names

and metaphors failed to correct its negative image.

Tijuana, in truth, has long occupied an unflattering

position in California's popular culture, serving as the

inspiration for numerous sensationalist novels like Carroll

Graham's Border Town (1934), and Hern&n de la Roca's Tijuana

In (1932). The U.S. print media, moreover, has shown a

marked hostility toward Tijuana. Yet, vivid pictures of

Tijuana's history can be gleaned if one is careful to

account for biases in the press. The Hearst, Spreckels,



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Otis-Chandler, and Copley newspapers disseminated the

traditional but distorted view of Tijuana, turning the

city's dubious fame into a black legend of untold

proportions. Media coverage of the Peteet case, for

example, showed how public impressions of Tijuana could be

manipulated by an overzealous press. Indeed Mexican

reporters argued that their American counterparts reported

1 ?only pathetic or criminal events m Tijuana. J

The "academic" versions of Tijuana's history suffer

from the same problems that affect the official and popular

accounts. Most sources on border morality and Tijuana lack

objectivity. Public officials and businessmen, who have

written their memoirs in apologetic and evasive styles, are

usually slanted yet informative sources. Sanctimonious

reformers have portrayed Tijuana only as the devil's

playground and they left their opinion in the public record.

Only two books rise above the passionate debate. To date,

the best general study of Tijuana written in English remains

John Price's book, Tiiuana: Urbanization in a Border

Culture, which utilizes a multidisciplinary approach based

on the city's historical context.14 Mexican scholars,

working under David Pinera Ramirez, have published a major

study that supersedes most earlier books. Historia de

1 FTiiuana. relies on extensive archival and oral resources.

My own research of Mexican presidential

correspondence at the Archivo General de la Nacibn revealed



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2 1

that moral attitudes always affected the letters and replies

contained in the records of 1920 through 1935. This

dissertation asserts that moral and legal prohibitions alone

failed to abolish the immoral activity that affected the

entire border region. Before 1920, the two Californias

still resembled a passing frontier, described by the

American Historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Californians

believed that they could still expand south since the

territory below the border included vast, desolate and

unpopulated terrain. Well into the 1920s and 1930s,

Hollywood, a sin city of its own, and Tijuana remained as

wild, vulgar and changeable boomtowns.

V

The topics are presented in chronological order.

The introduction is followed by a chapter on Tijuana's

regional links north of the border. Chapter 3 examines the

growth of American vice in Tijuana during the first years of

Prohibition. The fourth chapter shows how the Mexican

government balanced economic and moral needs in Tijuana.

The fifth chapter explains the decline of Tijuana's vice

activity in this era. The concluding chapter evaluates

Tijuana's place in California culture, in border history and

in its own "black legend."



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ENDNOTES

Robert R. Alvarez, Jr., Familia: Migration and

Adaptation in Baia and Alta California. 1800-1975 (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1987), p. 8. Hereaftercited as: Alvarez, Familia.

Jose C. Valadez, "Revelaciones del Presidente deBaja California en 1911," La Qpinidn. No. 195, March 29,1931; Editors, San Dieao Citv and Countv Directory. 1910(San Diego: San Diego Directory Company, 1910), p. 897."7503 Shares of Jockey Club Are Given Receiver," The SanDieao Union, December 29, 1915. Roberta Ridgely, "The Man

Who Built Tijuana, Part V," San Dieao Magazine. 19:11(September, 1967), p. 55, hereafter cited as: Ridgely,"TMWBT." Ridgely, "TMWBT," Part II, p. 53.

^ "Bullfights," San Dieao Magazine. 22:10 (August1970), p. 52.

^ Archivo General de la Naci6n, Presidenciales,Fondo Obregdn-Calles, David Zarate to Epigmenio Ibarra,Ensenada, Baja California, December 5, 1921, Exp. 425-T-7.

"George E. Mowry, The California Progressives (NewYork: Quadrangle, 1976), p. 38 and p. 88. GilmanOstrander, The Prohibition Movement in California. 1848-1933(Berkeley, University of California Press, 1957), p. 104.Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream: California Through the

Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985),p. 236. Joseph R. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade (Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1970), p. 104. RichardHofstadter, ed. -The Progressive Movement. 1900-1915 (NewYork; Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 7. James H. Timberlake,Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 167.

