Harris Newmark

Rancho Santa Anita Owner 1872 - 1875 (American Period)

Harris Newmark was called “The Jewish Father of Los Angeles.” He was born in Loebau, West Prussia (today’s Poland) in 1834 and profited early in life by traveling with his father, Philip Newmark, to neighboring countries selling a special type of printer’s ink.

Newmark came to Los Angeles in 1853 at the age of 19 by way of New York, crossing Nicaragua to get a ship to San Francisco, then sailing south to Los Angeles. At first, Newmark worked as a clerk in his brother’s wholesale clothing store until his brother gave up the business in 1854 to become a commercial broker. He continued in the wholesale clothing business until 1861, when he too decided to leave the business because of its long hours. He became a broker, focusing on hides and wool. His business rapidly became the center of the trade in Los Angeles, shipping hides and wool to customers around the world. By 1882 the telephone had been introduced. H. Newmark & Company subscribed immediately and were given the number “5”.

Besides the purchase of the Santa Anita Rancho, Newmark purchased land on what we now know as Wilshire Boulevard as well as beachfront property in Santa Monica. Newmark purchased the Temple Block; a towering structure of three stories at Temple and Main Streets. He sold it soon afterward to the city as a site for a new City Hall. In 1886, he purchased the Repetto Ranch with Kaspare Cohn and planned development of a new town to be called “Newmark.” However, his partners convinced him to change the name to “Montebello,” which translates Beautiful Mountain.

In addition, Newmark was a founder of the original Los Angeles Public Library; was a Charter Member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; helped found the Los Angeles Board of Trade, which was responsible for bringing the railroad to southern California; was a major factor in developing the Southwest Museum, created by his close friend Charles Lummis; endowed the Jewish Orphan’s Home and gave the land to build it on; and was a leader in both the Odd Fellows and Masonic Lodge. In addition, he wrote a fascinating book: “Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913.”

Santa Anita

Before Harris Newmark purchased the Santa Anita Rancho, Lewis Wolfskill had subdivided the land, selling 1,740 acres to Alfred Chapman for $19,500. Today this area is known as Chapman Woods, a neighborhood in Pasadena. Newmark purchased the approximately 8,000 acre Santa Anita Rancho for $85,000.

In Harris Newmark’s Own Words:

“It was in March that we purchased from Louis Wolfskill, through the instrumentality of L.J. Rose, the Santa Anita rancho, consisting of something over eight thousand acres, paying him eighty-five thousand dollars for this beautiful domain. The terms agreed upon were twenty thousand dollars down and four equal quarterly payments for the balance. In the light of the aftermath, the statement that our expectations of prospective wool profits inspired this purchase seems ludicrous, but it was far from laughable at the time; for it took less than sixty days for H. Newmark & Company to discover that buying ranches on any such basis was not a very safe policy to follow and would, if continued, result in disaster. Indeed the outcome was so different from our calculations, that it pinched us somewhat to meet our obligations to Wolfskill. This purchase, as I shall soon show, proved a lucky one, and compensated for the earlier nervous and financial strain.

John Simmons, who drove H. Newmark & Company’s truck and slept in a barn in my back yard on Main Street, was so reliable a man that we made him overseer of the ranch. When we bought the Santa Anita, there were five eucalyptus or blue gum trees growing near the house. I understood at the time that these had been planted by William Wolfskill from seed sent to him by a friend in Australia; and that they were the first eucalyptus trees cultivated in Southern California.”

Harris Newmark died in Los Angeles in 1916 and is interred at the Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles.