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Oilmen and cactus rustlers: metropolis, empire, and revolution in the Los Angeles Mexico borderlands, 1890-1940

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Oilmen and cactus rustlers: metropolis, empire, and revolution in the Los Angeles Mexico borderlands, 1890-1940

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Content OILMEN AND CACTUS RUSTLERS:
METROPOLIS, EMPIRE, AND REVOLUTION IN THE LOS ANGELES-MEXICO
BORDERANDS, 1890-1940

by

Jessica Michelle Kim

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

August 2012

Copyright 2012 Jessica Michelle Kim

ii

I believe the world is beautiful and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

Creo que el mundo es bello, que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.

—Roque Dalton

iii

This is for my parents, Nancy and Wonil.

iv
Acknowledgements
Writing a dissertation is never a solitary endeavor. Although doctoral students
spend countless hours alone, hunched over our computers, a network of loving, patient,
and infinitely supportive people sustain us. This dissertation would not have been
possible without the following friends, family, and mentors.
Comrades at the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, including Kwang Choi,
An Le, Vy Nguyen, and Danny Park, helped me learn what social change is really
about—hard work, camaraderie, friendship, and empathy. From the picket line to city
hall, they were my brothers and sisters in struggle and I miss working with them
everyday. They graciously supported my decision to leave KIWA and return to graduate
school in 2006 and have remained a close and supportive network of like-minded
activists and friends.
My dear friends Bich Tram and Rick Chang provided this hungry graduate
student with good food, a comfortable place to stay during research trips, entertaining
conversation, and, most importantly, two delightful distractions from dissertation
writing—my beautiful godsons Ethan and Evan. From the time we met at the age of 14,
Bich has been my emotional foundation. She is unimaginably generous with her time,
her love, her thoughtful gifts, and her delicious food. She has always believed in me
more than I believe in myself and for that I am eternally grateful.
My intellectual soul mate from our first course in gender studies as
undergraduates, Gabriela Martínez always inspires me to think harder and more critically.
Our conversations, from the old days of Students for Social Justice to last week, are
always thought provoking, stimulating, and most importantly, fun! Her incisive insights

v
on history, politics, art, and life constantly reshape the way I understand the world. And
her question, “When will you finish your dissertation so that I can read it and file it in the
Los Angeles history portion of my brain?” still echoes in my head and helped me keep
going when I wanted to give up.
Patricia Hanson, my partner in adventure, dragged me out of the house countless
times to enjoy the eclectic beauty of Los Angeles—from the Redondo Beach Pier to
Griffith Park to Simi Valley to Hastings Ranch. No matter how mundane the destination,
she made every trip an exciting excursion full of new and colorful revelations about life.
On these outings she listened to my long ramblings about Los Angeles history, helped me
figure out what my dissertation was actually about, and always enthusiastically affirmed
that it was important. She and Jazmín Ochoa also rescued me from the dissertation
doldrums by taking me out on the town and reminding me how incredible it is to laugh
really, really hard. Their friendship made graduate school infinitely more joyful.
More than anyone else, Pablo Morgana witnessed firsthand the struggles of a
graduate student. My roommate for most of this process, he held my hand during the
stress of coursework; he took a day off to drive me to my qualifying exams; he kept me
company at the dining room table as we worked through evenings and weekends; and he
made me laugh through all the anxiety. He even spent one of his summer vacations
helping me navigate the complex and bewildering world of Mexico City archives and he
made it an experience I will never forget. Sufragio efectivo, no re-elección!
My dear friend Ruben Lopéz once left me a post-it note that still hangs over my
desk. It reads, “You are awesome and you will finish your dissertation on time!” I
reread that post-it note hundreds of times and every single time it helped me keep writing.

vi
He also left me the most amazing voicemail message two days ago when I felt a bit of
despair. I saved it for future moments of doubt.
Graduate school friends, especially Sara Fingal, Sarah Keyes, Andie Reid, and
Raphaelle Steinzig, kept me in graduate school. Their good humor, historiographical
advice, and deep empathy for the trials and tribulations of graduate school life kept me
sane over the past six years. They cheerfully read endless (and tortured) chapter drafts
and provided the helpful and constructive feedback that made this a far better
dissertation. Their kind words over email, Facebook, lunch, coffee, and walks around the
reservoir gave me the courage to keep at this. I would also like to thank Jason LaBau and
the USC-Huntington dissertation writing group for reading every chapter and always
offering helpful advice.
Cheryl Koos probably didn’t realize she was signing up for a life long job as a
mentor when she first encountered me as a shy undergraduate in 1996. For the past
sixteen years she taught me through example and kind words how to be a historian, a
teacher, a mentor, and an amazing friend. She gently revised undergraduate papers,
pushed me to present at my first professional conference, gave me my first official
teaching job, counseled me through innumerable academic crises, and kept me well-fed
with Trader Joe’s gift cards. The memory of someone we both loved very much, Clark
Davis, also nurtured me through graduate school. I miss his brilliant mind and gentle
spirit and hope that this dissertation reflects, in some small way, that his legacy as an
exemplary historian and teacher continues through his students.
My advisors and mentors at USC provided extraordinary guidance and support
over the course of my graduate career. Always full of good cheer and encouragement,

vii
Bill Deverell made me believe that I could write this dissertation and provided the
intellectual and financial support to make it possible. He answered frenzied emails with
patience and humor, read too many drafts to count, and kept me accountable to the
important themes of the project. Bill also embodies what it means to be a generous
scholar and it is a pleasure to work with him. The other members of my dissertation
committee—George Sánchez, María Elena Martínez, and Laura Pulido—are all
incredible activist-scholars and their intellectual imprint is all over this dissertation.
George and María Elena generously read early drafts of this dissertation and provided
invaluable feedback and advice. Other faculty and staff at USC also provided invaluable
support over the course of my graduate career, including Richard Fox, Peter Mancall,
Terry Seip, Sandra Hopwood, Laverne Hughes, and Lori Rogers.
Several additional institutions and individuals provided important assistance for
this project. Research funds from the USC-Huntington Institute on California and the
West, the Huntington Library, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations,
the Southern California Historical Society, and the USC History Department provided the
resources necessary to conduct research in both the United States and Mexico. Peter
Blodgett, curator extraordinaire at the Huntington Library, pointed me in the right
direction, dug out buried treasures, and always gave the warmest high fives as
encouragement. Additional staff members in the Readers’ Services Department at the
Huntington were always helpful, cheerful, and willing to answer even the silliest of
questions. The staff at the Sherman Library, particularly Jill Thrasher, also provided
helpful guidance to their collections. Veronica Castillo-Muñoz, who is now an assistant

viii
professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, generously shared her research
notes from several Mexican archives with me.
Johanna Kim, my incredibly gifted editor and younger sister, read every bit of this
dissertation and gave me critical and constructive feedback at a crucial moment. She also
cheerfully took care of my crazy dogs when I was off on research trips (no small task!)
and her wry sense of humor helped me laugh away dark times and stay grounded. My
brother, Elliott Kim, shows me by example the importance of the present. His unfailing
dedication to creating a just world always reminds me that social justice is not about the
past but about the present and the future.
Although he claims he arrived late in my graduate school career and does not
deserve much credit for this dissertation, Joshua Cottingham made the last two years of
my life the happiest I have ever known. That feeling is not usually associated with the
final two years of a doctoral program but his humor, tenderness, encouragement, and
unfaltering belief that I could do this made the past several years beautiful. He even
begged to read an early draft of this dissertation, a sign of true and dedicated love. I also
want to thank his warm and encouraging parents, Steve and Karen Cottingham, for their
support and for welcoming me into their family. Most importantly, I want to thank them
for creating an amazing son—my future glows with infinite possibilities and deep and
abiding love because I will share it with him.
Finally, I want to thank my wonderfully loving parents, Nancy and Wonil Kim,
from the bottom of my heart. They inspired and nurtured my love of books, politics, and
the past from the moment they first put a book in my toddler hands. I blame them for
turning me into a bibliophile, a political junky, and a historian. Over the past six years

ix
they paid my car insurance, purchased me computers, edited fellowship proposals,
listened to me moan about the hardships of graduate life, and supported me in every way
imaginable. Throughout the course of my life they have also given me an incredible
gift—they taught me through example how to engage the world with curiosity, humility,
and compassion. The quiet pride on their faces when I accomplish something, no matter
how small, makes all the hard work feel worthwhile.

x
Table of Contents

Epigraph ii

Dedication iii

Acknowledgements iv

List of Figures xi

Abstract xii

Introduction 1

Chapter One: “Good Feelings and Commercial Ties”: Forging 23
Angeleno-Mexican Partnerships, 1897-1910

Chapter Two: “Entirely in their Power”: The Mexican Revolution 67
and the Unraveling of Angeleno-Mexican Alliances,
1909-1917

Chapter Three: “Los Angeles vs. the Government of Mexico”: Property 113
Rights, Diplomacy, and the Regional Empire, 1917-1927

Chapter Four: “A Hard Desperate Fight”: Angelenos, Mexicans, 171
and the Expropriation of Private Property, 1910-1938

Chapter Five: “Destiny of the West”: The International Pacific 225
Highway and Reconnecting the Western Hemisphere,
1929-1957

Conclusion 274

Bibliography 287

xi
List of Figures

Figure 1: City of Los Angeles: Made in Mexico 1

Figure 2: “Prometheus” 3

Figure 3: “Colorado River Land Co. Properties” 29

Figure 4: “Statue of General Harrison Gray Otis in Westlake Park” 35

Figure 5: Portrait of Harry Chandler 37

Figure 6: Portrait of Thomas R. Bard 73

Figure 7: “Al Fresco Quimichis” 76

Figure 8: Map of Nayarit 80

Figure 9: “Peon Houses, Quimichis” 85

Figure 10: “Breaking Camp at Acaponeta” 87

Figure 11: Old Rurales of Díaz at Q.” 94

Figure 12: “Case of the City of Los Angeles vs. the Government
of Mexico” 110

Figure 13: Portrait of Edward L. Doheny 127

Figure 14: El Ebano Well 128

Figure 15: Portrait of Thomas E. Gibbon 132

Figure 16: “World’s Longest Road” 227

Figure 17: “Breaking a New Tourist Trail” 242

Figure 18: Untitled photograph 246

Figure 19: Mexican Workers Pushing an Expedition Car 254

Figure 20: Signatures of the IPH Comisión Local of Nayarit 270

xii

Abstract

“Oilmen and Cactus Rustlers” explores what happened when a politically and
economically conservative Los Angeles oligarchy with transnational ideas about urban
growth collided—ideologically and otherwise—with the Mexican Revolution. It
examines how an Angeleno economic elite constructed a relationship between a Los
Angeles core and a Mexican periphery in the early part of the twentieth century and how
the Mexican Revolution challenged and reshaped this envisaged bond. Focusing on the
critical first half century of Los Angeles’ phenomenal growth, this study explores how
Angeleno and Mexican investors, boosters, diplomats, elected officials, workers,
activists, lawyers, and journalists first forged and then negotiated the relationship
between an urban core in Southern California and an imagined and real periphery that
stretched across the border deep into Mexico. It argues that regional economic ambitions
created financial ties between this Los Angeles oligarchy and Mexico. These economic
interests drove Angeleno investment strategies and foreign policy positions. The Mexican
Revolution of 1910, however, clearly demarcated the limits of transnational urban
expansion and forced Angeleno city-builders to reconceptualize their relationship to
Mexico.
In taking up the relationship between Los Angeles and Mexico between 1890 and
1940, this study has several objectives. First, the project endeavors to transnationalize
historical studies of the American city, particularly in the American West. It explores
how the model of urban core and rural periphery intersected with an international border.
Second, it contributes to literature on American empire and foreign relations by exploring

xiii
the ways in which region functioned both within and outside of the nation-state. Third, it
seeks to enhance understandings of the Mexican Revolution by exploring anti-
Americanism as part of the twentieth century’s first social revolution. It explores the
ways in which Angelenos experienced and responded to the nationalism of the Mexican
Revolution. Finally, cutting across all of these discussions are questions about the role of
a regional American elite in maneuvering across borders and in and out of the political
centers of power in both the United States and Mexico. The study examines the role of a
regional elite, intent on growing their city and their fortunes, in shaping international
relationships.

1

Introduction

Figure 1, “City of LA: Made in Mexico,” 2012.
1

“I deem it my duty, as Consul, to explain to my government the importance of the great resources of the
city and county of Los Angeles, and it is to be expected, in the near future, that large and profitable
business transactions shall regularly occur between these two bordering sections of the two sister
republics.” —General Guillermo Andrade
2

“[Los Angeles will be] a mightier Pacific empire, with a population numbering millions where now we see
only thousands, and possessing a measure of wealth, civilization and power now inconceivable.”
—General Harrison Gray Otis
3

In December of 2011, I had the remarkable experience of seeing the themes of my
dissertation reflected back at me from the walls of the Museum of Latin American Art in
Long Beach, California. The exhibition, “MEX/LA: ‘Mexican’ Modernism(s) in Los
Angeles, 1930-1985,” pondered the complex history of the relationship between Los

1
Photo by the author, manhole cover located at 2901 Los Feliz Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 2012.
2
General Guillermo Andrade addressing the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, quoted in “Trade with
Mexico,” The Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1897, 6
3
Harrison Gray Otis quoted in Robert Gottlieb and Irene Wolt, Thinking Big: The Story of the Los Angeles
Times and their Influence on Southern California (New York: G. P. Putnam’s and Sons, 1977), 17.

2
Angeles and Mexico. On one wall, the abstract cacti of Diego Rivera and the cartoon
succulents of a 1930s Disney animation cell hung next to one another. Nearby, José
Clemente Orozco’s sketches for a mural at Pomona College portrayed Prometheus,
proletarian hero, straining to break through the boundaries of the image. Another wall
juxtaposed images of the massive concrete walls of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in
the hills of Los Angeles with the architect’s inspiration—the pyramids of the largest city
in pre-Columbian Mexico, Teotihuacán. On an opposing wall, a photograph depicted a
group of young Mexican American women standing underneath a mural of Pancho Villa
and Emiliano Zapata in a neighborhood of East Los Angeles. The exhibit explored the
“intense and paradoxical” relationship between Los Angeles and Mexico over the course
of the twentieth century, one in which, curator Rubén Ortiz-Torres observed, “There is no
periphery or center. There is a hybrid culture.”
4

As Ortiz-Torres noted, the cultural distinction between Los Angeles and Mexico
peripheries and centers is muddled, hybridized, crossbred, and sometimes almost
indistinguishable. The relationship between Los Angeles as city and Mexico as nation is
nestled in a long history of cross-border exchange constituted through migration, art,
exile, labor, investment, revolution, architecture, tourism, language, literature, and
identity. The walls of “MEX/LA” reflected this cultural fusion born of innumerable
physical and figurative border crossings. While an insightful description of the art that
adorned the walls of the exhibit, Ortiz-Torres’ observation that core and periphery blur in
the bond between Los Angeles and Mexico overlooks the pecuniary relationship between

4
“Foreward,” MEX/LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985 (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje
Cantz Verlag, 2011), 9.

3
the two regions that has bound a poor nation to a wealthy and rapidly expanding
metropolis for over a century. Much of the art included in the “MEX-LA” exhibit
portrayed not just a hybridized culture but also grappled with the profound economic
inequalities between the neighboring regions. Orozco’s mural at Pomona College, for
example, vividly illustrated the struggles of the Mexican poor on the whitewashed walls
of an elite Southern California institution. Los Angeles grew rich, in part, due to its
relationship with Mexico and at the expense of the Mexican people. In this fiscal
affiliation, Los Angeles has long served as an economic core whose geographic reach has
stretched deep into a Mexican periphery.

Figure 2, “Prometheus,” by José Clemente Orozco, 1930, Claremont, California.
5
The mural was the first
Mexican mural painted in the United States and depicts Prometheus reaching up to
steal from the gods and give to the people.

5
José Clemente Orozco, Prometheus, in MEX/LA, 137.

4
Los Angeles as core and Mexico as periphery loomed large in the minds of
ambitious Angelenos in the first half of the twentieth century. Oilmen like Edward L.
Doheny pursued fortunes in Mexico’s petroleum regions. The Chandler and Otis
families, owners of the Los Angeles Times and successful corporate ranchers, developed a
million-acre cotton and cattle ranch in northern Mexico. The Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce organized investment excursions to introduce Angelenos to lucrative
economic opportunities just across the border. Even “cactus rustlers” built profitable
businesses transplanting specimens from Mexican deserts into the gardens of arriviste
Angeleno horticulturalists.
This is a study about how an Angeleno economic elite constructed the relationship
between a Los Angeles core and a Mexican periphery in the early part of the twentieth
century and how the Mexican Revolution challenged and reshaped this envisaged bond.
6

Focusing on the critical first half century of Los Angeles’ phenomenal growth, this study
explores how Angeleno and Mexican investors, boosters, diplomats, elected officials,
workers, activists, lawyers, and journalists first forged and then negotiated the
relationship between an urban core in Southern California and an imagined and real
periphery that stretched across the border deep into Mexico.
7
The dissertation attempts to

6
I define the term “elite” in the context of early twentieth-century Los Angeles as a group of wealthy
Angelenos who possessed sufficient financial resources to become investors and who believed that
transnational investment was the key to personal wealth and metropolitan success. For an excellent
discussion of this social class, see Frederic Cople Jaher, The Urban Establishment: Upper Strata in Boston,
New York, Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1982).
7
I draw from work by Immanuel Wallerstein and William Cronon in my use the terms “hinterland” and
“periphery.” Although his study of Chicago draws on what geographers consider an outdated model—Von
Thünen’s linkages between city and country—his argument that urban development in the west was based
on trade between an urban core and a rural periphery is important for understanding Angeleno ideas about
city growth. See Immanuel Wallerstein, World Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2004); William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York:
W. W. Norton & Company, 1991).

5
understand what happened when a politically and economically conservative Los Angeles
oligarchy with transnational ideas about urban growth collided—ideologically and
otherwise—with the Mexican Revolution. I argue that regional economic ambitions
created financial ties between this Los Angeles oligarchy and Mexico. These economic
interests drove Angeleno investment strategies and foreign policy positions. The Mexican
Revolution of 1910, however, clearly demarcated the limits of transnational urban
expansion and forced Angeleno city-builders to reconceptualize their relationship to
Mexico.
In taking up the relationship between Los Angeles and Mexico between 1890 and
1940, this study has several objectives and driving questions. First, the project endeavors
to transnationalize historical studies of the American city, particularly in the American
West. How did the model of urban core and rural periphery intersect with an
international border? Second, it contributes to literature on American empire and foreign
relations by exploring the ways in which region functioned both within and outside of the
nation-state. How did Southern California as a region negotiate a transnational periphery
in Mexico? Third, it seeks to enhance understandings of the Mexican Revolution by
exploring anti-Americanism as part of the twentieth century’s first social revolution. In
what ways did Angelenos experience and respond to the nationalism of the Mexican
Revolution? Finally, cutting across all of these discussions are questions about the role
of a regional American elite in maneuvering across borders and in and out of the political
centers of power in both the United States and Mexico. How did a regional elite, intent
on growing their city and their fortunes, shape international relationships?

6
The intertwining of an American (but once Mexican) city and the Mexican nation
goes well beyond coincident timing and proximity. During the same decades that Los
Angeles rose to national prominence, Mexico underwent the first social revolution of the
twentieth century. Cause, effect, influence, and result are tied together in these
tremendous transitions. In Mexico, nearly forty years of privatization and capitalist
development under the administration of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911) concentrated power
and wealth in the hands of foreigners, many of them Americans, and a small Mexican
elite. This process dispossessed Mexican campesinos and shifted over 90 percent of
communal lands from villages to private landowners.
8
As the historian Friedrich Katz
notes, Mexico was pulled into the “frenetic development of world capitalism” in the final
decades of the nineteenth century.
9
Much of this pull originated in Los Angeles.
10

8
Ibid. 262. The Ley Lerdo passed in 1856 sought to remake village lands or ejidos into private property
under the belief that it would increase individual initiative and agricultural production.
9
Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 3.
10
By 1910, when the Mexican Revolution began, Americans had invested over $1,000,000,000 in Mexican
agriculture, railroads, telegraph systems, timber plantations, mines, and petroleum fields and owned almost
twenty-seven percent of Mexico’s surface area. Ultimately, private foreign investment led to the export of
cheap raw goods, the import of expensive manufactured goods, and widespread underdevelopment. These
growing inequalities, coupled with economic stagnation and political disenchantment with the Díaz regime
sparked a revolution in 1910 that would last ten years and dramatically reshape Mexico. John Mason Hart,
Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2002), 260.
There is a wealth of work on the causes, trajectory, and results of the Mexican revolution as well as
American intervention in the Revolution. The two major debates in the historiography revolve around
levels of popular participation and leadership in the revolution and the degree to which the revolution was
nationalist and critical of foreign investment. See Adolfo Gilly, The Mexican Revolution (New York: The
New Press, 2005); John Mason Hart, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican
Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Katz, The Secret War in Mexico; Friedrich
Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Alan Knight, The
Mexican Revolution, volumes 1 and 2 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986); Alan Knight, U.S.-
Mexico Relations: An Interpretation (San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1987); María Teresa
Koreck, “Space and Revolution in Northeaster Chihuahua,” in Daniel Nugent, ed., Rural Revolt in Mexico:
U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern Politics, (Durham and London: Duke University Press,
1998); Daniel Nugent, Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern Politics

7
Between the 1890s and 1910, the policies of the Díaz administration intersected
neatly with the ambitions of wealthy Angeleno city builders. Díaz actively sought
foreign investment to develop Mexico’s economy and offered tempting incentives to
foreign investors. These opportunities in Mexico presented Angelenos with the chance to
expand commercial enterprises they had already established in California and the
American West across the border and into Mexico. For example, Doheny, pioneer of the
petroleum industry in Southern California, transported his skills and experiences in
prospecting and drilling for oil into the Tampico region of Mexico’s Gulf Coast in 1900.
Díaz sweetened the undertaking by offering tax abatements and cheap land. As a result,
Doheny’s stunning rise in the Los Angeles oil industry translated into even more
spectacular success in Mexico—by 1907 he controlled half the production of oil in
Mexico and was a millionaire many times over.
11

Adopting financial strategies similar to Doheny’s, a wider circle of ambitious
Americans casting their eyes south held significant financial interests in Mexico prior to
and during the Mexican Revolution. Some of Los Angeles’ most powerful and elite
citizens invested heavily in the country. Individuals ubiquitous in the highest echelons of
Los Angeles business, political, and financial arenas—surnamed men such as Bradbury,
Chaffey, Chandler, Doheny, Gibbon, Griffith, Hellman, Huntington, Keller, Otis,
Rosecrans, Van Nuys—all looked to Mexico to expand Southern California enterprises in

(Durham: Duke University Press, 1998); Ramón Ruíz, The Great Rebellion: Mexico, 1905-1924 (New
York: Norton, 1980); Mary Kay Vaughn, “Cultural Approaches to Peasant Politics in the Mexican
Revolution,” The Hispanic American Historical Review79: 2 (May 1999); John Womack, Zapata and the
Mexican Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1970).
11
Gene Z. Hanrahan, The Bad Yankee (El Peligro Yankee): American Entrepreneurs and Financiers in
Mexico, Volume I (Chapel Hill: Documentary Publications, 1985), 5.

8
transnational form and ambition. Beginning in the 1890s, hundreds, if not thousands, of
Angelenos invested in Mexico through individual property acquisitions or through the
purchase of stock in corporations with operations in Mexico. In fact, per capita,
Angelenos invested more money in Mexico than the residents of any other city in the
United States. Los Angeles, in essence, was the densest originating node of American
investment dollars sent to Mexico.
12

Several trends in Los Angeles drove this phenomenal investment strategy. First,
an ambitious generation of elites controlled development in Los Angeles between the
1890s and the 1940s.
13
They were boosters and city-builders who believed that a great
city demanded a vast hinterland rich in natural resources to succeed. In this conviction,
they echoed the by-then demonstrable strategies of urban growth throughout the West.
As William Cronon argues, “the central story of the nineteenth-century West is that of an
expanding metropolitan economy creating ever more elaborate and intimate linkages
between city and country.”
14
Boosters and city-builders adhered to this creed—cities
grew great because they centralized the resources of their hinterlands. Although this idea

12
At the conclusion of the Mexican Revolution, Southern Californians claimed almost $20,000,000 in lost
or damaged property in Mexico. Angelenos invested $17,715,030 in Mexico compared to New Yorkers’
$33,694,430. Statistics calculated from a list of damages filed by U.S. citizens against Mexico and
organized geographically by state and city. “Geographical List of United States Claimants,” Research and
Information Section, International Claims Commissions, box 1, record group 76, National Archives and
Records Administration, College Park.
13
See Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York: Vintage Books,
1992) and Jaher, The Urban Establishment.
14
Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis. Gray Brechin makes a similar argument about the intimate relationship
between a city and its hinterland, or contado, for San Francisco. See Gray Brechin, Imperial San
Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Geographers
such as Allen J. Scott and Michael Storper define cities with transnational hinterlands as “global city-
regions” or “essential spatial nodes of the global economy and as distinctive political actors on the world
stage.” See Allen J. Scott, John Agnew, Edward W. Soja, and Michael Storper, “Global City Regions,” in
Allen J. Scott, ed., Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001),
11-30.

9
had become tried and true practice in many western American cities in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, city-builders in Los Angeles proved exceptional in their efforts
to push the concept beyond the boundaries of the United States. Positioned in the U.S.-
Mexico borderlands and keen to eclipse rival cities like San Diego and San Francisco,
Los Angeles city-builders and boosters looked wide-eyed to Mexico as an appealing and
lucrative hinterland for their burgeoning city. This was far more than convenient
proximity at work: this was strategic and well-thought out expansionist ambition.
In this sense, this study builds on the work of Cronon and geographer Gray
Brechin who contend that western cities, including Chicago and San Francisco, relied on
expansive hinterlands, peripheries, or contados to fuel their growth. An extensive
geography mattered for city-builders in the American West who imagined their cities as
empires in their own right. They needed access to the natural resources—water,
minerals, timber, grain, petroleum, fruit, etc.—of a hinterland to make an urban economy
boom. Cities were the locations for the centralization and commodification of these
resources; the places where nature became money. In the case of Los Angeles,
boosterism and economic development spilled promiscuously over the border and across
the ocean. In search of a hinterland for their city, Angeleno elites looked south and west
toward Mexico, the rest of Latin America, Hawaii, the Philippines, China, and Japan.
Western city building went international.
Additionally, the Los Angeles city-builders who believed that investment in
Mexico could catapult their city to national and international prominence thought that
they had a successful economic blueprint in Southern California easily replicated in
Mexico. A cadre of men led by rising newspaper figure Harrison Gray Otis founded the

10
ambitious Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants and Manufacturers
Association with the goal of creating a world-class city.
15
Members, predominately well-
positioned businessmen, pursued an aggressive agenda to develop the city’s economy and
strictly limit the power of organized labor—what they termed “industrial freedom.”
16
In
the words of historian Nell Painter, city builders and elites in Los Angeles, like their
compatriots in other cities, “spoke the persuasive idiom of prosperity…[they] prized
order, which would issue from a hierarchical arrangement of society in which the more
able few would make decisions for everyone.”
17
While this producer-centered
philosophy was hardly unique to Los Angeles, the city’s elite exported their worldview to
Mexico alongside their investment dollars.
18
They believed that capital and labor each
played a unique role in a capitalist economy and that with proper management of the

15
Founded in 1893, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association was initially two organizations which
merged into one in 1896.
16
See Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith
Books, 1973), 274-283; Robert M. Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850-1930
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 129-131. Following events such as the 1894 Pullman
Strike and the bombing of the Times building in 1910, elite Angelenos believed that the city should be free
of unions and that the federal government should protect industry against the exigencies of organized labor.
A labor dispute ended in the bombing of the Times building on October 1, 1910. The event strengthened
the power of Los Angeles’ conservative population as a result. William Deverell, Railroad Crossing:
Californians and the Railroad (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 79-82; Louis B. Perry and
Richard S. Perry, A History of the Los Angeles Labor Movement, 1911-1941 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1963).
17
Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919 (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1987), xxxix.
18
Painter argues that the “producer-centered” philosophy of the late nineteenth century grew out of an
earlier context where employers and employees worked side by side, both claimed the role of “producers,”
and shared common political interests and a disdain for merchants, bankers, etc. After the Civil War,
however, this reality shifted, and employers were more likely to preside over a large number of workers
rather than to work alongside them and share their political interests. Despite this shift, employers still
assumed the right to decide what was best for all. Painter, xxxix-xl.

11
system by capital, both groups could reap the benefits of profits and good wages.
19

During a period of intense national conflict between organized labor and capital, Los
Angeles elites believed they had found an ideal solution to class strife—strictly ban labor
organizing, provide an expanding economy to employ workers, maintain a stringent
economic hierarchy, and expand transnationally. That latter precept was aimed directly,
even predominantly, at Mexico.
This formulation was inherently racialized. Angeleno investors held specific
notions of race and class that they applied to labor in both Los Angeles and Mexico. At
the turn of the century, Los Angeles was home to a significant and growing Mexican
American and Mexican immigrant population.
20
Economic problems at the end of the
Porfiriato, drought in northern Mexico, and the disruptions of the Revolution swelled this
community between 1900 and 1920.
21
Migrant and native Mexican workers provided the
raw labor for Los Angeles’ economic engine, particularly in its agricultural hinterlands.
22

While some Angeleno residents viewed Mexicans with deep suspicion, many employers
touted their advantages as laborers. As historian George Sánchez notes, “The Mexican
worker, [employers] argued, embodied the perfect, docile employee, had no interest in
intermixing with Americans, and invariably returned to Mexico once his labor was no

19
For more on this worldview, see Painter as well as Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1967) and Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and
Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982).
20
Douglas Monroy, Rebirth: Mexican Los Angeles from the Great Migration to the Great Depression
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 15.
21
Monroy argues that well over one million Mexicans migrated to the United States, many to California, in
the first three decades of the twentieth century.
22
Tomás Almaguer argues that by 1900, Mexican laborers occupied the bottom of the Southern California
labor market. Tomás Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in
California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 102.

12
longer needed.”
23
While celebrating the city’s mythical and quixotic Spanish fantasy past,
Angeleno elites simultaneously expected Los Angeles’ current Mexican population to
peacefully accept their role in the region’s economy.
24

As this group of elite Angelenos embarked on investment ventures across Mexico,
they believed they could transport these orderly ideas about city building, capitalism,
labor, and race across the border and into a Mexican periphery. Elites believed in a
shared “identity of interest” between employers and workers that extended across racial,
ethnic, and even national boundaries.
25
As Thomas Bard, Harry Chandler, Edward L.
Doheny, Henry Workman Keller, and Harrison Gray Otis, the chief Angeleno subjects of
this dissertation, crossed the border, they expected to create American-owned enterprises
that would employ Mexican workers, create a profit for investors, pay regular wages,
grow Los Angeles, and ensure the orderly expansion of American capitalism. It was a
proposition that met a supportive executive in Porfirio Díaz who believed that private and
foreign capital investment would transform Mexico into a modern nation.

23
George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los
Angeles, 1900-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 96. Although employers emphasized the
usefulness of Mexicans as workers, they also maintained careful oversight of their lives. Employers and
municipal employees strictly monitored Mexican and Mexican Americans as they worked, organized, went
to school, and created homes and communities. See Sánchez as well as Matt Garcia, A Place of Its Own:
Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900-1970 (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2001); Sephanie Lewthwaite, Race, Place, and Reform in Mexican Los Angeles: A
Transnational Perspective, 1890-1940 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009; and Natalia Molina, Fit
to Be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2006).
24
For sources on Los Angeles’ Spanish fantasy past, see William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise
of Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) and
Phoebe Kropp, California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2006).
25
As Painter notes, elite Americans during the Gilded and Progressive eras “invoked an identity of interest
among all members of society, be they owners or workers.” Painter xxxix.

13
Such a proposition about capital, labor, order, and progress had its adherents in
Mexico itself. This was an intention that met a supportive executive in Porfirio Díaz,
who believed that private and foreign capital investment would transform Mexico into a
modern nation. Ultimately, Angelenos who invested in Mexico expected to find an
environment friendly to capital and foreigners and a docile and willing labor force.
Mexico might be a sovereign nation but American capital and capitalism knew no
borders, and leaders such as Diaz might prove willing allies of investment schemes
running north to south.
This schematic, however, only worked for a limited period. The “frenetic pull of
capitalism” fostered enough economic and political inequality and discontent in Mexico
to ignite the twentieth-century’s first social revolution in 1910. Although subject to much
heated historiographic debate, the rhetoric and violence of the Mexican Revolution did
target American investors as causal in the severe problems facing the nation and its
poorest citizens. Analyzing case studies of regional elites from Southern California, this
study maintains that ordinary Mexicans understood the United States and its rapidly
expanding capitalist economy as a direct cause of land loss and poor working
conditions.
26
As historian John Coatsworth argues, “Peasants showed themselves shrewd

26
John Coatsworth, “Measuring Influence: The United States and the Mexican Peasantry,” in Daniel
Nugent, Daniel Nuget, ed., Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern Politics
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 64-71. While scholars disagree on the amount of anti-
Americanism demonstrated by Mexican revolutionaries most concur that American investments in Mexico
like Quimichis precipitated Mexico’s social revolution. John Mason Hart and Friedrich Katz, for example,
maintain that international capitalism shifted economic patterns in Mexico, particularly in northern
territories. Massive land acquisitions by U.S.-owned oil, railroad, timber, mining, livestock, and
agricultural companies consolidated land formerly used by the rural poor, disrupted peasant patterns of life
and bred discontent in Mexico’s agricultural areas regions. The Revolution, initiated in 1910, coincided
with both a rise in American investment as well as an increase in investments originating in Los Angeles.
Scholars such as Hart and Katz contend that revolutionaries recognized the role of U.S. capital in their
economic circumstances and targeted American property and businesses during the conflict. While he
agrees with Hart that the Mexican Revolution was a genuinely popular social movement (as opposed to

14
tacticians, entering into the most diverse alliances and attempting to shape national
politics and utilizing upper-class conflicts and rivalries.”
27
This dissertation provides
texture and new evidence for Coatsworth’s broad observation. In the cases examined in
this study, Mexican citizens were shrewd economic and political actors—on properties
owned by Angelenos they astutely created alliances with revolutionary factions and
utilized the presence of armed forces for their own ends; when the Mexican state failed to
implement change, they also applied policies like Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution
themselves. In short, poor Mexicans directly confronted Angeleno property owners and
challenged their presence in Mexico.
Transnational investment and revolution also brought Angeleno elites into the
realm of American foreign policy and their efforts to shape policy toward Mexico puts
this dissertation in conversation with the historiography of American empire and foreign
policy. Prominent Angeleno city-builders thought both regionally and internationally as
they planned their city’s future and extended their sphere of influence into Mexico.
When the Mexican Revolution challenged American investment, regional leaders also

Ruiz’s rebellion), Alan Knight diverges from Hart’s emphasis on foreign investment and intervention and
argues that economic nationalism was not an important factor in instigating the revolution. According to
Knight, “the idea of a virulently nationalist popular revolution was largely a myth.” Knight contends that
the Mexican revolution undoubtedly occurred because of the country’s rapid integration into a dynamic,
commercial, agrarian economy reliant on U.S. trade, enterprise, and investment. Knight also argues,
however, that peasants did not have a sophisticated understanding of global economic transitions or the role
that the United States played in their economic plight. Instead, he contends, they directed their frustrations
to local, internal targets—officials, merchants, moneylenders, and retailers. “American influence, then,
could exert a powerful latent effect without necessarily incurring a manifest, targeted, reaction.” See John
Mason Hart, “Social Unrest, Nationalism, and American Capital in the Mexican Countryside, 1876-1920,”
in Daniel Nugent, ed., Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern Politics
(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 75 and Alan Knight, “The United States and the
Mexican Peasantry, circa 1880-1940,” in Daniel Nugent, ed., Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and
the Domain of Subaltern Politics (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 27.
27
Ibid., 16.

15
became key players in national debates around American foreign policy. Foregrounding a
region that has stretched beyond national boundaries since the late nineteenth century
allows this study to connect Southern California with various points in Mexico and to
consider how a city with an international hinterland influenced domestic and international
policy in the United States and Mexico.
28
More specifically, the dissertation argues that
regional empire building often superseded the nation. Many historians have considered
the ways in which American businesses promoted an “informal” empire in Latin
America. While still considering the role of investors and businesses, this study takes a
regional approach to this topic, arguing that municipal interests also drove imperial
expansion.
Finally, a very specific group of Angeleno elites pushed the city’s periphery into
Mexico. Prior to WWII, an investor class existed in Los Angeles, predicated on owning
and wielding capital, an interest in city-building and boosterism, and a desire to expand

28
The most recent studies of American involvement in Latin America emphasize the need to explore local
interactions and relationships to expand a field that has traditionally focused on diplomacy and
international relations. The methodologies of social and cultural history have greatly enriched the
historiographies of American foreign relations and empire building over the past two decades. See Dina
Berger and Andrew Grant Wood, eds., Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist
Encounters (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010); Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex,
Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Kristen
Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and
Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); Akira Iriye, “Culture and
International History” in Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., Explaining the History of
American Foreign Relations, 2
nd
edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Gilbert M.
Joseph, Catherine C. Legrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore, eds., Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the
Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998); Amy Kaplan
and Donald E. Pease, eds., Cultures of United States Imperialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993);
Paul A. Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Jana K. Lipman, Guantánamo: A Working-Class History
Between Empire and Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); Mary Renda, Taking
Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940 (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2000); Laura Wexler, Tender Violence: Domestic Visions in an Age of U.S.
Imperialism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

16
the city’s commercial networks around the world.
29
A shared worldview, however, also
united this social class in Los Angeles. This study analyzes the worldview that drove
urban growth in Los Angeles and extended the city’s periphery into Mexico.
30
The
dissertation also explores how elite Angelenos understood Mexico, prior to, during, and
after the Revolution. The following chapters trace Angeleno investors as they navigated
the world of American foreign relations, forged relationships with Washington and
Mexico City policymakers, launched public relations campaigns, and placed their
interests at the forefront of American foreign policy toward Mexico.
Overview: City Building and Revolution
The argument of this study follows a narrative arc that begins during a period of
economic synergy between Los Angeles and Mexico under the administration of Porfirio

29
Recent histories of elites and capitalism blend social, intellectual, and political history to illuminate their
business activities, social lives, politics, and views of the world in relationship to critical histories of race,
gender, labor, and culture. The past several decades have seen a flowering of historical work that applies
the methods of cultural and social history to American economic life and the workings of capitalism.
Following what anthropologist Laura Nader calls “studying up,” historians have begun to analyze those
who shape social attitudes and control institutional structures through the lenses of social and cultural
history. Laura Nader, “Up the Anthropologist: Perspectives Gained from Studying Up,” in Dell Hymes,
ed., Reinventing Anthropology (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 284-311. For excellent examples, see
Sven Beckert, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie,
1850-1896 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Louis Hyman, Debtor Nation: The History of
America in Red Ink (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011); Frederic Cople Jaher, The Urban
Establishment: Upper Strata in Boston, New York, Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1982); and Richard R. John, “Farewell to the ‘Party Period’: Political Economy
in Nineteenth-Century America,” The Journal of Policy History vol. 16, no. 2, 2004. Hyman argues that
this approach to the history of capitalism takes “‘history from the bottom up’ all the way to the top,
returning to and revising an older historiography of political economy in light of the new methods and
narratives of social and cultural history, which will shift our thinking about how to historicize capitalism.
Capitalism, after all, is a system of relationships made by people—not nature.”
30
The Los Angeles investor class also lived and worked during a period in which the status of the
speculator and investor, particularly in the American West, had been rehabilitated, made over from selfish
and cavalier into a useful and productive member of society. As Ann Fabian notes, investors at the end of
the nineteenth century described themselves as key pillars in the development of capitalism: “They brought
land into ‘use.’ They ‘worked’ as capitalists and provided a ‘social service’ as taxpayers and
moneylenders. The speculator was transformed from a selfish gambler to a self-sacrificing pioneer and
from an exceptional figure of evil to a benign aspect of every settler.” Ann Fabian, Card Sharps and
Bucket Shops: Gambling in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Routledge, 1999), 169-170.

17
Díaz. We then follow Angeleno enterprises in Mexico through the years of the
Revolution (ca. 1910-1920), the unraveling of transnational metropolitanism, and the
subsequent expropriation of American-owned properties. Finally, the study examines the
creation of a post-revolutionary affiliation between Los Angeles and Mexico based on a
begrudging respect for Mexican nationalism and a renewed enthusiasm for cross-border
economic collaboration.
Chapter 1 explores how Los Angeles’ transnational metropolitanism intersected
with the ambitions of the Porfiriato in the late nineteenth century. Mexican policymakers
and Los Angeles investors alike envisioned a productive relationship between Mexican
resources and Los Angeles capital. They built alliances that facilitated both the growth of
Los Angeles and the development of Mexico’s raw natural resources. Using the Colorado
River Land Company (CRLC) as a case study, the chapter explores the ways in which the
company embodied the mutual interests of Angeleno investors and Mexican officials.
Founded in 1904, the CRLC emerged from a partnership built between Guillermo
Andrade, the Mexican consul in Los Angeles, and investors Harry Chandler and Harrison
Gray Otis. They used their position as regional elites to put Los Angeles at the center of
transnational commerce and actively fostered personal and professional relationships
with Mexican elites and officials to promote their investment and their region. In
particular, the CRLC relied on the intersecting interests of their company and city and the
interests of elite Mexicans, including President Porfirio Díaz. With regional growth
driving their agenda, this cadre of powerful individuals harnessed the future of Southern
California to regional development and transnational expansion.

18
The Mexican Revolution radically disrupted these investment plans; cross-border
alliances and identities of interest disintegrated. As explored in Chapter 2, violence,
banditry, battles, and political instability across Mexico, particularly in the northern
provinces, interrupted agricultural production. Strikes threatened the petroleum industry.
Revolutionary factions strategically targeted transportation and communication systems
and destroyed railroad lines and telegraph wires across the country. Regional officials
and policymakers encroached on abandoned American properties for their own use or
settled Mexican agraristas on them. Squatters’ movements made use of uncultivated
lands no matter who owned them.
Analyzing the conflicts between Southern California investors and managers and
Mexican citizens on the Quimichis Ranch, Chapter 2 explores how the Mexican
Revolution severely limited the ability of Angeleno investors to conduct business and
return a profit in the context of a social uprising. Chaos engendered by revolutionary
fighting as well as political instability at the territorial and national levels precluded the
types of political alliances that companies such as the CRLC forged prior to the
Revolution. Instead, Quimichis directors, investors, and staff faced challenges from their
employees, local residents, and revolutionary leaders. What Angelenos had expected to
build in Mexico—an orderly hinterland closely tied to their city—collided with a vastly
different vision of labor and land use on the Quimichis Ranch and, indeed, in Mexico.
Enraged at challenges to their presence in Mexico, they turned to the United States
government to protect the lives and property of American citizens.
Chapters 3 and 4 explore the results of these economic and political disruptions in
Mexico, particularly the limitations of Los Angeles’ transnational hinterland. While the

19
presidency of Porfirio Díaz had ensured Los Angeles elites the cooperation of the
Mexican federal state, the end of his administration and the political instability of
subsequent governments left them vulnerable to land seizures, revolutionary violence,
and even kidnapping and ransom schemes. The passage of a new constitution in 1917
also created a legal threat to private and foreign owned properties. Article 27, which
vested the Mexican president with the power to determine the most beneficial use of large
and foreign owned properties, exposed Angeleno investments to expropriation by the
Mexican state. A series of economically conservative Mexican executives in the 1920s
and early 1930s did not initiate widespread expropriation and redistribution of foreign-
owned properties under the 1917 Constitution. During this period, however, ordinary
Mexicans often took Article 27 into their own hands and began occupying foreign-owned
properties and declaring them their own.
As examined in Chapter 3, Angeleno investors reacted fiercely to challenges to
their investments and properties. They considered the upheaval of revolution a threat to
their personal property as well as part of a worldwide challenge to their economic
philosophy. Linking radical movements in Los Angeles to events unfolding in Mexico,
Russia, and China, Angelenos Edward L. Doheny and Thomas E. Gibbon argued
vehemently that revolutionary movements endangered not just their personal investments
but also the stability of an international economic system that they believed benefited the
investment and laboring classes at home and abroad. Notably, they also believed that the
right to government protection of private property extended beyond the boundaries of
their nation. They suggested that property rights were not just constitutionally ensured

20
within their sovereign nation but were also a natural right that followed them (and their
money) around the globe.
31

Despite this belief and consequent campaigns for intervention, most Americans
lost their properties in Mexico. Chapter 4 explores this transfer of American property to
Mexicans and the Mexican state through the cases of the San Isidro Ranch Company, the
Quimichis Colony, and the Colorado River Land Company. Tracing the interactions
between agraristas, local and international policymakers, and Angeleno landowners
reveals the power of local Mexicans against American landholders in the two decades
following the Mexican Revolution. Although Angeleno property owners implored their
government to protect their investments, the American state could do very little to
salvage private agricultural properties besides press the Mexican federal government to
intervene. When the Mexican state stalled, ignored, or refused, Angeleno property
owners found themselves without recourse to protect something they considered
sacrosanct—their private property.
The story could end here. But there is, as there always is, a next chapter. As the
1930s opened, and even as investors saw the approaching expropriation of their
properties, Angelenos began to reimagine their relationship with Mexico. Proximity to
Mexico, they believed, still held value for them and their city. Angelenos argued that

31
As they began to lose control over their investments, Angelenos also discovered that their own federal
government had a mixed approach to foreign interventions, particularly in Mexico. While William
McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, often pushed by enthusiastically imperial American business interests,
pursued an American empire in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii, Woodrow Wilson
(1913-1921), whose presidency coincided with the most violent period of the Mexican Revolution and the
rewriting of the Mexican Constitution, intervened only reluctantly in Mexico. Despite a well-funded and
aggressive interventionist campaign spearheaded by Doheny and Gibbon, the Wilson administration limited
its military involvement in Mexico to the occupation of Veracruz (1914) and the Pershing Expedition
(1916-1917). Wilson was sympathetic to American business interests but ultimately refused to topple the
Mexican government and install a pro-American Mexican executive.