"Tijuana: The Mecca for Thousands of Tourists

Annually," The San Dieao Union. January 1, 1910.

7'James A. Sandoz, "Northern Separatism During the

Mexican Revolution: An Inquiry into the Role of Drug

Trafficing, 1919-1920," The Americas. XLI:2 (October 1984),p. 208.

OEsteban Cantu Jimenez, Aountes Historicos de Baia

California Norte (Mexico: n.p., 1957), p. 3; hereaftercited as: Cantti, Apuntes.

q* Abelardo L. Rodriguez, Autobioarafia (Mexico:

Novaro Editores, 1962), p. 105. hereafter cited as:Rodriguez, Auto.

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"Tia Juana Is a Disgrace to Mexico, a Menace toAmerica," Los Angeles Examiner, February 11, 1926.

11 "Tia Juana Court Indicts Four in Peteet Case,"

The San Dieao Union. February 18, 1926.

12 "Governor Rodriguez Would Bar Border toCalifornia Trade," The San Diego Union. February 25, 1926.

13 "Mexican Accuses U. S. of DisinformationCampaign," The San Dieao Union. November 21, 1986. Alsosee: "Pressure, Payoffs Curb Mexican Press," Los AngelesTimes. March 4, 1987; "Views Differ over Coverage by U. S.Press of Mexico," The San Diego Union. October 11, 1986;and "Sources and Systems," Reader. 16:37 (September 17,1987).

^John A. Price, Tiiuana: Urbanization in a BorderCulture (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1973).

^David Pihera Ramirez, ed., Historia de Tiiuana. 2Vols. (Tijuana: Centro de Investigaciones Hist6ricas, UNAM-UABC, 1989) .



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CHAPTER 2

GEO-FOLITICS OF THE CALIFORNIA BORDER REGION

I

Tijuana's history and culture have been determined

largely by the border frontier that separates two nations

distrustful of each other. Located on the Baja California

peninsula, which extends almost 800 miles south of the

United States, Tijuana sits on the western edge of the

Mexico-U.S. border region.1 (See page 199.) This small

corner of Mexico falls naturally within the "California

region because of its topographical similarity to Southern

California," blending effortlessly into the anonymous

chaparral of the peninsula. The Pacific border region, part

of the greater California land mass, usually enjoys good

weather; there is little seasonal variation between Los

3

Angeles and Ensenada.

In the 1870s, Yankee adventurers following gold

strikes near La Paz and Ensenada passed through Tijuana. And

later, it was popularized as a tourist "mecca" by

advertisements when railroads drove to the border.

Promoters publicized Tijuana's "rough edges" to dramatize

the romance and danger of frontier times. When California

vice operators needed a refuge, Tijuana was selected for its

location and, perhaps, even more for its colorful history.

24



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I I

The human occupation of Baja California dates back

to prehistoric times. Evidence of ancient Indian occupation

can be found across the region. The first Baja Californians

built huts and villages near hot springs and in shady river

valleys now covered by urban sprawl. The Cochimi and Ipai

Indians lived in the Tijuana coastal zone for 7,000 years.

They spoke Uto-Aztecan languages and their animistic

religions were influenced by the Yuman and Chumash

cultures.4 In a relative sense, the peninsula's geography

isolated the Tijuana tribes from major American

civilizations; still, they had customs and morality similar

to nearby peoples.^ In 17 69, Spanish friars tried to

christianize and colonize the Tijuana Indian villages from

the San Diego Mission without success. Ultimately, the

Mexican and American nations absorbed the Indians along with

the Tijuana borderlands.

The original Tijuana land title was issued by the

Mexican Republic to develop the region as a national

resource. In 1829, Governor Jos6 Maria Echeandia granted

Santiago Arguello 26,000 acres at Tijuana, including the

Cochimi village of Tecuam. In the U.S.-Mexico War of 1846,

Arguello and his family supported the American conquest of

their native land. The U.S.-Mexico border crossed their

Tijuana property and the Arguello holdings became subject to

legal challenges in both countries.^ (See page 200.)



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In the nineteenth century, Americans monopolized

land ownership in Baja California, to such a degree that the

region was practically alienated from Mexico. Private

citizens continued to buy property over the border even as

the U.S. government officially denied territorial ambitions.

Since Mexico could not protect the distant border, the state

welcomed any scheme to derive income from the barren,

unpopulated region. In 1859, President Benito Ju&rez

briefly contemplated selling the peninsula to the United

States, but Mexican law and popular opinion effectively

nblocked the transaction. Indirectly, the Ju&rez government

permitted foreign landholding, yet it reserved a Mexican

sovereignty over the territory.

In the meantime, American mining companies pledged

to develop Baja California, in exchange for lands granted by

the Mexican government. On March 30, 1864, President Ju&rez

approved a concession to an American, Jacob Leese, that

included two-thirds of Baja California, in exchange for

Q"one hundred thousand pesos."0 Leese claimed the land,

water and minerals between the twenty-seventh and the

thirty-first parallels, but soon the Leese group went broke

and sold the grant to another American concern.

Likewise, the Lower California Colonization and

Mining Company incorporated with 40,000 dollars in capital

to extract silver from the Triunfo mine north of La Paz. By

1866, the Lower California Company had absorbed all the

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holdings of the Leese group. The company hired John Ross

Browne, a California mining pioneer, to locate ore deposits

and other useful resources.^ While Browne found little of

mineral value, he saw an "embryo American town" on the

peninsula that bespoke a new destiny for the region. Browne

publicly advocated U.S. annexation, noting that Baja

California's "geographical position gives it a value . . .

1 Dto which its intrinsic resources can never entitle it." u

Browne thought that national security demanded that

the U.S. protect the peninsula from Japan, England or other

countries. He also told his employers that only imported

Oriental labor could make the venture profitable. But the

Lower California Company failed to bring in Oriental labor,

and meager financial returns caused the mine's closure.

Because the company failed to meet its obligations, the

Mexican government canceled the concession and the land

reverted to the state.

In the 1880s, the Mexican government approved

development schemes underwritten with foreign capital, and

the regime encouraged any company willing to industrialize

the peninsula. George Sisson, an American, lobbied

President Manuel Gonzalez to gain the Baja California

concession through Luis Huller, his Mexican partner.

President Gonz&lez provided fiscal incentives and relaxed

laws against foreign ownership, thereby paving the way for

American land monopolies.



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On July 21, 1884, Sisson and Hiiller organized the

International Company of Mexico to develop 17 million acres

(6.9 million hectares), including the territory between

Tijuana and the twenty-eighth parallel. Based on the

Colonization Law, the International Company paid Mexico a

10-cents-per-hectare fee on two-thirds of the total grant.11

The company would have paid Mexico over 366,000 dollars to

acquire the concession, but it did not generate enough stock

market investment to fund its construction plans and it,

too, failed.

In 1887, a British corporation, the Mexican Land and

Colonization Company, took over the Sisson-Huller property.

. The English Company, as it became known, advertised that 18

million acres were for sale through its San Diego land

1 9agents. The large grant was subdivided and many eager

buyers purchased tracts suitable for small farms.

President Porfirio Diaz tolerated flexible law

enforcement in case Baja California should become

productive. Francisco Bulnes, a Mexican senator, admitted

that the Diaz government conducted some shady deals, "but

they were not allied with foreign enterprise, nor were they

disadvantageous to the country. Ultimately, Mexico

retained the peninsula, and the nation got funds to meet its

obligations.

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I I I

Tijuana's development was hampered by isolation and

poor transportation. Since no close harbors existed/

Tijuana had few apparent resources and little commercial

value. Merchant ships ignored the city in favor of the

ports of Ensenada and San Diego. When rich ores were

discovered near the Ensenada area, Yankee "gold diggers"

passed through Tijuana. Prospectors walked along the old,

desolate trails and used the bordertown as a rest and re

supply depot. With improved travel, the settlers helped

organize the scattered adobe ranches into a community with

economic activity. At the same time, American railroads

integrated Tijuana with the economy of the southwestern

United States.

