In Temple Block were many offices, but I remember it as the abode of Godfrey, the photographer, who, plentifully supplied with red velvet fringed chairs and pronged head braces, took the pictures of the Angelenos.
Over in the Downey Block, where now the U. S. Government Building stands, and in the buildings to the north, were some of our most frequented stores, among them Meyberg’s Crystal Palace, a source of china and glassware, and Dotter and Bradley, whose furniture firm later took the name of Los Angeles Furniture Co. A little Barker store was born over near First and Spring, but that was so far from the center of things, and chilly and lonely, that it moved nearer to the Plaza,—and now Barker Brothers aspires to be the largest furniture “emporium” in the world with a palace on Seventh Street!
I knew something of Commercial and Los Angeles streets as business thoroughfares, but their importance was passing, and the new Baker Block was the last word in elegance, and the pride of all the dwellers in Los Angeles. Here Rev. B. F. Coulter opened a drygoods store that continues to this day in the fourth location that I remember, moving first to Second and Spring, then following the fashion up to Broadway and later going to Seventh. Then as now this establishment specialized in blankets, perhaps because Mr. Coulter had a woolen mill over the hill where now is the corner of Figueroa and Fifth streets. There was a little stream there that was called Los Reyes,—the