21
their city could still serve as the American port of entry for Mexico, the rest of Latin
America, and the Pacific world. And, despite his administration’s firm stance on the
expropriation of foreign-owned agricultural and petroleum properties, President Lázaro
Cárdenas was part of a new generation of post-revolutionary leaders who believed that
foreign investment and partnerships with American companies could provide the
economic restructuring that Mexico needed.
Chapter 5 traces the efforts of Mexican policymakers and Los Angeles road
builders to create a new relationship between Southern California and Mexico in the form
of the International Pacific Highway (IPH), launched in 1929. Outside of the high
politics of presidents, state departments, and embassies, Mexicans and Angelenos in the
borderlands and beyond forged a post-revolutionary relationship between the two nations.
The Automobile Club of Southern California envisioned a highway that would put Los
Angeles at the center of automobile travel along the West coast of two continents. In
Mexico, regional policymakers and businessmen believed highways would aid national
development and American travelers could boost local economies. While both groups
held personal and divergent national agendas, their desire to promote international trade
and travel brought them into a coalition of dedicated road builders. IPH promoters on
both sides of the border, however, grappled with how to create a mutual and equitable
relationship between Americans and Mexicans in a post-revolutionary context.
Ultimately, the road, for its proponents in Los Angeles and Northwest Mexico, both
symbolized and fostered a new era in U.S.-Mexico relations characterized by
collaborative development and the transnational movement of people, goods, and ideas.

22
Through the narratives of Los Angeles and Mexican investors, policymakers, and
workers, this study reorients our understanding of U.S.-Mexican relations and
demonstrates how city, region, revolution, and the expansion of capitalism functioned in
Los Angeles’ transnational hinterland. From their perch on the edge of the Pacific Rim, a
generation of late nineteenth-century Angelenos believed their city would be the center of
a Pacific periphery. Their economic prowess, they believed, would create a metropolis
with international reach. The first social revolution of the twentieth century, however,
dramatically remade the economic, political, and cultural ties between Los Angeles and
its most important Pacific partner, Mexico.

23
Chapter One
“Good Feelings and Commercial Ties”: Forging Angeleno-Mexican Partnerships,
1897-1910

Introduction
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Harry Chandler, successful
newspaperman, shrewd land developer, and ardent city promoter, headed from Los
Angeles and into the far periphery of his burgeoning city’s hinterland. In the early
summer of 1900, Chandler traveled south through the rural farmlands of Orange County,
skirted Los Angeles’ smaller rival city, San Diego, headed east toward the Colorado
River Delta, and finally stepped arrived in northern Mexico. Chandler knew how to sniff
out a good deal, was hungry for his next big purchase, and Mexico looked appealing.
Possessing a keen business acumen and aware of ambitious plans to irrigate California’s
Imperial Valley, which stretched north just above the international boundary line,
Chandler glimpsed possibilities in the stark desert landscape that extended south of the
border. Harry Chandler arrived in Mexico in the high summer of 1900, when
temperatures in the Imperial-Mexicali Valley scorched skin and pressed people and
animals into the shade. Through waves of heat pulsating off the desert floor, he
envisioned a lucrative transnational addition to his already expansive Southern California
empire. Almost a million acres of prime agricultural land, owned by Mexican General
Guillermo Andrade, unfurled in front of him and Chandler was ready to buy.
1

1
Otis B. Tout, The First Thirty Years, 1901-1931 (San Diego, California: Otis B. Tout, Publisher, 1931),
43. When Chandler arrived in the Mexicali Valley in 1900 he already owned some land in California’s
Imperial Valley. See Dorothy Kerig, “Yankee Enclave: The Colorado River Land Company and Mexican
Agrarian Reform in Baja California, 1902-1944,” (Phd diss: University of California, Irvine, 1988), 60.

24
Chandler’s visit had been prompted by Andrade’s slightly earlier visit north from
Mexico. The arrival of the General in Los Angeles in 1897, along with his titles to the
expansive Baja property, prompted Chandler’s visit to the Imperial-Mexicali Valley.
Andrade had moved to Los Angeles precisely to promote the type of American
investment in Mexico that Chandler envisioned on the California-Baja California border
a few years later. At the urging of ambitious Angeleno businessmen, Mexican President
Porfirio Díaz had appointed Andrade the first Mexican Consul to Los Angeles to
facilitate trade and investment between Southern California and Northern Mexico. Los
Angeles capitalists believed that the success and future of their city lay in international
commerce. President Díaz believed that foreign investment would modernize and
develop his nation. It was in this context that the city of Los Angeles enthusiastically
welcomed Andrade with a lavish banquet and a round of thunderous applause in June of
1897. The cheers resounded from a crowd of elite Angelenos, including Chandler, the
Los Angeles mayor, several California legislators, two Mexican senators, members of the
Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, representatives of the powerful Merchants and
Manufacturers Association, and most of the city’s noted Anglo- and Mexican-American
citizens. The audience also included Chandler’s father-in-law, Harrison Gray Otis, the
newspaper titan whose close personal and political relationship with Díaz had secured the
opening of the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles and the appointment of Andrade as the
city’s first consul.
Speeches delivered at the welcome festivities touched upon what both Angelenos
and Mexicans such as Andrade and Díaz hoped to build—a transnational commercial
network that would link Los Angeles’ capital to Northern Mexico’s raw natural

25
resources.
2
As Mayor Meredith Snyder enthused, “Each year relations between the
United States and Mexico are growing closer and closer and the coming of Gen. Andrade
means to increase the good feeling and the commercial ties between Southern California
and Mexico.”
3
Andrade reciprocated the feelings of good will in Spanish, noting that,
“the attention of the world has been attracted to [Mexico’s] vast resources,” and Los
Angeles was “well-known for its active and enterprising businessmen.”
4
He concluded
that these two characteristics—the rich natural resources of Mexico and the vigorous
commercial energy of Los Angeles capitalists—were an ideal and mutually beneficial
combination.
Straddling the border between Southern California and Baja California, the
immense Colorado River Land Company (CRLC) embodied the mutual interests of
Angeleno investors and Mexican officials. Founded in 1904, the company emerged from
the partnership built by Guillermo Andrade, Harry Chandler, and Harrison Gray Otis. As
a Mexican citizen, Andrade initially received the vast borderland tract as a grant from the
Mexican federal government. Although he developed a successful trading business in
California, Andrade lacked the capital to develop his Baja California property to its
fullest extent. His arrival in Los Angeles introduced him to Southern Californians eager
to connect their city, and their capital, to Mexico. With visions of a city with a global
presence, the CRLC associates purchased Andrade’s enormous estate. To obtain, protect,
and develop their investment, they relied on a team of Mexican and American land

2
“Andrade Honored,” Los Angeles Times, June 18, 1897, 12.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.

26
agents, managers, and lawyers to coordinate local, national, and foreign policy on both
sides of the border. They used their position as regional elites to put Los Angeles at the
center of transnational commerce and actively fostered personal and professional
relationships with Mexican elites and officials to promote their investment, their
widening region, and their concomitant widening reach.
In particular, the CRLC relied on the intersecting interests of their company and
city and the interests of elite Mexicans, including President Porfirio Díaz. The Díaz
administration’s approach to fostering economic development in Mexico coincided neatly
with Angeleno ideas about expanding their city’s hinterland to the south. Angelenos and
Mexican officials and elites invoked similar identities of interest that overlapped in the
Southern California-Baja California borderlands in the early twentieth century. While
many historians of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and American investment in Mexico
have analyzed the rapid expansion of United States investment in Mexican industries,
most pay very little attention to the specific ways in which American capitalists, a
Mexican elite, and the Mexican state allied around common interests and goals and even
an overlapping world view.
5
Ideas about creating prosperity and an orderly society
intersected in the borderlands as men like Chandler, Otis, Andrade, and even President
Díaz imagined ways to develop both Southern California and Northern Baja California.
6

5
See, for example, John Mason Hart, Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil
War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
6
Rachel St. John addresses the alliances created between U.S. investors and Mexican policymakers through
the lens of corporate personhood. See Rachel St. John, “Between Nations: American Capitalists and the
Politics of Corporate Nationality on the Baja California Border, 1900-1930,” unpublished manuscript

27
Development in the California-Baja California Borderlands
When Andrade arrived in Los Angeles and Chandler thence traveled south to
contemplate Mexico a few years later, the city was in the midst of a twenty-year
population boom that transformed a small town into a metropolis. The city grew at a
phenomenal rate at the turn of the twentieth century; between 1880 and 1910, Los
Angeles’ population increased, on average, over 130% every decade.
7
During this
period, the city eclipsed every other city in the state to become the major metropolitan
region of the American West. Agriculture in Southern California’s moderate climate
drove the region and the city’s economy. Cattle and sheep ranches gave way to vineyards
and wheat farms as well as bee-farms and walnut groves. Irrigated communities like
Etiwanda and Ontario, and the rapid growth of the citrus industry further demonstrated
the rich agricultural possibilities in Southern California.
8
The completion of the Southern
Pacific (1876) and Santa Fe (1881) railroad lines, both serving Los Angeles, linked
Southern California products to eastern markets and sparked a rate war that brought
thousands of tourists and migrants into Southern California.
This mixture of railway promotions, population booms, and successful
agricultural ventures led to rampant real estate speculation and a series of boom/bust
cycles in the Southern California land market. Successive land booms spilled across the
border into Baja California, where Angelenos and eastern migrants saw similar potential
for growth. In fact, the development of Los Angeles and greater Southern California

7
Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books,
1973),113.
8
Ibid., 114-118.

28
served as the major impetus for development in Baja California and bound the two
Californias into an integrated economic unit. Southern California land developers, in
partnership with Mexican elites, led the economic development of Northern Baja
California. As historian Dorothy Kerig notes, “Baja California lacked adequate
communication with the Mexican mainland [so] the impetus for development came from
north of the border.”
9
Angelenos celebrated their proximity to Mexico and extolled the
advantages of living near a country that appeared to offer infinite investment
opportunities. Proximity, cheap land, and unexploited natural resources created the ideal
climate for transnational investment. Despite the presence of an international border,
Southern California and Northern Baja California formed a deeply interconnected
economic region.
10

The portion of Mexico bordering California at the Colorado River Delta, where
Andrade owned most of the irrigable land, seemed particularly enticing to Southern
California investors such as Harry Chandler and Harrison Gray Otis. Exceptionally dry,
hot, and stark, the delta region appeared at first glance little more than a parched desert.
Hidden in the sandy topsoil, however, lay organic gold. The Colorado River acts as the
drainpipe for over 246,000 square miles of territory through which a vein-like network of
rivers running from the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains south toward Mexico.
The Colorado carries with it a rich elixir of mineral deposits, swept up and transported
through the American Southwest and Mexico’s far northwest before reaching the Gulf of

9
Kerig, 61.
10
For more on the relationship between Baja California and Southern California, see Miguel León-Portilla
and David Piñera Ramírez, Baja California: Historia Breve (México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 2011),
87-121.

29
California. As the river approaches the U.S.-Mexico border, it deposits its rich load of
silt, layering the floor of the Imperial and Mexicali valleys with a thick spread of alluvial
soil. Deposited over millennia, the sediment transformed a desert valley into one of the
most fertile regions of North America. The delta, however, was also the most arid region
in California. Rich soil constituted nothing but dust without a source of water.
11

Figure 3, “Colorado River Land Co. Properties,” ca. 1920.
12

11
The desert delta posed an intriguing challenge to a generation of Southern California developers who
had overcome problems of aridity in the region’s other waterless areas. George Chaffey, an engineer and
land developer, had already launched thriving agricultural communities throughout Southern California
before arriving in the Imperial Valley in 1899. He partnered with Anthony H. Heber and Charles Robinson
Rockwood to engineer an irrigation canal to bring Colorado River water to the parched soil of the Imperial
Valley, north of the international boundary. Together they formed the California Development Company
(CDC) and raised money to construct an irrigation canal from the Colorado River to the valley. Their
irrigation project created over a million acres of arable land. They coupled their irrigation scheme with an
aggressive advertising campaign to bring settlers into the valley. They succeeded—by 1904 over 10,000
settlers had turned 150,000 acres of desert just north of the international boundary line into productive
farmland. There is an extensive literature on the complex history of irrigating the Imperial Valley. See
Kerig as well as Eric Boime, “Fluid Boundaries: Southern California, Baja California, and the Conflict over
the Colorado River, 1844-1944,” (Phd diss: University of California, San Diego, 2002); Norris Hundley,
Jr., The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, A History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001);
Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the of the American West (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992); and Kevin Starr, Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 21. Financial problems plagued the syndicate formed by Chaffey,
Heber, and Rockwood. They also struggled with engineering the irrigation canal correctly.
12
“Colorado River Land Co. Properties,” pamphlet published by the Colorado River Land Company,
undated, folder 43, CRLC Folders, Sherman Library, Corona del Mar. Hereafter SL.

30
Although the delta south of the international boundary carried a different name
than its northern counterpart—Mexicali in the south, Imperial in the north—the two
valleys share the same river, geological characteristics, and productive soil.
13
On both
sides of the border, groves of willows, cottonwood, and mesquite, interspersed with fields
of wild grass, dotted the riverbank through the delta. Annual floods left behind enough
rich sediment and moisture to grow three crops a year, including corn, beans, grain,
potatoes, sweet potatoes, watermelons, and pumpkins.
14
The border drew an acutely
arbitrary line through this fertile delta, bifurcating a single environmental region into
northern and southern halves. As developers and irrigation experts mapped out an
agricultural empire north of the border, Americans and Mexicans alike cast speculative
glances at Imperial’s fertile southern twin.
Although rich in natural resources, the Mexicali Valley had a very small
population at the beginning of the twentieth century. Until the introduction of the
lucrative and labor-intensive cultivation of cotton in 1915, fewer than 500 people resided
in a region encompassing more than one million acres.
15
Most of the valley’s 500
residents were members of the Cúcapa tribe of Indians. Despite the presence of an
indigenous group, the Mexican government declared the Valley terrenos baldíos, or part
of the public domain. Under Mexican law, citizens could file claims on terrenos baldíos
if they agreed to develop and colonize the property. Through this strategy, developed

13
Boime, 2.
14
Shipek, Florence, ed., Lower California Frontier: Articles from the San Diego Union, 1870 (Los
Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1965) 30-31.
15
Veronica Castillo Munoz, “Divided Communities: Agrarian Struggles, Transnational Migration and
Families in Northern Mexico, 1910-1952,” (PhD diss, University of California, Irvine, 2009), 23.

31
under the liberal reforms of the mid-nineteenth century, the Mexican government hoped
to promote agriculture and commercial development in the country’s sparsely populated
northern territories. This policy allowed Mexican citizens, like the farsighted Andrade, to
claim and develop thousands of acres of land beginning in the 1860s.
Establishing Transnational Networks
Angeleno interest in Mexico, the CRLC investment, and development in the
Imperial and Mexicali Valleys intersected tidily with Porfirio Díaz’s economic plans for
his country. When he assumed the presidency in 1876, Díaz already had extensive
networks in the United States, particularly amongst those interested in foreign
investment. He believed that modernization in Mexico would come as a result of foreign
capital, and he enlisted American landholders, bankers, railroad executives, and
congressmen as his allies.
16
As president, Díaz began granting huge concessions to
American investors and corporations. For example, in exchange for developing railroad
lines, he gave millions of acres of property to companies such as the Southern Pacific.
He expanded the mining industry by rescinding a colonial law that made subsoil
resources the property of the state and invited American corporations to develop silver
and copper mines. In the agricultural sector, purchases of communally held lands by
Americans allowed them to expel Mexican “squatters” and develop huge agricultural
holdings across Mexico.
17
American financing applied to Mexican landholdings and
natural resources would develop lucrative copper mines, railroad lines, oil fields, cattle

16
American support actually helped propel Porfirio Díaz to power in 1876. He had plans to overthrow the
presidency of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada (1872-1876) and relied on American financial support in this
process. John Mason Hart, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 105-109.
17
Ibid., 157-162.

32
ranches, sugar plantations, and communication systems across Mexico. Díaz believed
these ventures could yield personal fortunes while simultaneously advancing Mexico’s
economy and developing its infrastructure.
In line with Díaz’s economic strategy, Mexican elites like Andrade actively
sought foreign investment dollars to promote economic development and modernization
in Mexico. Andrade, for example, made it his mission to facilitate “large and profitable
business transactions between these two bordering sections of the two sister republics.”
18

Andrade occupied a distinct position in late nineteenth-century California and was
uniquely qualified to broker commercial relationships between his native Mexico and his
adopted California. Andrade was born in Sonora, Mexico, in 1833 to a wealthy,
landowning family. His family’s wealth facilitated an elite education in Europe, and his
parents’ deaths in the 1850s left him in charge of several large sugar plantations and
refineries.
19
In addition to serving in the Mexican military, he built several commercial
enterprises that earned him a “comfortable fortune” by 1859. In 1865 he and his fortune
relocated to San Francisco, then the economic capital of California, where he partnered
with English and Californian businessmen to invest in agricultural properties in Mexico.
20

Andrade used his position as a prominent Mexican citizen with extensive influence in
Mexico City to secure land concessions from the Mexican federal government. He was

18
“Trade with Mexico,” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1897, 6.
19
William Oral Hendricks, “Guillermo Andrade and Land Development on the Mexican Colorado River
Delta, 1874-1905,” (PhD diss: University of Southern California, 1966), 36.
20
Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1901, p. C1. Andrade and his associates petitioned for land grants from the
Mexican federal government with the agreement that they would promote colonization on the property.
Flooding discouraged most of the original investors, who sold their interests to a wealthy San Franciscan
and associate of Andrade, Thomas H. Blythe. Blythe became Andrade’s partner , providing the capital
necessary to develop the property. See Kerig, 39.

33
particularly interested in agricultural and commercial opportunities in Baja California’s
Mexicali Valley.
Andrade’s project in the Colorado River Delta originated as a bi-national effort.
He was living in San Francisco when he filed on the property and immediately enlisted
Californians to support the venture. In order to piece together a parcel of over 800,000
acres, Andrade worked with a group of affluent Mexicans residing in California, who
filed simultaneous claims and then transferred the titles to a company organized by
Andrade.
21
In transferring their property to him for development, they expected a share
of future profits. Andrade incorporated his new company in San Francisco in 1874.
Flooding prevented the enterprise from turning an immediate profit and within a few
years most of the initial investors had sold their shares to Andrade and a San Francisco
entrepreneur named Thomas H. Blythe.
22
The two men coupled Andrade’s Mexican
citizenship with Blythe’s capital to expand their landholdings and develop its
infrastructure. After Blythe’s sudden death in 1883, Andrade became the property’s sole
owner.
23
Sole ownership allowed Andrade to continue developing the property as well as
partner with irrigation companies in the Imperial Valley to develop an extensive
irrigation system that traversed the international boundary on Andrade’s property.
24

Ultimately, however, Andrade lacked the capital to maintain the property and began

21
Hendricks, 39.
22
Hendricks, 69.
23
Kerig, 54.
24
Shifting sand dunes north of the border thwarted efforts to build an irrigation canal from the Colorado
River to the Imperial Valley. Andrade’s land south of the border provided a solution for irrigation
engineers Rockwood and Chaffee—Andrade agreed to allow them to build an irrigation canal through his
property, carrying water from the Mexican side of the border north, into the Imperial Valley. See Kerig,
Hendricks, and Hundley.

34
soliciting buyers. His arrival in Los Angeles in 1897 brought the property to the attention
of the ambitious Harry Chandler and Harrison Gray Otis. Mexico beckoned these Los
Angeles city-builders.
Like Andrade, regional elites such as Harry Chandler and Harrison Gray Otis
played a key role in brokering a productive relationship between Los Angeles and
Mexico. Otis, a Civil War veteran, arrived in Los Angeles from Ohio by way of Santa
Barbara and Alaska. In search of economic opportunities in the publishing business, he
purchased an interest in the Los Angeles Daily Times in 1882 and became the paper’s sole
owner and publisher by 1886. As he built his newspaper empire, Otis imagined a
spectacular imperial future for Los Angeles: “a mightier Pacific empire, with a
population numbering millions where now we see only thousands, and possessing a
measure of wealth, civilization and power now inconceivable.”
25
According to one of his
first employers, Otis “envisioned himself to be an empire builder, a big man destined to
do big things.”
26
He bellowed orders to his staff at the Los Angeles Times from a barrel-
chested frame topped with a white, walrus mustache. According to one employee, “he
resembled Buffalo Bill, General Custer and Henry Watterson. . . he was a holy terror at
his newspaper plant; his natural voice was that of a game-warden roaring at seal
poachers.”
27
Contemporaries dubbed him “The Walrus.”
Otis was also almost as enthusiastic about expanding American empire across the
globe as he was about promoting his city. He embraced military life and requested an

25
Robert Gottlieb and Irene Wolt, Thinking Big: The Story of the Los Angeles Times and their Influence on
Southern California (New York: G. P. Putnam’s and Sons, 1977), 17.
26
Ibid., 20.
27
Ibid.

35
army appointment immediately after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898.
He won his military ranking of “General” during his tour in the Philippines and used the
title for the rest of his life. Bellicose editorials penned by Otis and his staff supported the
expansion of American interests into Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Panama. He likely
refrained from suggesting the same fate for Mexico because he maintained a close
friendship with the country’s supportive executive and fellow general, Porfirio Díaz. He
supported American military expansion and loved the soldierly life, however, and named
his home in Los Angeles the Bivouac, designed the Times building after a fortress, and
armed his office with a case of loaded shotguns.
28

Figure 4, “Statue of General Harrison Gray Otis in Westlake Park,” ca. 1920.
29

28
Ibid., 22. He supported both the war and the annexation of the Philippines with bellicose editorials in his
newspaper. In one he argued, “the Filipinos will be much freer and much more independent under the
government which we shall give them than under independent government they could or would give
themselves.”
29
Charles C. Pierce (photographer), “Statue of General Harrison Gray Otis in Westlake Park,” University
of Southern California Digital Library, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/view/chs-
m3730.html?x=1242058908614, accessed April 30, 2012. A plaque at the bottom of the statue reads
“General Harrison Gray Otis, 1837-1917. Soldier, journalist, friend of freedom. Stand fast, stand firm,
stand sure, stand true.”

36
His son-in-law and business partner preferred a quieter life and approach. One
historian described Harry Chandler as smart, shrewd, and subtle, “like a fox carefully and
quietly eyeing unguarded morsels.”
30
Nineteen-year-old Harry Chandler arrived in Los
Angeles, like so many others, a sickly consumptive in search of warm, dry air for ailing
lungs. Despite his illness, he worked agricultural jobs to survive, eventually moving on
to a job in the Times circulation department in 1885. He moved up quickly, becoming
chief of collections as well as the paper’s chief distributor. In 1894, he married Otis’
daughter, Marian Otis, and joined the Times family. In addition to his role in the Times
company, Chandler also itched to own property and acquired extensive real estate
holdings across Southern California. By the First World War, Chandler had pieced
together the largest cache of land in California. According to his contemporaries,
Chandler’s strengths as a businessman lay in his ability to maneuver institutions and
companies to his advantage, construct complex financial deals, persuade colleagues to
join his investment schemes, and harness personal interests to regional interests. In a
profile of Chandler, the Saturday Evening Post observed that he was involved in so many
ventures that “nobody, with the possible exception of himself, has ever been able to count
them.” Toward the end of his life, the Times estimated that he was the eleventh richest
man in the world.
31

30
Dennis McDougal, Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L. A. Times Dynasty
(Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2002), 64.
31
Gottlieb and Wolt, 125.

37

Figure 5, Portrait of Harry Chandler, undated.
32

While their styles varied drastically, Otis and Chandler shared a driving passion—
to transform Los Angeles from a dusty cow town into a powerful, world-class city,
enriching themselves in the process. With a cadre of other enthusiastic city-builders, they
had a hand in almost every major political and economic event in the city in the first
decades of the twentieth century. Over the course of thirty years they defeated rival
newspapers, ferociously suppressed organized labor, helped import water from the
Owens Valley, challenged the Southern Pacific Railroad, broke trade unionism in the
city, manufactured real estate booms, subdivided and annexed the San Fernando Valley,
and became two of the city’s wealthiest individuals. They understood these private
efforts as integral to the future of Los Angeles—what was good for the Times and its
owners was good for Los Angeles. According to Times historians Robert Gottlieb and
Irene Wolt, “The Times saw itself as the voice of Southern California, a promoter of
business and an advocate of population growth and regional expansion. Otis equated Los
Angeles’ interests with those of the Times and acted on that belief. He desired to shape

32
Photo from Gottlieb and Wolt. Original housed at the Sherman Library.

38
Los Angeles, and he and his papers had the political and economic power to do so.”
33

Although more understated, Chandler shared this passion with his father-in-law. The two
titans viewed the success of their paper, their investments, and the region as
indistinguishable. Together, they would make Los Angeles boom.
While Chandler and Otis—and their associates—may have wielded an
extraordinary amount of power and influence in Los Angeles, the success of their
Mexican venture and the development of a Mexican hinterland for Los Angeles depended
on a key component—finding private Mexican citizens and public officials willing to
collaborate in their venture. Partnerships between Mexican elites and their counterparts
north of the border provided the foundation for successful transnational investment
ventures. Mexican citizens had relationships with Mexican federal officials, access to
Mexican land grants, and knowledge of Mexican law. Like Andrade did in 1874,
Mexican citizens could file claims on terrenos baldíos. They saw lucrative opportunities
in coupling these assets with the capital of American financiers and served as brokers and
intermediaries for Angeleno investors. Mexicans, like Andrade, with links to Baja
California and the Mexicali Valley had a particular interest in promoting congenial
relationships with their powerful neighbors immediately to the north.
Eager to build commercial and political ties between their city and Mexico, the
members of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, led by Otis, lobbied the Mexican
federal government to appoint a consul to their city. While Washington, D.C. housed
Mexico’s ambassador, strategically placed consuls in other American cities facilitated
commercial ventures between U.S. and Mexican citizens. Recognizing an eager trade

33
Gottlieb and Wolt, 31.

39
partner and the needs of Los Angeles’ citizens of Mexican descent, the Mexican
government appointed Andrade to the position in 1897.
34
By that time, Andrade had
resided in California for thirty-two years, spoke English fluently, maintained an extensive
network of commercial and political relationships that stretched from Mexico City to San
Francisco, and owned a vast tract of prime agricultural land in Baja California.
From the perspective of Angeleno businessmen aching to link their city to
Mexico, Andrade was an ideal appointee. His experience and relationships would
significantly strengthen the city’s relationship to Mexico. Mayor Synder boasted, “He
will prove a valuable personage to Los Angeles.”
35
The Los Angeles Times noisily
celebrated his arrival in the city, emphasizing the importance of Andrade and the
consulate position for Los Angeles: “He will work to stimulate trade between the two
countries, and in every way endeavor to knit together the two republics in bonds of
friendship and sound business relationship.”
36
The Times also congratulated the Chamber
of Commerce on its success in brokering the position and securing an excellent
appointee. The hubbub over Andrade’s arrival reflected the intense hope on the part of
the city’s elite that Los Angeles and Mexico would share in a lucrative partnership.
Andrade embodied those possibilities. As a Mexican citizen with an extensive business
network in both California and Mexico, he acted as the conduit to coveted Mexican
resources. In the case of the CRLC investors, Andrade’s Mexican citizenship granted

34
Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1897, 7.
35
“Andrade Welcome,” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1897, 11.
36
Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1897, 7.

40
them access to an expansive tract of land, and his residency in Los Angeles resulted in
the transfer of that property to an ambitious cohort of Angeleno businessmen.
Friends in High Places
In addition to the overlapping interests of Andrade and the CRLC investors,
Angelenos such as Harrison Gray Otis actively pursued personal and professional ties
with high-ranking Mexican officials, particularly President Díaz, whom he affectionately
referred to as “Mexico’s Grand Old Man.” Although it is not clear when Otis and
Porfirio Díaz became acquainted, the two men enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship
that spanned two decades. Their friendship and mutual interests demonstrate the
intersecting priorities and perspectives of a Los Angeles elite and the Mexican federal
government. Otis, for example, enthusiastically promoted American investment in
Mexico through his personal speculations in the CRLC, his leadership in the Chamber of
Commerce and Merchants and Manufacturers Association, and his newspaper. Díaz
welcomed this maneuver as a supportive strategy in his economic development plans for
Mexico.
Otis was particularly generous in his praise of Díaz in the pages of the Los
Angeles Times. While Otis certainly understood the political benefits of promoting the
Díaz administration, he and Díaz also shared a political and economic philosophy that
Otis did not hesitate to broadcast in his newspaper. Otis’ descriptions of Díaz, penned by
himself or a commissioned staff writer, commonly referred to Díaz in glowing terms: “he
is an enlightened statesman of the broadest gauge and the ripest intelligence…Díaz has
been a great educator and the Mexican people are just beginning to realize the true value

41
of his teaching.”
37
Times editorials even excused Díaz’s thirty-year rule over a “sister
republic,” arguing that although he was entering his eleventh term, he was the one
Mexican leader equipped to lift his nation from “darkness and suffering up to light and
power.”
38
They also explained that Mexicans were in a formative stage, not yet ready for
the full responsibilities of republican citizenship, and that Díaz had correctly evaluated
just how much freedom his people could safely enjoy.
39

Otis and the Times spoke with particular admiration of Díaz’s ability to create
order and stability out of chaos. In an article commissioned by Otis and authored by
Charles Fletcher Lummis, Lummis described Mexico in the early years of Díaz’s rule as
“unsettled by revolutions, moth-eaten with brigandage, Tweedian in local politics,
remote, uneasy, ignorant, inaccessible, unsafe and beggared.”
40
According to Lummis’
observations, Díaz had created a safe, law-abiding, well-administered modern state that
rivaled any in the United States. Other Times articles highlighted Díaz’s especial respect
for the rights of property owners. Do not be afraid to invest below the border, the Times
argued; property in Mexico was as safe as property in the United States. After his trip to
Mexico City and several meetings with Díaz in 1902, Otis reported that the political
stability established by Díaz created an extraordinarily safe environment for investment.
He also explicitly outlined his understanding of the benefits of capital investment for
investors and workers, Americans and Mexicans alike: “Our investors do not, of course,

37
“Welcome to Díaz,” Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1897, 6.
38
Ibid.
39
“An Enlightened Ruler,” Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1900, I8.
40
Charles Lummis, “The Man of Mexico: Remarkable Career of President Porfirio Díaz,” Los Angeles
Times, October 8, 1899, 8.

42
pretend to come in the role of philanthropists; they are animated by an intelligent self-
interest. But this, when directed upon a right plane, and within the limitations of the laws
of the country, must result for the good of the whole republic, as well as of the investors
themselves. What a great country such as this, with its vast and rich natural resources,
needs more than anything else is development—the application of capital, skill and labor
well directed.”
41
Díaz, according to Otis, had created a nation welcoming to foreign
capital, and these investments would provide beneficial results for all.
A key component of this worldview included “well directed” labor. Otis and the
Times particularly admired Díaz’s handling of organized labor in Mexico. In 1906, when
hundreds of workers went on strike against the Mexican Central Railroad, the Times
triumphantly announced, “Díaz Smashes Union Octopus” and “He Makes Unionist
Strikes Bend Knees for Mercy.” At the same time, port workers in San Pedro struck and
the paper editorialized that “it would be a lucky thing for everybody concerned if we
could get President Díaz of Mexico up here for about fifteen minutes to settle the strike at
San Pedro.”
42
According to Times reports on the strike in Mexico, Díaz granted the
striking workers a meeting, heard their demands, and then explained that capital’s rights
superseded workers’ rights. The progress of the nation, Díaz explained, depended on
“the introduction of capital, both domestic and foreign, and every imposition that is
unjustly placed upon capital retards the forward movement of the country and its
industrial development.”
43
Ultimately, Díaz commanded the railroad employees to return

41
“General Otis Pleased with His Trip to Mexico,” Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1902, 6.
42
“Díaz Smashes Union Octopus,” Los Angeles Times, August 23, 1906, II5.
43
“President Díaz Ends the Mexican Strike,” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1906, VII4.

43
to work, comply with company policies, and respect the great industrial progress of the
nation. Ardently anti-union, Otis delighted in this approach and rhetorically asked Díaz
to come implement his stringent labor policies in Los Angeles.
Otis also cultivated a close relationship with Díaz’s vice president, Ramon Corral.
When Corral toured the United States in 1904, his final stop was in Los Angeles.
Andrade, the mayor’s office, the Chamber of Commerce, and Otis were on hand to greet
and fete him. Otis praised Corral and Díaz for giving Mexico
that which is of greatest value to it, peace, repose and orderly government. We value highly the
friendly relations subsisting between Mexico and the United States and the great opportunities
which through the enlightened liberality of the President and government of Mexico, are offered to
Americans doing business in your country. We are glad to know that so many of our people have
embraced these opportunities resulting in the investment of millions of American money in
Mexican enterprises. We anticipate for the investors large benefits for themselves and benefits for
your country also, by reason of the presence within its borders of so many Americans of capital,
energy and enterprise.
44

Otis outlined, in very explicit terms, his understanding of the relationship between the
United States and Mexico and between investors like himself and the Díaz
administration. Díaz had created an orderly political system that provided the economic
stability American investors sought. He also created policies in Mexico that Otis
considered “enlightened,” policies that promoted foreign investment and that Díaz hoped
would develop Mexico’s infrastructure and economy. For Otis, these policies meant the
smooth expansion of American capitalism into Mexico with dual benefits—for American
investors and the Mexican nation.
The friendship forged between Otis and Corral during this visit proved useful a
few years later when the CRLC asked the Díaz administration for a favor that they argued
would make it significantly easier for them to conduct business in Baja California. The

44
“Los Angeles Honors Him,” Los Angeles Times, November 3, 1904, 6.

44
territory’s administrative center was located in Enseñada, approximately 125 miles west
of the CRLC property. As Otis described it in a letter to Díaz and Corral, the journey
between Mexicali, which bordered the CRLC, and Enseñada was through “rough,
mountainous country without any properly constructed roads.”
45
When company
officials needed to conduct business with the Mexican state, it required a 500-mile
journey by train from Mexicali to Los Angeles and then through San Diego.
The CRLC primarily wanted a judge in the region to assist in removing squatters
from its lands. CRLC Mexican attorneys, Ismael Pizarro Suárez and Antonio Horcasitas,
both reported that the company could eject illegal settlers more easily if there was a local
judge who could hear and adjudicate cases quickly in Mexicali.
46
The company
complained that it had suffered years of annoyance from a group of thirty squatters who
refused to move off the property when it was purchased it from Andrade. The company
offered to buy the homes they had built and hire them as wage laborers, but the squatters
refused. The company began legal proceedings against the families but found the legal
process cumbersome.
47
Suárez and Horcasitas also explained to Anderson that the judge
in Enseñada ruled too often against the company, and that if they had a judge in Mexicali
it would be easier to ensure that he was not “unduly influenced” by antagonistic forces.
48

Not surprisingly, the CRLC cloaked its request in less self-serving and more
diplomatic terms. CRLC members wrote to the Díaz administration asking for a judicial

45
Letter from Harrison Gray Otis to President Porfirio Díaz, July 28, 1908, Anderson’s Portfolio 37, SL.
46
Letter from Ismael Pizarro Suárez to David Anderson, February 14, 1908, Anderson’s Portfolio 37, SL.
47
Letter from David Anderson to Ismael Pizarro Suárez, January 17, 1908, Anderson’s Portfolio 37, SL.
48
Letter from Suárez to Anderson, February 14, 1908.

45
office in Mexicali so the company could conduct general legal transactions closer to
home. They argued that a judge in Mexicali would serve as a much faster alternative to
executing documents in Los Angeles and then forwarding them to Mexico City for
approval, and would aid not just the CRLC but any company wanting to do business in
the Imperial and Mexicali valleys. Díaz responded warmly and forwarded the issue to
Corral, who set the process for establishing a judgeship in Mexicali in motion. Within
two weeks of Otis’ original letter, Corral reported that the President had approved the
new position, considering the suggestion “well-founded…the judge of that place will be
authorized as a notary public, completing the fulfillment of your desires as you were
pleased to indicate them to the President.”
49
These transnational relationships that linked
Otis and Chandler to Andrade, Díaz, and Corral proved essential to creating a successful
enterprise in Baja California.
“The Rancho of the Two Flags”
50

Impressed by the opportunities that irrigation could sprout in the desert above the
border, Chandler and his Angeleno business associates forecast parallel opportunities in
the Mexican half of the delta. Chandler hired a surveyor to develop a detailed map of the
region and began soliciting investors and investigating property titles. He organized a
group of influential Los Angeles entrepreneurs to pool their resources and talents and
invest in the Valley. Chandler’s personal and business associates included the city’s
preeminent investors, speculators, and financiers. Many of them already had significant

49
Letter from Vice President Ramon Corral to Harrison Gray Otis, August 11, 1908, Anderson’s Portfolio
37, SL.
50
Harrison Gray Otis gave the Colorado River Land Company this moniker in a letter to Ambassador
Enrique Creel. Letter from Harrison Gray Otis to Enrique Creel, September 4, 1907, Anderson’s Portfolio
37, SL.

46
ties to Mexico. Notably, Chandler partnered with his father-in-law. Other initial
investors included William H. Allen, Jr., David O. Anderson, Otto F. Brant, and Oliver P.
Clark, owners of the Title Insurance and Trust Company (TICOR). Involvement in
TICOR gave them knowledge of land values, titles, and trust agreements.
51
Anderson
also spoke Spanish fluently and had an expertise in tracing Mexican property titles.
Thomas E. Gibbon, vice-president of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad
Company, a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific system, also joined the syndicate and
provided an important link to railroad companies. Moses H. Sherman, a key figure in the
development of Southern California’s streetcar system joined the syndicate in 1907.
Jointly, the syndicate represented not only some of Los Angeles’ wealthiest residents, but
also the city’s most ardent boosters and a talent pool rich in real estate development and
transportation experience.
The syndicate’s venture into Mexico also represented an extension of their
strategies across greater Los Angeles. They planned to buy cheap land and increase its
value by applying water and transportation. Thomas Gibbon described the group’s
activities across Southern California: “the largest stockholders of the company, myself
included, have for years acted together in buying and improving lands by putting water
on them, and subdividing and selling them.”
52
Gibbon confessed that it was his “favorite
method of trying to make money” because he felt a moral and philosophical satisfaction

51
Kerig, 65.
52
Letter from Thomas E. Gibbon to Secretary of Interior Franklin K. Lane, folder 1, box 35, Bergman
Collection, Huntington Library. Hereafter HL.

47
when creating fertile and productive properties.
53
Members of the syndicate also saw the
CRLC property as firmly part of the commercial orbit of Los Angeles. While applying
for some financing for the endeavor, Chandler wrote, “our property is in the region which
makes it just as much tributary to the commercial and business interest of Los
Angeles…anything you can do to assist us in a financial way will be contributing to the
development of the general business and industrial growth of Los Angeles…Los Angeles
financiers, as a matter of good morals and good business policy, can afford to show a
broad gauged and progressive spirit in their dealings with our close neighbors of the
South.”
54
According to Chandler’s assessment, financial investment in the CRLC would
prove beneficial to the city of Los Angeles as well as build productive relationships with
neighbors below the border.
The ambitious and well-connected syndicate did not hesitate to plan on a colossal
scale. The Andrade property interested them specifically because of its enormous
acreage.
55
In total, the property comprised almost all of the irrigable land in the Mexican
portion of the Colorado River delta. Given the scale of their investment and the risks
associated with such a massive speculation, the syndicate spent over $10,000 just to

53
Ibid.
54
Letter from Harry Chandler to Henry M. Robinson, undated, folder 1B, CRLC Records, SL. Robinson
replied, “We recognize fully that the development of the [CRLC] would work most advantageously to Los
Angeles and to our institutions, and we have been hopeful that a situation would arise that would warrant
your undertaking the further development of the area.” Letter from Henry M. Robinson to Harry Chandler,
May 24, 1922, folder 1B, CRLC Records, SL.
55
Recognizing the benefits of owning property on the border, they also secured an option for a strategic
10,000 acre tract immediately adjoining the international boundary line. A portion of this property
bordered a small parcel the syndicate already owned on the American side of the border. According to the
son of one of the syndicate members, “As soon as they’d decided—found they were going to get the
Mexican side—they began to look for land on the American side so it would work back and forth.”Noel J.
Stowe, “Pioneering Land Development in the Californias: An Interview with David Otto Brant,” California
Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 2 (June, 1968), 141-155.

48
investigate and prove the titles of the various properties.
56
Drawing on Anderson’s legal
and language expertise, the syndicate hired him to verify the legality of the properties’
chain of title. Anderson traveled back and forth between Los Angeles, Mexico City, and
Baja preparing an exhaustive dossier of land grant documents, bills of sale, and deeds.
His trips also led to productive relationships with Mexican officials in the Díaz
administration, which the company strategically relied on when it needed assistance.
In 1902, after a favorable assessment from Anderson, the syndicate organized two
corporations to purchase and develop the property—the California-Mexico Land and
Cattle Company in California and the Colorado River Land Company in Mexico. Over
the next two years, the syndicate purchased most of the land they had investigated,
bringing their holdings in Mexico to just under one million acres. The property below the
border sprawled across 1,328 square miles. The purchase price totaled $533,359, or just
$0.63 an acre.
57
Most of the property lay south of the international boundary line with a
small corner jutting up above the border near the Mexican town of Mexicali and the
California town of Calexico. Although on paper two separate companies controlled the
land on either side of the border, the two corporations included the same directors and
investors and treated the two properties as one.
58
In general, policies set for the Mexican
property determined those for the Imperial Valley lands. The Mexican company—the
CRLC—allowed the syndicate to legally hold property in Mexico, as Mexican law

56
California-Mexico Land and Cattle Company Minute Book, volume 1, SL.
57
Kerig, 82.
58
California-Mexico Land and cattle Company, Minute Book, volume 1, August 28, 1902-March 6, 1907,
SL.

49
prohibited foreigners from owning land within twenty leagues (approximately fifty miles)
of an international border.
59

Initially, the company developed their enormous holdings into a profitable cattle
ranch. Ranching required very little additional investment from the CRLC syndicate.
Acres of natural grasslands and runoff from the Colorado River provided feed and water
for cattle from California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Northern Mexico.
60

Ranching also limited the need for a large workforce. The company also leased large
tracts of land to wheat farmers already established in the Imperial Valley.
61
The
syndicate planned to continue leasing sizeable pieces of property to individual farmers
until they raised the capital necessary to improve roads and irrigation systems and
eventually subdivide and sell lots. They believed that by investing in the property and
holding onto it for a period of time, land prices would escalate and they could sell at a
significant profit. While waiting for the property to appreciate, they also continued to
experiment with different crops to find the most lucrative one.
Launching their new investment venture also required intimate working
relationships with Mexican officials, particularly in Mexico City. Before they even
finalized the incorporation process, Otis and Anderson journeyed to Mexico City in the
fall of 1902 to meet with high-ranking Mexican officials in the Díaz administration.
62

59
In response to the extraordinary loss of territory following the Mexican-American War, the Mexican
government passed a law in 1856 that prohibited noncitizens from owning land within twenty leagues of
the nation’s borders. American companies could circumvent this law by incorporating in Mexico which
provided them with all the rights of Mexican citizens except the right to vote.
60
Kerig, 86.
61
Kerig, 88.
62
Hendricks, 202.