Californians first noticed that Tijuana had numerous

mineral hot springs along the banks of the Tijuana River.

The Arguello family leased the springs to San Diegans "Dr.

D. B. Hoffman, Dr. Strong and brother, and Mr. J. Gould for

seven years."14 David Hoffman and associates operated a

popular health spa at the site known as Agua Caliente. Five

years later, the Southern Pacific Railroad built tracks from

San Francisco to Los Angeles, where passengers transferred

to stage coaches bound for the border. In the 1880s, Asa

Adams ran the White Sulfur Springs Hotel, located less than

two miles south of the U.S. customs house. J. H. Averill

brought visitors to Tijuana from downtown San Diego aboard



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wagons. In 1885, the Santa Fe Railroad linked Los Angeles

to San Diego and the NC&O interurban railway built a line to

the border. Thus, trains finally delivered Americans

directly to the border from where they traveled the last

miles by foot or horse to the Tijuana mineral baths.

As California filled with new settlers and tourists,

Tijuana acquired a reputation as an exotic, foreign land

beyond the reach of American laws. During California's

first land boom, Tijuana hosted sporting events that were

banned north of the border. On May 27, 1888, for example,

the O'Neal-versus-Nugent boxing match occurred in Tijuana

with Wyatt Earp as referee. The spectators arrived by train

and sat on the American side in bleachers separated from the

boxing ring by a rope that represented the borderline.

Afterward, hundreds of Californians crossed the border and

spent the rest of the day in Tijuana. Prostitutes from San

Diego's zone of tolerance, the Stingaree, walked among the

Tijuana visitors seeking customers. J

As Tijuana hosted more spectacular events, the

town's new role in the American vice economy stimulated the

construction of saloons, hotels and a bull ring. Americans,

however, did not build casinos, brothels and race tracks as

long as these activities remained legal in California.

Still, few American "go-getters" could have predicted that

Tijuana would soon draw millions of tourists. But, then,

California land values suddenly rose as the railroads helped



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populate, urbanize and industrialize the West Coast. On the

U.S. side, land parcels sold for 150 dollars an acre in 10-

and 40-acre tracts.1^ In 1888, a new Tijuana resort called

the Hot Springs Hotel stimulated further development. The

Arguello heirs had sold the land surrounding the Agua

Caliente springs to the Hart and Stern Land Company.17

Hotel publicity emphasized the medicinal waters and the

resort's beautiful Mexican setting, but the bordertown grew

slowly.

Soon, new social groups won economic and political

control of Tijuana. Government officials, merchants and

American investors displaced the Arguello family from its

pre-eminent status in the community. In the 1880s, Ti'juana

had less than 100 residents. The Diaz government ruled Baja

California through a civil official called the iefe

politico. ^ Most often, the appointee was also military

chief of the territory as well. European immigrants moved

to the border region, where they opened saloons and curio

stores that catered specifically to American tourists.

In 1886, Alejandro Savin, the Mexican son of a

French immigrant, moved from La Paz and opened the first

curio shop in Tijuana. Later, two German immigrants started

small businesses near the border that would blossom into

commercial dynasties. By 1890, George lbs owned stores in

San Jos del Cabo, Ensenada and Tijuana. In 1892, another

German named John Hussong, opened a saloon in Ensenada,



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where gold miners came to "weigh their gold and spend it."

These merchants became wealthy in Baja California's land

boom, many kept homes and savings in San Diego.^ Some

Americans made a profit from their Tijuana investments

although most reduced their losses and returned to San

Diego. w The new economic leaders of Tijuana subordinated

the hereditary elite by further monopolizing land and

markets.