50
Ever on the prowl for opportunities for himself and his city, Otis had already cultivated a
personal relationship with President Díaz and other Mexican bureaucrats. Drawing on
these friendships, Anderson and Otis convened with Mexican administrators to promote
the interests of their emerging company. During their conversation, Otis emphasized to
Díaz that the enterprise proposed by the syndicate was in line with the President’s desires
for Mexico. He pointed out that they wanted to “do something towards the material
development of Mexican lands” and had the resources to transform a desert into an
agricultural oasis.
63
Reflecting on the trip after returning to Los Angeles, Otis wrote
Díaz: “We promised to make [the land] something more and better than desert lands; and
while seeking to promote our own interests, we believed that we would by our operations
and improvements necessarily be of some substantial service to your country.”
64
Otis and
Díaz agreed—the CRLC was a mutually beneficial proposition. While in Mexico, the
company also retained the services of well-connected Mexican lawyers to ensure their
interests were adequately represented in the nation’s capital.
Lawyers and policymakers south of the border reciprocated, offering expertise
and assistance in the complexities of a transnational investment. Emilio Velasco, for
example, worked as one of the company’s attorneys in Mexicali. Well-connected,
influential, and familiar with Mexican law, Velasco could ease bureaucratic headaches
south of the border. Company directors recognized Velasco’s indispensability for their
enterprise. They enlisted his expert opinion on the issue of irrigation water they had
presented to Díaz for resolution. Drawing from prior experience, Velasco commented

63
Letter from Harrison Gray Otis to Porfirio Díaz, April 11, 1906, Anderson’s Portfolio 37, HL.
64
Ibid.

51
candidly that he had no doubt Díaz would side with the CRLC on the crucial issue: “I
have no doubt [Díaz] will see with the greatest sympathy your endeavors to improve what
at present is called the desert in Lower California, and for my part my sympathy will not
be less for an undertaking supported by honorable and reliable people looking for their
success in work and legitimate purposes.”
65
Velasco also offered words of warning to
CRLC managers, cautioning them not to expend too much money on agricultural
enterprises before they had ensured an adequate water supply.
66
Velasco also had a close
working relationship with CRLC staff members, often lending them horses, carriages,
and even offering space in his home during business trips. Recognizing Velasco’s crucial
role in the enterprise, CRLC leadership often rebuked ranch foreman John Packard for
failing to adhere to Mexican business etiquette. Chiding Packard, Anderson wrote, “It is
most important in dealing with these honorable Mexican gentlemen who invariably put
their house, horses and carriages at your disposal, free of all charge to you, to tell them
what they shall get for the use thereof.”
67
In essence, Anderson scolded the ranch
foreman not to take Velasco’s assistance for granted because he represented an important
point of access into the Mexican legal and political system.
The CRLC also did not hesitate to wield the power of Mexican law enforcement
against Mexican citizens when doing so fit its needs. Just after acquiring the property,
for example, the company began trying to clear it of squatters. There was a particular
challenge in ousting an older man named José Moreno who claimed to own a parcel of

65
Letter from Emilio Velasco to General Harrison Gray Otis, January 24, 1905, CRLCC, Anderson’s
Portfolio 7, HL.
66
Ibid.
67
Letter from D. O. Anderson to John Packard, August 23, 1905, CRLCC, Anderson’s Portfolio 7, SL.

52
land known as Los Pasqualitos. Moreno had lived on the property since 1879 and
asserted he received a grant from President Díaz in the 1870s. Although the historical
record does not reflect much more on Moreno or his life in Baja, it appears he was elderly
and not well off by the time the CRLC bought the property. CRLC staff noted that he
lived in a small shack he had built himself on the corner of the parcel he claimed as his
own. When he protested his removal, ranch staff advised him that the company had
taken over the property, and that if he had an issue he would have to travel to Los
Angeles to CRLC corporate headquarters to discuss it with Anderson directly. Ranch
staff noted skeptically, “the old man really thinks he has something.”
68
The trip to Los
Angeles was probably prohibitively expensive for a poor farmer, and Moreno never
appeared in Los Angeles. Instead, Anderson advised the ranch staff to bring the full
force of Mexican law against Moreno, from the territorial governor to President Díaz: “I
advise you to have the attention of Governor Vega and other officers in Enseñada
directed to the above articles and that if they do not immediately accord us protection and
relief from annoyance by Moreno and those claiming under him, that you wire me and I
will take the matter direct to the President: There is no use fooling with those fellows and
we may as well make an example of Moreno as any one else.”
69
The CRLC shrewdly
assessed that it could wield its relationships with territorial governors and even the
president to advance its own interests, even at the expense of Mexican citizens,
particularly poor citizens. This Angeleno elite and the Mexican state shared an interest in
promoting a profitable investment venture and partnered to ensure its success.

68
Letter from Thomas Silsbee to David Anderson, April 6, 1904, CRLCC, Anderson’s Portfolio 15, SL.
69
Letter from David Anderson to unidentified addressee, undated, CRLCC, Anderson’s Portfolio 15, SL.

53
Water and Los Angeles-Mexico Alliances
While the CRLC stakeholders joined with Mexican allies to secure their property
and negotiate issues like squatters, regional politics, and the border, the issue of irrigation
water from the Colorado River forced the company to rely heavily on the support of
Mexican partners and align itself closely with the interests of Mexico in opposition to the
U.S. federal government. In an international dispute over water, the Los Angeles elites
who owned the CRLC maintained a deep respect for Mexican sovereignty because they
understood themselves and their city as uniquely positioned as part of both Mexico and
the United States. While they certainly identified as Americans, their position in Los
Angeles, on the cusp of Mexico, drew them to categorize themselves as both American
citizens and Mexican stakeholders, faithful to two nations but ultimately loyal to the
interests of their investment and their partnerships in Mexico. Los Angeles and their
business interests would not be best served, members of the syndicate believed, by a
narrow adherence to American nation-building efforts. Instead, the CRLC leaders
identified themselves and their city with a larger international project—transnational
investment and commerce—that required building productive alliances with Mexico.
Within the first five years of owning the property, the CRLC deployed its
significant political capital on both sides of the border to protect the company’s right to
access Colorado River water. When the federal Reclamation Act of 1902 threatened to
deprive Baja California of irrigation water from the Colorado River in favor of American
farmers in California’s Imperial Valley, Otis and Chandler organized their political
alliances to protect Mexican rights under international law. They marshaled their
relationships with both American and Mexican policymakers to win an international

54
water policy agreement that favored both Los Angeles and their Mexican investment.
They prioritized what they considered a single environmental and economic unit—the bi-
national Colorado River Delta—over the larger interests of western American states and
the nation. They championed the rights of another state in an effort to promote their city
and its periphery. Accordingly, they lobbied the American government to respect the
water rights of Mexico during a period of intense controversy over access to water under
international law. Simultaneously, they relied on Mexican fears of American
expansionism and their close relationship to the administration of Porfirio Díaz to push
the country into quick action to protect the waters of the Río Colorado.
70

International disputes over water rights along the Colorado River began as the
initially successful CDC floundered in floodwater and financial failure. Engineering
errors in the CDC’s original irrigation works, which ran through CRLC property, and the
decimation wrought by heavy rainfall resulted in severe flooding in the Imperial Valley.
As a result, the newly created Reclamation Service saw the valley as a prime site for
inclusion in its expansive plans to develop the Colorado River.
71
In 1902, the Service

70
A note on sources—unfortunately, the archive containing records from the administration of Porfirio
Díaz was closed for remodeling during the time I was in Mexico City conducting research. As a result, the
sources for this chapter rely almost exclusively on the records of the CRLC housed at the Sherman Library
in Corona del Mar. The Sherman Library collection is invaluable and contains original correspondence
from Díaz and high-ranking officials in his administration. This correspondence, however rich, only
reveals what the Díaz administration was willing to say openly to Otis and the CRLC and does not reflect
the internal discussions that likely took place regarding the company, its owners, and relations with the
United States.
71
Residents and political leaders of western states began agitating for a federal reclamation bureau at the
end of the nineteenth century. They believed that arid regions in particular, which needed large scale
immigration projects, required the extensive planning and resources that could only be provided by a
central government. Passed in 1902, the Reclamation act proposed to sell federally owned land and use the
proceeds to construct massive irrigation systems throughout the west. See Norris Hundley, Jr., Water and
the West: The Colorado River Compact and the Politics of Water in the American West (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2009), 9-10.

55
planned to construct a series of large reservoirs, diverting and storing Colorado River
water for use in the United States. While the plan would provide irrigation for farmers in
a number of western states as well as rescue the flooded Imperial Valley, the proposal
threatened to deprive Mexican lands of water altogether by drawing almost all of the
Colorado’s water out of the river before it even reached Mexico. When the CRLC
discovered that the federal government planned to divert all of the Colorado’s water to
farmland north of the border, they sprang into action, opposing the federal reclamation
project and championing the international water rights of Mexico. They marshaled
relationships with policymakers on both sides of the border to create foreign policy that
prioritized the needs of their Los Angeles syndicate.
With their entire investment at stake, the company did not hesitate to call on its
most well-connected member to address the issue. Otis, undoubtedly the company’s
most influential shareholder, immediately wrote to his personal friend, Porfirio Díaz,
alerting him to the plans unfolding north of the border. Otis’ lengthy correspondence
with Díaz outlined in detail what the U.S. Reclamation Bureau proposed to do in the
Imperial Valley and across the American west—essentially divert all Colorado water
onto U.S. farmland. He advised the Mexican president that the undertaking would
“vitally affect the character, use, development, settlement and value of fertile public and
private lands. . . below the international boundary line, in the Territory of Lower
California and the State of Sonora.”
72
While trying to maintain a diplomatic tone, Otis’s
letters held an undercurrent of alarm for Mexico. From his perspective as a Mexican
stakeholder, the Reclamation Act blatantly violated international law and posed a serious

72
Harrison Gray Otis to Porfirio Díaz, April 9, 1904, Anderson’s Portfolio 4, SL.

56
threat to Mexican sovereignty. In particular, he found it troubling for the United States to
make unilateral decisions about an international river. “Shouldn’t the sister republics
agree on an equitable division of the said waters?” he rhetorically asked Díaz.
73
Otis was
also fully aware of Mexico’s sensitivity to American expansion and highlighted his
country’s efforts to divert Colorado water before it reached Mexico.
74
The newly created
Reclamation Fund, Otis underscored, threatened international agreements, the
development of Mexican lands in the Colorado River delta, and ultimately, the
sovereignty of Mexico.
The company’s correspondence with Díaz emphasized the belief that Southern
California and Northern Baja constituted a single environmental and economic region
despite being crossed by an international boundary. Lands adjacent to the Colorado
River, north and south of that boundary, shared a similar destiny and equally deserved the
right to irrigation. As Otis wrote emphatically to Díaz, “You and your ministers, as well
as the Congress of the Republic, are fully alive to the necessity for irrigation in the
development of the arid and semi-arid lands of your great country; those portions lying
along the northerly frontier being merely a continuation of the arid and semi-arid lands of
the United States.”
75
Otis’ correspondence also (no surprise) situated the foreign-owned
CRLC as an important component in Mexico’s economic success. His strategy relied on
the vision he shared with Díaz—Mexico and Los Angeles’ future economic growth rested

73
Ibid.
74
Plans outlined in the Reclamation Act violated clauses in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which
made it illegal for either the United States of Mexico to interfere with the navigability of the Colorado
River. The Reclamation Act would have drained so much water from the Colorado that it would
effectively become too shallow in Mexico to navigate.
75
Otis to Díaz, April 9, 1904, Anderson’s Portfolio 4, SL.

57
on international investment. Emphasizing this idea, Otis referred to CRLC land holdings
as “an enterprise which is destined to contribute in no small degree to the development
and enrichment of Mexican territory. . .should this water be chiefly appropriated and
consumed on the American side, the result will be a serious loss to owners on the
Mexican side of the international boundary line.”
76
Otis suggested that his interests and
the interests of Northern Baja were one and the same. Arid lands of Northern Baja and
Southern California might be crossed by an arbitrary national boundary but both deserved
and had a right to water from the Colorado. At each step, Otis coupled the interests of his
company and his city with the environmental and economic interests of Baja California
and greater Mexico.
In subsequent correspondence with Díaz, Otis and the CRLC emphasized the
specific commercial opportunities that Mexicans and Americans on both sides of the
international boundary line hoped to take advantage of with adequate water. In
particular, the CRLC envisioned the agricultural possibilities that spanned the border—
rows of fruit trees, fields of onions, carrots, and spinach, and well-fed cattle. Water
would “transform the existing desert on both sides of the line into fruitful fields and
suitable spots for the habitations of civilized men.”
77
They also noted that “far-sighted
businessmen, after an examination of the natural conditions along the Colorado River in
both Republics, have no hesitancy in asserting that the storage and diversion of the river
water, and its use for the irrigation of the arid and semi-arid lands in both Republics, will

76
Ibid.
77
Letter from Harrison Gray Otis to Paul Morton, Secretary of the Navy, January 17, 1905, Anderson’s
Portfolio 4, SL.

58
constitute a great public use.”
78
In other words, investors on both sides of the border
viewed the entire delta as ripe for commercial development. Commercial development
benefitted the greater good of both republics and, in essence, “civilized” a portion of both
countries. The CRLC noted, however, that the Reclamation Act threatened to unfairly
limit those opportunities to the northern side of the international boundary. Without
water, orchards and vegetable fields would halt at the border.
As a major stakeholder in the Los Angeles-Baja borderlands, CRLC stakeholders
also deemed it their responsibility as citizens of the United States to prevent their country
from “trespassing” on the rights of the Republic of Mexico. In fact, Otis maintained,
efforts on the part of the United States to usurp water constituted an unforgiveable act, an
infringement of sacred rights, and such an act would be “too harsh and unwarranted to be
entertained by powers at peace with each other.” In another letter, Otis declared, “Justice
ought to prevail between the two countries, and I, as an American, do not hesitate to
declare that any encroachment by the stronger power upon the weaker would be
unwarranted; it would, in fact, be an outrage, not to be considered by the people and
government of an enlightened nation. National honor and international equity, alike,
forbid aggression upon our part against Mexico.”
79
Otis made the CRLC’s position
clear—any American action harmful to Mexico was an offense to the principles
governing modern and civilized international affairs. Otis’ comments demonstrated a
commitment to protecting Mexican rights under international law, in part because he
wanted to protect his investment, but also because he believed Mexico and Southern

78
Letter from CRLC to Porfirio Díaz, April 9, 1904, Anderson’s Portfolio 4, SL.
79
Harrison Gray Otis to John Harrison Packard, Dec. 23, 1905, Portfolio 4, SL.

59
California were better served by a bilateral, rather than a unilateral, agreement. Otis and
the CRLC also seemed concerned that one-sided policymaking would threaten Los
Angeles’ singular position as the portal to Latin America. Syndicate members and
Angeleno capitalists hoped for both personal and civic success based on investment in
Mexico and worried that aggressive American foreign policy jeopardized those
aspirations.
On the other side of the border, the interests of the Mexican federal government
coincided with the desires of the CRLC. Mexican officials had viewed the conflict over
water along the border with increasing interest and concern long before Otis dispatched
his apprehensive letter to Díaz in April 1904. Disputes over the Río Grande as well as
the Colorado alarmed Mexican officials determined to protect the international rights of
their nation against the powerful neighbor to the north. The Mexican federal government
sent emissaries to the United States regularly to monitor water usage in the Southwest.
Even before the Reclamation Service articulated plans to reclaim vast portions of
California and Arizona deserts, Mexican officials lodged complaints about the
surreptitious activities of Imperial Valley farmers who brokered private deals with local
Mexican and American water distributors to usurp water from the Mexican side of the
border. Under these local practices, Imperial Valley farmers rerouted Colorado River
water that had already crossed the international boundary line back across the border and
into the United States. With these circumstances in mind, the Mexican federal
government was eager to establish an international water use policy with the United

60
States to ensure that Baja California and its native and foreign residents had access to
adequate water.
80

Monitoring the situation on the Colorado closely, the Mexican government acted
quickly to protect Baja’s interests. A few weeks after Otis wrote his letter to Díaz, the
Mexican ambassador to the United States filed an official complaint with the State
Department regarding reclamation plans along the Colorado. In the complaint,
Ambassador de Azpiroz argued that the projects would “work most serious injury to
Mexico, co-owner of the river with the United States.”
81
The Los Angeles Times
reprinted the complaint in its entirety, noting happily that the government of Mexico did
not oppose a shift in the utility of the river from navigation to irrigation—a divergence
from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo—as long as Mexico received its share of the
water. The Mexican government recognized the need to utilize the river’s water for
irrigation in both Southern California and Northern Baja. However, it reminded the
United States firmly that half the Colorado belonged to Mexico.
82

While aligning themselves with the Mexican government, Otis, Chandler, and the
CRLC also plotted out a strategy to protect Mexico’s water rights at home where they
attempted to maneuver domestic policymakers into line with company interests. In
addition to alerting Díaz to the threat posed by reclamation projects, Otis and Chandler
sent a summary of their position to President Theodore Roosevelt. Their communication
highlighted many of the points raised in lengthy letters to Díaz. Signed by Otis, the letter

80
Hundley, Water and the West, 22-30.
81
Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1904, 4.
82
Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1904, 4.

61
warned Roosevelt that reclamation projects along the Río Colorado might be construed
by Mexico as “an offense” and that both countries needed to enter into appropriate
diplomatic negotiations to determine the river’s use. What Mexico and the United States
needed, he contended, was a new “international convention” to determine water rights for
both nations. Decisions regarding the river could not be made unilaterally. The CRLC
also put pressure on California Senator Thomas Bard, an influential member of the
Senate subcommittee on irrigation. Bard owed his senate seat to support from Otis,
Chandler, and the Times. Otis used this relationship to his advantage, entering into a
lengthy debate with the Senator on international law and water rights and pressuring him
to support Mexico’s claim to Colorado water.
83
Otis’ correspondence with domestic
policymakers reflects many of the objectives of the CRLC’s campaign in Mexico. The
CRLC wanted to protect its private investment interests. However, diplomatic disputes
also concerned the CRLC because it relied on strong relationships with Mexican officials
for the success of their commercial venture and civic aspirations.
Along these lines, the CRLC also conflated the interests of their company directly
with the rights of Mexico in direct conversations with the Reclamation Service. While
acknowledging their status as American citizens, the CRLC leadership continued to align
their interests with that of President Díaz and the Mexican nation. Writing to F. H.
Newell, chief engineer of the bureau, Otis argued emphatically, “We wish it distinctly
understood that we cannot and will not take advantage of our position on Mexican soil to
do any act inconsistent with our obligations to the government of Mexico as land owners

83
Letter from Thomas Bard to Harrison Gray Otis, October 1, 1904, Anderson’s Portfolios 4, SL.

62
within the territorial domain of that republic.”
84
In fact, when Newell suggested that the
United States might push to renegotiate the international boundary line through the
Colorado River delta, Otis forcefully responded, “We will make no move in the direction
indicated without knowing in advance that it is unobjectionable to and approved by
President Díaz and his government. This much we owe to him and his country,
Americans though we are, carrying on extensive farming and live-stock operations on the
peninsula of Lower California below the International Boundary Line.”
85
Otis conceded
that the annexation of the entire delta by the United States might ultimately benefit his
company but repeated his objections to violating Mexican sovereignty. Instead, he
argued that the company occupied “just, tenable and defensible ground, but whether we
will be able to effectively impress our views upon the government of the United States is
another question. I certainly hope that the State Department and the President will treat
the subject from a just national and international standpoint, and if that is done we will be
safe.”
86
As a bi-national corporation headquartered in a city that considered itself the
essential link between the United States and Latin America, the CRLC pushed for
bilateral negotiations that respected the rights of Mexico under international law and
objected to the use of American power against a less powerful neighbor.
In fact, the CRLC considered its city-region and its stake in the international
negotiations so vital to its investment and its region that it maneuvered to host diplomatic

84
Letter from Harrison Gray Otis to F. H. Newell, Chief Engineer U.S. Reclamation Service, Feb. 23,
1906, Anderson’s Portfolio 4, SL.
85
Letter from Harrison Gray Otis to F. H. Newell, Chief Engineer, U.S. Reclamation Service, Feb. 23,
1906, Anderson’s Portfolio 4, SL.
86
Letter from Harrison Gray Otis to David Anderson, October 9, 1905, Anderson’s Portfolio 4, SL.

63
discussions in its offices in Los Angeles. CRLC leadership commented with evident
surprise that the Mexican and American federal governments had failed to include
company officers in the negotiations. In a letter to Otto Brant, J. H. Packard remarked,
“It simply floors me to think that these negotiations should be carried on between the two
Governments, without our having a finger in the pie. . . Otis ought to be able to get to
know exactly what is going on and to see that we get representation.”
87
Given the extent
of their holdings and the position of status they occupied in Los Angeles, and Los
Angeles’ position as the gateway to Mexico, company stockholders and representatives
expected to participate in brokering a diplomatic agreement that would directly impact
their investment and their city. In particular, they expected Otis’s close relationship with
Mexican and American authorities to ensure that they had a say in a bi-national
agreement. Brant noted that he had spent most of 1904 and 1905 laying the “foundation
for the negotiations between the two governments to pass through our office.”
88
With a
tremendous cross-border investment at risk of losing access to Colorado River water,
CRLC officers and major stakeholders like Brant fully expected to play a key role in the
negotiations.
In the end, their efforts resulted in a 1904 agreement that determined the use of
water in the Colorado River delta for four decades.
89
The settlement evenly divided

87
Letter from Packard to O. F. Brant, Aug. 25, 1905, Anderson’s Portfolio 7, SL.
88
Letter from O. F. Brant to Packard, Sept. 1, 1905, Anderson’s Portfolio 7, SL.
89
Although Baja California secured water until the 1940s, flood control and water use along the Colorado
continued to be a tricky issue. In 1905, the CDC’s infrastructure failed and flooded the Imperial Valley.
Imperial Valley residents continued to call for an All-American Canal that would resolve the issue of
diverting water through Mexico before bringing it into the Imperial Valley. Valley residents also worried
that Chandler and the CRLC would divert all Colorado water into Mexico without leaving any for them.
Beginning in the 1920s, other western states in the Colorado River drainage basin also demanded access to

64
water resources between the United States and Mexico. In the process, Otis and Chandler
and their CRLC syndicate challenged the U.S. federal government, arguing to uphold
Mexico’s water rights over the interests of American farmers in Colorado, Arizona, and
Nevada. They presented personal and regional interests as a deep respect for
international law to promote the success of Los Angeles, Southern California, and what
they considered their region’s Mexican “hinterlands.”
Given their expansive holdings south of the international boundary line, Otis and
Chandler also realized that their success depended on their ability to garner and maintain
the support of the Mexican government. Establishing and maintaining a positive
relationship with the Mexican government became especially important in the issue of
Colorado River water. When it came to divvying up the river, Otis and Chandler placed
themselves firmly on the side of Mexico and in opposition to U.S. federal policy. While
some Americans lobbied for the purchase and annexation of Baja California during this
period, the CRLC determined that its interests, and the interests of its city, would be
better served by a strong alliance with the Mexican government and a supportive Díaz
regime.
Conclusion
Los Angeles city-builders, like the ones invested in the CRLC, understood Los
Angeles as a portal to Mexico, Latin America, and the Pacific. Their worries over the
diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Mexico and their deep concern for
Mexican sovereignty suggest that they urgently wanted to promote and protect friendly

the river’s water. In 1944, the U.S. and Mexico negotiated a treaty that guaranteed Mexico 1.5 million
acre-feet from the Colorado (enough to support about 12 million people). See Hundley, The Great Thirst.

65
feelings between the two countries in the interest of both their investment and their city.
The CRLC owners positioned themselves and their city as the link between the United
States and Mexico and navigated foreign policy on both sides of the border to promote
that relationship.
Angeleno capitalists and city-builders and the Mexican elites they partnered with
created a transnational city that pushed local politics and national foreign policy to
advance regional interests. The political and economic leaders of the most rapidly
growing city in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands used their position to press Mexican and
American policymakers to favor their borderland city. Angeleno investors and city-
builders and their Mexican partners navigated foreign policy on both sides of the border
for the benefit of their transnational investments and the promotion of their city and
region. City-builders like Chandler and Mexican elites like Andrade occupied a unique
place in the history of U.S.-Mexico borderlands. To this end, they promoted friendly
relations between the two countries.
As Los Angeles businessmen plotted to make their city the economic powerhouse
of California and, indeed, the American West, their partnerships with Mexican elites and
investments in Baja California created a city with a periphery that extended well beyond
the national borders of the United States. In other words, Baja California became not just
a place where Americans exploited Mexican resources. Instead, transnational economic
partnerships knit Southern California and Northern Baja California into a place with
many shared economic and political interests. Los Angeles’ hinterlands transcended the
border and often challenged nation-building projects in both the United States and
Mexico. Located on the periphery of their respective republics, Mexican and American

66
elites in the Baja-California borderlands developed a regional authority partly detached
from their nation states and maneuvered strategically between the governments of the
United States and Mexico to promote their own regional interests.
As explored in the next chapter, however, the Mexican Revolution transformed
the relationship between an Angeleno elite, Mexican citizens, and the Mexican state.
American investment in Mexico, like the CRLC venture, disenfranchised poor Mexicans
and contributed to social inequality and unrest. As revolution swept across the country in
1910, the relationship between Los Angeles and Mexico shifted dramatically.

67
Chapter Two
“Entirely in their Power”: The Mexican Revolution and the Unraveling of Angeleno-
Mexican Alliances, 1909-1917

Introduction

Dusk was falling across the lush Acaponeta Valley, where Mexico’s rugged
western cordillera softens and slopes toward the Pacific. William S. Windham rested
against a log in the dimming light, lost in thought and fighting a headache. He may have
been contemplating the warm weather and prospects for planting the new crop of aguas
corn.
1
Or he might have been nervously calculating the profits on the sacks of harvested
and shelled corn he had counted earlier in the day. His thoughts may have ambled as far
as Berkeley, where his daughter Gladys was probably turning on a lamp to study classics
in the twilight.
As his assistant, W. C. Dunn, walked toward him through the falling light,
Windham’s thoughts may have returned abruptly to Mexico, to the routine and
unexpected tasks of running an American-owned ranch in a country torn by the twentieth
century’s first social revolution. Perhaps he considered placing an order with the butcher
so he could have bacon for breakfast, or maybe he wondered how to catch a troublesome
group of bandits and cattle thieves. As Dunn reached Windham’s makeshift bench, the
two men paused in conversation, reviewing their work for the following day, discussing
schemes to prosecute the cattle rustlers and rid the ranch of anyone with revolutionary
sympathies. After an hour or two of discussion, Windham evidently decided the problem

1
The Acaponeta Valley’s rich soil and steady rainfall supported two crops of corn every year—one in the
summer and the aguas crop in the winter.

68
of bandits and revolutionaries could be solved the following day and, remarking on his
headache, excused himself for the evening.
2

Dunn and Windham left the log going in opposite directions—Windham toward
his bed in the nearby hacienda and Dunn to oversee crews of Quimichis residents and
workers laboring through late-night double shifts to finish shelling the recent crop. A
few dozen yards away, Dunn stopped abruptly, ordered to halt by a voice in the dark.
Surprised, Dunn peered at the figure in front of him and then glanced back over his
shoulder to the place where he had left his supervisor. What he witnessed no doubt made
his skin prickle with fear. Three men, wrapped in blankets, stood in the doorway to
Windham’s rooms. Windham “rassled” against them as they corralled him into the
building with pointed guns. Glancing back toward the voice, Dunn saw its owner
retreating “as fast as he could go” into the night. Shots rang out from Windham’s room
and jerked Dunn’s attention back to the hacienda. Shots again. Unarmed and stunned,
Dunn raced in the direction of his guns. As he ran, he heard more shots and Windham’s
anguished voice cry out, “Oh God! Gladys! Gladys! Gladys! Oh God!”
3
As rapid
footsteps faded, quiet returned to the dark valley.
Windham and Dunn worked as the managers of the Pasadena-based Quimichis
Colony, a large agricultural estate located in the Pacific Coast territory of Nayarit.
4
Led

2
W. C. Dunn to Quimichis Colony, November 8, 1915, box 25, Thomas Bard Collection, Quimichis
Colony Addendum, Huntington Library, San Marino. Hereafter TBC HL. I reconstructed this narrative of
Windham’s death from an extraordinarily detailed letter written by Dunn to the officers of the Quimichis
Colony just a few days after Windham’s death in 1915. Dunn describes all of the events of that night,
including the conversation he had with Windham just prior to his death, in rich detail.
3
Ibid.
4
Nayarit was a territory until 1917 when it was grated statehood under the Carranza administration.

69
by Senator Thomas Bard, a prominent Southern California oil magnate and one of the
founders of Union Oil, a group of Pasadena investors purchased the 75,000-acre ranch in
1910, the same year the Mexican Revolution broke out. During the first and most violent
decade of the Revolution (1910-1920), conflicts between Southern California investors
and managers and Mexican citizens severely limited the ability of the Quimichis Ranch
to conduct business and return a profit. Chaos engendered by fighting in Nayarit, as well
as political instability at the territorial and national levels, precluded the types of political
alliances that companies such as the CRLC forged prior to the Revolution. Instead,
Quimichis directors, investors, and staff faced challenges from their employees, local
residents, and revolutionary leaders.
What Angelenos had expected to build in Mexico—an orderly hinterland for their
city—collided with a vastly different vision of labor and land use in Nayarit and, indeed,
Mexico. Workers and residents on and around the Quimichis ranch strategically utilized
the revolution to create changes in their daily lives and disrupt the commercial viability
of the Quimichis colony. As John Coatsworth argues, Mexican peasants did not need to
seize and completely destroy American properties to challenge American investments or
American imperialism in Mexico:
In rebelling against the Porfirian regime, Mexico’s peasants (and their many if feckless, allies)
called into question all that imperialism had accomplished in their country, and did so in a way
that U.S. business interests and the US. Government correctly perceived as prejudicial. Peasants
did not have to lay siege to U.S.-owned properties to lay them waste: they needed merely to assert
at gunpoint a different vision of what their country was about to unsettle business, increase risks,
disrupt transportation, pressure governments into unpredictable turnovers and policy shifts, and in
general to wreak havoc upon the investment ‘climate.’
5

5
John Coatsworth, “Measuring Influence: The United States and the Mexican Peasantry,” in Daniel
Nugent, Daniel Nuget, ed., Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern Politics
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 64-71.

70
At Quimichis, this is precisely what happened. Residents, employees, and soldiers used
the Revolution to disrupt American investment schemes and proclaim an alternative
vision of how land and resources should be utilized in Mexico.
Exploring local resistance to a Southern California-owned property during the
Mexican Revolution also sheds light on scholarly debates about expressions of anti-
Americanism by revolutionaries and ordinary Mexicans.
6
Some historians of Mexico
suggest reformulating the question of peasant economic nationalism by examining
peasant actions on a local level. The history of Quimichis Ranch between 1910 and 1917
demonstrates that the workers on and around the ranch recognized the problems
engendered by American ownership of large swaths of land in Mexico and targeted the
ranch and its managers precisely because they were American. These challenges to
American power on the Quimichis Ranch often came in the form of banditry, by local

6
While scholars disagree on the amount of anti-Americanism demonstrated by Mexican revolutionaries
most concur that American investments in Mexico like Quimichis precipitated Mexico’s social revolution.
John Mason Hart and Friedrich Katz, for example, maintain that international capitalism shifted economic
patterns in Mexico, particularly in northern territories. Massive land acquisitions by U.S.-owned oil,
railroad, timber, mining, livestock, and agricultural companies consolidated land formerly used by the rural
poor, disrupted peasant patterns of life and bred discontent in Mexico’s agricultural areas regions. The
Revolution, initiated in 1910, coincided with both a rise in American investment as well as an increase in
investments originating in Los Angeles. Scholars such as Hart and Katz contend that revolutionaries
recognized the role of U.S. capital in their economic circumstances and targeted American property and
businesses during the conflict. While he agrees with Hart that the Mexican Revolution was a genuinely
popular social movement (as opposed to Ruiz’s rebellion), Alan Knight diverges from Hart’s emphasis on
foreign investment and intervention and argues that economic nationalism was not an important factor in
instigating the revolution. According to Knight, “the idea of a virulently nationalist popular revolution was
largely a myth.” Knight contends that the Mexican revolution undoubtedly occurred because of the
country’s rapid integration into a dynamic, commercial, agrarian economy reliant on U.S. trade, enterprise,
and investment. Knight also argues, however, that peasants did not have a sophisticated understanding of
global economic transitions or the role that the United States played in their economic plight. Instead, he
contends, they directed their frustrations to local, internal targets—officials, merchants, moneylenders, and
retailers. “American influence, then, could exert a powerful latent effect without necessarily incurring a
manifest, targeted, reaction.” See John Mason Hart, “Social Unrest, Nationalism, and American Capital in
the Mexican Countryside, 1876-1920,” in Daniel Nugent, ed., Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention
and the Domain of Subaltern Politics (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 75 and Alan
Knight, “The United States and the Mexican Peasantry, circa 1880-1940,” in Daniel Nugent, ed., Rural
Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern Politics (Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 1998), 27.

71
residents as well as Carrancista and Villista troops fighting in the area in 1914 and 1915.
7

Local residents used the chaos engendered by the fighting to take over portions of the
ranch. Soldiers used their position as part of a military faction to requisition supplies and
destroy property. Ultimately, Mexicans who lived on and around the Quimichis hacienda
challenged the expansion of American economic interests and severely interrupted the
international expansion of Los Angeles’ hinterland.
The struggles of a Southern California company in Mexico during the first years
of the revolution also brought the conflict into the public eye in Los Angeles. Investors
living in Pasadena followed Windham’s experiences with great interest, sharing his
letters with friends and family and monitoring military conflicts and political transitions
in Mexico carefully. The local press, including the Los Angeles Times, fueled pubic
interest with detailed and often sensationalized and inflammatory coverage of “outrages”
committed against American citizens, particularly those hailing from Los Angeles, in
Mexico. As explored at the conclusion of this chapter, the experiences of the Quimichis
Ranch established what the Times referred to as “The Case of the City of Los Angeles vs.
the Government of Mexico.” Los Angeles, the paper editorialized, had received an unfair
share of violence at the hands of Mexican revolutionaries and it demanded recourse from
both the United States and Mexico governments.

7
Banditry has a long history as a form of social resistance in Latin America. See work by Chris Frazer,
Bandit Nation: A History of Outlaws and Cultural Struggle in Mexico, 1810-1920 (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 2006); Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits (New York: Delacorte Press, 1969); and Richard W.
Slatta, Bandidos: The Varieties of Latin American Banditry (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987).

72
The Investors
Thomas R. Bard observed the world from a tall, lean frame, his deep-set eyes
almost hidden underneath a heavy white brow. At the height of 6’ 2”, Bard towered over
his nineteenth-century contemporaries and sometimes intimidated his adversaries. His
portraits reflected the stern demeanor that characterized his professional life. His
associates described him as an incredibly effective capitalist and one of the “most
successful business men in America.”
8
One of his business partners admitted candidly,
“Mr. Bard was a man of great wealth and influence. We regarded him as a
multimillionaire, while the rest of us combined could not have approached a million at
the time.”
9
An uncompromising and shrewd personality facilitated Bard’s success. He
managed employees strictly, criticized associates for failing to attend church, and drove
squatters off his California properties at gunpoint.
10

Bard made his fortune in oil and real estate speculation in the West following the
Civil War. He arrived in Los Angeles at the close of the war as an emissary of Thomas
A. Scott, railroad titan and an Assistant Secretary of War, to manage Scott’s extensive
properties in Southern California. Most of Scott’s territories were located in and around
Ventura, just north of Los Angeles County, including Rancho Simi and Rancho Santa
Clara. The 1860s and 1870s introduced Bard to the industries that would make him a

8
Press Reference Library, Notables of the West, Volume II, (New York: International News Service 1915),
163-165.
9
Frank Taylor and Earl Welty, Black Bonanza (New York: McGraw Hill, 1958), 94.
10
Waldemar Westergaard, “Thomas R. Bard and the Beginnings of the Oil Industry in Southern
California,” Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, vol. 10, no. 3 (1917), 57-
69.

73

Figure 6, Portrait of Thomas R. Bard, ca. 1900.
11

millionaire by the end of the century. While in Santa Barbara County, he befriended
members of the region’s Californio landowning class, including the Camarillo family.
Through them, he learned of opportunities to purchase vast swaths of land from cash
strapped Mexican Americans. He bought portions of several Californio ranchos and
earned a considerable fortune through land speculation. In addition, Bard prospected and
drilled for oil in the region beginning in the 1860s. In 1867 he brought in California’s
first “gusher” on land owned by Scott. It was also in the 1870s that Bard first met
Harrison Gray Otis who had just arrived in Santa Barbara to manage the Santa Barbara
Press. Twenty-five years later, Otis would propose that Bard run for a U.S. Senate seat
and use his next newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, to help Bard win the election.
12

11
Portrait of Thomas R. Bard, ca. 1900, Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress,
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=b000138, accessed April 30, 2012.
12
W. H. Hutchinson, Oil, Land and Politics: The California Career of Thomas Robert Bard (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1965).

74
Bard expanded his business enterprises throughout the 1880s and 1890s to include
sheep and cattle ranching, farming, milling lumber, banking, and transportation. He also
operated one of the most lucrative private wharves in California at Hueneme. In 1890,
Bard partnered with two other veteran oilmen to organize the Union Oil Company. The
$5-million corporation would become one of the state’s major oil producers. Bard sold
his interest in Union Oil in 1900 but continued to cultivate other investments. In 1915 he
was listed at the head of the Berylwood Investment Company, Bank of Hueneme,
Companía Hacienda de Quimichis, Las Posas Water Company, Graham and Loftus Oil
Company, Sacramento Valley Sugar Company, and the Potter Hotel Company.
As Ventura grew, Bard became active in the region’s politics. He was elected to
the Board of County Supervisors in 1865 and served until 1871. In the 1880s he ran for
State Senator, worked as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and served as
a presidential elector. Friends and political allies in Los Angeles and Pasadena urged him
to run for the U.S. Senate in 1899. With Otis’ support, Bard won the seat in 1900 and
served until 1905. While in office, Bard chaired the Senate irrigation subcommittee and
worked closely with Otis and the Coloardo River Land Company (CRLC) on irrigation
issues in the Imperial and Mexicali valleys.
While Senator Bard left no record of his specific interests in expanding his
financial empire into Mexico, he was part of a generation of American venture capitalists
who saw ripe investment opportunities across the border. Although Bard certainly had
the resources to venture into a Mexican investment on his own, he decided to partner with
a group of Southern California investors to purchase the Quimichis ranch. In doing so,
he drew from a network of wealthy family members and friends to purchase a limited

75
number of preferred stocks, holding the largest share for himself. The strategy reflected
Bard’s business acumen—he rarely leveraged too much of his own money in investment
ventures, preferring to diminish risk by borrowing investment funds or inviting other
investors to join him.
13
In the case of Quimichis, he turned to former constituents in
Pasadena and the surrounding San Gabriel Valley, such as William Windham.
The trajectory of Windham’s life before it intersected with the Quimichis Colony
is difficult to piece together. He arrived in Pasadena in the mid-1880s after a stint
working as a shipping agent for the Southern Pacific in the Southwest.
14
Once in
Pasadena, he worked as the cashier for the National Bank of Commerce, served as the
city’s fire and police commissioner, and just prior to accepting a post as Quimichis
manager, ran the Pasadena Hardware Store.
15
A thirty-year Pasadena resident, Windham
witnessed the city’s rapid growth and emerging exhibitions of ostentatious wealth and
affluence. While always referred to as “well-respected” and an “upstanding citizen,”
Windham’s financial situation appears to have been uneven; he was never able to
advance from employee to employer, was chronically in debt, and had a difficult time
supporting his wife and daughter.
16
Sinking all the spare cash he could gather into 720

13
Hutchinson, 248.
14
Teresa Williams Irvin, Let the Tail Go with the Hide: The Story of Ben F. Williams (Bloomington, IN:
Unlimited Publishing, LLC, 2001), 124. Unfortunately, I have not been able to trace Windham’s story
farther back.
15
“Carranza Orders Americans Freed,” Los Angeles Examiner, December 3, 1913, box 25, TBC, HL.
16
Windham died deeply in debt to the Quimichis Colony. Despite his salary as ranch manager and his
status as a stockholder, he constantly had to borrow money to pay for his wife and daughter’s living
expenses.

76
stocks in the Quimichis Colony in 1910 may have been an investment he hoped would
finally elevate him to the upper economic echelons of wealthy Pasadena.
17

Figure 7, “Al Fresco Quimichis.”
18
The photo shows John Cave and his wife, several additional
Quimichis investors, as well as Windham and his wife and daughter. Dr. Livingston, a close friend
of the Bard family and an investor in the ranch took numerous photos on trips from Southern
California to Nayarit. This photo shows the group of American investors enjoying an outdoor
lunch on the patio of the ranch headquarters.

Other common stockholders simply hoped to provide a comfortable retirement for
themselves or a small legacy for a wife or children. Herman Reamer, for example, was a
friend of Windham’s and an enthusiastic supporter of the Quimichis venture. He
mortgaged his home in Pasadena (borrowing from Bard’s bank) to buy 500 Quimichis
stocks. A dentist, his funds were limited, and he dreamed of leaving his wife secure and
comfortable when he passed away: “I cared little for myself but was desirous that Mrs.
Reamer might eventually get something out of it to help support her after I am gone.”
19

Reamer explained his risky investment strategy in a letter to Thomas Bard’s son, Richard:

17
Letter from Quimichis Secretary to W. S. Windham, September 17, 1910, box 25, TBC, HL.
18
“Al Fresco Quimichis,” undated photograph, book 4, Livingston Collection, Museum of Ventura
County. Hereafter LC, MVC.
19
Letter from Herman Reamer to Richard Bard, November 30, 1927, box 18, TBC, HL.

77
“I mortgaged our home to go into it having implicit confidence in your good father and
his judgment. . . my principle incentive in mortgaging our home to go into the company
was the fact that your father was at the head of the company.”
20
Reamer also expressed
deep confidence in Windham and felt certain that with “honest” managers like Bard and
Windham, his borrowed investment dollars would pay off.
Like Reamer, most investors held no reservations about sinking savings into a
Mexican property. Joseph Rawles, another Pasadena investor and personal friend of
Windham’s, noted excitedly, “Mexico is beginning to show up every day, better than
ever, and we may be very glad that we have an interest down there which has so great a
future in store for those fortunate enough to grasp the opportunity.”
21
Enthusiasm like
Rawles’ characterized the purchase of stock in Quimichis Colony. For just $10 per share,
a middleclass resident of Pasadena or Alhambra could own part of Mexico. Many
expected a three- or four-fold return for every dollar they invested. And many were
likely responding to the tremendous enthusiasm for investing in Mexico in the first
decade of the twentieth century. Editorials published in newspapers such as the Los
Angeles Times encouraged readers to send their dollars to a “strong, peaceable, and well-
organized” country.
22
The paper used the same language of boosterism it had utilized to
encourage Southern Californians to consider investing south of the border. “Phenomenal

20
Letter from Herman Reamer to Richard Bard, May 23, 1927, box 18, TBC, HL.
21
Letter from Joseph Rawles to W. O. Gerberding, May 25, 1914, box 18, TBC, HL.
22
“Mexico under Díaz,” Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1901, B6.

78
resources” beckoned from a country that everyone believed was stable and open to the
spread of American capitalism.
23

The Investment
It was in this context of American, and particularly Southern Californian, interest
in financial opportunities in Mexico that Thomas Bard dispatched his oldest son, Thomas
G. Bard, to explore the Companía Hacienda de Quimichis, a 75,000-acre tract in the
Mexican territory of Nayarit. Tom left Los Angeles for Mexico in 1909 to survey the
ranch by mule, escorted and assisted by a local resident. What he saw impressed him.
24
The ranch sat on the western plateau of the American Cordillera, the mountainous
backbone of the Americas. A range of precipitous cliffs and deep canyons, colored an
intense green from torrential summer rains, split the western states of Sinaloa and Nayarit
from their eastern neighbors. Life in these regions faced west, toward the Pacific. Rivers
ran west, too, gathering force from rapid mountain streams as they flowed toward the sea.
As they went, small rivers and creeks converged and emerged as the turbulent Santiago,
Acaponeta, and San Pedro rivers. Heavy afternoon rains from July through September
engorged waterways and must have astonished Americans accustomed to parched
Southern California summers. Wet, subtropical veranos forced rivers out of their banks,
and as they gradually shrank back to their habitual streambeds and river bottoms, they
left behind a mucky residue of fertile silt. As flooded fields drained, they made a rich

23
“Mexico, Its Resources, Its Industries and Its Relations to the United States,” Los Angeles Times, October
19, 1902, C6.
24
Hutchinson, 408-409.

79
and nourishing bed for cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, coffee, beans, pineapple, bananas,
corn, and rubber trees.
A successful agricultural sector and dense natural vegetation inspired confidence
in the area’s agricultural potential. American visitors to the ranch described it as one of
the best agricultural properties in Mexico. Dr. W. R. Livingston, a close friend of the
Bard family and one of the company’s major investors, happily reported that, “every
American who has seen the property has been impressed with its natural advantages and
richness of soil. Personally I believe it to be the best ranch I have seen anywhere.”
25

During his first trip to Quimichis, William Windham wrote to his wife that the cabbage
seeds he planted one evening were peaking green shoots out of the rich soil within a mere
thirty-six hours.
26
He also described Quimichis as a “second” and superior California.
The land, he assured her, was proportionately better to California as California was to the
rocky landscapes of New England.
27
California agricultural land might be good, but
Mexico’s was better and would ensure that their investment paid off generously. As
Thomas Bard’s youngest son Richard wrote to a friend, “all persons who have seen the
property are unanimous in their opinion that the land is first class.”
28
As the company
embarked on a significant investment venture, all involved were enthusiastic that their
money would be safely cultivated in Quimichis fields and sprout a quick and
considerable profit.

25
Ibid.
26
Letter from John Cave to Thomas Bard, January 3, 1910, box 5, TBC, HL.
27
Letter from John Cave to Thomas Bard, January 3, 1910, box 5, TBC, HL.
28
Letter from Richard Bard to Mr. R. O. Church, July 29, 1925, box 4, TBC, HL.

80

Figure 8, Map of Nayarit.
29
In addition to its rich soil and agricultural promise, the ranch’s location and price
were both appealing. It lay about 100 miles south of Mazatlán, probably the most
important port on the west coast of Mexico. The Acaponeta River traversed the property,
winding south and west toward the Teacapan Estuary. With the exception of a small hill
called El Cerro de Belmejo, the ranch was as “level as a table.”
30
Sprawled across 75,000
acres, it stretched eighteen miles long and seven miles wide.
31
After reviewing the
expansive ranch by mule and on foot, Tom submitted a positive report to his father. The
price of $242,500, they agreed, was a bargain. After years of experience in real estate

29
From Veronica Castillo-Muñoz, “Divided Communities: Agrarian Struggles, Transnational Migration,
and Families in Northern Mexico, 1910-1952,” (PhD diss: University of California, Irvine, 2009), 22.
30
Report, “Quimichis Japanese Colony, 1909,” box 19, TBC, HL.
31
Ibid.

81
speculation and agriculture in Southern California, Bard felt confident that he could turn
Quimichis into a profitable investment.
32

Bard hurried together a group of investors, including his wife, several family
friends, and the group from Pasadena; they managed to purchase the land for just
$155,000. The seller was listed as a land agent in Mazatlán—Y. Madrigal y Cia. It is
unclear if Y. Madrigal owned the ranch or represented the owner for the sale. After the
purchase, Quimichis Colony organized as a California corporation and offered capital
stock worth $700,000 to finance the purchase of the property and improvements on its
infrastructure. Company officers planned to experiment with a variety of crops, identify
the most profitable, and expand operations accordingly.
Like the CRLC, Quimichis investors also expected the orderly expansion of
American capitalism across the border and into Mexico. They spoke regularly of the
profits they expected to reap as well as the benefits of American investment for their
Mexican employees. The ranch, they believed, would provide food, shelter, regular
employment, and wages for Mexican citizens. Much like the investors in the CRLC, the
Quimichis leadership saw their purchase in Mexico as mutually beneficial for investors,
managers, and workers alike. They believed that successful business ventures in
Southern California and the region’s Mexican hinterlands created a prosperity that
benefited all while also promoting a harmonious economic hierarchy.
The People of Quimichis
While Quimichis investors evaluated the ranch based on its productive capacity,
the estate was also home for thousands of Mexican families. Approximately 6,000

32
Hutchinson, 309.

82
people lived on Quimichis’ 75,000 acres with an additional 10,000 people living in
neighboring towns and villages. According to Quimichis officers, all of these families
relied on agriculture to support themselves and assured their investors that Quimichis
residents would supply a stable labor force. Quimichis investors considered them the
human instruments that would transform fertile land into dividends. The board and
investors in Quimichis also believed, however, that a successful ranch operation at
Quimichis would also benefit its employees. Under careful American management,
Quimichis could produce profits for its investors and regular work for its employees and
residents.
Like other parts of rural Mexico, the Acaponeta Valley was in the midst of drastic
change. The social history of a ranch like Quimichis must be understood in the context
of the dramatic shifts occurring in late-nineteenth-century Mexico. Under the leadership
of Porfirio Díaz, shifts in Mexico’s economy and system of landownership increasingly
swept agricultural laborers onto large haciendas like Quimichis. As commonly held land
disappeared under federal “settlement acts”–often seized violently from peasant villages
and communities–entire village populations found themselves living and working on
huge latifundia.
33
The country’s growing railway network (often developed and owned
by English and American companies) accelerated the commercialization of agriculture
and rapidly integrated local economies into regional, national, and international

33
Adolfo Gilly, The Mexican Revolution (New York: The New Press, 2005), 5.

83
markets.
34
As a result, large agricultural holdings could produce more, move goods to
markets faster, and yield bigger profits.
This process of commercialization disrupted long-established customs of
commonly held property and cooperative forms of labor. Porfirian economic policies
concentrated the region’s land in a few hands. Twelve elite Mexican families and
American companies controlled 75% of the territory’s land in 1910. These families and
companies dominated the political and economic landscape of Nayarit and kept firm
control of the region’s labor force. As wealthy landholders accumulated acres of
agricultural land, they wanted to gain access to workers for “increased commercial
productivity and profit-making ‘money’ crops.”
35
Losing land under Porfiriato policies,
peasants found themselves forced to seek work in the new hacienda system as permanent
and temporary workers or as sharecroppers. Most haciendas incorporated displaced
peasants into three categories of labor—resident workers, temporary workers, and renters
or sharecroppers.
36

Of Nayarit’s 1910 population of 171,173, a vast majority worked as these
agricultural laborers. Most laborers were arrendatarios or workers who lived and worked
permanently on the region’s haciendas. Arrendatarios were essentially sharecroppers
who farmed small individual plots of land. Hacienda owners furnished arrendatarios
with supplies for each growing season; they expected to be repaid for this, as well as to

34
Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, Volume 1: Porfirians, Liberals and Peasants (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1986), 78-81.
35
John Mason Hart, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987), 158.
36
Knight, 85.

84
be given a share of each family’s profit. Arrendatarios also worked fulltime for the
hacienda during harvest periods, providing some of the labor for harvesting the
hacienda’s own crops. Enganchados, or seasonal laborers, supplemented arrendatario
labor on Nayarit’s large estates. Drawn primarily from the region’s indigenous
population, this group of laborers followed seasonal harvests across the territory. A final
group of workers completed Nayarit’s labor force—jornaleros or day laborers who lived
in villages near haciendas. Most jornaleros also worked on haciendas but instead of
being paid in supplies and scrip like the arrendatarios, they earned cash and had more
independence from hacienda owners.
37

Like other large ranches in the region, Quimichis utilized this labor system. The
ranch “habilitated” its permanent and resident employees or arrendatarios. Quimichis
managers also attempted to keep close watch over families who resided on the ranch and
consistently reminded them that the company owned their homes and the property they
farmed. Under Windham, the company also paid its employees in supplies and scrip
instead of cash, keeping all wages circulating through the company store. During large
harvests, management also utilized jornaleros from surrounding communities, bringing
laborers onto the ranch to plant and harvest crops that belonged directly to the company.

37
For an excellent description of agricultural life and social structures in Nayarit, see Castillo-Muñoz,
Divided Communities. For a succinct history of Nayarit, see Jean Meyer, Breve Historia de Nayarit
(México, D. F.: El Colegio de México, 1997).

85

Figure 9, “Peon Houses, Quimichis.”
38
This photo was also taken by Dr. Livingston during a trip
to Nayarit. The company was very proud of these structures, arguing that they provided excellent
housing for their employees.

Labor and Resistance at Quimichis
In September 1910, only months before the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution,
friends and fellow investors from Pasadena recommended William Windham as manager
of the new ranch. He considered the proposition for a few weeks and accepted the
terms—$150.00 dollars a month in salary and expenses paid. In his acceptance letter he
wrote, “Gentlemen, I make a sacrifice, not only of comforts and pleasures and the
associations of my family, but of real money in cause, but I am so interested in the affairs
of the Ranch that I am willing to do as I have above indicated.”
39
In other words,
Windham did not consider the offer immediately beneficial, but he believed in the
investment enough to leave his home in Pasadena and relocate to the Acaponeta Valley.
What he might be sacrificing in salary and personal comfort he hoped to make up with

38
“Peon Houses, Quimichis,” undated photograph, book 4, LC, MVC.
39
Letter from W. S. Windham to H. R. Archibald, Quimichis Secretary, September 20, 1910, box 25, TBC,
HL.

86
dividends. Windham also added a caveat to his acceptance: “I hope you will bear in
mind the fact that this will be a new experience to me. I do not know the people, the
country, the markets or the language.”
40
But Windham was well aware of the company’s
expectations. They were commissioning him to make money in Mexico.
Initially, Windham and the Quimichis board planned to reap a profit from the
ranch through the arrendatario system. The company supplied them with agricultural
materials on credit and expected workers to produce enough in beans and corn to support
their families and repay the company at the end of the growing season. Each family
received supplies for the year on credit with the company and remained indebted to
Quimichis until they harvested their crops. Many families, however, lived in perpetual,
chronic debt and owed everything they grew for the previous season’s supplies.
Continually in debt, workers could not move on to look for better work until they had
paid off their employers. Debt for agricultural workers was constant and most families
had to stay put, sometimes for generations. For employees hired to farm for the
corporation directly, Windham instituted a “bilimbique system,” paying workers in scrip
redeemable at the company story where the selection was limited and prices were high.
Windham and the Quimichis board manipulated this labor system to their
advantage. They recognized the need for an inexpensive labor force if their enterprise
was ever to turn a profit and articulated a labor policy that would keep workers indebted
to the company and shackled to the property. Corresponding with the Quimichis board in
1911, Windham encouraged the officers to maintain a large population of workers
because “the more people who live here the better control we have with the labor

40
Ibid.

87
market.”
41
Control over the labor market translated into notoriously low wages and a
painful existence for Quimichis workers and renters. Most did not earn enough to feed
their families, much less to buy clothing or supplies at the company store.
42

Figure 10, “Breaking Camp at Acaponeta,” 1910.
43
This photo, also by Livingston, was likely taken during
a trip across the company’s property with several local residents.

Even before the arrival of the Revolution in Nayarit, Quimichis workers and
residents challenged the ranch’s owners and managers. Eager to subvert what they
recognized as an inequitable system, renters regularly harvested their crops early and
secreted away agricultural goods to sell in neighboring Acaponeta. The small managerial
staff and the large and unmanageable scale of the ranch made it easier for renters and
workers to remove crops unnoticed. Unable to police the entire property and all of the
renters, Quimichis managers often had to ignore “theft” and crops that disappeared in the
middle of the night. Quimichis officers reported that the company’s losses resulted
largely from “our inability to prevent stealing by the native people of corn and other

41
Letter from W. S. Windham to Dr. Livingston, August 25, 1911, box 25, TBC, HL.
42
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Compania Agricola de Quimichis, November 11, 1917, box 2, TBC, HL.
43
“Breaking Camp at Acaponeta,” December 1910, book 4, LC, MVC.

88
property, and from the difficulties incident to the collection of rents and advances on
crops scattered over so extensive a territory.”
44
According to Windham, if he failed to
visit a village of renters for several days he would return to find that the renter had
harvested the crop and run it off to Acaponeta in canoes or on burros and carts.
45

Quimichis residents also secretly cut the ranch’s valuable cedar trees, selling them in a
“thriving” underground industry.
46
Desperate for gatekeepers loyal to the corporation,
Windham suggested that board members send their “intelligent and wide-awake” sons to
work on the ranch and guard against these clandestine operations.
47

Employees also took advantage of Windham’s recurring ill health (he suffered
from chronic bronchitis) and changes in managerial staffing to make working conditions
more profitable and tolerable. Noting Quimichis workers’ ability to maneuver conditions
to their benefit when Windham was incapacitated, one observer reported that, “Quimichis
is a bonanza for the peons.”
48
According to C. L. Wilbur, an American traveling through
Mexico, workers were even able to turn the wage system to their advantage. When the
ranch needed workers, jornaleros would come from neighboring communities and put in
one to two days on the job. After establishing themselves as employees, they would

44
Letter to Quimichis Colony Stockholders, October 7, 1911, box 4, TBC, HL.
45
Letter from Windham to Livingston, August 24, 1911, box 25, TBC, HL.
46
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Compania Agricola de Quimichis, February 17, 1918, box 2, TBC, HL.
47
Letter from Windham to Livingston, August 24, 1911, box 25, TBC, HL.
48
Letter from C. L. Wilbur to W. R. Livingston, May 19, 1914, box 25, TBC, HL.

89
request and receive some wages in advance and then disappear before completing the
work.
49

Revolution Reaches Quimichis
More organized and persistent resistance to Quimichis management and its
Southern California owners began shortly after the outbreak of revolutionary activity in
1910. While renters and workers had tried to challenge their American landlords and
employers prior to the arrival of the Revolution in Nayarit and Sinaloa, the rhetoric of the
revolutionary movement, which championed the needs of the working class and opposed
foreign investment, coupled with the turmoil of civil war, inverted power relations at
Quimichis. Although the territory of Nayarit did not experience the heaviest
revolutionary fighting, particularly in comparison to the other northern states of Durango,
Chihuahua, and Sonora, some factional battles and the instability caused by the conflict
provided space for Nayarit’s agricultural workers to challenge the power of hacienda
owners.
50
Mexican workers, farmers, and revolutionary forces disrupted the daily
operations of the ranch, looted stored crops and supplies, declared themselves members
of the revolution, challenged the legality of its land titles, expressed their opposition to
the United States, and kidnapped and killed ranch staff. Ultimately, Mexicans challenged
the economic system that Quimichis owners had tried to institute on the ranch.
Although the region was protected from prolonged revolutionary violence,
Nayarit did experience disruption as a result of the armed struggle. Initially, the Porfirian

49
Ibid.
50
As Castillo-Muñoz notes, the revolution temporarily destabilized the political situation in Nayarit but did
not lead to major mobilizations on the part of its population. The Villa and Carranza armies both passed
through Nayarit, which contributed to temporary ruptures in local governance. Castillo-Muñoz, 22-66.

90
forces retreated peacefully from Tepic and Nayarit in 1911 when revolutionary General
Martín Espinosa arrived with troops from Sinaloa. He was able to secure the region
without firing a single shot. Tepic celebrated Espinosa’s arrival, and Francisco Madero
appointed him territorial governor of Nayarit. Following Huerta’s military coup and the
assassination of Madero, General Álvaro Obregón led a group of constitutionalists into
Nayarit in 1914. As the constitutionalists, led by Carranza and Obregón, fought Villa for
control of the country, violence overtook Nayarit. Hundreds of Villista and Carrancista
troops fought for control of Tepic, each side winning and losing the city several times.
51

Even if they were not directly involved with the conflict, the local population suffered as
a result. The fighting destroyed crops and resulted in famine, illness, and death
throughout 1915 and 1916.
52
The fighting and chaos of war, however, opened
opportunities to challenge American investment strategies and ideas about the organized
development of American capitalism in Mexico.
As a result of loss of land and harsh labor policies on haciendas, many Mexican
revolutionaries focused their animosity and resistance against large landholders when the
uprising erupted in 1910.
53
Historian Adolfo Gilly argues that the hacienda “came to

51
Conservative Victoriano Huerta planned and executed a military coup in 1913 against the administration
of Francisco Madero with the aid of the United States ambassador. Opposed to his rule, Venustiano
Carranza (an ardent follower of Madero) joined forces with Pancho Villa to oust Huerta. They succeeded
in 1914 with support from the Wilson administration, who opposed Huerta’s coup. When Carranza
assumed the presidency in 1914, however, both Villa and Zapata denounced his administration. In early
1915, the factions fell into civil war with Carranza’s constitutionalist forces fighting Villa in the north and
Zapata in the south.
52
Meyer, 133-134.
53
William Taylor and Fridrich Katz both note the long history of rebellion in rural Mexico that predated the
beginning of the Mexican Revolution by centuries. See Friedrich Katz, ed., Riot, Rebellion, and
Revolution: Rural Social Conflict in Mexico and William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in
Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979).

91
stand as the material form of the peasants’ oppression and the principal object upon
which their revolutionary fury would be vented after 1910.” Examining the oral history
of peasant soldiers and revolutionaries, Gilly found that many articulated the seizure of
haciendas as their ultimate goal rather than the overthrow of the central state.
54
The aim
of soldiers and peasants is the subject of intense historigraphic debate. What is clear,
however, is that local revolutionary fury often targeted area haciendas and ranches.
Workers and peasants saw them as the most immediate and oppressive institutions in
their lives. It was in this context of land privatization and worker anger that revolution
came to Quimichis. At Quimichis, however, residents and workers directed their
unhappiness against the hacienda while also identifying American policies and
investments as a widespread problem in Mexico.
Consequently, investing in Mexico during the “era of revolutions” had no
guarantees of success, despite the high expectations of many Americans who believed
fortune lay just across the border. In fact, the revolutionary movement, coupled with
local resistance to American investors and colonists, successfully undermined the
mercenary efforts of American empire-builders. Revolutionary fervor that championed
working class Mexicans as well as economic nationalism resulted in a wave of attacks on
foreign-owned properties across Mexico between 1910 and 1920. Violence against
American properties and their American managers escalated throughout the first years of
the Revolution. In 1914 alone, revolutionaries attacked more than a thousand American
companies and “pioneers,” across the country, particularly in northern states and states
along the Pacific and Gulf coasts. Revolutionaries and “bandits” killed dozens and

54
Gilly, 16-17.

92
frightened thousands of others into leaving the country. In fact, as the revolution
deepened, it became a nationalist rejection of both the Mexican and foreign political and
economic elite, many of them Americans. Angeleno investors shared this fate as their
imagined “hinterlands” erupted into revolutionary fervor.
Looting constituted some of the earliest forms of disruption at Quimichis.
Appealing for help to the American Consul in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, in April, 1912,
Windham reported that between 200 and 300 “mounted and armed” men arrived at the
ranch: “They took by force some 35 or 40 horses and mules, all our saddles, all the
money we had at the hacienda, our rifles…in fact, it was a general looting of what
movable stuff was to be found on the outside.”
55
Bandits and soldiers traveling through
the states of Nayarit and Sinaloa over the next three years continued to help themselves to
Quimichis tools, food, horses, and cattle. Dunn observed that they “took corn for their
horses just as though it belonged to them.” On another occasion he noted, “We are having
a lot of trouble with Carranzistas. They are pure thieves. They respect nothing, take
everything, just as though it belonged to them. During the last week they have taken 11
horses, 10 mules, 2 saddles, and a lot of smaller things, besides some money. They are
the most thieving lot we have had for a long time and yet they keep saying they have
orders to not molest Americans. If this is true, I wonder what they would do without
such orders.”
56
His observations are telling, especially in the context of the economic
nationalism that was a part of revolutionary ideology. Opposed to American and
European control of Mexico’s resources, revolutionaries at Quimichis treated it as their

55
Letter from W. S. Windham to William F. Alger, April 20, 1912, box 1, TBC, HL.
56
Letter from W. C. Dunn to Thomas Bard, quoted in letter from Thomas Bard to Robert Lansing,
Secretary of State, July 24, 1915, box 6, TBC, HL.

93
own and took what they needed. Dunn also commented that “they are an independent
insulting lot,” inferring that any expression of autonomy and self-determination by a
Mexican was an affront.
At various points between 1912 and 1916, Windham (and then Dunn) reported to
Bard that bandits, rebels, and local residents had taken control of the entire ranch. In
1912, for example, Bard reported to his stockholders that bandits and rebels were in
possession of the entire ranch and using it as their own.
57
Some of these bandits were
former Quimichis employees. In the fall of 1912, for example, Guido Hidalgo, who had
worked as the butcher at Quimichis, arrived with a band of men and demanded that
Windham hand over all arms and horses on the ranch. Windham refused and Quimichis
staff exchanged a volley of shots with the group of Mexican men. During a respite,
Windham decided to evacuate the ranch.
58
Reports after he left said that the ranch was in
the hands of Hidalgo, other bandits, and ranch employees. In 1916, Dunn wrote to Bard
that residents at three Quimichis villages—Mariachi, Quelele, and Tacote—had openly
declared themselves “out and out bandits, their excuse being that I am persecuting
them.”
59
Local residents clearly identified Quimichis policies as the source of their
discontent and aligned themselves with bandits and revolutionary forces to challenge
ranch management.

57
Quimichis Colony Stockholders Annual Meeting Report, 1912, box 1, TBC, HL.
58
Thomas Herbert Russell, Mexico in Peace and War (Chicago: Reilly and Britton Syndicate, 1914), 277.
59
Letter from W. C. Dunn to “My Dear Sir,” January 11, 1916, box 18, TBC, HL.

94

Figure 11, “Old Rurales of Diaz at Q.”
60
This photo, also taken by Livingston, was likely taken just after
the Madero rebellion in 1910 and prior to Diaz’s resignation in May of 1911.

Windham intensified his restrictive policies in an effort to maintain control of the
ranch. Although he had evacuated the ranch earlier, staff returned as fighting eased.
Seizing the opportunity presented by the presence of federal troops, Windham requested
that they “make a thorough clearing of Quimichis and all that section of the country.”
61

He wanted federal troops to clear the local region of anyone who might have
revolutionary sympathies. A few revolutionary skirmishes provided Windham with even
more reason to use anti-revolutionary forces to clear out unwanted villages and workers:
We have asked them to completely destroy every village on the property—except the one at Q.
proper. These outside villages are and have been for a long time dens of thieves and places of
meanness. During this war and the last one corn that was stolen was hidden in these villages.
Now if [we] can get them destroyed may be the people will many of them leave which is what we
want. Any who do not leave, if they chance to be not too undesirable we can make them move to
Q. if they wish to remain on the property. With them all living at Q. if we can have a guard of 20
to 25 good men we can protect our selves and property. I hope that not a house or a shack outside
of Q. proper is left standing.
62

Windham’s letter shows a man struggling to maintain control of the property and its
residents. He hoped he could rely on federal troops to help by completely destroying

60
“Old Rurales of Diaz at Q,” undated photograph, book 4, LC, MVC.
61
Letter from W. S. Windham to Thomas Bard, June 22, 1912, box 24, TBC, HL.
62
Letter from W. S. Windham to Thomas Bard, June 22, 1912, box 24, TBC, HL.

95
longstanding homes and communities and moving anyone who wished to stay under the
direct supervision of ranch staff. He wanted direct control over all workers on the ranch
and complete supervision of anyone who lived there. His deep desire to restore order
suggests that disorder reigned. Mexican soldiers and residents had crossed the
boundaries of private property, and Windham desperately wanted to regain control. A
few weeks later, he admitted his employees and tenants considered him harsh: “Darn it, I
guess they think me a hard boss.”
63

Quimichis investors and officers described destruction of their property as
blatantly anti-American and claimed they detected a strong anti-American sentiment in
their Mexican employees, renters, and neighbors. Writing to a fellow congressman to
request federal protection for his ranch and ranch manager, Thomas Bard argued that the
“general character of the people gives special ground for alarm as their antipathy against
Americans is marked” and that the incursions on their property had already cost them
over $100,000 in extra expenses and lost profits.
64
While it is difficult to determine the
exact extent of anti-Americanism felt by Quimichis workers and renters, the historical
record reveals that local people, revolutionary forces stationed in the region, and groups
of bandits (these groups often overlapped) intentionally turned the chaos and confusion of
the revolution to their advantage. As the tables turned and power relations shifted,
Quimichis residents and revolutionaries found they could wield a significant amount of
power against their former employers and landlords. Their affiliation with revolutionary
forces and their targeting of Americans and American-owned properties demonstrated a

63
Letter from W. S. Windham to E. O. Gerberding, July 29, 1912, box 24, TBC, HL.
64
Letter from Thomas R. Bard to Hon. John D. Works, U.S. Senate, May 7, 1911, box 4, TBC, HL.

96
specifically anti-American and anti-landowner agenda. According to the experiences of
Americans living on Quimichis, the efforts of rebels, revolutionaries, and workers also
dynamically transferred power from landowners and into the hands of ordinary people.
One anecdote from 1913 reveals this shift in power relations. Urged to evacuate
the ranch by the American consul in Mazatlán, Windham and Dunn set off via boat for
the nearest major sea port. Federal soldiers met them at Puerta del Rio, ostensibly to
guard them as they evacuated.
65
According to Windham, the soldiers “cursed, abused
and insulted” the Americans, “using all the vile names known to the Mexican
language.”
66
Windham and Dunn did not contest the name calling, however, because
they felt they were “entirely in their power.”
67
Rather than the overseers of a powerful
and successful company, Quimichis staff found themselves completely powerless—
powerless to control their own lives, much less their property. Windham also reported
that, “It appeared to us they really wished to kill us, but wanted us to give them some
kind of a pretext or excuse for the deed, for they had us surrounded within a circle of
about 10 feet, they loaded and cocked and leveled their guns on us…[but] after a few
rounds of abusive language addressed to us and ‘gringoes’ in general, we were let go.”
68

Once in Mazatlán, Windham and Dunn were even afraid to appear in public. They
predicted “much drunkenness and rowdyism” as Mexicans commemorated their

65
Windham does not specify who the soldiers were. From his use of “federal” and the year, 1913, they
were likely Huerta’s forces.
66
Letter from W. S. Windham to Thomas Bard quoted in letter from Bard to Henry Cabot Lodge, October
1, 1913, box 6, TBC, HL.
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid.

97
independence from Spain and reported that anti-American sentiments at these
celebrations were strong, especially in response to a recent reiteration of the Monroe
Doctrine.
69
In fact, Windham reported to Bard that anti-Americanism in Nayarit was
“strong and increasing everyday, because of the actions at Washington…We who are
down here think the U.S. should talk less and no more, should do something worthwhile
or drop the matter altogether, wash her hands of Mexican affairs, and never mention the
‘Monroe Doctrine’ again.”
70
Given the date, October 1913, the residents of Nayarit may
have been reacting to President Wilson’s critique of European nations who had
recognized the Huerta government, admonishing them to stay out of the affairs of the
western hemisphere. The story, as reported by Windham, is particularly fascinating
because his observations reflect strong anti-American sentiments at the local as well as
international levels. Ranch workers, revolutionaries, and neighboring communities
opposed both the Americans running Quimichis as well as American foreign policy that
threatened to intervene in their revolution and nation.
Local indigenous communities also drew on the rhetoric and utilized the disorder
of the Revolution to lay claim to Quimichis land. In 1915 a group of Tecuala Indians
argued that the Quimichis land titles were incorrect and that the American corporation
had illegally annexed communally held lands. In the midst of the tumult of Revolution,
the Tecuala did not hesitate to threaten violence to take back what they believed had been
illegally appropriated by the American investors. The boundary agreement drawn up in
1905, they maintained, was illegal because no representative of their community was a

69
Ibid.
70
Ibid.

98
signatory. Interestingly, company administrators noted that the Tecuala had respected the
agreed boundary from 1905 through 1915—“the arbitration agreement has been adhered
to and respected by the Indians until now.” Cognizant of the shift in influence and
authority at Quimichis as a result of the Revolution, the Tecuala Indians seized the
moment to claim lands they had ostensibly lost illegally a decade before.
71

Questions of property resided at the heart of the conflict between the Quimichis
managers and owners and Mexican revolutionaries. Dunn described his feelings
regarding infringements on the Quimichis property in very candid terms:
It certainly gets on my nerves to have a bunch of ignorant, lazy, dirty, would-be warriors, with a
gun ever in his hand, act toward one’s stuff as though one had no rights. Peace for Mexico, by the
Mexican people? If it ever comes, it will come not because of the ‘gun’ class, but in spite of him.
This Mexican soldier (if one may be pardoned for calling him by so honorable a name) does not
want peace, does not want Constitution and Reform, though these are his slogan, these he claims
to be fighting for. Peace will deprive him of his power to override the rights of others, will
deprive him of his occupation, of his easy means of getting a living, will force him to go to work,
will make him an out-law. To work he is opposed. To become an out-law in time of peace is
more dangerous than being a soldier in time of war, in this country. The danger during war down
here seems to be the non-participant. . .In talking with one of these sub-jefes, one who is at the
head of a bunch of about 20, about the possibility of peace, he frankly said he does not want
peace, that in time of peace, he had to work for 75 centavos per day, where as now, when he
wanted 1 to 500 pesos he could always get it by making demand on someone who had it, or by
taking a few head of cattle from some rancher and selling them, that he could always have a gun
and a good horse, the best the country afforded, that if peace comes he will be in danger where as
now he runs practically no risk.
72

Dunn’s long tirade against Mexican revolutionaries is telling. First, he finds them most
offensive because they have shown no respect for his “rights.” Namely, respect for his
“stuff” and rights to private property. According to Dunn, access to his employers’
property allowed revolutionaries to avoid working. Twisting revolutionary demands into

71
Letter from Richard Bard to U.S. Secretary of State, January 19, 1915, box 6, TBC, HL.
72
Letter from W. C. Dunn to Thomas Bard, quoted in letter from Thomas Bard to Robert Lansing,
Secretary of State, July 24, 1915, box 6, TBC, HL.

99
laziness, Dunn maintained that peasants joined the movement due to indolence rather
than injustice.
Bard demanded and expected a drastic intervention on the part of his government
in response to these challenges to his property and authority. In response to revolutionary
activity around the ranch in 1914 he suggested to the State Department dispatching the
Navy in order to “protect Americans on Quimichis Ranch.”
73
He even recommended a
method for getting naval forces to an inland property: disembark at Teacapa and use
small boats to navigate the river to Quimichis.
74
Later, despite the fact that the company
had blatantly disregarded a State Department order for all Americans to leave Mexico,
Bard appealed to Secretary of State Jennings to rescue Quimichis’ American employees
and protect what he noted was a very valuable piece of property. He admonished the
State Department that simply because employees like Windham and Dunn had chosen to
stay in Mexico, they had not given up their American citizenship and still deserved all the
protection that the U.S. government had the power to give them.
75

Revolution, Banditry, and Murder
Banditry, revolution, international relations, and the shifting power relations at
Quimichis came to a dramatic culmination in a series of kidnappings, ransom demands,
and murder in 1915. These events, which occurred between 1913 and 1915 when both
Villista and Carrancista troops passed through Acaponeta, demonstrate the extraordinary

73
Quimichis Colony Stockholders Annual Meeting Report, 1914, box 1, TBC, HL.
74
Ibid.
75
Letter from Thomas Bard to William Jennings Bryan, May 20, 1914, box 5, TBC, HL.

100
limits placed on Americans in Mexico during the Revolution. Not only could they not
protect their property and investments, they could not protect their bodies or their lives.
Mexican rebels planned and executed an extortion scheme against Quimichis for
the first time in November of 1913. Constitutionalists overtook Acaponeta in the fall of
1913 and needed resources. Recognizing the link between Quimichis Ranch and wealthy
American investors, rebel forces demanded 10,000 pesos (approximately $5,000) from
Windham and threatened to plunder and destroy the ranch if the money was not
delivered. While they did not explicitly threaten to throw Windham or Dunn in prison or
hang them if they failed to pay, the recent murders of other wealthy people in the area
served as an obvious and ominous threat. (To emphasize the heartlessness of Mexican
rebels, Windham and Dunn circulated stories in Southern California about rebels
demanding 500 pesos from one man and when he was only able to scrape together 493
pesos, they hung him. A sympathetic bystander tried to save his life by donating the
remaining seven pesos.)
76
To underscore the seriousness of their demand, rebels
imprisoned Dunn on three or four different occasions and finally released him only after
they heard Windham had withdrawn the 10,000 pesos on credit at the company’s
Mexican bank.
77

Although Windham had the cash in hand, international diplomacy intervened
before he passed over the ransom monies. Appealing directly to Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, Thomas Bard petitioned for a
direct intercession by the federal government in the extortion case. After a flurry of

76
Letter from Thomas Bard to William Jennings Bryan, December 20, 1913, box 6, TBC, HL.
77
Ibid.

101
letters and telegrams from the company’s Southern California offices, Secretary Bryan’s
office communicated with the American Consul in Hermosillo, Sonora as well as General
Carranza, demanding that he bring rebel troops under control. Carranza communicated
with Colonel Buelna, officer in charge of the region, who promptly forced his troops to
withdraw the demand. After Carranza intervened, the revolutionaries involved also
carefully covered their tracks. They called on Dunn and Windham in the middle of the
night and forced them to sign written documents that released them of any culpability in
the case.
78
Windham reported the failed extortionists were “very angry” and feared that
they might plan some sort of revenge.
79
His apprehensions suggest that although the U.S.
could apply heavy diplomatic pressure at the national level, the country’s political
maneuverings could do very little to protect Americans who faced challenges from
Mexican revolutionaries at the local level.
At the conclusion of the extortion attempt, Bard tried to compel the federal
government to further action by highlighting the compassionate and beneficial role of his
commercial enterprise. Updating Secretary Bryan a few months after diplomatic
intervention saved the company $5,000, Bard noted that Windham was busily planting
corn and beans “in order that the people living on the hacienda may have occupation and
means of subsistence.”
80
He appealed for protection, again citing the benefits of a
commercial albeit unprofitable enterprise—the creation of jobs and production of foods

78
Letter from Thomas Bard to William Jennings Bryan, February 11, 1914, box 6, TBC, HL.
79
Letter from Thomas Bard to William Jennings Bryan, December 31, 1913, QCC, Box 6 and letter from
Louis Hostettler, American Consul, Hermosillo, Sonora, to William Jennings Bryan, January 28, 1914, box
6, TBC, HL.
80
Letter from Thomas Bard to William Jennings Bryan, March 10, 1914, box 6, TBC, HL.

102
for Mexicans. By this point in the war, the State Department had ordered all American
citizens to leave Mexico and warned that the U.S. government could not guarantee the
safety of anyone who stayed. Bard explained the company’s complete disregard of this
policy by explaining to Bryan, “we have pursued the policy at all times of continuing the
cultivation of part of our land, though at a financial loss, for the purpose of providing
foodstuffs for the large number of natives living upon the hacienda and [who] rely upon
us for their livelihood. Our men have been strictly neutral and seem to have in an
unusual degree the confidence and friendship of these people.”
81

The story of Windham’s encounter with bandits that opens this chapter is a stark
illustration of the vulnerability Americans faced during the Revolution. Noting a
significant number of missing cattle in the summer and fall of 1915, Windham enlisted
Dunn to assist him in identifying and apprehending the cattle thieves. In October, they
caught a man named Vicente Arías with a Quimichis cow and ordered local authorities to
arrest him. Arías had grown up as an arrendatario on Quimichis and had eventually
become the ranch’s butcher. Although Mexican authorities tried him in Acaponeta and
Dunn provided testimony against him, the court released him. A few weeks later, Dunn
saw a group of six Villistas trying to break into Windham’s office and chased them off
with a shotgun. He assumed that they were associates of Arías’ and were seeking
revenge for his arrest.
Some ranch employees tried to protect the American managers against this angry
group of former employees and Villistas. During a subsequent attempt on Windham’s
life, for example, office manager Pablo Hernández risked his own life to protect

81
Letter from Thomas Bard to William Jennings Bryan, April 24, 1914, box 6, TBC, HL.

103
Windham. One month before the fatal shooting, the same group of men confronted
Windham in his office, probably regarding the cattle issue. According to Dunn, a man by
the name of Ochoa “kept telling the other man to shoot him [Windham], and the other
man shot and missed. Ochoa would have shot him only for the timely interference of
Pablo Hernández.”
82
Stepping into save Windham ended in threats to Hernández’s life.
A few weeks later, Dunn reported that he could not ask Hernández, the cattle foreman, or
the general foreman to remain at the ranch. Their affiliation with the management
angered Quimichis residents and revolutionaries. According to Dunn, they were “being
threatened daily by bandits.”
83

Some weeks later, the group of men returned and killed Windham, just as he
returned to his office after his conversation at the log with Dunn. According to reports
made by Dunn after the assassination, the men who killed Windham were not just cattle
thieves but also Villa sympathizers and the killing was a premeditated murder in
retribution for the case the ranch had brought against Aría. He claimed that the Villistas
knew the ranch managers met to discuss business matters each evening and came
specifically to kill them and stop their prosecution of cattle thieves.
84

Dunn turned immediately to the local military authorities, who also happened to
be Villistas, to apprehend the murderers. He also “ordered” the arrest of anyone he
thought associated with the cattle thefts. Finally, he also asked the local Jefe de Armas to
raze three villages on Quimichis property, “Quelelle,” “Mariachi, and “Naranhal.” In a

82
Letter from W. C. Dunn to “My Dear Sir,” December 29, 1915, box 18, TBC, HL.
83
Letter from W. C. Dunn to “My Dear Sir, January 11, 1916, box 18, TBC, HL.
84
Ibid.

104
report to the Quimichis board, Dunn asserted “these ranch [villages] are nothing but
bandit strongholds and the proper thing to do with them would be to burn them down, as
you know I have made every possible effort to accomplish this.”
85
When the Jefe de
Armas refused, Dunn argued that the houses belonged to Quimichis and that he suspected
the families of harboring cattle thieves and Villistas. Dunn threatened to appeal to his
superior, General Carrasco, to which the Jefe responded, “force me to destroy these
homes and I will destroy the Quimichis hacienda.”
86

The company also relied heavily on its Mexican lawyer in Mazatlán to prosecute
Windham’s murder. After Windham’s death, abogado José Rico quickly intervened on
behalf of the ranch, using personal and professional relationships to meet with civil and
military authorities and request protection for the Americans. When Dunn failed to have
the three ranch villages razed because they housed revolutionaries, Rico wrote to General
Juan Carrasco, Political and Military Chief of the Territory of Tepic. He noted that,
“around Quimichis there are various small villages, Quelele, Mariachi, Naranjal and
some others, where the malefactors go to take shelter.”
87
Rico requested that the General
round up all of the ranch residents forcibly and move them to the area around the
hacienda headquarters where they could be easily supervised. He then requested that the
army destroy the villages and noted that, “the huts now existing belong to the Hacienda,
so at the time of abandoning them their inhabitants would suffer no loss.”
88
Rico also

85
Letter from W. C. Dunn to “My Dear Sir,” January 11, 1916, box 18, TBC, HL.
86
Letter from Thomas Bard to William Jennings Bryan, February 11, 1914, box 6, TBC, HL.
87
Letter from J. H. Rico to General Juan Carrasco, December 1, 1915, box 18, TBC, HL.
88
Ibid. Emphasis added.

105
reported stealing to local authorities, requesting assistance in persecuting the perpetrators:
“people go from far and near and are bold to take the corn, beginning as soon as it will do
to eat green and continuing as long as it is in the field; they know that sometimes there is
no authority.”
89

Windham’s murder and its aftermath embodied, in the most dramatic way, the
dilemma that Americans faced in Mexico during the Revolution. Dunn, Windham, and
the Quimichis investors all felt entitled to control to a property they had purchased in fee
simple. For them, the land and its buildings, crops, livestock, trees, and supplies
belonged to them, explicitly, and they expressed astonishment when local residents,
employees, and revolutionary soldiers challenged them, simply took what they needed or
wanted, or retaliated against them with violence. Protests lobbied with the U.S. and
Mexican governments following Windham’s death demonstrated the anguish that
Quimichis staff and owners felt at these confrontations to their “rights” as property
owners. Their complaints also revealed their economic worldview; their company, they
believed, had provided work, wages, food, and shelter to poor Mexicans and the violent
response they received seemed unfathomable. In a letter from Quimichis board member
John Cave, for example, he appealed to Carranza and General Obregón to apprehend
Windham’s murderers because he had “benefitted the people of that section…he doctored
and helped the people not only of the ranch but of that whole section.”
90
For Quimichis
investors, their commercial project was not simply supposed to benefit them but also

89
Letter from J. H. Rico to “My Dear Sirs, June 15, 1915, box 18, TBC, HL.
90
Letter from john Cave to E. O. gerberding, undated, box 5, TBC, HL. At this point, Álvaro Obregón was
Carranza’s highest ranking military officer. He would go on to become president in 1920.

106
improve the lives of their employees. This perspective permeated discussions of
Windham’s death and appeals for justice and protection for the ranch.
Windham’s murder reveals the many tensions existing between an American
ranch manager and the population he was trying to control. Within the context of the
war, local residents and Quimichis employees tried to confiscate American-owned
resources for their own benefit. Although they may not have been officially affiliated
with the Villista troops controlling the region, they identified themselves with an openly
revolutionary and anti-American movement. They responded to repressive labor policies
by pillaging their employers. When Windham and Dunn threatened to have them
prosecuted and imprisoned, they responded by taking matters into their own hands—they
seemed to see a certain justice in killing a man who threatened their autonomy and
opposed their revolution. After Windham’s death, Dunn had to appeal to the local
authorities—Villistas—to apprehend and prosecute the murderers. Although the military
officials complied (they tracked down several of the men and tried them under military
law), they refused retributive action. Dunn wanted entire villages and communities
destroyed. The Jefe refused and threatened to destroy the entire ranch if Dunn insisted on
such a harsh policy.
Problems with bandits and revolutionary soldiers continued following William
Windham’s death. The Quimichis board replaced Windham with Moray Applegate as
general manager. Working with Dunn, Applegate took control of the ranch a few months
after Windham’s death. He was a veteran of the U.S. war in the Philippines and had lived
for over a decade in Mexico. Applegate suggested a conciliatory policy with local
insurrectionists and the Carranza administration. Although he fortified the Quimichis

107
headquarters and transformed it into a private citadel, he also brokered a deal with the
head of the local Villistas, known as “El Molacho.” El Molacho promised not to attack
the ranch directly if Applegate would provide some provisions to him and his men. He
stated that he had no direct issue with the ranch, as long as they supported his campaign
against Carranza and the Constitutionalists: “He claimed he was fighting only for a
political cause against the government and would not harm any private persons or
interests.”
91
Applegate also advocated a friendly relationship with the Carranza
government and adopting some of the language of the revolution to promote the
company’s private interests: “Much can be done eventually I think in working in
harmony with the new government and in adapting ourselves to the plan and ideals of the
revolution, rather than opposing or resisting them and resorting to appeals to our own
government for protection. Nearly anything in this country can be arranged if one is able
and willing to pay the price, and the price is usually ridiculously low.”
92

The City of Los Angeles vs. Mexico
“Outrages” committed against Americans, particularly the death of Windham,
enraged Southern Californians. Southland newspapers carried detailed descriptions of his
death and editorials called for federal intervention in Mexico to protect American lives
and property. Jingoistic Southern California newspapers and the company’s officers
concurred that Windham and Dunn’s capture was clearly the result of inaction on the part
of the American government. Speaking to a reporter, Dr. Livingston, a Quimichis
investor, declared, “No other nation would permit its citizens to be treated so. No other

91
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Companía Agricola de Quimichis, May 17, 1917, box 2, TBC, HL.
92
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Companía Agricola de Quimichis, May 31, 1917, box 2, TBC, HL.

108
nation would permit 100,000 of its citizens to be driven away from their property in one
country…No other nation would permit its citizens to be held for ransom and to be
killed”
93
Critical of the Taft Administration’s and later the Wilson Administration’s
anemic response to the Mexican Revolution—particularly because American private
property was at stake—Quimichis officers flatly declared the U.S. negligent in fulfilling
its duties to its citizens and its responsibilities to the world as a “strong nation.” Force,
Livingston maintained, was the only way to deal with Mexico and Mexicans: “Demands
are all right with a civilized nation, but when you are dealing with half-civilized people
like the Mexicans they must know that the force is behind the demand. That is the only
way to handle the Mexicans…when they know the force is back of the demand they are
docile.”
94
The quote reflects Livingston’s personal philosophy in dealing with workers
and renters at Quimichis as well as his expectations of his nation in dealing with its
southern neighbor.
Others called on the American government to be more proactive in protecting
Americans and American property in Mexico. In a letter to the editor of the New York
Tribune, a friend of Windham’s who visited Quimichis a few days before the murder laid
blame squarely on the Wilson Administration. Condemning all revolutionary troops in
Mexico, Cassius Gillette argued that the deed was done by a group of “half-breed bandits
posing as revolutionary patriots, just as are and always have been the bulk of Carranza’s
followers and Villa’s followers—the precise type of savage that President Wilson has

93
Newspaper clipping, “Former Pasadena Banker and Assistant are Prisoners in Mexico,” Los Angeles
Examiner, December 2, 1913, box 25, TBC, HL.
94
Ibid.

109
been representing to the American people as patriots capable of forming a republican
form of government.”
95
In other words, Gillette argued that Wilson’s reluctance to
become involved in Mexico’s civil war meant that he trusted a nation of nonwhite
peoples to form a democracy and his misguided faith had directly resulted in the death of
an American citizen.
Gillette’s letter echoed the complaints of the Quimichis Colony board of directors
as well as many Americans in Mexico, Southern Californians, and borderlands
residents—the revolution endangered their lives and property and their government did
nothing to protect them. Windham’s murder was dramatic evidence of both problems.
While Bard’s extensive network in Washington did result in some diplomatic pressure on
the Mexican army and the forces around Quimichis, Quimichis officers and Americans
with interests in Mexico wanted more.
Angelenos felt so aggrieved by their treatment in Mexico they declared a feud
between Los Angeles and Mexico. In December 1919, a bold Los Angeles Times
headline announced, “The Case of the City of Los Angeles vs. the Government of

95
Cassius E. Gillette, “Falsehoods about Mexico,” New York Tribune, February 28, 1916.

110

Figure 12, “Case of the City of Los Angeles vs. the Government of Mexico,” 1919.
96

Mexico.”
97
Subtitles tantalized readers with stories of violence: “Citizens of Los Angeles
Tortured and Murdered! True Stories of Revolting Crimes of Mexicans Against
Angelenos Here Told for the First Time.” The lengthy piece, complete with photographs
of Americans who had lost their lives during revolutionary violence in Mexico, including
William Windham, indicted President Venustiano Carranza and his government of
“wandering hordes of bandits” for the torture and murder of “inoffensive” Angelenos.
The Times also maintained that Los Angeles bore a “big and bitter share” of Mexican

96
F. C. Spayde, “Case of the City of Los Angeles vs. the Government of Mexico,” Los Angeles Times,
December 7, 1919, p. 1.
97
Ibid.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
CASE OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES VS. THE GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO.
SPAYDE F C
Los Angeles Times (1886-1922); Dec 7, 1919;
ProQuest Historical Newspapers Los Angeles Times (1881 - 1987)
pg. II1

111
violence against Americans under Carranza’s administration. While noting the deep
concern of the entire country over the plight of Americans in Mexico, the Times argued
that “Los Angeles is directly interested in the American case against Mexico” because of
hefty Angeleno investments in Mexican industries and because of the physical violence
inflicted on citizens of the city by Mexican revolutionaries. To combat this infringement
on Angeleno rights, the Times advocated collecting evidence of Mexican atrocities and
lobbying Congress and the president to intervene on behalf of suffering Angelenos. The
author of the piece noted with approval that Congressman Henry Z. Osborne was
spearheading the Southern California campaign and assembling a dossier of evidence to
submit to the State Department. For gruesome impact, the Times reported that Osborne’s
docket of evidence included the cutoff fingers of two Angelenos held hostage by
Mexican bandits.
Conclusion
The first decade of the Mexican Revolution had a dramatic impact on Los
Angeles investors. Immediately up to the outbreak of the Revolution in the final months
of 1910, Los Angeles investors and capitalists touted Mexico as the safest place to send
investment funds. Díaz, they maintained, had created a well-ordered and rapidly
developing nation that happily worked with American investors. American investments,
they eagerly believed, would benefit capitalists in Los Angeles as well as the Mexican
people and the Mexican nation. It had the potential, they maintained, to develop Mexico
along the lines of the United States. As a result, companies such as the CRLC developed
productive relationships with wealthy Mexicans and Mexican officials.