Subsequently, in the 1880s the Porfirian regime

nullified the Tijuana grant and attached the ranch to land

91concessions sold to American investors. To postpone an

inevitable government seizure, two Arguello heirs sold

family property along the banks of the Tijuana River and a

village began to take shape. On October 15, 1890, a Mexican

judge granted Tijuana community status, superseding the land

titles held by the Arguello heirs. Ricardo Romero Aceves, a

local historian, regarded the court decision as Tijuana's

00official founding. ^ Soon land speculators realized that

Tijuana's value depended on its location, not on its

resources.

American land speculators flocked to San Diego to

capitalize on the real-estate boom. A slick-talking man,

William "Smiling Billy" Carlson caused a stir when he

promoted a tourist resort called Monument City. Carlson

situated the project near the mouth of the Tijuana River to

compete with the Hotel del Coronado, then under construction

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a few miles north. In 1891, Carlson's venture ended when

the river flooded the entire community. Two years later,

"Smiling Billy" rebounded from his business failure and won

election as mayor of San Diego. To celebrate, he and his

Mexican wife traveled on a pleasure and business trip to

Mexico City, where he met President Diaz and personally

negotiated a concession to build a railroad across northern

Baja California. "Smiling Billy's" plans came to a halt

when he ran afoul of American fraud laws and spent four

years in federal prison.

American developers considered many profitable

alternatives for the use of Tijuana. The theme of "Tijuana,

the tourist mecca," gained wide exposure in the local press.

Visitors to San Diego read about Tijuana, and even the

Victorian elite rode the railway shuttles that toured the

border. In the 1890s, local papers regularly advertised

that "a tally-ho party will leave Hotel Del Coronado for Tia

J u a n a . T h e hotel guests played on Coronado beach, hunted

at Otay Lakes, bathed at Agua Caliente, cruised Mexican

waters and explored the borderlands. But the "red-blooded"

Yankee tourist who enjoyed the "sporting life" found little

amusement in trips to the ruins of Tijuana's old adobe

mission. Shrewd businessmen realized that gambling and

other vice operations might be of more interest.

Southern California newspapers publicized every

attempt to put gambling resorts in Tijuana. In 1897, a



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media scandal erupted from rumors that Jesse Grant, the son

of Ulysses Simpson Grant, had purchased the Hot Springs

Hotel and had acquired a Mexican gambling franchise for 700

dollars. The concession allegedly permitted construction of

a two-million dollar gambling facility with space for boxing

and a lottery. It was said that the Tijuana casino would

become the "greatest sporting center on the continent."

California newspaper reporters dismissed the story as false

but admitted that "this rumor, with variations, has gained

currency occasionally for the past ten years, whenever

attention has been directed to the development of the

peninsula." The fact that Grant owned a gold mine near

Ensenada only lent further credibility to the report. The

Los Anaeles Times printed an exclusive statement that "Mr.

Grant applied for no concession whatever for privileges of

any kind at Tia Juana. It is true that he was asked to04

apply for a concession, but he refused to do so." A

"horseman and plunger" named Phil Dwyer had fabricated the

Jesse Grant story to awaken investor enthusiasm for a

similar scheme of his own. The news media eventually lost

interest in Dwyer's scam but Tijuana got an undeserved

reputation in the process. In the press, Tijuana became a

symbol for world-class tourist resorts, gambling casinos and

other vice operations. Meanwhile, wealthy Americans found

other ways to gamble their money by purchasing land below

the border.



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I V

After 1900, four industrialists monopolized the

California border region through direct ownership and

investments. Wealthy Americans like Harrison Gray Otis,

John Cudahy, Edward H. Harriman and John D. Spreckels

extended their California holdings south by purchasing

enormous Mexican estates. The financiers often pooled

OCresources to defend their investments m Ba^a California. J

Otis owned newspapers and real estate in Los Angeles; Cudahy

founded a meat-packing industry in Los Angeles; Harriman

controlled the Southern Pacific Railroad and its

subsidiaries; and Spreckels ran a financial empire that

included sugar factories,. public utilities, ships, banks,

hotels, railways and newspapers in Hawaii, San Francisco and

San Diego. These men exerted powerful influence in the

Republican Party and wielded tremendous economic and

political power across the Californias.