112
With the arrival of the Revolution, however, companies such as the Companía
Agricola de Quimichis struggled desperately to institute the economic system they had
envisioned in Los Angeles. Instead of a cooperative government, they found warring
factions, emerging anti-Americanism, covert and explicit challenges to their status as
landowners, and outright violence. As a result, Quimichis was never able to create a
profit for its investors and the ranch witnessed the death of one of its stockholders, most
ardent promoters, and manager. Enraged at challenges to their presence in Mexico, they
turned to the United States government to protect the lives and property of American
citizens in Mexico. As explored in the next chapter, Angelenos led the national call for
American intervention in the Mexican Revolution.

113
Chapter Three
“Los Angeles vs. the Government of Mexico”: Property Rights, Diplomacy, and the
Regional Empire, 1917-1927

Introduction
In the fall of 1917, a handful of Angelenos, including Thomas E. Gibbon, Edward
L. Doheny, and Harry Chandler, met to sign a contract that they agreed not to make
public. The little party designated Doheny, the world’s largest independent petroleum
producer, as custodian of the confidential document. Doheny signed the agreement as the
president of the Mexican Petroleum Company, Gibbon and Chandler as major investors
in the Colorado River Land Company. The agreement stated:
We, the undersigned, hereby agree to become members of an Association organized for the
purpose of endeavoring to protect the rights of foreign investors in Mexico by taking steps to
secure appropriate action on the part of the governments whose nationals are interested in Mexico
and by pursuing proper efforts to inform the world as to the conditions existing in that country.
1

In short, they argued that their government had not upheld their rights as property owners
in Mexico. To remedy the problem and secure support from the United States
government, they proposed forming an organization to oversee an extensive media and
lobbying campaign to “inform the world” about the problems property owners faced in
Mexico. They were also willing to contribute heavily, albeit discreetly, to push American
foreign policy in their favor. They hoped to create a propaganda machine to produce and
then disseminate information on what they considered an alarming political situation in
Mexico. If properly managed they believed their new organization, the National
Association for the Protection of American Rights in Mexico (NAPARM), could generate

1
“Agreement,” undated, folder “Mexico—Mr. Doheny,” box 35, Bergman Collection, Hunting Library,
San Marino. Hereafter, Bergman Collection, HL.

114
“a lot of publicity which will, before very long, force the hand of the Government for the
protection of our interests in Mexico.”
2

As we saw in chapter two, violence, banditry, threats to American lives, and
events such as the murder of William Windham incited rage in Los Angeles. The more
pressing problem for powerful Angeleno investors such as Chandler, Doheny, and
Gibbon – men not at all likely to put themselves in harm’s way in Mexico—was the
Revolution’s populist rhetoric and rumors about the redistribution of private property.
Revolutionary violence and policies disputed and disrupted American economic
hegemony in Mexico and presented an affront to Angeleno investors who believed that
transnational capitalism offered an effective solution to Mexico’s economic woes.
Angeleno capitalists had encountered the exigencies of the twentieth century’s first social
revolution.
As Angelenos, Chandler, Doheny, and Gibbon also believed they were uniquely
situated to educate the federal government on an appropriate policy toward Mexico and
revolution. Doheny and Gibbon both considered themselves specialists on the “Mexican
question” and expertly positioned to push foreign policy in the correct direction. They
believed their experience with cross-border projects and investment schemes gave them
specialized knowledge on the economic and political situation in Mexico. They also felt
that Southern California and the American Southwest had more invested in an amicable
relationship with Mexico than other regions. Washington, they maintained, needed to
listen to westerners, and particularly Angelenos, when it came to formulating foreign

2
Letter from Thomas E. Gibbon to Harry Chandler, November 17, 1917, folder “Mexico & C. M.,” box 35,
Bergman Collection, HL.

115
policy for Mexico. As a result, they founded NAPARM to protect their foreign
investments, provide the federal government with their expertise, and curb revolutionary
propensities south of the border.
The coordinated efforts of NAPARM members, particularly Gibbon and Doheny,
to push for American intervention in Mexico between 1917 and 1923 also illuminate the
response of capitalism to the unrest and social revolutions of the early twentieth century.
3

Labor strife at home and revolutions abroad frightened those at the top of America’s
political and economic hierarchy throughout the 1910s and into the early 1920s and
initiated a nationwide hysteria over the threat of communism. Angelenos, such as
Doheny and Gibbon, feared the unfolding of events in Mexico because of their status as
investors, their proximity to Mexico, and the threat of Mexican radicals in the Southwest.
As explored in Chapter 1, Angelenos considered, at least since the 1890s, that their city
had a unique and supranational economic relationship with Mexico. Mexico’s
revolution, the first of the twentieth century, presented a direct challenge to foreign
investors generally and the close economic ties between Southern California and Mexico
more particularly.

3
For general discussions of the American response to early twentieth-century revolutions abroad and labor
militancy at home, see John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002); Robert M. Fogelson, America’s Armories:
Architecture, Society, and Public Order (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1989); Carl S. Smith, Urban
Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of
Pullman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Mark Benbow, Leading Them to the Promised
Land: Woodrow Wilson, Covenant Theology, and the Mexican Revolution (Kent: Kent State University
Press, 2010); N. Gordon Levin, Jr., Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America’s Response to War and
Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973); Arthur S. Link, ed., Woodrow Wilson and a
Revolutionary World, 1913-1921 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); Robert K.
Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964).

116
Investor concern thrust Los Angeles into the realm of U.S. foreign policy. While
the city had certainly maintained an active role in lobbying the federal government
throughout its relatively short history, the Mexican revolution, the threat of property
expropriations, and a desire to maintain an international capitalist order, drove elite
Angelenos to take a vigorous role in American foreign policy.
4
Gibbon and Doheny
believed the role of government was to protect their rights as property owners, whether
that was in the United States or abroad. With significant investments at stake (hundreds
of millions of dollars in Doheny’s case), the two men coordinated an expansive lobbying
campaign to push the Wilson administration to intervene in Mexico on behalf of
American investors. Although other large American firms had substantial financial
interests in Mexico, it was essentially these two men from Los Angeles who spearheaded
the interventionist movement in the United States.
5

Ultimately, Angelenos such as Gibbon and Doheny recognized Mexico as a
sovereign nation; however, their perspective as the builders of a city with a great

4
Walter LaFeber points out the paradox that following the Civil War, Americans’ quest for “order” and
economic profit actually created the conditions that led to revolutions in Mexico, China, Russia, Cuba, the
Philippines, Hawaii, Panama, Nicaragua, etc. He maintains that the rise of the United States as a global
economic power did not engender an orderly society but actually spurred social and economic revolution.
“Major revolts occurred across much of the globe—in Russia, china, Mexico, Cuba…among other places.
The rise of the United States to the status of great world power was not dissociated from the causes of these
revolutions. American policy played some role in all of these outbreaks, and in most it was a determinative
force.” Walter LaFeber, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Vol. 2: The American
Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 234.
5
While historians on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border highlight the significance of American
involvement and intervention in Mexico prior to and during the Mexican Revolution, few have considered
the significance of region in developing American responses to the revolutionary events unfolding in
Mexico, and indeed, around the world. The proximity of Los Angeles to Mexico, the significant financial
links between Southern California and Northern Mexico, and the credo that international trade would make
their city great led Angelenos to forcefully and strategically tackle the issue of American involvement in
Mexico. Peter Trubowitz, one of the few historians to examine this topic, argues that sectional interests in
the United States often drove regional positions on American foreign policy. See Peter Trubowitz,
Defining the National Interest: Conflict and Change in American Foreign Policy (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1998).

117
international hinterland shaped their position on American foreign policy. Gibbon and
Doheny viewed the revolution unfolding south of the border as threatening a world
economic system well beyond its character as a regional or single nation-state upheaval.
Just as the federal government had tried to control labor unrest across the United States
since the 1870s, just as the Merchants and Manufacturers Association had strictly
regulated labor and labor organizing in Los Angeles, Gibbon and other Angeleno
investors believed the United States could and should regulate the economic and labor
regimes of Mexico for the simultaneous benefit of Americans and Mexicans. Respecting
international borders appeared less important than reinforcing an economic and class
system that elites such as Doheny and Gibbon believed maintained balance and order,
whether in the United States or Mexico.
Los Angeles, the United States, Mexico, and Revolution, 1907-1917
Doheny and Gibbon’s interventionist campaign unfolded against a turbulent
backdrop that included the presence of Mexican revolutionaries in Los Angeles,
increasing violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, the rewriting of the Mexican
constitution, threats to private property, and increasing tension between the United States
and Mexico. Their push for American intervention in Mexico also came about during a
period of violent conflict between workers and employers in the United States, suspicion
of the American left, and concerns about worldwide radical movements. Ultimately,
these tumultuous events aroused deep suspicion in the minds of wealthy investors such as

118
Doheny and Gibbon and added urgency to their demands for the restoration of order and
stability in Mexico.
6

Home in Los Angeles, elites did not have to look far nor wide to see threats. In
Los Angeles itself, Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón embodied the fears of the city’s
conservative elite.
7
The brothers, anarchists from the State of Oaxaca, are often credited
as the philosophical fathers of the Mexican Revolution. Their party, the Partido Liberal
Mexicano, advocated the overthrow of Díaz and social reforms such as the eight hour
workday and free public education. As political exiles in the United States, the brothers
also challenged the prevailing social order north of the border. Their anarchism,
promotion of international labor alliances, and links to the Mexican Revolution
convinced Angeleno elites that the Mexican Revolution lurked not only across the border
but also around the corner.
8

6
Although not directly connected to the Mexican Revolution, the strike against the Los Angeles Times and
the bombing of its building in 1910 fueled fears of radicalism in Los Angeles. Many city elites believed
that the event, which killed twenty Times employees, to be a sign of class warfare. According to William
Deverell, Gibbon acted as the “errand boy” for Chandler and Otis during the aftermath of the bombing,
attacking the city’s socialist candidate for mayor and Flores Magón attorney, Job Harriman, as a supporter
of the men accused of the bombing and violent class warfare. William Deverell, “The Neglected Twin:
California Democrats and the Progressive Bandwagon,” in William Deverell and Tom Sitton, eds.,
California Progressivism Revisted (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 72-99.
7
There’s an extensive literature on the Flores Magón brothers and their lives in the United States. See
Colin M. MacLachlan, Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution: The Political Trials of Ricardo Flores
Magón in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); William Dirk Raat, “The
Diplomacy of Suppression: Los Revoltosos, Mexico, and the United States, 1906-1911,” The Hispanic
American Historical Review, Vol. 56, No. 4 (November 1976), 529-550; Marco Antonio Samaniego,
Nacionalismo y Revolución: Los Acontecimientos de 1911 en Baja California (Tijuana, Mexico:
Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, 2008); James A. Sandos, Rebelión en la Frontera: El
Anarquismo y el Plan de San Diego, 1904-1923 (Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico: Gobierno del
Estado de Tamaulipas, 2010).
8
His criticism of the Díaz regime forced Ricardo to seek political asylum in the United States in 1904.
Once in the U.S., Ricardo and Enrique founded the Partido Liberal Mexicano in St. Louis in 1905 and
began publishing an anarchist newspaper, Regeneración. The United States, an ally of Díaz until the end of
his regime, tracked the brothers as they published and distributed their newspaper, organized Mexican
immigrants, and created alliances with prominent political figures in the American left, including anarchist

119
They set up their headquarters in Los Angeles in 1907, using the city as a base
for organizing efforts across Mexico and the American Southwest. Despite being tracked
by the Mexican and U.S. governments and several highly publicized charges of violating
American criminal syndicalism laws, they began developing a plan to overthrow the Díaz
regime in late 1910.
9
Given the city’s proximity to sparsely populated Baja California,
Ricardo Flores Magón assessed that the PLM could easily seize the territory and establish
a base there. From Baja, the PLM planned to challenge both Díaz and the Madero
movement and launch a class-based social struggle which would soon have as “its stage
the surface of the whole planet, and was designed to smash tyranny, capitalism, and
authority.”
10
With arms supplied by the IWW, a small force of PLM members seized the
border town of Mexicali in January 1911. Over a few days, they also seized Algodones,
Tecate, and Tijuana. The PLM rebels held portions of northern Baja through the spring of
1911 but limited resources and the arrival of pro-Madero troops forced the collapse of the
invasion. The arrest of both Ricardo and Enrique in Los Angeles further deteriorated the
movement. The government charged the Flores Magóns with conspiracy to overthrow a

Emma Goldman. Once federal authorities discovered their whereabouts, however, they partnered with the
Mexican government and the Los Angeles Police Department to raid the house they were living in and
arrest them. The American left, particularly in Southern California, rallied to their defense. Job Harriman,
a prominent socialist lawyer in Los Angeles, led their legal defense team (Harriman would almost win a bid
for mayor of Los Angeles the following year). Political publications on the left championed their cause and
linked the struggle of American workers to that of Mexican peons. Unions such as the United Mine
Workers raised money for their defense fund and the Los Angeles County Socialist Party and the Socialist
Workers Party of Los Angeles endorsed their cause. Despite support from Southern California and leftist
organizations nationwide, a jury found the brothers guilty of violating criminal syndicalism laws and
sentenced them to eighteen months in jail. They served their term in Arizona but returned to Los Angeles
immediately after their release. See MacLachlan.
9
MacLachlan.
10
Agustín Cúe Cánovas, Ricardo Flores Magón,la Baja California y los Estados Unidos (Mexico, 1957),
106. Quoted in MacLachlan, 35.

120
foreign government and with recruiting American nationals to join their movement.
Following their arrest, Eugene V. Debs described the two men as “comrades in the social
revolution who were being ground between two capitalist governments.”
11

Los Angeles’ conservative elite reacted to the Flores Magóns with characteristic
alarm. Otis and Chandler ran sensational stories in the Los Angeles Times describing the
Flores Magóns as “reds of the most virulent type” and leaders of a “red junta.”
12
Another
headline read, “Revolutionists in Los Angeles Den. Terrific Struggle Attends Capture of
Plotters Against Mexican Republic.”
13
Foreshadowing their later demands for American
intervention in Mexico, Chandler and the CRLC suggested forming a joint American-
Mexican military force to regain control and patrol Baja California. The paper also
nervously reported on events unfolding along the U.S.-Mexico border including the
discovery of the Plan de San Diego in Texas, which may have been connected to the
PLM. The Plan, drawn up by a Maderista faction in Texas, called for a general uprising
of Mexican-Americans and Mexicans to reclaim territory seized by the United States
between 1836 and 1848, including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and
California.
14
The discovery of the Plan and Mexican raids in American territories,
including Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916, provoked considerable

11
MacLachlan, 22.
12
“Federal Fist Crushes Nest of Reds,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1911, II 1.
13
“NIP Revolutionists in Los Angeles Den,” Los Angeles Times, August 24, 1907, II 1.
14
For more on border violence during the Mexican Revolution, see Linda B. Hall and Don M. Coerver,
Revolution on the Border: The United States and Mexico, 1910-1920 (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1988); Joseph A. Stout, Jr., Border Conflict: Villistas, Carrancistas, and the Punitive
Expedition, 1915-1920 (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1999); Rachel St. John, Line in the
Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011); and
Paul J. Vanderwood and Frank N. Samponaro, Border Fury: A Picture Postcard Record of Mexico’s
Revolution and U.S. War Preparedness, 1910-1917 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988).

121
hysteria across the American Southwest. For the Los Angeles investor class, revolution
did indeed lurk in uncomfortable proximity. Members of this class believed it incumbent
on their government to restore stability along the border and in Mexico.
American investors, particularly members of NAPARM, became frustrated with
what they considered inaction on the part of the Wilson administration, the years of
which overlapped with the most tumultuous decade of the Mexican Revolution. Wilson’s
attitudes toward Mexico were contradictory. On one hand, he wanted a stable and
democratically elected Mexican government. On the other hand, Wilson also wanted a
Mexican administration that recognized American hegemony. These two philosophies
collided in his position on the Mexican Revolution, and the American business
community felt he moved painfully slowly and indecisively on the “Mexican question.”
Although his administration attempted to negotiate diplomatic relations with a succession
of Mexican presidents from 1911 to 1917 and even dispatched American troops into
Mexican territory twice during this period, American investors wanted more decisive
action as opposed to Wilson’s “watchful waiting” approach.
15

15
Initially, Wilson espoused a broad philosophy that supported business interests and their international
ventures. In reference to American capitalists, Wilson said, “The flag of his nation must follow him, and
the doors of nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by
financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be
outraged in the process.” However, despite Wilson’s promise to batter down the doors of uncooperative
nations, he also believed in the right of every nation to self-determination and democracy. In reference to
Mexico, he stated, “I shall fight every one of these men who are now seeking and who will then be seeking
to exploit Mexico for their own selfish ends. I shall do what I can to keep Mexico from their plundering.
There shall be no individual exploitation of Mexico if I can help it.” See John Mason Hart, Empire and
Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002),
296; Benbow, see introduction; Lloyd C. Gardner, “Woodrow Wilson and the Mexican Revolution” in
Arthur S. Link, ed., Woodrow Wilson and a Revolutionary World, 1913-1921 (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1982), 3049; and Martin R. Ansell, Oil Baron of the Southwest: Edward L. Doheny
and the Development of the Petroleum Industry in California and Mexico (Columbus: Ohio State
University Press, 1998), 120.

122
Eventually, the Wilson administration decided to recognize Venustiano Carranza
as the legitimate leader of Mexico, rather than the more radical Pancho Villa. Carranza,
who identified as a political moderate, wanted limited reforms in Mexico. As president
of the tumultuous and violent period between 1914 and 1920, however, he reluctantly
recognized the need for institutional change in response to the demands of Mexican
revolutionaries. In an effort to provide legitimacy to the Revolution he agreed to call a
convention to overhaul the Mexican constitution. Although he carefully selected
delegates to the convention from his own political movement, the Constitutionalists, a
number of reformists and anti-foreign professionals and bureaucrats gained control of the

Wilson assumed the American presidency just two weeks after Victoriano Huerta’s 1913 coup and refused
to recognize his administration. Wilson and his secretary of state William Jennings Bryan both felt
uncomfortable recognizing a regime that had not won power through a democratic process (even though the
American ambassador in Mexico City backed Huerta’s coup). Wilson, in fact, insisted that Huerta should
step down and began funneling American support to Carranza and the Constitutionalists. In an effort to
assert American interests in Mexico and undermine Huerta, Wilson planned and executed an occupation of
Veracruz, Tampico in 1914 with the support of Senators Albert Fall and Henry Cabot Lodge. The
occupation did destabilize the Huerta regime but faced vigorous opposition from Americans and Mexicans,
including Carranza. According to Katz, it is likely that Doheny backed Wilson’s decision to occupy
Veracruz, which was located in Mexico’s petroleum region. The United States eventually withdrew from
Veracruz at the end of 1914 and continued to support Carranza and the Constitutionalists. With American
support, Carranza gained a tenuous edge over Huerta, who eventually fled the country. Although Carranza
and the Constitutionalists claimed executive power they still faced challenges from the more radical
movements within the revolution, particularly Pancho Villa. In 1915, the Wilson administration decided to
back Carranza over Villa, recognizing him as the president of Mexico and allowing 3000 of Carranza’s
troops to cross the border into the United States and attack Villa by surprise. The tactic weakened Villa
and reduced his movement to guerrilla warfare and solidified support for Carranza as Mexico’s president.
Villa retaliated against what he considered a betrayal by the United States by launching an attack on the
border town of Columbus, New Mexico in March 1916. Enraged, the Wilson administration responded by
requesting that Carranza allow the U.S. military to launch a punitive expedition to pursue Villa on Mexican
territory. Despite the fact that the Carranza government did not grant official permission, General John J.
Pershing crossed the border into Mexico in the spring of 1916. According to Wilson, the goal of the
expedition was to capture Villa and help stabilize Carranza’s administration. As Pershing chased Villa
deep into Mexican territory, however, Carranza became increasingly concerned about the size and power of
American forces. The further they pushed into southern Mexico, the more alarmed he became. Skirmishes
between Carranza’s forces and American troops advancing through Mexico brought the two countries to
the brink of war. On the threshold of entering World War I, Wilson ultimately backed down and withdrew
Pershing and the American troops. The expedition and the commission, coupled with Carranza’s interest in
collaborating with Germany and the Zimmerman telegram signified the end of diplomatic relations between
the United States and Carranza’s government. See Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the
United States and the Mexican Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 98-115.

123
convention. In addition, although Zapatistas were not present at the convention, their
demands for land echoed in every delegate’s head. Pastor Rauaix, one of the delegates
and framers of the new constitution, argued, “The financial prosperity the country
acquired with the dictatorial regime of General Díaz only served to deepen even more
that abyss that separated the plutocracy from the proletariat and to augment the
animosities that were impregnating the popular soul with the constant abuses suffered by
the disinherited classes, which formed 90 percent of the Mexican population.”
16
In an
effort to address this problem, the reformist faction successfully persuaded the majority
to accept a constitution that, according to Friedrich Katz, was considered “one of the
most radical adopted anywhere.”
17

This new constitution pushed Angeleno investors into action. Coupled with
radicalism in their city as well as revolutionary skirmishes along the border, the
confiscatory and anti-foreign tenets of the 1917 constitution deeply alarmed investors
such as Edward Doheny and Thomas Gibbon. The new constitution promoted land
reform, granted rights to labor including an eight-hour day and the right to strike,
drastically curtailed the rights of foreign landowners and investors, and defined all
subsoil resources as the property of Mexico. The constitution also gave the Mexican
government the right to expropriate foreign-owned properties for the common good and
limited the rights of foreigners to own land along the country’s coasts and international

16
Quoted in Jonathan C. Brown, Oil and Revolution in Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1993), 225.
17
Friedrich Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 620.

124
borders.
18
Article 27 outlined many of these new policies, and it became notorious
among American investors. Article 27 demonstrated, in terse prose, the resentment
against foreign investors the Mexican middleclass had fostered throughout the Porfiriato
and its desire to bring Mexico’s natural resources under national control.
19
The article
also reflected the needs of the Mexican federal government to institute some reforms to
mollify followers of both Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. The article promised to
break up large estates, return lands taken from villages, and create new communally held
landholdings.
Although Carranza applied the new constitution in a limited and selective way, it
ignited a panic among American investors in Mexico, and Doheny and Gibbon placed
themselves at the forefront of efforts to challenge the new constitution and its anti-foreign
policies. The two men believed they needed a robust lobbying organization to protect
their interests; American policymakers, they maintained, simply did not understand the
monumental changes taking place in Mexico. In the fall of 1917, a few months after the
ratification of the new Mexican constitution, Gibbon told Harry Chandler, “You would be
astonished to learn how little of the truth is known in Washington about Mexico. For
instance, last Saturday, while talking with Secretary Lane, I mentioned the fact that two
weeks before the Mexican Congress had passed a law suspending constitutional

18
There is a large literature on the Mexican Revolution and Constitution of 1917. For excellent overviews
see Charles C. Cumberland, Mexican Revolution: The Constitutionalist Years (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1972); John M. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Friedrich Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United
States and the Mexican Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); E. V. Niemeyer, Jr.,
Revolution at Querétaro: The Mexican Constitutional Convention of 1916-1917 (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1974).
19
Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 330.

125
guarantees in that country…he was astonished to know this which shows the extent of the
ignorance of our public men about Mexico.”
20
Doheny and Gibbon agreed that if they
could improve Washington’s understanding of the situation of American investors in
Mexico, they could influence the Wilson administration to intervene more decisively on
their behalf.
Such concerns emerged out of a local and national pro-business and anti-radical
culture that held deep suspicions about revolutionary activities and critiques of American
capitalism. Like their economic counterparts across the country, elite Angelenos
believed their country had a duty to protect their international financial interests and
promote capitalist democracies, or, at the very least, capitalist interests.
21
Most elite
Americans subscribed to diplomatic policies like the Monroe Doctrine and its Roosevelt
corollary, as well as Dollar Diplomacy, all of which promoted U.S. intervention in Latin
America to protect American commercial interests.
22
They also maintained that property
rights were not limited by national boundaries—although their holdings were located
outside of the United States and not protected by American constitutional rights, they
believed that they were entitled to universal protection of their private property.

20
Letter from Thomas Gibbon to Harry Chandler, November 17, 1917, “Mexico & C.M.” Folder, Box 35,
Bergman Papers, HL.
21
Historian John Mason Hart contends that, “between 1914 and 1917 the U.S. . . . elite combined their
economic power, political connections, and global interests to decisively influence their government’s
decisions to intervene in Colombia on behalf of the Panama Canal project, to influence the outcome of the
Mexican Revolution, and to enter World War I.” Hart, Empire and Revolution, 296.
22
President James Monroe introduced the Monroe Doctrine as a policy in 1823. It asserted to European
powers that the Western Hemisphere, particularly Latin America, was not open to further colonization.
Theodore Roosevelt added a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, asserting the right of the United
States to intervene to politically or militarily to “stabilize” Latin American countries. Dollar Diplomacy
was a policy that grew out of the 1904 Roosevelt corollary; it promoted stabilizing Latin American
economies through U.S.-secured loans. The goal of the policy was to promote favorable economic climates
for American corporations operating in Latin America.

126
Ambassadors for Los Angeles: Edward Doheny and Thomas Gibbon
Edward L. Doheny’s diminutive stature and scholarly, bespectacled face belied
his hardheaded business acuity and single-minded determination to be a wealthy and
powerful man. Doheny self-identified as a quintessential westerner and often described
himself as a pioneer and frontiersman. He believed that dedication and commitment
resulted in capitalist success and that personal fortunes also benefited the financial
success of the nation. During his time in Mexico, he sincerely believed that pulling the
fuel of the modern era out of the earth was an endeavor that would propel Mexico
towards modernity and civilization. As biographer Margaret Leslie Davis observed,
Doheny arrived in Mexico “full of confidence, certain that he was bringing what Mexico
needed, that he would be welcomed, and that he would make a fortune.”
23
Doheny also
had a strong sense of his own capabilities and many of his actions, in both the United
States and Mexico, came from a sense that he knew best how to resolve complex policy
and financial problems.
Born in Wisconsin, Doheny grew up in a large Irish-Catholic family. At the age
of sixteen, he left the Mid for the far West. He ended up in New Mexico in the 1880s,
prospecting for silver and gold. A search for better economic opportunities drew Doheny
to Los Angeles in 1892. He arrived in the city just at the moment when railroads were
experimenting with petroleum as a feasible fuel source. In the fall of 1892, Doheny and
Charles Canfield leased a plot of land on State Street and dug their first oil well by hand.
By 1894, Doheny controlled the largest portion of the city’s emerging oil industry.

23
Margaret Leslie Davis, Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L.
Doheny (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 285.

127
Doheny also forged a partnership with the Santa Fe Railway and its subsidiaries and
began supplying the company with oil for its locomotives. He tapped wells across
Southern California and had become a millionaire by 1902.

Figure 13, Portrait of Edward L. Doheny, 1923.
24

In 1900, Doheny took his first trip to Mexico to prospect for oil near Tampico in
the state of Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico. His practiced eye identified opportunity
along the humid east coast of Mexico. With Canfield, he founded the Mexican Petroleum
Company (MPC) of California in 1900 and began buying up properties around Tampico.
His investors included a long list of notable Angelenos.
25
By the beginning of 1901, the
MPC had purchased over 600,000 acres of land in Tamaulipas and had invested over a
million dollars in the operation. By the end of the end of the year the company had an oil
well producing 400 barrels per day. Doheny expanded his drilling operations to
Huasteca, near the borders of the states of Veracruz, Tamaulipas, and San Luis Potosí. In

24
Portrait Davis, Dark Side of Fortune, following page 110.
25
Investors included Russell J. Waters, congressman from Los Angeles; E. P. Ripley, Santa Fe president;
Aldace F. Walker, Santa Fe chairman of the board; and R. H. Herron, Los Angeles oilman. Ansell 56.

128
1910, at the Huasteca property, Doheny discovered his first big wells in Mexico—
Casiano Nos. 6 and 7. They were enormous; together, the two wells produced almost
75,000 gallons of oil a day. In his first decade in Mexico, Doheny produced 85 percent
of the oil extracted in Mexico and emerged as the largest independent oil producer in the
world.
26
These production levels also led Doheny to look for markets outside of Mexico
and in 1911 he began exporting oil from Tampico to Texas. In 1915, Doheny discovered
the largest oil well in the world—Cerro Azul No. 4—which produced almost 11 million
gallons a day. One of Doheny’s foreman pointed out that this was more than produced
by the entire state of California.
27

Figure 14, El Ebano Well, 1904.
28

26
Ibid. 81-83.
27
Ibid. 140.
28
Brown, Jonathan C. Oil and Revolution in Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992
1993. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft3q2nb28s/, accessed May 2, 2012.

129

When the Mexican revolution began at the end of 1910 and Díaz fled to France in
May 1911, Doheny hoped to be able to work with Francisco Madero and subsequent
Mexican executives.
29
His Mexican wells were producing rich rivers of oil, he had
growing financial support in Los Angeles and New York, and he believed that political
unrest in Mexico would be short lived. New taxes levied by the Madero and Huerta
governments in 1912 and 1913 were also small and, according to oil producers, easily
absorbed by their companies. As the conflict and political instability in Mexico
continued, however, Doheny decided that he needed a political plan to ensure that
Washington, DC recognized the strategic value of his oil holdings in Mexico and would
provide protection from a nationalist attack on the oil industry.
30
New policies that
challenged foreigners’ rights to own property alarmed him and he believed that he
understood the best solution for his private problem and the public problems of Mexico.
To lobby the Wilson administration to intervene in Mexico on behalf of investors,
Doheny partnered with fellow Democrat and Angeleno, Thomas E. Gibbon. James
Miller Guinn, Gibbon’s contemporary and regional historian, described Gibbon as “one
of the busiest men in Los Angeles.” Like his close friend, Harry Chandler, Gibbon
arrived in Los Angeles an ailing consumptive. Gibbon fell in love with his adopted city
after his arrival in 1888 and seemed to relish opportunities to serve and promote his

29
Ibid. 114-115.
30
Ibid 151. Doheny initially tried to create strategic alliances with Mexican leaders, including Madero and
Huerta. He was somewhat successful but their short tenures in office limited political stability in the
country and undermined Doheny’s political alliances. When Carranza took office, the oil industry was one
of the few still producing revenue in the war torn country and Carranza instituted a number of policies to
tax foreign oil companies. Oil producers such as Doheny resented Carranza’s taxation policies and feared
they represented a precursor to nationalization of the industry. See Brown, 171-253.

130
region. Over the course of a long life in Los Angeles, he zealously pursued both private
and public success; he coupled a booming law practice with civic leadership.
Gibbon was born in Arkansas in 1860 to a farming family. He studied law in
Little Rock, where he opened a law practice in 1883. While living in Little Rock, Gibbon
also ran for a position in the Arkansas Legislature and served from 1884-1885 (because
of his age, twenty-five, his colleagues referred to him as the “boy member.”)
31
In 1888,
he moved to Los Angeles, likely because he suffered from tuberculosis, and started a
prosperous law practice. According to historian William Deverell, Gibbon was
extraordinarily ambitious and strategically allied himself with the city’s wealthy elite,
including Harry Chandler.
32
In 1891, he joined the Los Angeles Terminal Railway
Company and served as the vice president and attorney for the organization until the San
Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railway absorbed the line in 1901. Gibbon was one
of the organizers of the San Pedro/Salt Lake line and also served as its vice president and
general counsel.
33
Just prior to his death, Gibbon also lobbied hard for the construction
of a union station in Los Angeles (what would eventually become Union Station). In a
Times tribute published after his death in 1921, likely penned by his close friend, business
partner, and pallbearer Chandler, the paper eulogized Gibbon’s life as a reflection of the
growth of Los Angeles: “To mark the stages by which he rose to eminence in the city and
the community which he loved so well would be to narrate the progress of Southern
California during the last quarter of a century; and to count his friends would be to

31
Deverell, “Neglected Twin,” 72-99.
32
Ibid.
33
“Thomas E. Gibbon Dies,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1921, p. II1.

131
enumerate the greater part of its population.”
34
Gibbon, Chandler reflected, was Los
Angeles.
Notably, Chandler and the Los Angeles Times counted the establishment of the
“free harbor” at San Pedro in 1897 as Gibbon’s greatest contribution to the city.
35

Gibbon’s company, the Terminal Railroad Company, owned significant property in San
Pedro and opposed the Southern Pacific’s efforts to place Los Angeles’ deep water
harbor in Santa Monica. As an investor in and the lawyer for the Terminal Railroad,
Gibbon spearheaded lobbying efforts in Los Angeles and Washington, DC (Los Angeles
wanted financial support from the federal government for the harbor project) for the San
Pedro location. According to Deverell, Gibbon successfully swung support in Los
Angeles toward the Terminal Railroad’s proposal by playing on public antipathy to Collis
P. Huntington and the Southern Pacific. He convinced the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce, of which he was a member, to support the San Pedro location and
coordinated a campaign through the Chamber to lobby the federal government. The San
Pedro location also enjoyed the support of Chandler, Harrison Gray Otis, and the Los
Angeles Times. San Pedro proponents, led by Gibbon, traveled back and forth between
Washington, DC and Los Angeles to sway Congress in the direction of San Pedro.
Gibbon and the Terminal company even went so far as to purchase one of Los Angeles’
leading newspapers, the Los Angeles Herald, so that they could editorialize in support of

34
“Thomas Gibbon,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1921, p. II4.
35
Harry Chandler, Harrison Gray Otis, and the Los Angeles Times were some of the biggest proponents of a
harbor at San Pedro rather than a Southern Pacific controlled harbor at Santa Monica. See William
Deverell, Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994), 93-123.

132
the San Pedro harbor.
36
The San Pedro lobby won the fight with a congressional
recommendation for their location in 1897. Gibbon’s involvement in the harbor fight, his
status as a well-regarded attorney in Los Angeles, and his nation-wide political
affiliations ultimately gave him a significant amount of political clout. As a committed
Democrat, he numbered Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane and President
Woodrow Wilson as personal friends.

Figure 15, Portrait and biography of Thomas E. Gibbon, 1906.
37

The same year that he won the harbor war, Gibbon also began supporting
increased international trade in Los Angeles. He likely saw promoting trade, particularly
with Mexico, as a strategy beneficial to his transportation interests and as a tactic to
increase the city’s national and international profile. Comparing the city’s current trade
with Mexico with that of its northern rival, San Francisco, Gibbon maintained that with a

36
Although the Herald was technically a rival of the Los Angeles Times, Gibbon’s close friendship with
both Otis and Chandler provided him with their financial assistance for his struggling newspaper. Deverell,
“Neglected Twin,” 88.
37
Robert J. Burdette, ed., Greater Los Angeles and Southern California: Their Portraits and Chronological
Record of Their Careers (Los Angeles: Lewis Publishing Company, 1906),144

133
new port and Los Angeles’ expanding railroad network, the city could easily eclipse San
Francisco’s trade with Mexico.
38
Gibbon suggested maximizing Los Angeles’
transportation system by chartering a steamship company capable of transporting 2000
tons of goods between Southern California and Mexican ports each month. His
suggestions moved the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants and
Manufacturers Association to place increased trade with Mexico high on their list of
priorities for the city. Gibbon also described himself as a friend, ally, and “student of
Mexico” because of his “proximity in Southern California to that country.”
39

Gibbon’s interest in Mexico, coupled with his work on behalf of the San Pedro
harbor, brought him into close contact with Otis and Chandler at precisely the moment
they decided to expand their investments into Mexico. As a result of these personal and
professional affiliations, Gibbon became a founding member of Otis and Chandler’s
Colorado River Land Company (CRLC). With other syndicate members, Gibbon
invested heavily in the purchase and development of CRLC lands in northern Baja
California.
40
As in Doheny’s case, Gibbon and his fellow CRLC investors believed the
Mexican Revolution would be short lived. As violence increased, however, and spilled
across the border, Gibbon became increasingly concerned about his investment and the
status of Mexico’s economy. Ultimately, rumors that a new Mexican constitution would
redistribute foreign-owned properties pushed him to action.

38
“Trade with Mexico: How it May Be Promoted by Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1897, 6.
39
Letter from Thomas E. Gibbon to President Woodrow Wilson, March 22, 1915, folder 1, box 33,
Bergman Collection, HL.
40
Dorothy Kerig, “Yankee Enclave: The Colorado River Land Company and Mexican Agrarian Reform in
Baja California, 1902-1944,” (Phd diss: University of California, Irvine, 1988), 58.

134
Gibbon’s Foreign Policy Agenda for Los Angeles
Demands for land reform and the rewriting of the Mexican constitution to include
restrictions on foreign investment deeply disturbed Doheny and Gibbon. The changes
occurring in Mexico challenged both their investments and their economic belief system.
They demanded American intervention in Mexico because they wanted to protect their
personal financial interests and because they held a firm belief in the benefits of
capitalism. This attitude was most apparent in Gibbon’s correspondence with federal
officials beginning in 1915, including Woodrow Wilson and Wilson’s Secretary of the
Interior Franklin K. Lane. Observing events in Mexico, especially the movements of
Zapata and Villa and the continuing struggles of the country’s agrarian and labor
movements for economic reform, Gibbon argued that revolutionary demands challenged
not just the political hegemony of the United States but also the very existence of private
property and the legitimacy of capitalism.
Gibbon counted Lane a close personal friend and lobbied hard for him to
convince the Wilson administration to intervene in Mexico to protect the concept of
private property. Lane had lived in California and had led an active political life in the
state, including running for governor in 1902 before Wilson appointed him Secretary of
the Interior in 1913. Gibbon and Lane likely established their friendship as active
members of California’s Democratic Party. Once Lane left for his post in Washington,
he and Gibbon exchanged extensive personal correspondence until Lane’s retirement in
1920. The men seemed to share an intimate friendship. Gibbon treasured a signed
photograph of Lane, confessing that Lane was one of a “very few people whose pictures I

135
care to have near me.”
41
Gibbon’s Los Angeles contemporaries recognized the value of
relationships like the one he shared with Lane. His extended national network of political
connections stretched from Southern California to Sacramento to Washington, DC.
Fellow investors like Chandler frequently leaned on Gibbon to serve as a link between
Los Angeles business and political interests and the federal government. In 1916 for
example, the CRLC employed Gibbon as its attorney to “represent us in Washington for
the purpose of assuring us such protection as we believe American citizens are entitled to
for their investments in foreign countries.”
42

Through his friendship with Lane, Gibbon had access to the highest-level
diplomatic negotiations. In 1916, for example, Gibbon used his close relationship with
Lane to attend negotiations between the United States and Mexico for the withdrawal of
the Pershing Expedition. Gibbon stopped by the Griswold Hotel in Connecticut, where
the commission met, to observe proceedings and meet with U.S. and Mexican diplomats.
While there, Gibbon attended commission meetings as well as a meeting between the
joint commission and President Wilson.
43
During a subsequent trip to Washington, DC,
Gibbon reported back to Harry Chandler in Los Angeles, that he had just lunched with
Secretary Lane and advocated an embargo on ammunition shipments to Mexico. Gibbon

41
Letter from Thomas Gibbon to Franklin K. Lane, January 12, 1920, folder 1, box 33, Bergman
Collection, HL. Lane candidly admitted that a lifetime of public service had left him “broke” and that he
needed to work in the private sector before he died to ensure his wife would have a source of support.
Letter from Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane to Thomas E. Gibbon, December 27, 1919, folder 1,
box 33, Bergman Collection, HL.
42
Letter from the California-Mexico Land and Cattle Company to Thomas E. Gibbon, September 1, 1916,
folder 1, box 35, Bergman Collection, HL.
43
Thomas E. Gibbon, Mexico Under Carranza: A Lawyer’s Indictment of the Crowning Infamy of Four
Hundred Years of Misrule (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1919), 78.

136
seemed excited to report, “the Secretary left me after lunch to attend a meeting of the
Cabinet, at which he said he was going to protest against the lifting of the embargo.”
44

Gibbon also used his relationship with Lane as a direct link to President Wilson.
He regularly sent lengthy epistles to the President outlining precisely how he thought the
United States should proceed in Mexico.
45
For example, after hearing that the Wilson
administration had dispatched General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing across the border in
pursuit of Pancho Villa in 1916, even without the official approval of President Carranza,
Gibbon immediately dispatched a telegram to Lane congratulating him on the decision: “I
am more pleased than I can express.”
46
Gibbon highlighted that national publicity of
Villa’s attack on Columbus, New Mexico made the rest of the country aware of the fear
and threat that Americans in Los Angeles and the Southwest had felt for years.
In fact, Gibbon considered himself a spokesperson for the entire region and
thought it his responsibility to utilize his relationships in Washington for the benefit of
the Southwest. In correspondence to Lane and Wilson he referred often to the feelings
and sensibilities of “Southern Californians” and “southwesterners.” He believed that
their proximity to Mexico and commercial ties to the country uniquely positioned them to
understand and fear political unrest in their neighboring state. In correspondence with
Wilson, Gibbon wrote, “For myself, and in behalf of your fellow countrymen in this part
of the West, I want most heartily to thank you for your recent letter dealing with

44
Letter from Thomas E. Gibbon to Harry Chandler, January 17, 1919, folder 1, box 34, Bergman
Collection, HL.
45
Letter from Thomas E. Gibbon to Secretary of Interior Franklin K. Lane, May 11, 1915, folder 1, box 33,
Bergman Collection, HL.
46
Telegram from Thomas E. Gibbon to Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, March 10, 1916, folder
1, box 33, Bergman Collection, HL.

137
conditions in Mexico. I assure you it has been received with enthusiasm by the people of
this section of the country, whose proximity to Mexico has enabled them to know more
probably than the average American does of the frightful conditions now prevailing in
that country.”
47
Gibbon maintained that people of the American Southwest had
witnessed the destruction of their property, the killing and imprisonment of their
relatives, and the threat of losing the right to own land in Mexico. They needed, he
argued, the federal government to understand their position and respond to the revolution
on their border.
48

As tensions between American investors and the Mexican revolutionary state
intensified prior to the passage of the new Mexican constitution, an alarmed Gibbon
appealed immediately to his allies in Washington on behalf of investors and
southwesterners. He sent a hasty telegram to Lane in December 1916, alerting him that
all Los Angeles-based “holders of large development interests” in Mexico were “greatly
concerned” over the possible passage of a constitution that would eliminate protections
for private property owners in Mexico and “establish machinery of spoliation evidently
designed to facilitate the confiscation of property of foreigners.”
49
The telegram included
strongly worded advice to Wilson regarding his policy toward Mexico:
Cannot our president as protector of American rights and also the true friend of Mexico intervene
to prevent such a constitution as will certainly lead to robbing Americans and other foreigners of
hundreds of millions of property, to condemnation of Mexico by every civilized nation and

47
Letter from Thomas E. Gibbon to President Woodrow Wilson, June 10, 1915, folder 1, box 33, Bergman
Collection, HL.
48
Letter from Thomas E. Gibbon to Secretary of Interior Franklin K. Lane, October 24, 1916, folder 1, box
33, Bergman Collection, HL.
49
Telegram from Thomas E. Gibbon to Secretary of Interior Franklin K. Lane, December 28, 1916, folder
1, box 35, Bergman Collection, HL.