Harrison Otis, owner of the Los Angeles Times, began

purchasing land in the Imperial Valley when he discovered

its fertility. On June 25, 1878, the Diaz regime sold

General Guillermo Andrade 850,000 acres in the Colorado

River Delta at 10 cents an acre. In 1902, General Andrade

leased 250,000 acres to Otis for three years at 60 cents an

acre.^ Then, the magnate bought the Andrade lands.

Otis and his son-in-law, Harry Chandler, had formed

the Colorado River Company in Mexico and then created the



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California and Mexico Land and Cattle Company (C&M Land Co.)

to meet U.S. laws. By 1907, they had accumulated one

million acres in a ranch that extended across the border.

The C&M Land Co. lobbied both the U.S. and Mexican

governments to build canals diverting Colorado River water

to their property at public expense. With the labor of

Chinese sharecoppers, the company prospered by introducing

cotton production, fulfilling the prediction of J. Ross

Browne. Chinese merchants operated establishments in

Tijuana and Mexicali catering to Asians like the Casino

Chino where gambling, liquor, opium use and prostitution

flourished.^7 Although the C&M Land Company controlled

Mexicali, it never hindered Chinese vice operations in its

domain.

But the Otis-Chandler group did intervene in

Mexican affairs to protect its Baja California holdings

until the government tired of the foreign intrigues and

nationalized the property.^ The C&M Land Company worked

with many Americans who owned Mexican lands. Harry Chandler

sold John Cudahy 16,000 acres for a total of 8,000 dollars.

In his memoirs, John B. Cudahy, Jr., recalled that his

father's estate at Hechicera was located 20 miles southeast

of Mexicali, parallel to the Ferrocarril Inter California, a

branch of the Southern Pacific.

The Cudahy Ranch had 4,000 acres devoted to Durango

cotton and four hundred men were employed at harvest-time.



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Duroc-Jersey hogs raised at the ranch were butchered at the

Tijuana slaughterhouse owned by Charles S. Hardy, the "boss"

OQ

of San Di ego .^ Hardy, m turn, filled and managed all the

Cudahy Meat Company accounts in the border region. The

Cudahy family worked with the other American landowners to

defend their Mexican property.

The Mexican government especially welcomed the

construction of railroads and the state gave generous

concessions to such endeavors. At the turn of the century,

an American railroad company, the Southern Pacific, became

the second largest landowner in Baja California. By 1904,

Edward H. Harriman owned the Southern Pacific which, in

turn, owned 55,000 acres along the tracks of the Ferrocarril

Inter California. In Mexico, Harriman's company operated as

the Compahia de Terrenos y Aguas de la Baja California,

S.A., with rights to "one-half of all of the water passing

through Mexican territory to the United States."^ In 1902,

the Southern Pacific sold its water rights to the C&M Land

Company, part of a web of interlocking financial interests

extending across the California border region.

John D. Spreckels arrived in San Diego in 1887, just

in time to capitalize on California's real-estate crash the

following year, rendering worthless the paper fortunes of

speculators. Spreckels amassed discounted land and bought

delinquent county tax liens as he foreclosed on properties

at Coronado Island, the downtown area and southern San Diego



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County. Meanwhile, Tijuana and the border region fell into

the lap of San Diego's new first citizen like ripe fruit.

Spreckels transformed San Diego and Tijuana into

winter tourist centers. The jewel of his empire was the

Hotel del Coronado, where wealthy guests enjoyed the Casino

Bar, a horse track and private but illegal gambling.

Spreckels bought and improved the local railroad systems

that operated daily from Coronado and San Diego to the

30

border. ^ Thus, he monopolized the nascent tourism.

Meanwhile, Spreckels planned to connect San Diego

rail lines to Yuma with concessions to build over Mexican

territory. Visitors from the whole U.S. arrived on the San

Diego & Arizona Rail Road (SD&A), but the Spreckels' company

inadvertently created organized vice activities around

Tijuana in its wake. By January 1, 1910, the SD&A had five

different construction camps laying tracks out of Tijuana

through the eastern mountains. The supervisors of each SD&A

road crew struggled against the camp followers, gamblers and

*3 * 3

liquor dealers who erected tents near the camps.

San Diegans watched the daily road-building, and

later many spectators passed through Tijuana saloons before

returning home. Railroad construction attracted many

gamblers and prostitutes to Tijuana. Where only a "cottage

industry" had previously existed, Tijuana, became a major

center for vice. The Spreckels' companies never tried to



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stop border vice; indeed, the family lavished time, money

and publicity on Tijuana horse-racing for decades.

V

By the turn of the century, however, Tijuana vice

paled in comparison to operations in San Francisco, Los

Angeles and San Diego's Stingaree district.^4 The Savin and

lbs curio shops sold tourist items, but liquor sales also

provided a good share of business. Unscrupulous liquor

dealers sold local whiskey and tequila labeled as expensive

imported brands of liquor.

An American citizen, Jos R. Alvarez, figured

prominently among the Tijuana vice purveyors of the day.

Alvarez owned a popular cantina, The Club, where tourists

drank American liquor or Carta Blanca beer and gambled on

faro, monte and dog races. He also owned Tijuana's second

bull ring and other local property. In 1911, Alvarez had a

run of bad luck when The Club was ransacked and his liquor

supply was destroyed by the rebels who seized Tijuana. The

U.S. Immigration Bureau claimed that Alvarez had abetted his

alien smuggling brothers and that he had "expatriated

himself" by virtue of holding land and public office in

Lower California. He used considerable influence in San

Diego to retain his citizenship, but he had to relinquish

his Tijuana property. J

At the same time, other Americans ran a variety of

gambling operations in Tijuana. Gambling became a popular

ro du ced with perm ission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permissio n.


54/232

4 0

industry and the district government regulated it very

closely. In December 12, 1907, the northern district of

Baja California authorized most races, dice, card games and

lotteries after payment of monthly fees but roulette and

slot machines were illegal. John Russell, managed a

greyhound race track with permits approved by Colonel Celso

Vega, the iefe politico of Baja California.

Some foreigners had bad luck in Tijuana, others were

luckier. An American consortium acquired concessions to

build a Tijuana gambling resort that included a horse track,

but the venture never succeeded because of insufficient

capital. A Los Angeles native, Juan V. Apablasa, owned a

Tijuana liquor store and customs brokerage and he

represented the Spreckels' companies in Tijuana. Yet he was

empowered to inspect the bullfights. (See page 207.) The

-iefe politico also appointed J. L. Smith, another American,

as inspector of the lottery known as the rifa de alha-ia'*

(raffle of jewels) . At this point, gamblers had not

overwhelmed Tijuana and the territorial government saw no

reason to ban a lucrative source of income.

The domination of Tijuana commerce and Baja

California landholding by American citizens and European

immigrants left Tijuana politically weak and vulnerable to

military invasions from north of the b o r d e r . ^ To make

matters worse, Tijuana became an unwilling participant in

the rebellion against President Porfirio Diaz.



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On May 8, 1911, insurgents loyal to the Mexican

Liberal Party (PLM) and the Industrial Workers of the World

(IWW) disobeyed direct orders and captured Tijuana after a

brief engagement. In a fit of moralistic zeal, the rebels

looted the lbs and Savin stores and destroyed all their

liquor. San Diego witnesses said that "so much liquor was

destroyed that it ran out of the front doors, trickled down

onthe steps and was absorbed by the ground.,IJ Insurgents and

sightseers alike were reduced to frenzied looting of

abandoned homes and businesses.

A week later, rebel commander Carl Ap Rhys Pryce,

transformed Tijuana into a "wide open" border town. Liquor

sellers, were welcomed back. Pryce extorted money from

merchants, opened brothels and sold gambling permits to

Americans in the name of the "revolution." He also demanded

that gambling houses pay him 25 percent of their daily

winnings and charged each tourist a quarter to enter town.