138
inevitably to forcible aggression upon that country by European nations the property rights of
whose nationals may be invaded, and may thus involve our nation in serious complications.
50

Individual American property interests, Gibbon maintained, served as a strong and
legitimate rationale for U.S. intervention in Mexico. Intervene now, Gibbon argued, or
the Europeans will do it for us and challenge American hemispheric hegemony.
In correspondence with Lane, Gibbon couched his diplomatic approach in a very
American sense of the sanctity of private property. In defense of Americans, particularly
Southwesterners, who had refused to leave Mexico when encouraged to do so by the
American government, Gibbon argued that the Díaz administration had actively sought
and invited American enterprise and capital during his tenure. He maintained that,
especially for residents of the American Southwest, it was important to “recall the causes
which have led so many Americans to acquire interests in Mexico, and the reasons why
they are risking their lives in guarding those interests.”
51
Americans entered Mexico
expecting the full protection of an investor-friendly government. According to Gibbon’s
perspective, they were primarily small business owners and farmers who depended on
their Mexican investments to support their wives and children. Naturally, he concluded,
when faced with a nationalistic revolutionary movement that challenged their property
rights, they responded by stubbornly clinging to their property. According to Gibbon,
“everyman who knows human nature knows that a man who feels that upon his property

50
Ibid.
51
Letter from Thomas Gibbon to Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, January 28, 1916, folder 1,
box 33, Bergman Collection, HL.

139
interests depend the comfort and wellbeing of his family, is going to risk his life in the
effort to protect those interests.”
52

Gibbon believed passionately that the state had an “obligation to protect the
rights and lives of its citizens” even when they lived, worked, or invested within the
boundaries of another nation.
53
The American government, Gibbon insisted, owed its
citizens protection for their lives and property inside and outside the country. In fact,
Gibbon claimed he could not think of a “more sacred duty” on the part of a national
government than providing assistance for American citizens and their property in another
country. Gibbon pushed Lane to acknowledge that protection for American lives and
property constituted one of the “principal obligations of the social compact which we call
the State.”
54

Edward Doheny and The Mexican Problem
Like Gibbon, Doheny enjoyed close political ties to the Wilson administration and
utilized his relationships in Washington to promote an interventionist agenda. His
leadership in the petroleum industry, both domestically and internationally, made him a
key political player, particularly as the United States prepared to enter World War I. In
1917 Doheny pledged his oil reserves to the cause of the United States and the Los
Angeles Times noted with pride that one of the city’s own and “one of the country’s most
influential figures in the oil and financial world” was taking such an active and

52
Ibid.
53
Ibid.
54
Telegram from Thomas E. Gibbon to Secretary of Interior Franklin K. Lane, March 10, 1916, folder 1,
box 33, Bergman Collection, HL.

140
committed role in the war effort.
55
Doheny’s patriotic pledge led to a political position
with national clout; Bernard Baruch, director of the War Industries Board, appointed
Doheny and a handful of other oilmen to the War Services Petroleum Committee.
As historian Martin Ansell notes, the members of the petroleum committee
relished the opportunity to “blend their own goals with those of the nation at large.”
56

Doheny used the opportunity to convince the federal government that Mexican oil
reserves were indispensable for the country’s national security. At every opportunity,
Doheny reminded the government and public that, “the Allies are dependent upon the
Mexican output.”
57
Using the war as leverage, Doheny maintained that it was
fundamental to the United States to maintain control of Mexican oil to prevent oil
rationing: “The big problem that confronts the government, so far as oil is concerned is
that of keeping the shipment of the Mexican oil supply up to the maximum. The Allies
are dependent upon the Mexican ouput [sic].”
58
He worried, however, that his presence
at the federal level was not doing enough to promote his Mexican agenda.
While highlighting his contributions to the war effort in 1917, Doheny also
commissioned a book about the “Mexican situation.” In 1916, Doheny asked his good
friend, Clarence Barron, to visit his holdings in Mexico, and in 1917 he pushed Barron to
publish a book on the significance of the Mexican oil industry for the security of the
United States. Significantly, Barron was also the owner of the Dow Jones & Company

55
Los Angeles Times, February 8, 1917, quoted in Ansell 151.
56
Ansell 154.
57
“Allies’ Need of Oil Told,” Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1918, II8.
58
Ibid.

141
and the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Barron’s book, The Mexican Problem,
outlined a worldview that matched Doheny’s while simultaneously promoting Doheny’s
more prosaic economic and political interests in Mexico. Based on his observations
traveling through Mexico in 1916, Barron argued that “national disorder must not be
allowed anywhere in the world, for it leads to international disorder.”
59
Throughout his
well-publicized and widely-read book, Barron maintained that U.S. capitalism provided
the best solution to economic and political chaos in Mexico.
Barron disavowed American exploitation in Mexico but maintained that economic
and commercial development would provide Mexico with the political and social stability
that he believed it desperately needed. Oil, he contended, provided the ideal solution to
the “Mexican Problem.” Oil was a valuable commodity, Mexico possessed rivers of it,
and the Americans involved in its extraction could provide high wages and stable
employment for Mexicans. The solution, he unequivocally argued, was “Business with a
big B…Business is expanding wages all around, wages to labor, wages to capital;
incentive to labor to accumulation, to luxury—luxury of freedom in body and mind.”
60

The United States, according to Barron, had the economic and political experience that
could help Mexico achieve stability. The solution could look like Cuba under the Platt
Amendment, which Barron argued had made the island more productive and stable than
at any other time in its history.
61

59
Clarence W. Barron, The Mexican Problem (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917), vii.
60
Barron viii.
61
The Platt Amendment, passed by Congress following the end of the Spanish-American War, essentially
designated Cuba a protectorate of the United States. Although it provided for an independent constitution
and government for the island, it also granted the United States the right to intervene in Cuba for the
“maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property and individual liberty.” See

142
Much like Gibbon, Barron saw the intervention of the United States in Mexico not
as an unwelcome imperialistic project but as a strategy for creating international peace
and order. The United States could help Mexico establish “protection for order, courts,
contracts, industries for a brief space,—one, two, or three decades…keep order, create
courts, educate a generation…[and the] Mexican can be trusted to maintain what it
secures under tutelage, and to add to it.”
62
Good jobs, provided by American businesses,
would provide “technical training, higher wages, bank accounts, financial independence,
and the rights of citizenship and accumulation.”
63
According to Barron, Mexicans would
not mind an “invasion” of businesses able to create political and social tranquility
through the establishment of an American-styled economic system.
After visiting Doheny’s properties, Barron maintained that the oil companies had
already successfully invaded Mexico to provide the economic stability that Mexicans
craved. He noted sarcastically that “The only complaint against them [oil companies]
was that they raised wages from less than twenty cents a day to a minimum of one dollar
a day and made native Mexicans into blacksmiths, carpenters, shipbuilders, and engineers
at three dollars and fifty cents a day in gold…It has not been a conquest or an
exploitation either of peoples or of governments.”
64
As a result, Mexicans in the oil
industry had access to nice clothing, comfortable homes, clean water, electricity, moving

Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1998).
62
Ibid., xxiv.
63
Ibid., 14.
64
Ibid., 21.

143
pictures, and, according to Barron, plenty of “opportunities for more.”
65
This, Barron
maintained, was the solution for the pressing Mexican problem: “Opportunity to labor,
opportunity for the family, opportunity for food, clothing, better shelter, and better social
conditions. And this is exactly what American and European capital and organization
have brought to Tampico, attracted by its underground wealth, and this is what will
ultimately redeem Mexico and forward her people by industrial opportunity.”
66

Barron concluded that policies demanded by Mexican revolutionaries, particularly
the redistribution of agricultural properties would not solve the nation’s economic woes.
“No redivision [sic] of lands in Mexico, no partition of haciendas or ranches, can solve
the problems of Mexico or bring her forward to the position she is entitled to occupy by
reason of her natural wealth and millions of human hands ready for work.”
67
In fact, the
demands of Mexican revolutionaries, according to Barron’s perspective, were antithetical
to creating a peaceful and prosperous Mexico.
The National Association for the Protection of American Rights in Mexico
Despite Gibbon’s extensive correspondence with Wilson and Lane, and the
publication of Barron’s book, continuing threats to American owned property in Mexico
and a disappointing and muddled response from the Wilson administration led Doheny
and Gibbon to join forces in 1917 to found the National Association for the Protection of
American Rights in Mexico (NAPARM).
68
Together, their goal was to ensure the

65
Ibid., 33.
66
Ibid., 34-35.
67
Ibid., 30.
68
Unfortunately, many of the records and correspondence documenting the beginnings of the organization
are undated. Correspondence in the Bergman Collection suggests that Doheny, Gibbon, and Chandler

144
financial rights of American investors in Mexico by establishing a nation-wide media
network to influence public opinion and by building a strategic lobbying campaign in
Washington, D.C. to bend foreign policy in their direction.
According to their plan, companies headquartered in Los Angeles and New York
would contribute monthly sums of cash to start a new special interest organization that
would raise public awareness of the treatment of Americans in Mexico and influence
federal policy. These corporations, including the CRLC and Doheny’s Mexican
Petroleum Company, would contribute between $500.00 and $1000.00 a month
depending on the size of their Mexican investment. Gibbon assured Chandler that the
substantial investment would pay off. Through a variety of strategies NAPARM would
collaborate to raise “a lot of publicity which will, before very long, force the hand of the
Government for the protection of our interests in Mexico.”
69

Gibbon and Doheny laid out their vision in more detail in a number of lengthy
letters in the summer of 1917, just a few months after the ratification of the new Mexican
constitution and its infamous Article 27. They envisioned a Washington-based
organization headed by a man “who has had considerable experience as the Washington
correspondent of some leading newspaper and a wide acquaintance with other
Washington newspaper correspondents.”
70
Gibbon believed it prudent to hire someone

decided in the summer of 1917 that they needed an organization to represent their Mexican interests in
Washington, DC. Letter from Thomas Gibbon to Harry Chandler, November 17, 1917 and letter from D. J.
Haff to Edward Doheny, Box 35, Bergman Collection, HL.
69
Letter from Thomas Gibbon to Harry Chandler, November 17, 1917, “Mexico & C.M.” Folder, Box 35,
Bergman Papers, HL.
70
Thomas Gibbon, “Data Upon the Proposed ‘Mexican Outlook,’” undated, Folder 2, Box 33, Bergman
Papers, HL.

145
whose professional networks and personal friendships would enable him to secure
publication of news stories that promoted the organization’s agenda. In other words,
Gibbon strategized that they needed an organizational director who could successfully
direct a propaganda campaign in the nation’s capital. The organization planned to have
their director release daily news bulletins relative to events in Mexico “immediately after
they occur and get them reproduced by the newspapers.”
71
A bilingual assistant would
provide translation services, particularly for Mexican news items. The office would
subscribe to all of the major Mexican newspapers and use them as the main source of
information for its own bulletins and news pieces.
Gibbon also planned an expansive, nation-wide circulation for the organization’s
publication “Mexican Outlook.” The organization planned to write, publish, and
circulate the bulletin at its own expense. The total circulation amounted to an enormous
25,000 copies. Gibbon and Doheny designated 2,650 copies for each of the daily English
language newspapers in the country. They also reserved 2,350 for all weekly
publications across the country, such as the Argonaut of San Francisco and the Graphic
of Los Angeles. The remaining 20,000 copies they allocated to a circulation list
composed of “the men in each community who are known as reading, thinking men and
leaders of thought.”
72
Gibbon clearly stated his objectives in this distribution plan—he
wanted a publication that influential citizens and decision-makers considered a leading
source of information on Mexico. Gibbon hoped that the NAPARM, directed by a
handful of venture capitalists in Los Angeles, would become the leading source of

71
Ibid.
72
Ibid.

146
information on Mexico in the United States. The organization, also directed by
individuals and companies with significant financial interests in Mexico, anticipated
becoming the driving force behind American public sentiment and policy toward Mexico.
Considered an expert on the “Mexican question,” Gibbon penned the first issue of
“Mexican Outlook” himself. His original manuscript outlined the political and
ideological position of the organization and the men who belonged to it. He began by
summarizing the history of foreign investment in Mexico, noting that at the beginning of
the revolution, Americans had invested at least one billion dollars in Mexican
commercial enterprises: “the foreign element in Mexico was the backbone of the business
of the country.”
73
As a stakeholder in the CRLC, Gibbon could not help but highlight
American reclamation work in Mexican desert landscapes as a significant success: “Of
great importance to Mexico was the fact that foreigners were investing many millions of
dollars in great reclamation projects, planned for placing water for irrigation upon lands,
that, without water, were unproductive by which, with it, would become among the most
productive in the world.”
74
American investment, Gibbon argued, provided jobs for
hundreds of thousands of Mexicans with wages substantially higher than those offered by
Mexican employers. The revolution, he maintained, “seriously injured” these enterprises
and, as a result, harmed the Mexican working class. The revolutionary government had
rewritten the Mexican constitution, confiscated privately owned American property, and
stalled the Mexican economy. “Outlook,” Gibbon maintained, would provide a vehicle

73
Thomas Gibbon, “The Mexican Outlook,” manuscript, undated, folder 2, box 33, Bergman Papers, HL.
74
Ibid.

147
to inform the American people about what was happening in Mexico and why Mexico
was in its current state, and to “fix the responsibility for them.”
75

To expand the organization’s membership beyond Los Angeles, Doheny
organized a meeting of leading American investors in New York City in January 1919 to
discuss the mission of NAPARM. According to the association’s report, the forty
attendees represented every American industry in Mexico including agricultural interests,
cattle ranchers, irrigation companies, railroad corporations, mining companies, oil
producers, and bankers. After discussion of the situation in Mexico and the goals of the
association, the group agreed to join and finance the effort. They also outlined some
additional policies and goals. First, NAPARM would organize as large a membership as
possible. They would circulate news briefs to members regularly to keep them apprised
of political events in Mexico. They would meticulously document any illegal or unfair
treatment of Americans and their property. They would coordinate a press campaign to
correct “false” impressions of events in Mexico. They would provide assistance to the
U.S. government in understanding the position of American investments in Mexico.
They would champion the wellbeing of the Mexican people, as they perceived it,
particularly around issues of good government. Finally, they would push the U.S.
government to “sternly insist” to the Mexican government that it respect the rights of
Americans and American property in Mexico.
76

75
Thomas Gibbon, “The Mexican Outlook,” manuscript, undated, folder 2, box 33, Bergman Papers, HL.
76
United States Senate, Preliminary Report and Hearings of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 66
Congress, 1 Session, Document No. 185 (Washington, DC: 1920), I, 408-409.

148
So charged with this mission, the new members began recruiting additional
membership. Eventually, they counted 130-140 active members and 2000 associate
members.
77
An executive committee governed the organization and included
representatives of some of the largest commercial interests in Mexico. Members
included Doheny in his capacity as President of the Pan-American Petroleum and
Transportation Company; J. S. Alexander, President of the National Bank of Commerce
of New York; G. F. Kelly, Vice-President of the Greene Cananea Copper Company;
Thomas W. Lamont, Member of J. P. Morgan and Company; and Charles H. Sabin,
President of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York.
78

NAPARM also spearheaded the Senate investigation of the political situation in
Mexico in 1919. With the assistance of pro-intervention Senator Albert Bacon Fall,
NAPARM successfully arranged for the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs to conduct
a series of hearings on “damages and outrages” committed against American citizens in
Mexico. Fall was the self-appointed expert on Mexican issues in Washington, DC and
had already conducted hearings on attacks on Americans in Mexico in 1913. He wanted
the United States to intervene in Mexico and it seems he needed little prodding from
NAPARM to resurrect the issue in 1919. The sub-committee that he composed to
conduct the hearings was particularly concerned with personal damages such as injuries,

77
Dennis W. Lou, “Fall Committee: An Investigation of Mexican Affairs,” (PhD Diss: Indiana University,
1963), 5.
78
Ibid.

149
accidental deaths, and murders as well as destruction and confiscation of private
property.
79

Fall and Doheny established a friendship when they both resided in New Mexico
in the mid-1880s, and it was their collaboration on the Senate investigation that solidified
their friendship and political alliance. Fall served as a Senator from New Mexico from
1912 until 1921 when President Warren G. Harding appointed him Secretary of the
Interior. During Fall’s tenure at the Interior Department, he leased oil land in Wyoming
to Doheny without a competitive bidding process and received cash gifts in return for the
favor. When the transactions became public in 1920, they were dubbed the Teapot Dome
Scandal, which quickly ruined Fall’s career.
In 1919, however, both Doheny and Fall were more concerned with events in
Mexico. Working with Doheny, Gibbon, and NAPARM, Fall organized a subcommittee
to hear testimony from American business interests and political leaders familiar with the
political situation in Mexico and to push the Wilson administration to intervene on their
behalf. The Fall Committee held hearings from September 1919 through May 1920,
traveled over 12,000 miles during their investigation, and held hearings in ten cities,
including Los Angeles. They called 257 witnesses and produced a 5000-page report
documenting testimony and findings.
80
In its concluding report, the committee
recommended armed intervention in Mexico if the Carranza administration failed to
guarantee protection for American property. Referencing Cuba as a successful example

79
Senate, Preliminary, I, 3.
80
Lou, iii.

150
of intervention, the Fall Committee argued that the United States had the obligation to
intervene for the benefit of both the United States and Mexico.
Oilmen, including Doheny, comprised most of the witnesses in support of armed
intervention in Mexico. Many of the interventionist witnesses were also members of
NAPARM. In his testimony, Doheny emphasized his legal acquisition of land in Mexico
and the benefits his company had provided the Mexican people. First, he gave detailed
information on his acquisition of land in Mexico. He discussed his major acquisitions
and highlighted the legality of their titles and his purchases. He did not, he stressed,
receive any properties as concessions from the Díaz administration nor did he illegally
dispossess any Mexicans of their land.
81
In fact, Doheny maintained, the MPC had paid
well above market value to obtain its Mexican properties. Like Barron, Doheny also
emphasized the benevolent work of his oil enterprise. He noted that when his petroleum
company arrived, Mexican workers in the Tampico region earned 36 cents a day. In
comparison, the Mexican Petroleum Company offered employees a wage of 75 cents to a
dollar a day.
82
He also noted that the company provided decent housing, schools, and
good working conditions for almost 15,000 employees. While on the stand, Doheny
produced photographs of his Huasteca property, showing schools built at the expense of
the company: “Here are some more photographs showing how the people live down
there. I would like to place these on file to show we take care of our employees…These

81
Doheny’s testimony before the Fall Committee is reproduced in its entirety in Gene Z. Hanrahan, ed.,
The Bad Yankee: American Entrepreneurs and Financiers in Mexico, volume II (Chapel Hill: Documentary
Publications, 1985), 273-381.
82
Ibid. 289.

151
show the homes of the peons.”
83
In fact, Doheny argued that the Mexican government
under Carranza had intervened in his efforts to assist the people of Mexico: “They have
tried to prevent me from doing the things I would like to do to help out those people
down there, and for whom I lay down to no man in desire to give assistance, both as a
friend of humanity and a friend of the people who have always been friends of mine.”
84

According to Doheny’s line of thought, oil fields did not just produce wealth for him but
also provided humane assistance to Mexicans. A series of strikes on his oil properties,
however, belied his humanitarian claims.
85

Doheny made these points—that he acquired all of his lands in Mexico legally,
that he paid decent wages, and that he paid for schools and teachers—as evidence that he
“did not fall into the category of those who caused the Bolshevik tendencies today in
Mexico.”
86
In other words, Doheny argued to the Fall Committee that his commercial
efforts in Mexico had been beneficial to the country. He obtained all of his land in a
legal manner, he had not illegally dispossessed any Mexican families, and he had
provided good wages and working conditions. As a result, the Mexican Petroleum
Corporation was not responsible for inciting revolutionary fervor. In fact, Doheny

83
Ibid. 355.
84
Ibid. 351.
85
Dan La Botz, Edward L. Doheny: Petroleum, Power, and Politics in the United States and Mexico (New
York: Praeger, 1991), 149. Unions struggled to organize workers at Doheny held properties throughout the
early 1920s. Although their wages were higher than the national average, workers opposed Doheny’s
paternalistic management policies. As argued by historian Myrna Santiago, native peoples in Mexico’s oil
region, the Huastecs, made strategic use of the presence of the industry. They wrought temporary gains
through wages and royalties between 1900 and the 1920s. As the oil industry waned in the late 1920s, the
Huastecs organized for ejido land grants to reestablish their agricultural tradition. Myrna Santiago,
“Rejecting Progress in Paradise: Huastecs, the Environment, and the Oil Industry in Veracruz, Mexico,
1900-1935,” in Environmental History, vol. 3, no. 2 (April, 1998), 169-188.
86
Hanrahan 299-300.

152
argued, the MPC had spurred economic growth and development across the oil region.
The wages it paid injected cash into the local economy, supported locally owned
businesses, provided a tax base to finance local infrastructure, and increased the
economic well-being of “landowners, farmers, merchants, bankers and artisans.”
87

Finally, Doheny argued that the United States needed to protect American oil holdings
around the world, not just for their owners, but also for the wellbeing of “the people who
use the flivver, as well as the people who ride in the limousine.”
88
Oil holdings, he
argued, did not just benefit investors but the stability and security of the entire
population, regardless of social status.
In his testimony, Doheny also claimed complete neutrality in regard to the
political situation in Mexico. He maintained that as an investor in Mexico and a member
of NAPARM, his position had been consistently nonpartisan. He opposed sending arms
to Mexico because of the country’s precarious political situation and did not, he argued,
favor one faction over another. He only wanted the protection of American lives and
property by the American government: “We have always opposed sending any arms to
any faction in Mexico, so far as our opinion has been asked, and we will always do that
so long as an unstable Government exists there.”
89
During his testimony, Doheny also
flatly denied that he had anything to do with the founding of NAPARM. He admitted to
being a member but stated baldly, “I am not the head of it.”
90
He also claimed that the

87
Ibid. 307.
88
Ibid. 329
89
Ibid. 369.
90
Ibid. 374.

153
goal of the organization was simply to do “effective work, for the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, to have that put in the papers about Mexico.”
91
When Fall
asked Doheny directly if he or NAPARM were involved in a propaganda campaign
promoting American intervention in Mexico, he replied with a curt, “No. I will say
further that there has never been a word said in any meeting that I have attended which
would indicate that the members of it are in favor of intervention, or any member of it.”
92

Doheny’s testimony contradicted the stated mission of the organization. Although
NAPARM publications carefully avoided encouraging armed intervention, their subtext
certainly supported a strong American response to Mexican confiscatory policies.
Doheny argued, however, that “The names of the gentlemen who represent the different
groups in that association are of themselves a sufficient guaranty that they are not
propagandists in favor of intervention in Mexico, and never will be connected with
anything that is not creditable in that or any other line of effort.”
93

Ultimately, NAPARM and the Fall sub-committee could do little more than
complain to Wilson. Although he vacillated between influence and inaction in Mexico—
with the limited exceptions of Veracruz and the Pershing expedition—Wilson explicitly
stated that he did not want the United States to occupy Mexico, depose its president, or
install a pro-American executive. Even during the Pershing Expedition, Wilson stated
that he feared the “extremist consequences” that might result from American occupation
of Mexico and announced, “INTERVENTION (that is the rearrangement and control of

91
Ibid. 374.
92
Ibid. 375.
93
Ibid. 375.

154
Mexico’s domestic affairs by the U.S.) there shall not be either now or at any other time
if I can prevent it.”
94
And, even following the approval of the Constitution of 1917,
Wilson continued to iterate, “We [have] no right to interfere with or to dictate to
Mexico.”
95
Ultimately, as historian Lloyd C. Gardner argues, Wilson was willing to
utilize diplomatic protests such as non-recognition of the Carranza administration but was
unwilling to topple or replace a Mexican executive.
The Doheny Research Foundation
Wilson’s reluctance, however, did not stop Doheny and Gibbon from continuing
their efforts to win intervention. Hoping to add academic integrity to his efforts to shape
U.S. foreign policy, Doheny also established a research foundation focused on Mexico in
1917. Working with Dr. George W. Scott, a faculty member at the University of
California, Berkeley, Doheny announced the founding of the Doheny Research
Foundation and his personal contribution of $100,000 to fund research on economic and
political conditions in Mexico. Doheny stated publicly that he wanted the foundation to,
“in the interests of humanity and of Mexico and the United States,” create an unbiased
and impartial report on political and economic conditions in Mexico.
96
He also argued
that his involvement with valid researchers from major universities provided evidence

94
Wilson to the House, June 22, 1916, the Papers of Ray Stannard Baker, Library of Congress. Quoted in
Lloyd C. Gardner, “Woodrow Wilson and the Mexican Revolution,” in Arthur S. Link, ed., Woodrow
Wilson and a Revolutionary World, 1913-1921 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 29.
95
Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1918 (Washington, 1920), 577-80. Quoted
in Gardner, 31.
96
Hanrahan 349.

155
that his efforts were not “propaganda work, not anti-Carranza work, nor intervention
work.”
97

Scott headed the organization and appointed twenty-eight leading experts on
Mexican history, economy, and political organization to conduct research in Mexico.
Members of the investigative team included faculty from Berkeley, Stanford, Occidental
College, Harvard, the University of Wisconsin, Princeton, and the University of
Minnesota. According to Scott, the research would be “unhampered by any restrictions,
its purpose being to reveal conditions as they really exist in Mexico, so that America and
the outside world will have a better and more accurate understanding of Mexico’s
national and economic status.”
98
Simply put, the research team wanted to understand
why Mexico was not a well-ordered, self-governing community.
99
To accomplish this
goal, the researchers conducted over 500 interviews with American businessmen who had
worked or owned property in Mexico. They also attempted to travel to Mexico to
conduct research, but the Carranza administration understandably refused them entry.
100

One of the members of the research team, Robert Glass Cleland, was a leading
historian of Southern California and faculty member at Occidental College. Cleland
studied history at Occidental as an undergraduate and then received his doctorate from
Princeton in 1912. He returned to Occidental as a professor of history. He also served as
the college’s vice-president and dean of faculty. In the 1940s, Cleland joined the staff of

97
Ibid. 351.
98
“Would Reveal True Needs of Mexico: Edward L. Doheny Finances University Expedition,” Los
Angeles Times November 11, 1917, 17.
99
Ansell 174.
100
Ibid.

156
the Huntington Library and served on the board of trustees. Cleland authored eleven
books on California history, including The Cattle on a Thousand Hills: Southern
California, 1850-1888, From Wilderness to Empire: A History of California, and
California in Our Time.
Scott placed Cleland in charge of investigating Mexico’s mining and petroleum
industries. Although Doheny pulled funding from the project before the foundation had a
chance to publish any of its findings, Cleland’s research notes and initial findings reflect
the ways in which the academic community shared and supported Doheny’s
understanding of Mexico’s problems. Cleland expressed sympathy for the plight of
Mexican peons and blamed their economic suffering on an outdated economic system,
the hacienda. He also placed some responsibility on Mexican peasants, arguing that they
were childlike, prone to alcoholism, and inherently lazy. In one report, he maintained,
“The Mexican laborer lacks ambition, is listless, physically weak, irregular and
indolent.”
101
Cleland echoed Doheny’s solution for a troubled Mexico—provide
American-style economic development. In an assessment of the American impact on
Mexico prior to the revolution, Cleland argued that American enterprise had raised
wages, increased the standard of living, and expanded public revenues.
102
The oil
industry, in particular, had transformed life for workers in the country’s oil fields.
Quoting Doheny directly, Cleland noted that ranch hands earned 36 cents a day before
the arrival of American oil companies. When Doheny opened his operations, he paid 75

101
Robert G. Cleland, “Mexican Labor,” undated manuscript, folder 33, box 28, Robert G. Cleland Papers,
Huntington Library, San Marino (hereafter RGC Papers, HL).
102
Robert G. Cleland, “The American Invasion of Mexico,” undated manuscript, folder 34, box 28, RGC
Papers, HL.

157
cents to a dollar per day and claimed that other employers complained because his wages
were comparatively high.
103

Ultimately, the Doheny Research Foundation did not have the policy impact that
Doheny had hoped for. In launching and funding the endeavor, Doheny hoped to appeal
to Wilson’s background in academia and to provide legitimate information in support of
American intervention in Mexican affairs. In some ways the Foundation backfired for
Doheny. In Mexico, the Carranza administration believed that the Foundation’s
researchers were part of a propaganda machine designed to promote military and political
intervention south of the border. In the end, Doheny’s shifting relationship with Wilson
led to his refusal to fund the publication of the Foundation’s research. With the
conclusion of the war in Europe in 1918, Doheny felt he could afford to publicly disagree
with Wilson on his policies toward Mexico and no longer needed an academic project to
disguise his political agenda. As he began to become more involved in NAPARM and its
more blatantly interventionist agenda, Doheny pulled his funding for the Research
Foundation and focused on his lobbying campaign.
104

Gibbon and Mexico Under Carranza
In addition to his work with NAPARM and the CRLC, Gibbon’s knowledge of
and concern for the “Mexican situation” moved him to write and publish a best-selling
exposé entitled Mexico Under Carranza: A Lawyer’s Indictment of the Crowning Infamy
of Four Hundred Years of Misrule. Although he published the book in 1919, he was
likely working on the manuscript at the same time that he was busy founding NAPARM

103
Robert G. Cleland, “Beginning of the Petroleum Industry in Mexico,” undated manuscript, folder 15,
box 29, RGC Papers, HL.
104
Ansell, 172-175.

158
and corresponding with Lane and Wilson to urge intervention in Mexico. Gibbon
believed his financial interests and knowledge of the American southwest and
neighboring Mexico uniquely positioned him to produce a book on social unrest across
the border. Gibbon had high expectations for the manuscript. In a letter to his good
friend Chandler just before the book’s publication, Gibbon revealed, “The manuscript has
been read by several people and I am very much gratified at the universal expression of
approval that it has won. Everybody says that they believe its publication will mark an
epoch in Mexican affairs and will force the Government to give that protection to
Americans and American interests in Mexico, which it has so far not accorded.”
105
The
book represented an important piece of Gibbon and his cohort of Angeleno investors’
foreign policy strategy. Coupled with the work of NAPARM, Gibbon hoped the book
would move the American public and the federal government in the direction of direct
political and military intervention in Mexico.
In anticipation of the book’s publication, Gibbon traveled to Washington, DC to
circulate the manuscript and build publicity for its release. He met with political friends
in the capital and reported to friends in Los Angeles that their network of federal allies
believed the book would promote protection of their interests in Mexico. In a letter to
Chandler, Gibbon reported that “my book is going to be most timely, as it will furnish a
great deal of ammunition to the people in and out of Congress who propose to insist on
justice for American interests in Mexico.”
106

105
Letter from Thomas E. Gibbon to Harry Chandler, January 17, 1919, folder 1, box 34, Bergman
Collection, HL.
106
Ibid.

159
Gibbon opened his book with an inscription. He dedicated the work to:
The submerged eighty per cent of the Mexican people—the peons—who, for four hundred years,
have been the victims of an industrial slavery almost without parallel in history, and to those who
have been their greatest friends and benefactors in that dark period, the heroic American pioneers
who, at the risk, and oft-times at the cost, of their lives, have invaded the mountains, deserts, and
jungles of Mexico to discover and develop the hitherto unknown natural resources of that country
for the benefits of its workers and of civilized mankind.
107

Gibbon’s dedication encapsulated his economic worldview and his perspective on U.S.-
Mexican diplomatic relations during the Mexican Revolution. Dismissing the populist
origins and demands of the revolution, Gibbon’s inscription linked the wellbeing of the
Mexican people to the Americans who had invested in developing the country’s natural
resources. Gibbon uncoupled foreign investment from the hardships faced by Mexico’s
industrial workers and agricultural laborers, arguing instead that American capital
development of Mexican natural resources provided an essential service for the Mexican
people and, indeed, the world. International capitalism, Gibbon intimated, offered the
solution to rural poverty and urban discontent in Mexico. According to Gibbon, an
American-styled economic system could provide stability and order for a poor country
overwhelmed by revolutionary violence. Gibbon’s inscription included an implicit
critique of Mexico’s ruling class—they had failed to create a classed but stable society,
like the one Gibbon believed existed in the United States and functioned exceptionally
well in Los Angeles.
Part of Gibbon’s critique of Carranza’s government stemmed from his suspicion
of left-leaning political groups around the world. In particular, Gibbon feared the
redistribution of property, noting that, “in every country there exists a predatory element
whose chief ambition is to secure control of the machinery of government by violence

107
Gibbon, Mexico Under Carranza, v.

160
and then to use it in depriving industrious, frugal people of the property they have
accumulated, and dividing it amongst themselves.”
108
Gibbon noted that he most feared
Carranza in Mexico, the Bolsheviks in Russia, and the IWW in the United States. The
impact of “red” policies under Carranza in Mexico had led to “the destruction of
productive industry,” caused the end of gainful employment for hundreds of thousands of
Mexicans, and created “indescribable misery” in Mexico. Gibbon warned that these dark
events lurked just around the corner in the United States if the IWW ever succeeded in
gaining control of the country.
109

One of Gibbon’s main critiques of the Carranza government stemmed from the
Mexican Constitution of 1917. Gibbon accused Carranza of initially pledging to uphold
the constitution of 1857 and then “deliberately throwing that instrument upon the scrap
heap and assuming to enact a new constitution for the whole Mexican nation.”
110
The
most alarming part of the new constitution, according to Gibbon, was its attack on foreign
held property in the troubling Article 27. Article 27 provided that foreign companies
could not “acquire, hold, or administer” rural property. The article also stipulated all
mineral resources belonged to the state of Mexico. For Gibbon, as for all other American
investors in Mexico, Article 27 represented a direct threat on their investment dollars and
privately held property. Gibbon wrote, “thus, at a stroke of the pen, all these great

108
Gibbon, Mexico Under Carranza, 40.
109
Ibid., 41.
110
Ibid., 56.

161
deposits of natural wealth, which had been bought and paid for by their foreign owners,
are confiscated and the ownership transferred to the nation.”
111

Gibbon also provided a scathing critique of his own government’s failure to act
on behalf of its citizens in Mexico and an explicit plan to save American investors and
the Mexico “peon”—direct imperial intervention. He stated bluntly that Mexico required
intervention for its own salvation: “What Mexico needs, and what I believe she must
have, is the intervention in her affairs of saving power such as…our own nation has
afforded to the Philippines, and to Cuba.”
112
Although NAPARM as an organization had
been more reluctant to outline a precise policy approach to Mexico, Gibbon felt free to
articulate a very specific strategy for Mexico in his book—bring it under the imperial
control of the United States, at least until the nation could be deemed sufficiently stable
to oversee its own affairs. This type of imperial oversight, Gibbon argued, would rescue
Mexico’s twelve million people from a chaotic situation that represented an affront to
civilized nations. In proposing radical interventionism, Gibbon recognized that he
diverged from many Americans but he maintained that he was a conscientious student of
Mexico and that his careful research and reflection on the Revolution had brought him to
this conclusion.
Ultimately, Gibbon’s book argued the sentiment expressed in his opening
inscription. The people of Mexico suffered, he believed, because their leaders had failed
to establish a stable country open to enterprising settlers and investors from the United
States. Economic development, led by American investors, had offered the promise of

111
Ibid., 59.
112
Ibid., 233.

162
employment, steady wages, and growth in Mexico. The Revolution, in challenging the
presence of American investors and threatening their private property, had not only
violated the rights of American citizens but had also submerged the Mexican people in
disorder, anarchy, and misery. Intervention led by the United States, he maintained,
would resolve both of these issues by reestablishing a welcoming environment for
American dollars, teaching Mexicans about democracy, and providing stability and
economic opportunities for Mexicans. He ended his treatise with a question designed to
lead his readers to the same conclusion: “Would it not be better now for us to go back to
the idea of doing our simple duty to our own people…[and] rescuing the suffering masses
of [Mexicans] from the criminals who are imposing upon them so many of the miseries
of ‘self-government’ as it exists in Mexico?”
113

Critical Responses
Mexican-Americans and Mexicans followed interventionist activities, particularly
those of Doheny, with careful scrutiny, suspicion, and criticism. In Los Angeles, the
Mexican-American press responded to NAPARM activities with particularly sharp
criticism. In a 1919 article published in the city’s La Prensa, anonymous authors
identified Edward L. Doheny and Harrison Grey Otis directly, arguing that the two men
represented a cadre of Angelenos who had not only invested in Mexico but now sought to
control the country’s internal politics by wielding the power of the American state and
military. Describing Doheny, the La Prensa headline announced, “Millionaire
Adventurer Seeks to bring about Complications with Mexico.”
114
The article asked

113
Ibid., 238.
114
La Prensa, April 12, 1919, clipping in folder 1, box 34, Bergman Collection, HL.

163
rhetorically, “Where did his colossal fortune come from?” The answer: “Simply from
Mexico, where some foreign philanthropists in the style of the late lamented Harrison
Grey Otis and many other foreigners, who obtained concessions ruinous to the country
during General Díaz’ pitiful term, also have sought it.” According to La Prensa, Doheny
had extracted his enormous fortune from Mexico without benefitting the country, “on the
contrary, every dollar coming from the Tampico Oil fields is invested in the United States
and in Los Angeles where he has a palatial mansion which attracts attention by a lavish
display of oriental luxury.”
115
The lavish display included a retinue of servants and a
zoological garden set in Doheny’s famous block on Chester Place in Los Angeles. La
Prensa contrasted this show of wealth with the condition of Doheny’s Mexican
employees who lived like “slaves” in the oil regions of Tampico. The paper estimated
that Doheny had exported $75,000,000 out of Mexico in fifteen years, leaving, “as the
light-hearted Mark Twain would put it, only the holes.”
116

The piece found Doheny’s status as a “financier and diplomat” particularly
disturbing.
117
La Prensa noted with particular alarm that Doheny helped found
NAPARM, which meant that he was utilizing wealth wrought in Mexico to manipulate
Mexican politics. The paper condemned this intervention in Mexican affairs as deeply
troubling and “audacious.” Not only had he extracted his wealth from under Mexican
soil but he was also wielding that wealth to direct foreign policy from his gilded home in
Los Angeles. The article also noted that as part of his strategy to influence U.S.-Mexico

115
Ibid.
116
Ibid.
117
Emphasis mine.

164
relations, Doheny had traveled to Paris as a representative of NAPARM to appeal for
intervention from the League of Nations. He hoped that the League would lean on
Mexico to compensate international investors for properties damaged or confiscated as a
result of the revolution. Should the League comply, La Presna accused them of
becoming a “collection agency” for the city’s wealthy residents.
The Mexican state also followed the activities of NAPARM members, again
particularly the actions of Doheny, with marked interest and understandable concern
about what his interventionist agenda would mean for Mexico. In June of 1918, for
example, the Mexican embassy in Washington, DC reported to the Carranza
administration that they believed Doheny had a cache of weapons stored in central
California and that he was offering them to the government of the state.
118
The embassy
was not sure what Doheny’s intentions were but found the situation alarming. They
speculated that Doheny had purchased the arms in anticipation of the World War but also
reported that the Mexican consul in San Francisco harbored suspicions of that
explanation.
119
Reportedly, the cache included 750,000 rounds of ammunition and 500
new rifles that the Mexican government feared might be used against Mexico and
Mexicans. Clearly, Mexican officials in both the United States and Mexico City worried

118
Message from the Mexican Embassy to Carranza, expediente 976, caja 16, Secretario de Relaciones
Exteriores (hereafter SRE). In Spanish, “Asunto: Informa que Edward L. Doheny tiene almacenados en el
centro de California armas y cartuchos, que ha ofrecido al Gobierno del Estado de California, sin saberse
con qué objeto los compró.
119
Letter from the Mexican Embassy, Washington, DC to Cádido Aguilar, Secretario de Relaciones
Exteriors, June 10, 1918, expediente 976, caja 16, SRE. In Spanish, “Efectivamente, el Sr. Doheny,
magnate petrolero de Tampico, México, ofreció al Gobierno del Estado de California, como un obsequio y
a la vez como un acto de puro patriotismo, 750,000 cartuchos, 500 rifles modernos y ametralladoras, cuyos
objetos, según se me tiene informado, los conserva aún en su poder en los subterráneos de su residencia en
Los Angeles, California. El objeto, que haya tenido el Sr. Doheny para hacer una compra tan considerable
de parque, no se me ha podido explicar satisfactoriamente hasta la fecha.”

165
that Californians might make use of the weapons stash against Mexico or that Doheny
might be planning an armed insurrection. Carranza also paid close attention to Doheny’s
trip to the League of Nations meeting in Versailles in 1919. Although Doheny’s efforts
to lobby representatives at the treaty negotiations failed to win support for intervention in
Mexico, his presence there clearly signaled a challenge to Carranza’s presidency on an
international level. Carranza also cleverly maneuvered against intervention by leveraging
intervention against the interventionists—while Doheny pushed armed intervention in
Mexico, Carranza threatened to set fire to oil fields if American troops landed on the
country’s Gulf Coast.
120

Relationships between oil producers and the Mexican presidency did not
immediately improve after Álvaro Obregón’s coup against Carranza in 1920.
121

However, Obregón did express a desire to reach an agreement with foreign oil producers,
particularly if it could help him secure recognition of his presidency from the Harding
administration. A decision by the Mexican Supreme Court finding Article 27 not
retroactive for the oil companies improved Obregón’s position vis-à-vis Doheny and
other oilmen. Although happy with the decision, it did not fully appease Doheny, who
argued that despite the court’s decision, private property was still not safe in Mexico and
continued to push for American military intervention. While struggling to win support

120
Brown, 217.
121
Although they had fought together against Huerta as well as Villa, Carranza and Obregón had a
contentious relationship and Obregón harbored plans to assume the Mexican presidency. In 1920, he
announced his candidacy for president and rallied support from those disenchanted with Carranza’s
administration. He criticized Carranza for failing to fulfill the promises of the revolution and issued his
Agua Prieta Plan in 1920, which called for the removal of Carranza. The army backed Obregón and forced
Carranza to flee Mexico City. Members of his bodyguard killed him during his escape and Obregón
assumed the presidency later in 1920.

166
from Wilson, Doheny also took intervention into his own hands. According to historian
Dan La Botz, Doheny backed a 1921 scheme by the governor of Baja California Norte,
Esteban Cantú and his Los Angeles-based brother Frederico Dato to use arms and money
supplied by Doheny to overthrow the Obregón presidency.
122
Nothing came of the plan,
but it reveals Doheny’s increasing desperation to control Mexican politics and protect the
source of his substantial oil fortune.
Reports on schemes like the one involving Cantú reached the Obregón
administration and he continued to carefully monitor Doheny’s activities. In 1924, for
example, the Obregón administration connected Doheny to an American named John
Camp who, according to an informant for the Mexican government, was conducting
suspicious activities in Los Angeles, along the Texas-Chihuahua border, and in the
Mexican capital. The head of the Mexican federal police reported that Doheny had
retained Camp to try again to foment a coup against Obergón with Dato, who continued
to reside in Los Angeles.
123
The federal police dispatched agent C. Modesto Nemer to
Ciudad Juarez to investigate the issue. Nemer reported Camp had been apprehended with
documents that showed plans on the part of Doheny to back Obregón’s political
opponents.
124
Although Camp’s relationship to Doheny is not clear, the Mexican federal
police did intercept a cryptic telegram from Dato to Camp asking, “Did you receive my
wire of the twenty sixth last from news received we still have good opportunities let me
know if we are going to go ahead with our plans answer me to 28 Clubhouse Ave. Venice

122
La Botz, 104.
123
Letter from El Jefe de la Policia Judicia Federal to El Procurador General (attorney general), February
20, 1924, expediente 101-RR-D-1, fondo Obregón-Calles, Archivo General de la Nación (hereafter AGN).
124
Ibid.

167
Calif.”
125
Doheny did have a relationship with Dato and could very well have been
involved with the plans referred to in the telegrams exchanged between Dato and Camp.
The Mexican government also obtained receipts clearly documenting Camp’s purchase of
large supplies of guns and ammunition in El Paso, including two hundred Colt .45 pistols
and 3000 rounds of ammunition.
126
On another occasion, Camp purchased 20 carbines,
500 Colt .45s, and 200 machine guns at the Toepperwein Hardware and Sporting Goods
Company in San Antonio.
127
Camp’s activities may have been linked to the machinations
of Adolfo de la Huerta, who had been part of the Obregón administration but who
orchestrated a failed revolt at the end of 1923. Just prior to the failed coup, de la Huerta
had been negotiating a loan deal with Doheny for the Mexican government and Doheny
may have provided him with financial support for a coup.
128
According to an
investigation conducted by Obregón, de la Huerta did meet with Doheny in Los Angeles
shortly after the failed coup when he fled Mexico for Southern California.
129

Conclusion
Ultimately, the intricate political maneuverings of Doheny, Gibbon, and
NAPARM failed to yield the result they desired in Mexico. Wilson staunchly refused to
bend to their demands and even grumbled to his personal physician during a game of

125
Telegram from Frederico Dato to John Camp, [1923], expediente 101-RR-D-1, fondo Obregón-Calles,
AGN.
126
Telebram from J. F. Peterson to John Camp, [1923], expediente 101-RR-D-1, fondo Obregón-Calles,
AGN.
127
Receipt from Toepperwein Hardware Company to John Camp, November 12, 1923, expediente 101-RR-
D-1, fondo Obregón-Calles, AGN.
128
La Botz 108-109.
129
Telegram from the Mexican Consul in Los Angeles to Fernando Torreblanca (Obregón’s personal
secretary), June 22, 1924, expediente 101-RR-D-1, fondo Obregón-Calles, AGN.