Pryce tried unsuccessfully to extort money from Spreckels,

Otis, Cudahy and the Southern Pacific by threatening to

destroy their Mexican properties if they helped the Mexican

gov ern ment. ^ Eventually, on June 7, however, he fled

across the border with 8,000 dollars worth of loot when he

heard that Mexican troops were approaching Tijuana.

Jack Mosby, the new rebel commander, was unable to

restore discipline to the ranks of the PLM movement. Prior

to battle, Mosby ordered prostitution, gambling and liquor



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banished from town without realizing that vice had already

dissipated his m e n . I t was too late for Mosby to stop the

fun. According to historian Alejandro F. Lugo, Jr., the

Revolution of 1911 introduced organized of vice to Tijuana.

He contended that the PLM marauders left Tijuana wide open

to "gambling, drinking and prostitution, imported from the

United States, which proliferated for the first time on this

border like a novelty."4 Yet no one accepted

responsibility for the violation of sovereignty or anything

else.

On June 14, Governor and Colonel Celso Vega forced

Mosby's troops off Mexican soil and prepared a victory

ceremony. On June 26, the Governor hosted dignitaries

representing the San Diego Common Council and a group of

Spanish-War veterans. The SD&A hauled eight coaches filled

with conventioneers eager to toast Tijuana's return to

Mexican control. Although the PLM battles had heightened

the mystique of Tijuana as a tourist mecca, visitors were

uneasy with so many armed soldiers guarding both sides of

the border. (See page 208.) After the battles, the Mexican

government promoted Vega to general and transferred him to

the Veracruz garrison.

VI

Major Esteban Cantu, who had occupied Mexicali

during the PLM unrest, emerged after 1913 as the iefe

politico of northern Baja California. Esteban Cantti ruled



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4 3

Baja California with a strong hand and with a pragmatic

attitude toward American investments. California

industrialists and vice purveyors grafted their operations

on the border tourist industry when a moral crusade

suppressed zones of tolerance for vice across the state.

Between 1910 and 1915/ progressive legal reforms added more

stringent punishment for crimes against California

morality.

Professional gamblers, pimps, opium dealers and

barkeepers considered Tijuana the best place to rebuild

their businesses. Three notable individuals set an example

for all purveyors who followed them. In 1913, Marvin Allen,

Frank Beyer and Carl Withington abandoned their brothels and

saloons in Bakersfield and moved to the border, where they

formed the ABW Corporation (ABW). The corporation owned the

Tivoli Bar in Tijuana and the infamous El Tecolote (Owl

Club) in Mexicali.

American industrialists like Otis and Spreckels

resigned themselves to bordertown vice with few complaints

in their newspapers. Colonel Esteban Cantu regulated and

heavily taxed the ABW, except that he kept national receipts

AOfor regional uses. The territorial government became

prosperous as more and more saloons, brothels, opium dens

and gambling halls paid due consideration to the "Kingdom of

Cantu." The governor became an enigmatic figure who

inspired both praise and contempt in the Californias.



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Association wrote to the American National Bank, a

Spreckels7 company, that it had stopped payment on four

traveler's checks cashed in San Diego by "bunco" men.

Officials at the San Diego bank replied that the action and

negative publicity attached to the case were unwarranted and

that American National would, in retaliation, refuse to

honor all checks from the New York firm.

The San Diego mayor received another protest from

May C. Bliss, the sister of Michigan's governor, who had

seen Tijuana before, but found that "the place is not fit

any longer for decent people to go to, as it has resolved

itself into a gambling hell-hole. "4^ Mayor O'Neall sent

copies of the Bliss letter to Esteban Cantu and the Mexican

Consul.

Again, The San Diego Union replied that tourists had

ignored ample warnings and that the mayor had no power in

Tijuana anyway. The newspapers editors said that there was

"no reason to suppose that suggestions for putting the lid

on Tijuana would bring the desired results," given the

instability of Mexico's government.4^ The Spreckels

Companies concluded that "what cannot be cured must be

endured" since "more persistent publicity" would not deter

visitors to Tijuana.

The presence of American gamblers in Tijuana

continued to draw minor protests until two runaway girls

caused a major crisis. On April 21, 1915, the boyfriends of



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