168
golf, “I sometimes have to pause and remind myself that I am president of the whole
United States and not merely of a few property holders in the Republic of Mexico.”
130

Although they complained, cajoled, harassed, badgered, planned, and schemed to push
the Wilson administration to intervene more forcefully in Mexico’s internal affairs
between 1910 and the mid-1920s, the efforts of Doheny and Gibbon never achieved the
outcome they desired.
Some of their ineffectiveness may have come from their failure to propose a
concrete plan for intervention. Although NAPARM sabre-rattled and bellicosely
demanded some sort of forceful action on Wilson’s part, members ultimately disagreed
on the best approach to settling the political situation in Mexico to their own satisfaction.
Political turmoil and rapidly shifting political conditions in Mexico also stymied their
efforts to formulate a concrete and cohesive policy proposal. Although they lobbied
aggressively for intervention, they seemed unable to decide on the best course of action.
Some called for the United States to revoke its recognition of the Carranza government.
Others wanted armed occupation. Most wanted the installation of a pro-business and pro-
foreign executive but they had difficulty deciding how that would best be accomplished.
Gibbon thought the United States should acquire Mexico as a protectorate, like the
Philippines and Cuba, but for the American public and American policymakers, that was
a huge, overwhelming, and anti-democratic undertaking, and one that President Wilson
was adamantly unwilling to tackle. Gibbon also died in 1921, ending his energetic
promotion of American interests in Mexico.

130
Quoted in Brown, 192.

169
After Obregón assumed power, several of the key members of NAPARM also
split on their approach to the Mexican government. As discussed in the following
chapter, Chandler and the CRLC made the strategic decision to ally themselves with
Obregón in an effort to protect their ranch from squatters movements and expropriation.
As part of this alliance, Chandler aggressively promoted the recognition of Obregón in
Washington, DC and raised funds for major infrastructural development in Baja
California Norte. In contrast, Doheny appears to have plotted to overthrow the Obregón
government. He and other oil producers did meet with the Obergón administration and
won some concessions for their industry, including lower taxes and assurances that their
oil fields would not face nationalization. Simultaneously, however, Doheny also sought
ways to depose Obregón for an executive more sympathetic to foreign investment. Even
the Bucareli Accords and the Warren-Payne Agreement, both reached in 1923, and which
assured oil producers that Article 27 would not be applied retroactively, failed to reassure
Doheny.
The Teapot Dome trial, which began in 1924, also began to consume Doheny’s
time and energy and he had fewer resources to devote to winning his objectives in
Mexico.
131
Doheny’s company, Mexican Petroleum, won a major victory in 1927 when
the Mexican Supreme Court issued a decision that several sections of the country’s
petroleum code violated the Mexican Constitution. By that time, however, Doheny was
in the process of selling off the last of his oil interests in Mexico. Finally, the
appointment of Dwight Morrow as ambassador to Mexico also significantly shifted the
tone of American foreign policy. Although he came from a background at J.P. Morgan

131
La Botz, 108-109.

170
Chase, Morrow had little patience for American business interests that wanted to direct
foreign policy and he initiated a campaign of “goodwill” toward Mexico after his
appointment in 1927.
Although ultimately a failure, the foreign policy machinations of Doheny and
Gibbon shed light on the attitudes of Angeleno investors during the Mexican Revolution.
They considered the upheaval a threat to their personal property as well as part of a
worldwide challenge to their economic philosophy. Linking radical movements in Los
Angeles to events unfolding in Mexico, Russia, and China, Doheny and Gibbon argued
vehemently that revolutionary movements endangered not just their personal investments
but also the stability of an international economic system that they believed benefited
both the investment and labor classes. Notably, they also believed that the right to
government protection of private property extended beyond the boundaries of their
nation. They maintained that the American government had the duty to protect their
rights as property owners not only in the United States but also in Mexico. At points,
they also suggested that property rights were not just constitutionally ensured within their
sovereign nation but also a natural right that followed them around the globe.

171
Chapter Four
“A Hard Desperate Fight”: Angelenos, Mexicans, and the Expropriation of
Private Property, 1910-1938

Introduction
In early 1921, Moray Applegate, the manager of the Quimichis Hacienda in
Nayarit, sent an urgent telegram to his employers in Southern California. Applegate
reported that a group of “extreme radicals highly prejudiced against both capital and
foreigners” now controlled the local agrarian commission and there were rumblings of
land takeovers and the expropriation of foreign-owned properties up and down the west
coast of Mexico. Local communities, he feared, would soon start to take the situation
into their own hands and simply seize American-owned properties, with or without the
backing of the Mexican government. Sensing that the local agrarian commission in
Nayarit would back their land claims, even if they began as squatters’ movements,
agraristas on and around the Quimichis ranch decided to implement the tenets of the
1917 constitution independent of the Mexican federal state.
1
As Applegate noted, “These
people, knowing that the [local] government is back of them are getting much excited and
will be hard to satisfy. I think we are up against a hard desperate fight.”
2

While concerned about the immediate threat of possible land seizures,
Applegate’s telegram foreshadowed the coming two decades of the expropriation and
redistribution of American-owned agricultural properties across Mexico. Despite the

1
“Agraristas” is a term used to describe members of the agrarian movement in Mexico in the early part of
the twentieth century, particularly those who fought for a more just distribution of land. While the Mexican
federal state hesitated to begin redistributing foreign-owned land following the Revolution, local
agricultural communities started to move onto private properties and farm them.
2
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Compania Agricola de Quimichis, February 13, 1921, box 2, Thomas
Bard Collection, Quimichis Colony Addendum, Huntington Library, San Marino. Hereafter TBC, HL.

172
determined campaigns of the Americans Edward Doheny and Thomas Gibbon, explored
in the previous chapter, Mexicans and the Mexican state began commandeering U.S.-
owned properties in the 1910s and 1920s. Between 1920 and 1940, individual Mexicans,
agricultural associations, and the Mexican government laid claim to over 100,000,000
acres of Mexico’s surface area and redistributed it.
3
Agrarian and labor unrest pushed
Mexican presidents from the fiscally conservative Álvaro Obregón (1920-1924) to the
more populist Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) to fulfill the populist and nationalist
demands of the Mexican Revolution through the confiscation and reallocation of the
country’s natural resources, particularly its agricultural lands.
4

3
John Mason Hart, Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002), 371. Despite populist agrarian demands during the Revolution and
post-revolutionary era, the Mexican federal government officially reapportioned land very slowly and
primarily to support state formation. Rather than expropriating and redistributing land to create a more
economically just society, Presidents such as Álvaro Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles, Emilio Portes Gil,
Pascual Ortiz Rubio, and Abelardo Rodríguez reallocated property to build political support and
consolidate their power. The 1917 Constitution required the Mexican state to pay for any lands
expropriated by the federal government and this series of fiscally conservative executives were reluctant to
increase the nation’s debt. By 1935, only 26 million acres of land, or just 6.2% of Mexican agricultural
holdings, had been expropriated by the Mexican state. This slow process of land reform spurred radical
agrarianism in the early 1930s including the development of active agrarian groups such as Liga Nacional
Campesina and Confederación de Campesinos Mexicanos. The ruling Partido Nacional Revolucionario
responded to agrarista organizing and agitation by nominating populist Lázaro Cárdenas as president and
developing an accelerated plan for breaking up and redistributing large landholdings as ejidos or
communally held lands. The plan, known as the Plan Sexenal (Six-Year Plan), established the federal
Agrarian Department designed specifically to oversee land redistribution. As president, Cárdenas also
passed two pieces of legislation that expanded the lands eligible for expropriation and eased restrictions on
communities who could apply for ejidos. These policies accelerated the expropriation and redistribution of
foreign-owned properties throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s. By 1940, 5 million acres of American-
owned agricultural properties had been confiscated by Mexicans and the Mexican state. See John J.
Dwyer, The Agrarian Dispute: The Expropriation of American-Owned Land in Postrevolutionary Mexico
(Durham: Duke University, 2008), 20, 160.
4
Traditional narratives of agrarian reform in Mexico outline the national and diplomatic stories of land
expropriation while largely ignoring the role of ordinary people, both Mexican and American, in
negotiating the terms of land redistribution. Recent work by scholars such as Daniel Nugent, John J.
Dwyer and Veronica Castillo-Muñoz, however, argues that Mexican workers and rural communities,
particularly agraristas, played a significant role in demanding and coordinating the occupation,
appropriation, and redistribution of American-owned land in the 1920s and 1930s. Castillo-Muñoz, for
example, maintains that a long history of local labor organizing and strong community organizations in
Nayarit contributed significantly to the region’s successful campaigns to win ejido properties. Similarly,
Dwyer argues that local agency had a profound impact on both regional land redistribution policies and the

173
During the several decade period discussed in this chapter, Angeleno property
owners, the Mexican federal state, agraristas, local Mexican officials, and the U.S.
government clashed over definitions and uses of private property. Angeleno property
owners asserted that the right to private property was sacrosanct and pressed the
American and Mexican federal states to recognize and protect their position as property
owners. The Mexican federal state, headed by a series of fiscally conservative
executives, implemented Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution extraordinarily slowly
and usually only in cases of political pragmatism. In response, agraristas, many of
whom participated in the Mexican Revolution because they wanted a redistribution of
privately held agricultural lands, took the Mexican Constitution into their own hands and
used it to justify squatters’ movements and local expropriations. Local Mexican officials,
at both the state and municipal level, often backed the demands of agraristas because
they wanted to build political support or because they prioritized the rights of Mexicans
to use Mexican land over the rights of foreign capitalists. Ultimately, this matrix of local,
national, and international interests led to the dispossession of Angeleno properties. This
chapter explores this transfer of American property to Mexicans and the Mexican state
through the cases of the San Isidro Ranch Company, the Quimichis Colony, and the
Colorado River Land Company.
Tracing the interactions between agraristas, local and international policymakers,
and Angeleno landowners reveals the power of local Mexicans against American

actions of the Mexican state in its relationship with the United States. See Daniel Nugent, ed., Rural Revolt
in Mexico and U.S. Intervention (San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California,
San Diego, 1988), Veronica Castillo-Muñoz, “Divided Communities: Agrarian Struggles, Transnational
Migration and Families in Northern Mexico, 1910-1952,” (PhD diss: University of California, Irvine,
2009), and Dywer, Agrarian Dispute.

174
landholders in the two decades following the Mexican Revolution. Although Angeleno
property owners implored their government to protect their investments, the American
state could do very little to salvage private agricultural properties besides press the
Mexican federal government to intervene. When the Mexican federal state stalled,
ignored, or refused, Angeleno property owners found themselves without recourse to
protect something they considered inviolable—their private property.
5
Ultimately,
disputes over land in post-revolutionary Mexico pitted agraristas, who wanted the
communal redistribution of property, against large American property owners
accustomed to state protection of their private possessions.
In short, the conflict between these groups and represented a conflict over the role
of government in the wellbeing of its citizens. This dispute played out on the individual
level, as explored in the story of William Windham in Chapter 2, and at the national and
diplomatic levels, as explored in the previous chapter, but it also played out at the local
level in Mexico as peasant movements demanded access to land in the post-revolutionary
period. The conflicts explored in this chapter took place on top of the very land in
dispute, with agraristas demanding access to land from American property owners,
municipal and state governments, and the Mexican federal government.
Angeleno property owners, generally wealthy and conservative in their economic
and political outlook, believed that the principles outlined in the Mexican constitution
were weak, even wrong, and a challenge to the basic tenets of “civilized” government.
They believed that the fundamental role of government, both their own and Mexico’s,

5
Dwyer refers to these strategies as the “diplomatic weapons of the weak.” Dwyer, 194-195.

175
was to protect their right to liberty and property.
6
As scholar Carlos Elizondo notes, this
placed American property owners in a position of relative power vis-á-vis their own state;
the state existed to protect their property, not to determine its most beneficial use.
7
They
relied on this political philosophy in the United States, had enjoyed this type of state
protection under the Díaz administration, and rejected the 1917 constitutional reforms
that circumscribed property rights in Mexico. The Mexican constitution, they argued,
was an affront to the basic rights of humans to enjoy their property; as one Angeleno
property owner commented, “civilized” nations did not allow the confiscation of property
without compensation. Ultimately, elite Angelenos believed a well-ordered society,
including their city and its international hinterlands, rested on the governmentally ensured
right to acquire and retain private property.
8

In contrast, the agraristas who challenged American property rights held vigilant
to the spirit of Mexico’s 1917 Constitution which enumerated “social” rights, including
peasants’ rights to land and workers’ rights to wages. As Mexican political historian

6
For an excellent analysis of the constitutional history of property rights in the United States see James W.
Ely, Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights (Cary, NC: Oxford
University Press, 2007). For an analysis of shifting property rights in Mexico, see Stephen Haber,
Armando Razo, and Noel Maurer, The Politics of Property Rights: Political Instability, Credible
Commitments, and Economic Growth in Mexico, 1876-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003). They argue that the Porfiriato offered a relatively stable assurance of government protected
property rights. During the Revolution, political instability forced property owners to constantly recreate
relationships with the state to try to ensure their property rights.
7
Carlos Elizondo, The Concept of Property of the 1917 Mexican Constitution (México, DF: Centro de
Investigación y Docencia Económicas, 1993), 2.
8
Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 77. Wiebe argues
that elite Americans believed that a well-ordered society assured them the ability to “retain what they held
and to acquire more…they wanted to quash all disorder now, to forestall catastrophe by fitting society into
a safe, sturdy mold. ‘Law’ and ‘property,’ the fundamental terms in their rhetoric, connoted a whole
complex of social, economic, and political privileges.” A belief in the sanctity of private property also had
a tremendous impact on American views of squatters. As Donald Pisani argues, Americans came to
despise squatters by the 1880s, particularly in California. Donald Pisani, “The Squatter and Natural Law in
Nineteenth-Century America,” Agricultural History 81 (2007): 443-463.

176
Francisco Valdés-Ugalde argues, the 1917 Constitution defined not only the political
structure of the country but also its ultimate goals, including economic equality and
justice.
9
Objectives of social and economic equality, as outlined in the Mexican
Constitution, were not simply “rights to enforce but rights to achieve.”
10
Ultimately, the
Mexican Constitution asserted that a state did not exist simply to enforce rights but to
organize the nation in the achievement of those rights. This included determining the
best use of land for the public good.
The Mexican Constitution, however, left definitions of property and decisions
about its best use in the hands of the Mexican president. In other words, although the
Mexican Constitution outlined social rights and prioritized the use of property for
widespread social good, it left the authority to make this happen to the Mexican
president. According to Elizondo, “the concept of property in the 1917 Constitution
gives the Mexican president a legal basis and a powerful ideological justification for
modifying property rights.”
11
In contrast to the U.S. Constitution, which explicitly
protects property owners from encroachment by the state, the Mexican Constitution
vested its president with the formidable legal power to prioritize the right of the nation
over the individual rights of property owners. Given that the Constitution allocated these
powers to the president, the expropriation and redistribution of property outlined in
Article 27 required an executive willing to intervene in the economy. Although Mexican
rural communities demanded the redistribution of large agricultural landholdings

9
Francisco Valdés-Ugalde, “Janus and the Northern Colossus: Perceptions of the United States in the
Building of the Mexican Nation,” The Journal of American History, 86 (September, 1999): 568-600.
10
Ibid. 573.
11
Elizondo 2.

177
throughout the Revolution and into the post-revolutionary period, wide-scale land grants
did not occur until the Cárdenas presidency (1934-1940). Cárdenas believed that land
grants could consolidate the power of the Mexican federal state while alleviating
economic hardship in the nation’s agricultural sector.
Many Mexicans, however, were unwilling to wait for a president to redistribute
land. As detailed in the case studies explored in this chapter, Mexican agraristas and
campesinos organized to challenge large landholders and to implement the tenets and
spirit of the Constitution themselves.
12
Despite the unwillingness of the Mexican federal
state to institute widespread land expropriations and redistribution, Mexicans at the local
level often applied revolutionary rhetoric for pragmatic and political ends. As evidenced
in their demands for land even prior to the administration of Lázaro Cardenás, Mexicans
successfully took over and began utilizing American-owned properties without the
support of the Mexican federal state.
Dude Ranchers vs. Squatters
Conflict between agrarista and American approaches to land ownership and the
role of the state in protecting private property emerged on a dude ranch just south of the
U.S.-Mexico border during the Mexican Revolution. The San Isidro Ranch Company

12
In this portion of my analysis, I rely on the work of Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent. Joseph and
Nugent suggest heeding Friedrich Katz’s call to examine the “terms of engagement between the very
different social groups involved and how those terms were negotiated.” Expanding on Katz’s suggestions,
Joseph and Nugent (and the contributors to their anthology) argue that the revolution must be understood as
an ongoing process of state formation, rather than a culminating and static event, that involved both those
“below” (the people) and those “above” (the state). They describe their approach as a dialectical
conversation between revisionist and post-revisionist approaches that brings historians to an understanding
of state formation and hegemony, in the context of the Mexican revolution, as a process. They advocate a
discussion of popular culture in relation to the study of organizations of power or the state. Using local
examples, contributors to their compilation study the ways in which people negotiated their relationship
with and refashioned “discourses of citizenship when these proved threatening to local forms of identity.”
Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent, eds. Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the
Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994).

178
(SIRC) offered its well-heeled Los Angeles membership a vast pleasure park
approximately twenty miles southeast of San Diego and within sight of the opulent Hotel
Coronado. Purchased by a group of twenty-nine wealthy Angelenos in 1911, the ranch
provided a rugged and undeveloped landscape for riding, shooting, and rustic living. As
one member wrote to another, “I am sure that you agree with me that the chief charm of
[San Isidro] is the primitive life that still exists in Mexico and it is a relief after the bustle
of a new American city. My idea is to retain the simple wild appearance and maintain a
real hunting preserve for real hunters.”
13
Despite the pride that Angeleno city-builders
felt in their booming city, they also nostalgically longed for an escape from urban living
through “primitive” experiences; SIRC members believed rugged and rustic living
awaited them just across the border in Mexico.
A number of prominent Los Angeles businessmen joined the club, including
banker and oilman W. L. Valentine, developer William G. Kerckhoff, and Automobile
Club of Southern California official Henry Workman Keller. Harry Chandler also joined
the club a few years after it was established. The group described themselves as “wealthy
sportsmen…reputable citizens of Los Angeles, in fact among the best people in that
locality.”
14
Individuals purchased the right to enjoy the ranch by becoming a shareholder
in the SIRC holding company for the substantial sum of $2000 per share.
15
Club
members regularly organized hunting expeditions to the ranch where they bunked in the

13
Letter from William Edwards to Henry Workman Keller, undated, folder 13, box 23, Henry Workman
Keller Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino. Hereafter HWK, HL.
14
Letter from William Edwards to Chief Justice William H. Taft, November 21, 1929, folder 13, box 23,
HWK, HL.
15
Ibid.

179
company’s cabin, rode horses, hunted quail and deer, and enjoyed adventures in rugged
masculinity on the property’s 35,000 acres of undeveloped wilderness.
16
According to the
club’s articles of incorporation, the property was a “famous game preserve” and boasted
over one million quail as well as doves, rabbits, deer, antelope, and mountain sheep.
17

The ranch’s history between its purchase in 1911 and its complete expropriation
in the 1940s demonstrates the severe restrictions on American power in revolutionary and
post-revolutionary Mexico. Although SIRC investors self-identified as members of Los
Angeles’ powerful investor class and as “friends of Mexico,” the circumstances that
confronted them in the northern territory of Baja California undermined their ability to
protect their hunting grounds and investment.
18
The chaos engendered by the revolution
resulted in a territorial government in Baja California that disregarded traditional
property rights on the SIRC ranch in favor of its own needs. Local Mexican farmers also
utilized this situation to their advantage, laying claim to SIRC lands in the context of a
supportive local government. For the wealthy Angelenos who owned the ranch, it had
offered a solution to the problems of modern urban life. For Mexicans, the ranch

16
In a letter to William Edwards, Keller wrote, “If we can get this thing started we will certainly have a
fine club and some good times.” Edwards replied, “Do not let us let this thing fall through, there is fun for
all of us for many years yet. Don’t work so hard, get fat and lazy the way I am!!! Shoot quail eat them and
have a good time. Is that not a good prescription for all our ills?” Letter from Henry Workman Keller to
William Edwards, April 10, 1910, folder 13, box 23, HWK, HL; letter from William Edwards to Henry
Workman Keller, July 25, 1910, folder 13, box 23, HWK, HL.
17
San Isidro Ranch Company Articles of Incorporation, 1910, folder 2, box 21, HWK, HL. For an
excellent analysis of early twentieth-century masculinity and a return to rugged ideas about manhood, see
Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States,
1880-1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
18
The peninsula of Baja California is divided into two districts—Norte y Sur. The territory of Baja
California Norte became a Mexican state in 1953.

180
symbolized all of the problems wrought by American investment in their country and
they did not hesitate to reclaim the property.
Although revolutionary rhetoric and demands ultimately led to the expropriation
of properties like the SIRC, Baja California was initially removed from the most violent
repercussions of the revolution. With the brief exception of the Flores Magón movement,
the northern territory of Baja California did not experience firsthand the violence that
swept other parts of the country.
19
Historian Dorothy Kerig argues that Baja California
actually enjoyed a period of relative tranquility during the most chaotic period of the
revolution (1913-1920).
20
The absence of an effective central government in Mexico
after the collapse of Victoriano Huerta’s regime in 1914 created a Baja power vacuum.
Colonel Esteban Cantú Jiménez, assigned to duty in Baja California in 1911, used the
absence of a strong federal government to install himself as the region’s governor in
1914. Although essentially a regional dictator, Cantú’s authoritarian governorship helped
protect Baja California from the civil war raging in northern Mexico.
After assuming the governorship, Cantú set out to build a loyal personal army and
improve the territory’s financial situation. In addition to building military loyalty by
paying high wages, Cantú initiated a period of infrastructure building and economic

19
Ricardo Flores Magón, an anarchist living in exile in Los Angeles, launched a revolutionary movement
in Baja California in early 1911. With support from his brother, Enrique, and the International Workers of
the World (IWW), Magón hoped to use Baja California as a base from which to spread an anarchist revolt
across Mexico. The movement, however, was short lived. By June 1911, the Mexican army had crushed
the rebellion. After the rebellion, Flores Magón continued to live in the United States. He was arrested in
1918 under the Espionage Act and died in Leavenworth prison in 1922.
20
Dorothy Kerig, “Yankee Enclave: The Colorado River Land Company and Mexican Agrarian Reform in
Baja California, 1902-1944,” (PhD diss: University of California, Irvine, 1988), 148-149.

181
development.
21
His projects included a highway between Mexicali, Tecate, and
Enseñada as well as the construction of schools like the Escuela Primeria Cuauhtémoc.
To fund his projects, Cantú raised property taxes to levels more than 1000 percent of the
amounts levied during the Díaz administration and charged a “head tax” on every
immigrant laborer he allowed into the territory from China.
22
Cantú and his policies had
supporters and detractors. For Mexican residents in Baja California his investments in
state infrastructure and educational programs were appealing. According to his
adversaries, however, including the SIRC, Cantú functioned as a miniature dictator who
overtaxed their properties; they derisively described him as Baja California’s “de facto”
governor and as a “soldier of fortune.”
23

Even more than the tax increase, Cantú’s forcible occupation of SIRC properties
spurred the company’s animosity. In 1916, he issued a proclamation allowing him to
create military bases on American-owned properties across Baja California. At the San
Isidro Ranch, he began by taking over pastureland and using it to cultivate crops to feed
his army. He expanded his farming enterprise on SIRC property a few months later by
taking over a parcel known as El Morro where he raised wheat.
24
He also began
stationing troops on the property to oversee his agricultural projects and created a
military colony known as Hacienda de Remonta. Finally, and most alarming for the

21
Miguel León-Portilla and David Piñera Ramírez, Baja California: Historia Breve (México, D.F.: El
Colegio de México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010), 148-149.
22
Kerig 157. Baja California experienced a labor shortage during this period and actively recruited
workers from China to labor primarily on agricultural properties.
23
Undated memo, folder 1, box 21, HWK, HL.
24
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to American Consul Walter Boyle, January 14, 1919, folder 6, box
19, HWK, HL.

182
SIRC, Cantú began constructing permanent structures on the property, including several
barracks, a barn, and fences.
In addition to farming the SIRC property himself, Cantú rented out portions of the
ranch to local residents as pasture and farmland. He also offered pieces of the property
for free to poor residents who wished to live and farm on the ranch. SIRC’s attorney, a
Mr. Gonzalez, traveled to Baja California to investigate the issue and reported that Cantú
had posted signs informing local residents that Mexican citizens were “free to enter upon
[the lands] and occupy them.”
25
The SIRC superintendent reported that by the end of
1919, dozens of squatters were residing on the property. Efforts to build political support
amongst Baja California’s residents likely initiated Cantu’s policies. By offering an
American property for use by Mexican citizens, Cantú could build political allegiances.
When SIRC vehemently protested Cantú’s occupation of their property, he
skillfully maintained his position. His soldiers occupied the ranch and he assessed that
the company’s only recourse was through lengthy legal and administrative procedures.
The company lodged dozens of complaints with Cantú’s office as well as the Baja courts.
Cantú even suggested that the company file a legal case, knowing that he had appointed
all of the district’s judges and that they would likely decide any case in his favor. Cantú
also evaded the SIRC’s protests by simply refusing to acknowledge in writing that he was
the one occupying their property, referring instead to “those persons unlawfully in
possession of your lands.”
26
Cantú also claimed that the state had the right to establish

25
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Walter F. Boyle, June 3, 1919, folder 6, box 19, HWK, HL.
26
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to American Consul Walter Boyle, January 14, 1919, folder 6, box
19, HWK, HL.

183
military colonies on terrenos baldios or vacant lands under the proclamation he had
issued in 1916. When the SIRC sent their lawyer to negotiate with Cantú in 1919, he
promised to vacate the property at once but as soon as the SIRC lawyer left, he moved his
headquarters to the very center of the ranch and built another barn.
27

In early 1920, four years after initially occupying the ranch, Cantú finally
relinquished his claim on the property. Instead of returning it to the SIRC, however, he
handed it over to the Mexican federal government, claiming that its titles were incorrect
and did not prove SIRC’s ownership. The Departamento de Fomento, charged with
handling agricultural properties following the revolution, did not immediately address the
issue of ownership of the ranch and in this administrative vacuum additional squatters
entered the property in “goodly numbers.”
28
According to Henry W. Keller, the
Departamento de Fomento stalled around the issue of the ranch to allow local residents to
continue to occupy the property. He was right; instead of returning the property to its
Los Angeles owners, the Departamento de Fomento settled several dozen additional
colonists on 1700 acres of the ranch’s best land.
29
SIRC owners referred to the new
residents as the “horde of settlers that squat upon our lands.”
30
Keller despaired because
the presence of individual families meant that the company had to bring suit against each
one to have them expelled from the property, rather than simply suing the state to regain

27
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Harry Chandler, July 21, 1921, folder 26, box 21, HWK, HL.
28
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Walter F. Boyle, January 12, 1920, folder 6, box 19, HWK, HL.
29
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Harry Chandler, Burton E. Green, Homer E. Sargent, W. L.
Valentine Estate, June 11, 1943, folder 7, box 19, HWK, HL.
30
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Walter F. Boyle, March 15, 1920, folder 6, box 19, HWK, HL.

184
control of the land.
31
Like Cantú, the Departamento de Fomento likely shied away from
evicting Mexican squatters from an American-owned property because they wanted
political support and did not want to appear to side with a foreign company.
After countless appeals to the state and federal governments, the Departamento de
Fomento finally declared that the SIRC held the correct titles and was the legal owner of
the ranch’s 35,000 acres of land. The department ordered the hundreds of colonists who
now resided on the property to enter into formal lease agreements with the SIRC if they
wanted to remain. They also ordered the Mexican military to remove any of the colonists
who failed to comply. The colonists refused to sign lease agreements and the
government backed them by failing to follow through on evictions.
32
The colonists also
fought back within the Mexican legal system and agricultural department. They argued
that they were not responsible for the Departmento of Fomento’s mistake in illegally
settling them on privately held property. They would not leave, they announced, until the
Mexican government had provided them with lands equal in value to what they claimed
on the SIRC property.
33
They also continued to take over SIRC property. In 1931 an
alarmed Keller telegraphed his friend the governor of the State of Mexico, “Squatters
have just seized our houses and our cultivated lands surrounding them. Stop. Will you
not appeal to Mexican central government asking them to protect us a legal Mexican

31
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Walter F. Boyle, November 10, 1919, folder 6, box 19, HWK,
HL.
32
Undated memo, folder 1, box 21, HWK, HL.
33
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Carlos V. Ariza, December 26, 1930, folder 1, box 21, HWK, HL.

185
corporation.”
34
Interestingly, Keller invoked SIRC’s status as a Mexican corporation in
his effort to protect the property.
Organizing amongst workers and agraristas was strong in Baja California,
particularly along border communities in the 1920s and 1930s and likely contributed to
squatters’ willingness to invade and take over foreign-owned properties such as the
SIRC. Agraristas in the Mexicali Valley, for example, organized into workers’
associations to demand better wages and working conditions and, later, to petition for
land grants. When petitions for ejidos failed to win support from the Department of
Agriculture, groups often simply took over properties to farm or in some cases staged
armed invasions of American-owned lands.
35
Although SIRC accounts did not record the
political perspectives of the squatters who invaded its property, it seems likely that these
squatters were inspired by the culture of organizing and agrarian demands in northern
Baja. As Baja’s Mexican residents claimed American properties across the peninsula, the
demands spread to lands on the SIRC ranch.
The property remained in a state of limbo throughout the 1920s and 1930s—
colonists and squatters continued to live on and cultivate SIRC property and the SIRC
stockholders continued to pay taxes on the property to the Mexican government. They
feared that if they stopped paying taxes, the Mexican government would be able to
officially lay claim to the property. The SIRC board also continued to offer leases to the
colonists but only if the Mexican government would assure them that they would respect

34
Telegram from Henry Workman Keller to Governor Filiberto Goméz, April 7, 1931, folder 1, box 21,
HWK, HL.
35
See Dwyer, Chapter two, “El as alto a las tierras y la huelga de los sentados: How Local Agency Shaped
Agrarian Reform in the Mexicali Valley.”

186
their land titles. Instead, agraristas encroached on more SIRC land. The ranch manager
reported in September 1931 that members of the agrarian movement along with Mexican
officials had driven ranch employees off of the property at gun point: “[They] have taken
possession of all the houses and all they contained…this all came about through the
encouragement given these people by the Bolshevik Governor.”
36
Squatters and colonists
seemed aware that the local government would support their cause over that of a group of
wealthy Americans and unconcerned with possible repercussions.
37
In fact, when SIRC
members or their representatives traveled to the property, colonists, ejeditarios, and
squatters all refused to discuss the ranch with any Americans or to “give any information
to Americans as they feared they would be doing something that would prove detrimental
to the above mentioned classes.”
38

Henry Workman Keller had grown up in Los Angeles, spoke Spanish fluently,
and had extensive investments and political links in northern Mexico. He utilized all of
his Mexican connections to try to win the hunting grounds back from Cantú’s
administration in the 1910s through the 1930s. In 1931, for example, he enlisted the
assistance of “influential friends” in Mexico City to investigate the position of President
Ortiz Rubio on restoring the San Isidro property. Although Keller had strong friendships
with Mexican policymakers through his work with the Automobile Club of Southern

36
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to William Edwards, September 18, 1931, folder 13, box 23, HWK,
HL. Keller is referring to Governor Carlos Trejo y Lerdo de Tejada, the appointed governor of Baja
California in 1931. Tejada was a nationalist who believed that the territory’s problems stemmed from
inequitable land redistribution and economic inequalities. See Kerig 313.
37
“The intending squatters know before locating on the property that the local Fomento is probably in
sympathy with their actions.” Letter from Henry Workman Keller to William Edwards, November 13,
1929, folder 13, box 23, HWK, HL.
38
Memorandum from Abelino Romero to Henry Workman Keller, undated, folder 17, box 21, HWK, HL.

187
California and remained hopeful that the company might regain control of its ranch, he
also admitted that the “agrarian policy” was strong in Mexico. He worried that even if
his influence could win back the property, the Mexican federal government would attach
a clause forcing SIRC to colonize the land with Mexican citizens or subdivide and sell off
parcels to individual Mexican families.
39

SIRC members consciously described themselves as “friends of Mexico,” hoping
that long histories of investment in Mexico and friendships with elite Mexicans might
help their cause. Keller and Chandler in particular identified their connections to Mexico
and argued that “by their past acts have proven themselves friends of the Mexican nation.
[We] know of no one among our stockholders who is not well disposed and friendly to
Mexico.”
40
The SIRC board also adamantly denied being what they described as
“exploiters” in Mexico. Rather, they understood themselves as wealthy men anxious to
help develop the northern region of Baja California as long as Mexico protected their
rights as property owners. If given the opportunity, Keller wrote, we would “develop our
holdings to the benefit of the territory where our lands are found.”
41
SIRC members even
maintained that they had remained friendly to Mexico despite “very harsh treatment” at
the hands of the Mexican government. In the early 1930s, both Henry Workman Keller
and Harry Chandler also reminded their friends in the Mexican government that they

39
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to William A. Edwards, November 30, 1931, folder 9, box 20,
HWK, HL.
40
Undated memo, folder 1, box 21, HWK, HL.
41
Ibid.

188
were key players in the effort to build a highway to connect Los Angeles to Mexico City;
a highway, they pointed out, that would be extraordinarily beneficial to Mexico.
42

In an effort to prove themselves true friends of Mexico and to validate their land
titles, the SIRC board members even offered to settle repatriated Mexicans on their
property. Following the beginning of Depression-era deportations in the early 1930s,
they noticed that the return of Mexicans and Mexican Americans from Southern
California into Mexico had resulted in the Mexican government settling repatriated
peoples on land owned by “gringos.”
43
SIRC hoped to capitalize on this by offering its
land for settlement upfront. In exchange, the company asked the Mexican government to
recognize its titles and right to maintain the property: “During the depression, with
Mexican citizens returning to their country in droves, we have freely offered our lands to
the Mexican Government for the free use of their returning citizens, asking only that the
occupation be not permanent and our title acknowledged.”
44
Although some repatriated
families of both Mexican and American citizens did settle on SIRC property, the Mexican
government declined to recognize SIRC’s titles.

42
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Governor Filiberto Goméz, March 4, 1931, folder 1, box 21,
HWK, HL. The highway referenced by Keller was the International Pacific Highway and is the subject of
the next chapter. He wrote, rather testily, to his friend Filiberto Goméz, the governor of the state of
Mexico, “Notwithstanding this injustice, the writer as you well know is wholeheartedly, and without
compensation or hope of reward, making every effort to bring about the construction of the International
Pacific Highway which when realized will do more to bring permanent prosperity and happiness to your
people than anything undertaken in Mexico since your Republic was formed.”
43
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to William A. Edwards, April 13, 1931, folder 1, box 26, HWK, HL.
Repatriation drives, a result of high unemployment in Depression-era California, began in 1931.
Americans accused Mexican and Mexican American workers of occupying too many jobs and lobbied for a
program to deport them. The federally sanctioned program resulted in the deportation or voluntary return
of approximately 35,000 Mexican and Mexican-Americans to from Los Angeles to Mexico. See Douglas
Monroy, Rebirth: Mexican Los Angeles from the Great Migration to the Great Depression (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999), 149-150.
44
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Harry Chandler, May 14, 1934, folder 26, box 21, HWK, HL.

189
In the 1930s, the Mexican government also admitted that it had been reluctant to
return the SIRC property to its American owners because of its location directly on the
boundary line between the United States and Mexico. In fact, the ranch lay within the
zona prohibida or prohibited zone where Mexican law restricted land ownership to
Mexican citizens.
45
Mexican law forbade non-Mexican citizens or companies to acquire
or own land in strategic regions, including properties bordering coastlines and
international boundaries. Licenciado Eduardo Cortina reported to the company in 1932
that “the fundamental objection that the government of Mexico has to recognizing the
rights of the San Isidro Rancho Company is that it consists of lands situated on the border
and the partners that constitute the company are North Americans. Taking into account
historical antecedents, the government of Mexico does not desire to have American
citizens as property owners on the border.”
46
Cortina’s letter referred to an
understandable reluctance on the part of the Mexican government to having strategic
regions of the country heavily populated or owned by non-citizens. The company
protested, without success, that it had obtained an exception to the zona prohibida in
order to purchase the property.
Reluctant to displace the Mexican citizens now residing on the ranch and return
property in the zona prohibida to Americans, the Mexican government did nothing to

45
The zona prohibida prohibited non-Mexican citizens from owning property along Mexico’s coasts and
international borders. The policy was a reaction to the loss of Texas and lands ceded to the United States
following the Mexican-American War.
46
Letter from Eduardo Cortina to Carlos Ariza, February 19, 1932, folder 1, box 21, HWK, HL. In
Spanish, “el reparo fundamental que había tenido el Gobierno Mexicano para no reconocer los derechos de
la Compañía del Rancho de San Isidro, consiste en que se trata de terrenos situados en la frontera y que los
socios que constituyen la Compañía son Norteamericanos y que tomando en cuento antecedentes históricos,
el Gobierno de México no desea tener como propietarios en la Frontera a ciudadanos Americanos.”

190
restore the ranch to the SIRC. Instead, the company filed a claim with the U.S.-Mexico
claims commission, requesting $108,000 in damages and lost property.
47
Under the
commission, designed to adjudicate claims by American citizens against Mexico for
damages sustained as a result of the revolution, American property owners had the right
to petition for reparations from the Mexican government. While the SIRC waited for a
decision from the claims commission, the Mexican government continued to settle
Mexican settlers on the property. The administration of Lázaro Cárdenas increased land
redistribution in the 1930s and as a result more and more Mexican citizens petitioned for
properties, including on the San Isidro Ranch. In 1938, after the passage of Cárdenas’
agrarian land reform laws, a group of colonists “without notice met on a hill of the San
Ysidro Rancho and denounced about 10,000 acres of that property for ejidos.”
48
Aware
of the federal government’s new approach to land expropriation and redistribution,
residents of Baja California did not hesitate to apply the law and petition for an ejido.
They were successful and the SIRC board finally received a judgment of $73,000 for the
property in 1943.
49

Ultimately, the clash between the SIRC owners, Mexican colonists and squatters,
and the Mexican government revealed a moment when agraristas and Mexican
authorities could utilize the ideas of the Revolution to create change at the local level.
Cantú, the Baja Departamento de Fomento, and the local agrarian movement seized a

47
Letter form Henry Workman Keller to Stockholders of the San Isidro Ranch Company, May 5, 1928,
folder 7, box 19, HWK, HL.
48
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Harry Chandler, Burton E. Green, Homer E. Sargent, W. L.
Valentine Estate, June 11, 1943, folder 7, box 19, HWK, HL.
49
Ibid.

191
moment of significant political change in Mexico to reclaim an American-owned
property for Mexican use. Abelino Romero, working as a SIRC representative in Baja
California, reported to Keller that “La Compañía had a very serious and difficult
problem…[I don’t see how SIRC] would ever be able to get all these lands back by
ejecting all the squatters and others who have applied to the government for titles to the
lands they now hold and were granted provisional titles…these people felt that they
rightfully own these properties and would die defending them.”
50
As Romero observed,
agraristas believed they had an inherent right to SIRC property because it belonged to
them as Mexican citizens. They seemed to assert that American ownership in fee simple
meant little when Mexican citizens were in need of land.
The SIRC also encountered a Mexican state that backed squatters and agraristas
through both policy and inaction. Cantú utilized SIRC property to strengthen his
governorship and build political support. When he transferred the property to the
Departamento de Fomento, the agency recognized the SIRC’s property rights on paper
but refused to evict Mexican settlers from an American property. Eventually, the
Mexican federal state under the Cárdenas administration implemented the tenets of
Article 27 and intervened in the Mexican economy on the part of agricultural workers.
These actions, however, bumped up against SIRC members who believed in the
inviolability of private property. Property formed the basis of their belief system as
capitalists and investors. They recognized that they had purchased the San Isidro ranch
almost entirely for recreation and leisure—they wanted a vast and undeveloped tract of
land where they could escape from the pressures of urban and corporate life—but they

50
Memorandum from Abelino Romero to Henry Workman Keller, undated, folder 17, box 21, HWK, HL.

192
also asserted that they owned the property in fee simple and had the right to enjoy it in
any way they wanted. They maintained that they were not “exploiters” like other
Americans in Mexico. Keller implored a friend in Mexico to explain to the Departamento
de Fomento that he and his “friends are not exploiters, we are not interested in the profits
that might be derived from the land…our principal desire is to restore the game and
indulge in hunting in season.”
51
As squatters and colonists steadily ate away at SIRC
land holdings, the company’s board sternly tried to remind the Mexican government that
the laws of “civilized nations do not permit the appropriation of private property without
due action of law and compensation to the owner for the property taken.”
52
The protests
of the SIRC board revealed their perspective on private property and the role of
governments—enlightened and modern governments protected private property.
Instead, SIRC members discovered a social revolution fundamentally opposed to
their presence in Mexico, their status as recreational ranchers, and their position as
private property holders. They recognized the agrarista position on private property,
particularly that of foreigners, and its potential impact on land they called their own. As
one of the company’s Mexican lawyers noted, “the general tendency is to favor the poor
workman against the capitalist.”
53
This philosophy on private property, outlined in the
1917 Constitution and put into practice by local agrarianists, made men like Keller and
Edwards nostalgic for the Díaz administration and its support of American capitalists.

51
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Jorge Correa, January 19, 1939, folder 1, box 22, HWK, HL.
52
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Governor Filiberto Goméz, March 4, 1931, folder 1, box 21,
HWK, HL.
53
Letter from Emilio Gonzalez to Henry Workman Keller, July 1, 1932, folder 1, box 26, HWK, HL.

193
Edwards wistfully noted, “We sometimes sigh for the good old days under Diaz but they
are gone forever.”
54

Quimichis Hacienda
Within the social and political upheaval of the Revolution, workers and farmers in
Nayarit also laid claim to Angeleno properties. Local Indian and agrarian groups utilized
the chaos of war, the support of the military, and the backing of sympathetic local
governments to reclaim lost lands. Landless campesinos made use of the absence of the
ranch’s owners to use the property for themselves. The policies and positions of local
policymakers also played an enormous role in the administration of revolutionary
reforms. As in the case of the SIRC, Quimichis owners attempted to maintain control of
their ranch but struggled as local government officials backed agrarista petitions for and
occupation of American-owned lands. And, as in the case of the SIRC, Quimichis
owners and ranch managers found themselves fundamentally at odds with emerging
Mexican ideas about private property and the distribution of land.
Moray Applegate assumed the management of day-to-day operations at
Quimichis after the murder of William Windham in 1915 and fashioned himself an
empire-builder. Richard Bard recalled that he loved to ride his horse across the hacienda,
the head of his own little “domain.” He was stationed in the Philippines following the
Spanish-American War and reported on native industries for the American government.
After the war, Applegate moved to Mexico where he married a Mexican woman named
María Pastora Perez. She owned approximately 2400 hectares of land near Acaponeta,

54
Letter from William Edwards to Henry Workman Keller, October 14, 1925, folder 13, box 23, HWK,
HL.

194
Nayarit, which Applegate managed in addition to the Quimichis ranch. Although he
lived in Nayarit for several decades, he only worked as manager of the ranch from 1916
to 1922. The Bard family disliked his management style, especially his tendency to
ignore their directives, and fired him in 1922. During his tenure with the company,
however, Applegate dealt with the on-the-ground conflicts over land between the
Quimichis Company and local residents.
It was Applegate that indigenous communities encountered as they struggled to
claim land before the Revolution had even concluded. Beginning in 1916 these
communities strategically used the presence of revolutionary forces in Nayarit to
challenge the Quimichis Company’s land titles. In 1916 and 1919, the Tecuala Indians,
whose land bordered Quimichis, relied on support from Mexican revolutionary forces to
challenge a land dispute that dated back to 1909. The Tecuala had held a communal
piece of property adjacent to Quimichis and argued that the Quimichis Company had
moved the boundaries to encroach on their land. They utilized the presence of
revolutionary troops in Nayarit in 1916 in an attempt to gain back the portion of land they
had lost seven years earlier. Deeply concerned, Applegate telegraphed the company’s
Southern California headquarters to report, “Tecuala Indians trying to get possession part
Hacienda thru [sic] Military. Have State Department request Carranza to suspend action
until conditions permit fair legal defense our interest.”
55
The Quimichis strategy worked,
at least temporarily, and the company maintained control of the disputed property for the
moment.

55
Telegram from M. L. Applegate to John A. Treher, box 2, TBC, HL. For information on Applegate’s life,
see visa application letter from M. L. Applegate to the Mexican government, 1942, box 2, TBC, HL and
letter from Richard Bard to C. H. Windham, February 9, 1931, box 5, TBC, HL.

195
In 1919, however, the Tecuala resubmitted their petition to the Comisíon Agraria
in Tepic and the community again relied on the army to help them with their claim.
Captain Espinosa, a member of the Tecuala community and the military commander of
Acaponeta, assisted the group in writing and submitting the petition. He argued that the
Indians had not been fairly represented in the original property negotiations and deserved
the rights to a piece of Quimichis several square kilometers in size.
56
Espinosa pointed
out that while the company held an agreement ceding the Tecuala lands to Quimichis, the
tribe had been represented by the municipal president of Acaponeta and not by a member
of the community. Applegate noted that Espinosa “admitted [the titles’] probable legality
but claimed that the purpose of the revolution is to rectify the injustice done by the
municipal residents to the unrepresented Indians.”
57
Espinosa explicitly applied the ideas
of the Revolution to the dispute over land at Quimichis. The Revolution, he maintained,
had occurred precisely to provide redress in situations like this one. The relationship
between Espinosa and the Tecuala also demonstrated that local communities formed
useful alliances with military leadership when beneficial. The indigenous community
believed that a strategic relationship with the Mexican army could help them push
through a petition with the local agrarian commission.
The San Felipe community also relied on ideas of the Revolution to regain access
to land and petitioned the government for restitution of its land in 1917. As historian
Veronica Castillo-Muñoz documents, the indigenous San Felipe community identified the
policies of the Díaz administration as directly responsible for the dispossession of their

56
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Compania Agricola de Quimichis, April 25, 1919, box 2, TBC, HL.
57
Ibid.

196
lands and the growth of foreign investment companies such as the Quimichis Company.
Adopting the language of the Revolution, they argued that since the Díaz administration,
they had lost their land to ambitious investors in the Quimichis hacienda. They
respectfully requested the return of their ancestral property.
58
The National Agrarian
Commission ruled in their favor and, despite appeals from Quimichis management,
Obregón upheld the decision in 1918.
The power of local decision-makers over American enterprises resurfaced
following the Mexican congress’ decision to appoint General José Santos Godínez as the
governor of Nayarit in 1919. According to Applegate, Godínez was “extremely radical
and a pronounced enemy to ‘capital’…he is an extreme partisan and his following is what
would be called the ‘Bolsheviki’ element in any other country.”
59
The company
complained that it was virtually impossible to get local officials to protect its property
under the administrations of revolutionary leaders such as Godínez. Even if the federal
government or a district court issued an edict or ruling in favor of the company, local
officials simply refused to enforce them.
60
In 1925, for example, Quimichis received a
telegram from the office of President Obregón stating that portions of their property
along the Acaponeta River were designated a “federal zone” and therefore were ineligible

58
Quoted in Castillo-Muñoz, 83. Registro Agrario Nacional, Expediente: Ejidos, Ejido San Felipe, Tepic,
Nayarit, October 22, 1917, 40. In Spanish, “Los que nos suscribimos mayores de edad, naturales e
Indiginas [sic] del propio pueblo, tenemos el honor de dirigirnos a usted con el debido respeto
manifestándole que de tiempo inmemorial existe y guardamos un testimonio, que ampara el terreno de
nuestras propiedades que nuestros antecesores nos dejaron, el cual esta como en depocito [sic] en poder de
esa comisión para su tramitación. Señor presidente desde aquel gobierno que regia el señor Porfirio Díaz
carecemos de justicia y desde esos años hasta la época presente, a habido varios vecinos colindantes
ambicionados y que han sido poseedores del terreno que le nombran hacienda de Quimichis, en donde está
situado nuestra terreno.”
59
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Compania Agricola de Quimichis, October 31, 1919, box 2, TBC, HL.
60
Telegram from Richard Bard to the Department of State, July 21, 1926, box 6, TBC, HL.

197
for redistribution under Article 27. Local officials in Nayarit, however, refused to
remove local residents who had already begun to cultivate tobacco and corn along the
river.
61

As the country entered a period of relative peace in the 1920s, the company feared
that the Mexican state could turn its attention to implementing the property reform laws
outlined in the Constitution of 1917. In addition to facing local challenges to their
property rights, as in the case of the Tecuala tribe, Quimichis directors realized that they
would face additional pressure from a Mexican federal government looking for strategies
to implement revolutionary reforms. Applegate recommended selling off some of the
property before the “obnoxious Article 27” went into full effect. He predicted that the
Mexican government would eventually divide up large agricultural holdings and
redistribute them and he advised selling off surplus land before “radical legislation”
forced subdivision.
62
He assessed that the Mexican people would not abandon
redistributive policies, regardless of the position of the United States, and pushed the
company to unload some of its underutilized lands before forced to do so by the Mexican
state.
Applegate’s assessment may have spurred Richard Bard and the Quimichis board
to pursue an option to sell large chunks of the property through a colonizacíon agreement
in the late 1920s. Brokered by the governor of Nayarit, the option provided two
individuals and a group of small investors, organized as the Tecuala Farmers’ Union, to

61
Letter from Richard Bard to the Department of State, January 19, 1925, box 6, TBC, HL.
62
Letter from Richard Bard to M. L. Applegate, May 24, 1921, box 2, TBC, HL and letter from M. L.
Applegate to Compania Agricola de Quimichis, May 30, 1921, box 2, TBC, HL.

198
buy off a majority of the company’s holdings. Colonization or colonizacíon programs
constituted the primary form of agrarian reform prior to the presidency of Lázaro
Cárdenas. Presidents Obregón (1920-1924) and Calles (1924-1928) endorsed
colonization as the most effective strategy for transforming rural agricultural workers into
independent yeoman farmers. In contrast to the communally held ejido, colonizacíon
programs divided large landholdings into small parcels and offered them for sale and fee
simple ownership. Agricultural workers with the economic resources to place a down
payment on a piece of land had an advantage over those who could not pay cash or
ensure the repayment of a mortgage.
63
The Mexican government provided some
financial assistance for colonization programs but many peasants still could not come up
with the required down payment. In addition, many indigenous communities preferred
traditional forms of communal property ownership. Mexican presidents throughout the
1920s, however, opposed ejidos because they believed that they were not an efficient
form of agriculture. Calles, for example, argued that ejidos promoted subsistence
farming rather than production for the market and threatened the Mexican economy.
64

At Quimichis, the ranch owners and the state governor attempted to broker a
colonization plan just prior to Cárdenas’ election. In early 1934, the governor of Nayarit,
Francisco Parra, put together a deal between a group of Mexican purchasers, likely part
of the local middleclass with access to some cash, and the Quimichis board. Perhaps in
an attempt to make themselves appear more proletarian, the purchasers organized

63
See Frank Tannenbaum, The Mexican Agrarian Revolution (Washington, DC, 1968), 320 and Castillo-
Muñoz, 71.
64
Castillo-Muñoz, 72-73.

199
themselves as the Tecuala Farmers’ Union and worked with Governor Parra to negotiate
the sale of sections of the Quimichis Hacienda known as El Filo and Milpas Viejas for
approximately $4.80 an acre. The deal divided the ranch into five lots and totaled 23,700
hectares or almost the entire estate. Several individuals wanted smaller lots of between
1000 and 1500 hectares with the remaining 20,000 hectares marked for the Tecuala
Farmers’ Union.
65
In addition to Governor Parra, the Quimichis board relied on two
Mexican brokers to put the deal together. In Los Angeles, they retained Ramón Sánchez-
Albarrán to handle the sale. Albarrán contracted with José Zuloaga Vizcaíno—who
wanted to purchase a portion of the property—to work out the details in Nayarit as well
as an attorney named José Gutierrez Hermosillo. Richard Bard and the Quimichis board
hoped that by working with these allies in Mexico they could unload the property through
a private real estate transaction rather than waiting for what they believed was the
inevitable break up and expropriation of the property by the government.
Although the Quimichis board desperately wanted to dispose of the property and
had found Mexicans anxious to buy, local agraristas vigorously objected to the sale.
Working from Mexico, Vizcaíno declared that negotiating the deal had jeopardized his
physical wellbeing because campesinos so forcefully opposed the sale. In a report to
Albarrán he wrote, “I have put forth my best efforts, made use of all my friendly
connections, and, above all, I have been calm through it all, with the idea of being able to
meet a situation which could have cost me my life; for you haven’t any idea of how

65
Contract between Quimichis Colony and José Zuloaga Vizcaíno, et al and Quimichis Colony, undated,
box 6, TBC, HL.

200
excited the people were by their leaders.”
66
Vizcaíno assessed the local political situation
and concluded that communities resented the sale of Quimichis to those who could afford
to pay cash or at least make a substantial down payment. He claimed that an atmosphere
charged with violence met him when he arrived in Acaponeta and that agrarista leaders
had been actively organizing against the colonization plan.
Complaints from Quimichis residents prompted a government investigation of the
proposed Quimichis sale at the end of 1934. Enrique Najera, an engineer with the
Departamento Agrario went to Tepic and spoke directly with Quimichis residents about
proceedings at the hacienda. He reported to his department that the Tecuala Farmers
Union was attempting a land grab at Quimichis and urged that the Departamento Agrario
ensure that the expropriation and redistribution of Quimichis land benefit those who had
farmed the property for generations and could not afford to purchase parcels individually.
He claimed that the Tecuala Farmers Union had formed especially to exclude renters
from being able to purchase parts of Quimichis. Najera cautioned the agrarian
department to approve land grants only for the agricultural communities of Milpas Viejas
and Quimichis and to be careful not to allow the concentration of land in the hands of a
few.
67
This report, coupled with agrarista organzing and petitions for ejidos threatened
the sale and slowed its completion.

66
Letter from José Zuloaga Vizcaíno to Ramón Sánchez-Albarrán, August 28, 1934, box 6, TBC, HL.
67
Letter from Enrique G. Najera to Secretario General del Departamento Agrario, December 26, 1934,
expediente 00231:23, población: Quimichis, municipio: Tecuala, estado: Nayarit, Comisión Agraria Mixta.
Najera wrote, “Exige aunque implícitamente, para que el Departamento Agrario dé su aprobación a los
fraccionamientos que se hagan, estimo que deben ser los siguientes: Que el Departamento Agrario deba de
convencerse, que los fraccionamientos que se hagan sean verdaderos fraccionamientos y no acaparamientos
de la p de la propiedad, que aunque fraccionada de latifundio original signifique por el fraccionamiento que
se haga la apropiación de la tierra en manos de unos cuantos con demérito de la población que pudiese
adquirir fracciones con la división de latifundio.”

201
Mexicans living on and around Quimichis began formal proceedings to acquire
ranch properties in 1935 before the sale had been finalized. Their petition took place in a
shifting political climate in Mexico. Demands for the redistribution of agrarian
properties fueled the popularity of Lázaro Cárdenas and following his election in 1934,
the Mexican state took decisive steps to break up large landholdings and parcel them out
as ejidos. The Cárdenas administration supported expropriations for two reasons. First,
Cárdenas was a populist and believed Mexican peasants had a right to land. Second, he
hoped to reinforce his own popularity and strengthen the Mexican state by building
allegiance in rural communities through the redistribution of agrarian properties.
The passage of two pieces of legislation reflected these factors. The 1934
Agrarian Code expanded the right to petition for ejido lands to a large number of peasants
and established local Mixed Agrarian Commissions to assist community members in
applying for lands. In addition, Cárdenas passed the Expropriation Law of 1936,
strengthening the power of the federal government in Mexico’s rural sector. The
legislation allowed the government to expropriate properties previously exempt, many of
them owned by Americans. As historian John Dwyer notes, these policies “empowered
Cárdenas’s administration and landless rural workers alike; they also weakened the rural
economic elite, promoted agricultural modernization, and enabled many more Mexicans
to benefit directly from their country’s natural resources.”
68

Although a federal administration that supported expropriation made the process
easier, the push for reallocating rural properties came from local communities and local
governments. In the case of Quimichis, petitions for ejidos began early in Cardenás’ term

68
Dwyer, 22.

202
at the local level. In January1935, just a month after Cárdenas took office, the pueblos
known as Milpas Viejas, Quimichis, and El Filo filed petitions to receive lands from the
Quimichis property.
69
When Hermosillo discovered the applications, he met with
Governor Parra and the Agrarian Commission in Nayarit to protest the possible
expropriation. The Governor and the Commission suggested appealing to the Central
Agrarian Commission with a compromise: if allowed to sell off most of the property as
arranged in 1934, the company would donate four hectares of land to each “qualified
resident.”
70

To fight the expropriation and salvage the proposed sale, Hermosillo approached
various friends within the Agrarian Commission and federal government. Drawing from
discussions with the Quimichis board, he encouraged them to favor the creation of small
yeoman farmers rather than communal ejidos. Hermosillo and the Quimichis board
argued that the Mexican government should promote small landholders in the country’s
agricultural sector because communally held land would not lead to economic progress:
The small farmers are in the habit of working the land that they purchase. They know very well
that no one can take it away from them and on acquiring it, they have in mind the spirit of progress
and take a personal interest in it; whereas the ‘ejidatarios’ or community land-holders, not
acquiring it through any sacrifice on their part but rather obtaining it as something that is given to
them by the Government…and for that reason they do not have in mind the spirit of enterprise and
work as do the others.”
71

Hermosillo championed the more economically conservative strategy for promoting
economic and agricultural reform in Mexico; he advocated selling parcels of land directly

69
Letter from Ramón Sánchez-Albarrán to Richard Bard, January 7, 1935, box 6, TBC, HL.
70
Ibid.
71
Letter from J. Gutierrez Hermosillo to Ramón Sánchez-Albarrán, January 28, 1935, box 6, TBC, HL.

203
to individuals and the creation of a class of yeoman farmers in rural Mexico. Not
coincidentally, this policy would also benefit the proposed Quimichis sale.
Campesinos in Nayarit, however, had different aspirations: they wanted
communal ejido grants. They opposed the sale of the Quimichis property to private
individuals and remained well-organized in their opposition to the colonization plan.
Whenever a lawyer or representative of the company traveled through Tepic, Tecuala,
and Quimichis, leaders of the agrarian committees in each community cautioned
individual families not to be influenced by the opposition.
72
Hermosillo reported that
representatives of the communities greeted him with open hostility during a meeting. In
several of these meetings he pushed for each community to consider becoming “small
farmers” rather than pursue their petitions for ejidos.
73
They staunchly refused.
In fact, in their official petition for ejido lands, the people of Quimichis argued
that “since time immemorial” their families had lived and worked as peons or temporary
laborers at the Quimichis hacienda and therefore deserved the property. According to
their observations Quimichis owners had practically abandoned the ranch; its proposed
sale threatened their ability to continue farming the property as they had for years and
endangered their ability to provide for their families. They also referenced the rhetoric of
the Revolution arguing that the strategies of the Díaz administration had dispossessed
them and that the policies of the Quimichis owners had negatively impacted their lives.
Consequently, under the Código Agrario (Agrarian Code) they were applying for parcels

72
Letter from José Gutierrez Hermosillo to Ramón Sánchez-Albarrán, February 4, 1935, box 6, TBC, HL.
73
Ibid.

204
of land sufficient to support their families. The representatives of almost 300 Quimichis
families signed the petition.
74

In 1935, Albarrán regretfully wrote to Richard Bard to inform him that President
Cárdenas had approved the application of Milpas Viejas for an ejido carved out of the
Quimichis property. The Mexican government’s official paper announced the grant of
4177 hectares to the people of Milpas Viejas under the provisions of the country’s
Agrarian Code. The ejido included twenty-one hectares already occupied by Milpas
Viejas residents, 704 hectares of “choice moist land,” 192 hectares of dry farming land,
land for an educational center, and 3200 hectares of grazing land.
75
As a result of the
ejidal petitions, the Mexican government expropriated 23,000 hectares of 30,000 hectares
of the Quimichis property in 1935. The company estimated that the expropriated lands
were worth 1,840,000 pesos or $750,000.
76
Herman Lyttle, secretary of the Quimichis
board, reported, “This year the Mexican Government practically confiscated the entire
ranch so that at the present writing it is evident there is no value whatever to either the

74
Periódico Oficial de Nayarit, March 13, 1935, 1. In Spanish, “Desde tiempo inmemorial nuestros
antecesores vivieron como peones acasillados pero a la vez que temporalmente prestaban sus servicios a la
Hacienda, trabajaban la mayor parte del tiempo las tierras de cultivo ya sea como arrendatarios, en
aparcería o a medias, o bien mediante refaccionados por las misma Hacienda…la mencionada Hacienda
tácitamente ha desaparecido y nos amenaza el ser expulsados o a lo menos excluídos [sic] para poder seguir
cultivando las tierras en la misma forma que por tantos años lo hemos hecho, con lo que se nos perjudica en
alto grado por privársenos de los medios de poder conseguir los medios de vida para sí y nuestros
familiares, por medio de la presente venimos a solicitar de conformidad con las disposiciones relativas del
Código Agrario en vigor, la dotacíon [sic] de las tierras suficientes para subvenir al sostenimiento de
nuestras familias.”
75
Letter from R. Sanchez Albarran to Richard Bard, June 20, 1935, box 6, TBC, HL.
76
Letter from Richard Bard to Adams Chadwick Company, June 27, 1931, box 3, TBC, HL.

205
common or preferred shares.”
77
Mexican expropriation of privately owned land had
rendered American investments worthless.
After the confiscation, and in spite of the constitutional rule that property owners
would be reimbursed for expropriated properties, the Quimichis owners held out little
hope that they would see compensation. Bard wrote despairingly, “We of course have
made a legal protest to the Government of Mexico and have demanded that the land
either be returned or compensated for but as everybody knows such a protest will avail
nothing and we consider the property as having been confiscated. Therefore, it is our
opinion that the stock of Quimichis Colony is worthless.”
78
A few years later, after the
company had filed a claim against the Mexican government, they hoped cautiously to
receive $100,000 of the $285,000 they had requested.
79

Local communities continued to take over pieces of the company through the
1940s. In 1942, for example, José Sainz denounced 1500 hectares of prime agricultural
land as terrenos baldíos, or unclaimed public land. The section, known as Las Flores,
was located just down the river from the Quimichis Company headquarters and
Applegate, sent to oversee the surveying of the ranch for expropriation, urged Bard to
dispute Sainz’s claim, arguing that they could sway the local agrarian engineer in their
favor.
80
Local residents, however, had made good use of the property while its owners
were absent. Pablo Hernández, the former Quimichis foreman, lived in the company

77
Letter from H. Lyttle to Bank of America, September 10, 1935, box 4, TBC, HL.
78
Letter from Richard Bard to Bank of America, February 24, 1938, box 4, TBC, HL.
79
Letter from Richard Bard to Bank of America, March 17, 1941, box 4, TBC, HL.
80
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Richard Bard, April 10, 1942, box 2, TBC, HL.

206
headquarters building with his family. Other families from the area occupied additional
rooms in the building and utilized land around the headquarters complex to farm.
81
Local
residents also occupied all of the buildings surrounding the headquarters, including
warehouses and the former mill.
Ultimately, the Quimichis ownership expressed disappointment in the failure of
their own government to protect their right to private property. Correspondence between
Moray Applegate and Richard Bard articulated profound dissatisfaction with what they
perceived as the acquiescence of the United States to the demands of Mexican peasants.
Rather than intervening to ensure that American citizens preserved their property, the
U.S. government refused to intervene militarily, negotiated nominal reparations from
Mexico and eventually announced a new era in U.S.-Mexico relations in the form of the
Good Neighbor Policy. As Appleby commented bitterly in 1943, he considered it useless
to appeal to either the U.S. or Mexican government because neither side would be willing
to risk any action that might “dispel the happy illusion of our diplomats that there exists
perfect harmony under the ‘good neighbor policy.’ Of course we all know that all will be
sweet and lovely as long as Mexico gets what she wants and has to concede nothing. The
first time we refuse to give them what they want we will again suddenly become ‘El
Coloso del Norte’ threatening them with our policy of ‘imperialism.’
82
In Appleby’s
assessment, Mexico held the power in the relationship between the two nations. It
wielded the epithet “imperialism” as a weapon to win demands from the United States.
Both Appleby and Bard noted with embarrassment and chagrin that the United States had

81
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Richard Bard, June 11, 1942, box 2, TBC, HL.
82
Letter from M. L. Applegate to Richard Bard, May 7, 1943, box 2, TBC, HL.

207
bowed to the Mexican people and the Mexican state. While land policies had not
achieved economic equality in Mexico, Mexican peasants had successfully forced a well-
connected American company to cede its lands to organized campesinos. And the
powerful “Coloso del Norte” had decided not to intervene in any meaningful way on
behalf of its citizens and the former owners of private property in Mexico.
Harry Chandler vs. Presidents Obregón and Cárdenas
Even the well-connected, powerful, and enormous Colorado River Land
Company faced an uncertain future following the Mexican Revolution. The Company’s
chief executive, Harry Chandler, enjoyed even closer ties to the Mexican government
than Henry Workman Keller. He counted every Mexican president from Porfirio Díaz to
Abelardo Rodríguez as a personal friend. When Álvaro Obregón traveled to Los
Angeles, for example, he stayed at Harry Chandler’s home as his guest. Chandler
lobbied for the United States to recognize Obregón’s government from 1920 to 1923, and
he and his wife and daughter traveled to Mexico City in 1924 to attend the inauguration
of Obregón’s successor, Plutarco Elías Calles.
83
As outlined in Chapter 1, Chandler and
the CRLC also championed Mexican sovereignty and water rights along the Colorado
River because their Mexican property needed irrigation waters provided by the Colorado.
As the Mexican Revolution waned and the country settled into its post-revolutionary
phase, Chandler and the CRLC hoped that these types of personal and diplomatic
relationships would shield them from agrarian movements and confiscatory policies such
as Article 27.

83
Kerig 242.

208
As evidenced in the post-revolution history of the CRLC, however, economic
power in the United States and political alliances between the United States and Mexico
did little to protect American-owned lands in Baja California. Although Chandler and the
CRLC built close friendships with post-revolution Mexican presidents, agreed to finance
development projects in Baja California, and even arranged a colonization plan that
would sell off CRLC holdings in small parcels to Mexican campesinos, the company
failed to protect its holdings from expropriation. The experiences of the CRLC also
demonstrate how the Mexican federal government could utilize Article 27 and the threat
of expropriation to extract economic investment and political support from American
investors. In the 1920s, Obregón, who did not support expansive land expropriation
programs, nevertheless used it as a tactic to leverage Chandler’s support for other
projects.
The interwar period was relatively profitable for the Colorado River Land
Company. Sheltered from the worst violence of the revolution, Baja California enjoyed
an economic boom created by a tremendous global demand for cotton. As this demand
spurred steadily rising cotton prices, the CRLC leased out large tracts of its property for
cultivation by individual growers. Most of these growers were Americans who had the
resources to lease up to 10,000 or 12,000 acres. They also assumed the costs of
improving the properties they leased. Chinese immigrants filled an intense need for
laborers in vast cotton fields.
84
High cotton prices in 1923 and 1924 brought the

84
Kerig 100.

209
syndicate some of its first significant returns since they had invested in the property
twenty years prior.
85

A population boom in the Mexicali Valley, however, also brought new settlers to
Baja California, some of whom settled on CRLC land. Emboldened by the Constitution
of 1917, families looking for agricultural land simply moved onto undeveloped pieces of
the CRLC property and began farming. By March 1921, more than 70 families were
squatting on CRLC land.
86
According to historian Dorothy Kerig, these families fully
expected Mexico’s new land policies to challenge the CRLC’s titles and uphold their
right to portions of the ranch. Groups of peasants also called for the Mexican federal
government to begin carving the CRLC property into ejidos.
Squatters and ejidatarios in the first years of the 1920s expected the federal
government and President Álvaro Obregón (1920-1924) to address their need for land. A
political and economic conservative, however, Obregón believed that economic
development in Mexico required private investment. For example, he appointed a
succession of pro-business governors in Baja California—Salazar, Balarezo, Ibarra, and
Rodríguez—to succeed Cantú. Obregón also believed that Mexico needed foreign
investment and cultivated a close personal friendship with Harry Chandler to solicit
Angeleno capital. In 1921 he extended an invitation to Chandler to visit Mexico City and
discuss how his administration and the CRLC could cooperate to promote economic

85
Kerig 257 and Stone, “Cotton Production Data of Lower California,” undated, claim 54, docket 72, box
31, Records of the U.S. and Mexican Claims Commissions, Record Group 76, National Archives and
Records Administration, College Park (hereafter NARA CP).
86
Letter from Otto Brant to Harry Chandler, March 17, 1921, unnumbered box, general archives, Sherman
Library, Corona del Mar. Hereafter, SL. Also cited in Kerig 203.

210
development in Baja California.
87
Chandler replied that he and Henry Workman Keller
planned to travel to the Mexican capital together to discuss American capital and Baja
California with Obregón in person.
88

Chandler eagerly cultivated this friendship with Obregón, assessing it to be the
best way to maintain the CRLC property. He and Obregón shared an interest in
protecting Mexico’s water rights along the Colorado River and both supported
infrastructure development in Baja, including a railroad, port, and roads.
89
In particular,
Obregón hoped to attract foreign investors to construct a rail line from Mexicali to the
bay of San Felipe on the Gulf of California. In 1921, he asked Chandler and the CRLC to
spearhead the effort. Chandler responded that the CRLC did not have the resources to
tackle the project but promised Obregón to find investors in Los Angeles and
Washington, DC to finance the line. Chandler worked on piecing together financing for
the railroad throughout the early 1920s. He reported regularly to Obregón on his
progress and always presented a positive spin on his efforts.
90
Chandler also lobbied the
U.S. federal government to recognize Obregón’s government—the U.S. refused to
acknowledge his presidency because of his anti-American stance in the oil industry.

87
H. H. Clark to President Obregón, February 15, 1922, expediente 803-C-14, fondo Obregón-Calles,
Archivo General de la Nación. Hereafter Obregón-Calles, AGN.
88
Telegram from Antonio Villarreal to President Obregón, May 25, 1921, expediente 421-Ch-7, volumen
154, Obregón-Calles, AGN.
89
Kerig 210.
90
Telegram from Harry Chandler to President Obregón, May 14, 1923, expediente 422-S-9, volumen 160,
Obregón-Calles, AGN. Chandler reported, “Estoy tratando de atender a su solicitud en el asunto. Pasé tres
semanas en Washington y estoy lleno de esperanzas acerca resultado. La actitud de los funcionarios es
mucho mas favorable a la cuestión Mexicana que hasta ahora.”

211
As Obregón and Chandler negotiated further American investment in Baja
California, agrarian activists pushed for immediate land reform in the territory. In 1922,
for example, former revolutionary Colonel Marcelino Magaña y Mejía organized
campesinos to petition for parcels of irrigated land. Mejía also organized invasions of
private property to underscore the farmers’ demands. His strategies included
revolutionary rhetoric regarding land; he argued that property owned by foreign
companies actually belonged to the Mexican nation.
91
In response to peasant organizing,
and to scare Chandler, Obregón expropriated three pieces of CRLC land and appointed a
governor who appeared more sympathetic to the campesino demands.
92

Hoping to appease the agraristas with at least temporary access to CRLC lands,
Obregón also used the expropriations to leverage further work on the rail line. He
communicated regularly with Chandler about financing for the proposed route and
insinuated that a successful railroad could help protect the CRLC from encroachments on
its land. Understandably, Chandler and the CRLC believed the expropriations set a
dangerous precedent that might result in the complete loss of the ranch. As a result,
Chandler acquiesced and began aggressively recruiting investors for the railroad. In 1922
he organized a large banquet to bring together Los Angeles-based investors, particularly
the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and representatives of the Obregón
administration.
93
Interestingly, Senator Albert Fall was among the sixty banquet

91
Castillo-Muñoz, 92-93. Mejía argued more specifically that repatriated Mexicans and Mexican-
Americans deserved property in Baja California more than American-owned firms such as the CRLC.
92
Kerig, 215.
93
Letter from Harry Chandler to President Obregón, April 4, 1922, expediente 243-B1-B, volumen 116,
Obregon-Calles, AGN.

212
attendees.
94
An Obregón aide reported to the president that he understood the event as an
honest effort on Chandler’s part to raise the investment capital necessary to build the
railroad.
95
Obregón’s aide also assessed that the political environment in Southern
California was very supportive of Mexico and demonstrated “a vehement desire to
resume official relations between the two republics without any conditions affecting
[Mexico’s] national honor.”
96
Attendees expressed enthusiasm for Obregón’s
administration, a desire to invest in Mexico, and a plan to organize an excursion to visit
Obregón in Mexico City within the year.
97
The Chamber of Commerce also agreed to
send letters in support of Obregón to the White House and Chandler promised to publish
only positive reports on Obregón in the Los Angeles Times.
98

Following the banquet, Chandler worked to interest investors in the San Felipe
railroad throughout 1922 and 1923 but achieved little success in raising funds and
constructing the infrastructure that Obregón desired. Los Angeles and San Francisco
investors expressed an interest in developing Baja California but only if the Mexican
government would guarantee not to expropriate privately held properties.
99
Chandler also

94
Presidential memo, undated, expediente 243-B1-B, volumen 116, Obregón-Calles, AGN.
95
Ibid. The aide wrote, “El próximo viernes se ha fijado por Chandler y otros hombres de negocios para el
banquete que han ofrecido al subscrito en la ciudad de Los Ángeles…espera que será una buena
oportunidad para atraer capital a nuestra República y particularmente a ese Distrito Norte…El ambiente
político en las poblaciones del Sur de California es muy optimista con respecto a nosotros, y se nota a
primera vista que hay vehementes deseos de que sean reanudadas las relaciones oficiales entre las dos
Repúblicas sin necesidad de condiciones que afecten nuestro honor nacional.”
96
Ibid.
97
Letter from Governor José Lugo to President Obregón, April 15, 1922, expediente 243-B1-B, volumen
116, Obregón-Calles, AGN.
98
Ibid.
99
Kerig 229.

213
continued to push the Harding administration to recognize Obregón’s government.
Harding, however, did not move on the recognition issue, and Chandler had yet to
produce tangible results for the San Felipe railroad, so Obregón signed the edict to
officially expropriate three tracts of CRLC land. A few months later he also signed a
decree cancelling all of the CRLC’s titles.
100

These fairly drastic actions frightened Chandler and pressed him into a number of
large concessions. Chandler agreed to invest in new industries in Baja, pay for additional
irrigation systems, develop a colonization scheme for placing Mexican farmers on
portions of CRLC land, and gift a large portion of the property to the Mexican
government if Obregón agreed to reinstate the CRLC’s titles. Chandler also continued to
provide evidence to Obregón that he was pushing hard in Washington, DC for American
recognition of the Mexican administration. In April 1923 he wrote Obregón,
“Confidentially, I have a plan working out to make the hardest drive that has yet been
made upon the Administration for recognition. I would not pretend to predict that we
will win but I will say that we are getting a lot of interests mobilized to make the most
effective drive we know how to make in order to put it over.”
101
Chandler’s efforts
appeared to appease Obregón and resolve the company’s troubles with agrarian reform.
In exchange for recognition of its titles, the CRLC essentially agreed to reinvest any

100
Letter from Harry Chandler to President Obregón, December 2, 1922, expediente 803-C-14, Obregón-
Calles, AGN.
101
Letter from Harry Chandler to President Obregón, April 10, 1923, expediente 104-B-15, volumen 25,
Obregón-Calles, AGN.

214
profits it earned from the property back into the infrastructure of the ranch and Baja
California.
102

After the deal brokered with Obregón, the CRLC managed to maintain its
property through the 1920s. As the 1930s opened, however, Mexican agraristas in Baja
California became more vocal and forceful in calls for land redistribution. As Dwyer
argues, peasants in the Mexicali Valley organized into militant “peasant leagues, aligned
themselves with national labor unions, filed ejidal petitions, held marches and
demonstrations, performed political plays, voted for representatives, gathered arms, and
invaded an enormous private property owned by a powerful U.S. company.”
103
These
organizing efforts coincided with the presence of a more sympathetic Mexican chief
executive.
When elected, Cárdenas proposed to expand Obregón’s plan to colonize Mexican
citizens on CRLC land. Instead of granting communally held ejidos, Cárdenas promoted
a colonization plan that would assist individuals in purchasing small landholdings from
large companies such as the CRLC. Under an agreement signed between the CRLC and
the Cárdenas administration in 1936, the company was obliged to subdivide and sell off
all of its property to Mexican citizens at prices well below market value.
104
Before the
two sides had even signed the agreement, Mexican officials had traveled to Los Angeles
to recruit Mexican repatriates to settle on CRLC land.
105
The CRLC quickly began

102
Kerig 237-238.
103
Dwyer 45.
104
Ibid. 47.
105
Ibid. 48.

215
settling colonists on their property and actually sold more than double the amount of land
required in the first year of the contract (27,000 acres rather than just 12,000). In
correspondence between Cardenás and Rafael Navarro Cortina, however, Cardenás
expressed frustration with the speed of colonization on the CRLC. He hoped to see all of
the company’s property sold to Mexican citizens in five to six years, rather than the
twenty stipulated in the official agreement.
106

Local campesino groups also expressed dissatisfaction with a plan brokered by
the Mexican federal government and a handful of foreign elites. They opposed Cardenás’
support of colonization when his campaign had expressed support for granting ejidos. As
in the situations at Quimichis and the SIRC, most peasants lacked the means to place a
down payment on an individual parcel of land. Instead, they held Cardenás to his
campaign pledges and to the property rights outlined in the 1917 Constitution; they
demanded ejido lands. As expressed by the Secretary General of the Union of Peasant
Laborers in Baja, “There is a line dividing this place between a Los Angeles company
and a government [on one side]…and at the other end an ideal which brought rivers of
blood since 1910.”
107
In other words, the CRLC might envision a future of private
property ownership in the Colorado River delta, but the Mexicans who resided there
identified the Revolution as a demarcation between an exploitative past and a more
equitable future.
Ultimately militant peasant organizing in the Mexicali Valley heralded the end of
the CRLC’s land monopoly in the region. In January 1937, after the CRLC’s first

106
Ibid. 50.
107
Secretary General of the Union of Peasant Day Laborers, July 24, 1936, quoted in Dwyer 44.

216
successful year of colonization, a group of nearly four hundred armed agraristas invaded
the CRLC property demanding ejidal land grants. They described the CRLC as “a
horrible company that hoarded land” and expressed profound frustration that the
government had ignored their petitions for ejidos.
108
Cardenás considered these land
invasions “treasonous,” primarily because he wanted agraristas to rely on his
government for land grants. Several powerful workers’ organizations, however,
supported the CRLC invasion and Cardenás ultimately felt forced to concede to them.
He met with their leadership and agreed to requests for land grants carved out of the
CRLC property. He also ordered the Agrarian Department to conduct an agrarian census
in the Mexicali Valley to assess peasant needs and authorized the establishment of a
Mixed Agrarian Commission in the territory to review ejidal petitions. All of this
unfolded quickly. By March of 1937, the Mixed Agrarian Commission had begun
creating ejidos out of the CRLC property. In 1938, the U.S. consulate in Mexicali
reported that nearly all land belonging to Americans had been redistributed to Mexicans.
At the end of Cardenás’ presidency in 1940, the CRLC had lost 412,000 acres of its land
to expropriation.
109

108
Dwyer, 59. The invasion of the CRLC property in 1937 had deep historical roots. As argued by Dwyer,
campesinos had been organizing in Baja California since the 1920s and had longstanding radical politics.
See chapter two in Dwyer’s book, “El as alto a las tierras y la huelga de los sentados: How Local Agency
Shaped Agrarian Reform in the Mexicali Valley,” for an excellent analysis of the CRLC invasion and its
historical context.
109
For more details on the expropriation of CRLC land in the 1930s, see Castillo-Muñoz, Kerig, and Dwyer
as well as the claim the CRLC filed with the U.S. and Mexican Claims Commissions, boxes 30 and 31,
Records of U.S. and Mexican Claims Commissions, Record Group 76, NARA, CP. In Mexico, see
expediente 437.1/413, 503.11/106, 404.1/4227, 404.2/81, 705.2/26 fondo Lázaro Cardenás, AGN.

217
U.S.-Mexico Claims Commissions
The American owners of expropriated properties, including the investors in the
SIRC, Quimichis, and the CRLC, leaned hard on their government to win reparations
from the Mexican government for lost lands. Although the United States government
refused to intervene in Mexico militarily following the unsuccessful Pershing expedition
in 1917, the federal government did pressure its southern neighbor to provide restitution
for properties damaged or expropriated during and following the Revolution. The United
States and Mexico initially met in September 1923 to discuss hundreds of complaints by
American citizens against the government of Mexico for damages sustained during the
Mexican Revolution. The conventions resulted in the establishment of several claims
commissions, including the Special Claims Commission and the General Claims
Commission to oversee disputes arising from the Revolution.
110
The commissions
reviewed cases intermittently between 1924 and 1934 but put all decisions on hold in the
spring of 1934 pending further negotiations between Mexico and the United States. In
April 1934 the two countries agreed to create a new General Claims Commission to settle
all claims on the part of American citizens against Mexico en bloc, with the exception of
claims for lands expropriated under agrarian reform programs.
111

After the creation of the new General Claims Commission, the U.S. Department
of State collected information regarding the claims of U.S. citizens against the nation of

110
They created Special Claims Commission to adjudicate claims emerging from the Mexican Revolution
between 1910 and 1920 as the result of armed forces. The General Claims Commission arbitrated claims
related to damages resulting from “other acts.”
111
L. H. Woolsey, “The Settlement of Claims between the United States and Mexico,” The American
Journal of International Law, 30 (January, 1936): 99-102.

218
Mexico for losses suffered as a result of the revolution.
112
Companies submitted dossiers
of information to the Department of State, which in turn passed the cases to a commission
composed of two national appointees and a neutral umpire. The commission reviewed
each claim, including the alleged damages and requested monetary awards. They also
requested independent audits of damage amounts in some cases and estimated that valid
claims would be paid at a rate of 50 to 75% of the appraised value. The treaty required
the commission to submit a joint report to each government that summarized the claims
and the total amount of liabilities by 1937. It also required that this “global amount” be
paid off by the Mexican government at the rate of $500,000 per year beginning in 1935
and continuing until the entire sum was paid. Over 3000 Americans filed claims under
the Claims Commission, of which 148 were from Southern California. In total, Southern
Californians claimed $16,715,030
in damages, second only to the $33,694,430 claimed
by 135 residents of New York City.
113

At the end of 1938, both governments agreed to create the Agrarian Claims
Commission (ACC) to appraise American-owned properties lost under Mexico’s agrarian
reform program between 1927 and 1940 and to negotiate the terms of settlement for
American landowners.
114
The United States and Mexico also agreed that Mexico would

112
The Department of State had actually been collecting this information since 1923 but began collecting
more complete claims information in 1934.
113
“Geographical List of United States Claimants,” Research and Information Section, International Claims
Commissions, box 1, record group 76, NARA, CP.
114
As land seizures increased at the beginning of his tenure in office, Cárdenas repeatedly assured
Washington, DC that his government would compensate American landowners. A troubled Mexican
economy, however, prevented Cárdenas from setting aside the necessary funds. As he faced increased
pressure from Washington, Cárdenas utilized what Dwyer terms the “diplomatic weapons of the weak.”
Essentially, they stalled—they offered many variations of indemnification for Washington to consider and
promised payments and compensation by deadlines they know they would not meet. Mexican officials also
appealed to the Roosevelt administration’s sympathy for working people and expansive social

219
only compensate American property owners who lost land under official expropriation
programs. Lands lost to illegal squatters were not eligible for compensation.
115
Just over
400 Americans filed claims under the ACC. The commission approved 319 claims worth
$136 million, of which the Mexican federal government paid $22 million.
116

The agrarian agreement contained several stipulations that impacted American
landowners negatively, including the SIRC, Quimichis, and CRLC. First Mexico refused
to provide compensation for lands occupied by squatters. Cárdenas agreed to pay only
for properties seized through officially sanctioned expropriations. The Mexican
government also refused to pay for damages sustained as a result of expropriation. In
other words, they agreed only to pay for land taken and not for agricultural equipment,
buildings, personal property, and improvements such as irrigation canals and fences.
Finally, Mexico also insisted that reparation payments be based strictly on the property’s
tax appraisal. The Mexican government knew that most American property owners
significantly and consistently understated the commercial value of their properties to
lower their tax rates.
The three companies discussed in this chapter—the San Isidro Ranch Company,
the Quimichis Colony, and the Colorado River Land Company, all filed claims with
either the General Claims Commission or the Agrarian Claims Commission for losses as

programming. In a 1938 report to Roosevelt, the Cárdenas administration wrote, “The political, social, and
economic stability, and peace of Mexico, depends on the land being placed anew in the hands of the people
who work it; a transformation of the country, that is to say, the future of the nation, could not be halted by
the impossibility of immediately paying the value of the properties belonging to a small group of foreigners
who seek only a profit.”
114
Dwyer 220.
115
Dwyer 161.
116
Dwyer 162. As Dwyer notes, $22 million seems a paltry sum. The Mexican government, however,
only paid $24 million for all petroleum properties nationalized in 1938.

220
a result of the war or agrarian reform. With copious amounts of documentation, the three
companies maintained that they had been grossly mistreated by Mexico and often used
their claims cases as a method for airing deep grievances against the Mexican people and
Mexican government. For example, the friends of William Windham, whose death is
discussed in Chapter 2, organized to assist the Quimichis colony in winning an indemnity
for his death.
117
Although Windham’s death did not have any direct bearing on a claim
regarding the confiscation of an agricultural property, the Quimichis claim included long
reports on his death and the company’s deep distrust of the Mexican government.
Both the CRLC and SIRC cases also included long commentaries on their
mistreatment in Mexico and anger about what they considered a betrayal of their efforts
to assist Mexico. They reiterated that their projects had been investment ventures but
they also sincerely believed that their development of commercial enterprises in Mexico
would ultimately benefit the Mexican people. Writing to the Agrarian Claims
Commission in 1939, for example, Chandler reminisced that the CRLC’s work had
“converted [the property] from a veritable desert into a very fertile garden spot and over
250,000 acres have been leveled, plowed, planted to crops and an irrigation system
consisting of several thousands of miles of canals and levees, as well as roads, have been
built to bring about this result.”
118
In addition, Chandler pointed to the larger diplomatic
role he believed his company had played: “Over the years we have endeavored to co-
operate with successive Administrations of the United States of North American and the

117
“Indemnity to be Asked of Mexico,” undated newspaper clipping, box 4757, record group 59, General
Records of the Department of State, NARA, CP.
118
Letter from Harry Chandler to Lawrence M. Lawson, American Commissioner, May 4, 1939, box 31,
docket 72, Approved American Claims Case Files, Records of U.S. and Mexico Claims Commission,
NARA, CP.

221
United States of Mexico and in every way to build up friendly and cooperative
relationships between Mexico and the United States—especially those states of California
and the Southwest adjacent to the United States of Mexico.”
119
Chandler’s letter outlined
what he believed what the role of the CRLC was in the Colorado River Delta—
transforming a desert region into fertile farmland while simultaneously promoting
friendly diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico. Chandler also noted
that he had a small staff of experts prepared to resume their work in the Mexicali Valley
should Cardenás discontinue his plans for ejidos. Cardenás did not change his mind and
the CRLC filed for compensation through the Claims Commission. They estimated the
value of their property at $6,297,208 (they paid $533,359 for the property in 1902).
120

Chandler and the remaining members of the syndicate received payments from Mexico
annually from 1943 through 1956.
121
It is not clear what percentage of the total claim
they ultimately received.
Both the SIRC and Quimichis Colony also requested monetary settlements. The
SIRC filed a claim with the Special Claims Commission for $108,348 in 1928 but the
Commission appraised the value of the property at a much lower amount—$37,500.
122

Including interest owed to the company, it would receive a settlement of $73,500, which
Keller encouraged his fellow stockholders to accept (they paid approximately $141,000

119
Ibid.
120
“Affidavit,” February 25, 1939, box 30, docket 72, Approved Agrarian Claims, Records of the U.S. and
Mexico Claims Commission, record group 76, NARA, CP.
121
Kerig, 386.
122
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Harry Chandler, Burton E. Green, Homer E. Sargent, Estate of
W. L. Valentine, June 16, 1943, box 19, HWK, HL.

222
for the property in 1910)
123
. The remaining stockholders agreed to the settlement and
began receiving payments in 1943. In their claim, Quimichis investors estimated the
value of their property at $284,313. The commission awarded them $201,955 in 1943
(they paid $242,500 for the property in 1909).
124

Conclusion
The experiences of the San Isidro Ranch Company, the Quimichis Colony, and
the Colorado River Land Company between the 1910s and 1940 reveal, in stark relief, the
limits of a transnational periphery for an American city. Although investors such as
Henry Workman Keller, Thomas Bard and his son Richard Bard, and Harry Chandler
wielded significant political and economic power at home and even maintained strong
relationships with Mexican policymakers, they ultimately had little control over their
properties following the Mexican Revolution. The lucrative and limitless international
periphery they had imagined prior to the Revolution ended as a result of peasant
organizing and policy changes such as Article 27. The identity of interest Angeleno
investors had envisioned, binding the welfare of employers and employees and investors
and workers also dissolved as Mexican citizens demanded and enacted their national
rights to property.
In many ways, the investors discussed in this chapter encountered the Mexican
Revolution with puzzlement and disbelief. They had difficulty comprehending a social
revolution that had such radically different ideas about the ownership and use of property.

123
Letter from William A. Edwards to Henry Workman Keller, April 10, 1910, folder 13, box 23, HWK,
HL.
124
Letter from James Langston, Commissioner to Quimichis Colony, September 8, 1943, box 48, docket
107, Approved Agrarian Case Files, American Mexican Claims Commission, record group 76, NARA, CP.

223
Constitutionally mandated challenges to private property seemed inconceivable to
investors accustomed to state protection of their investments and property. Although
they remained wealthy men at the close of their investment ventures in Mexico, Keller,
Chandler, and Richard Bard, all expressed deep disappointment in their failed efforts to
sustain their Southern California investment strategies in Mexico. As Chandler
reminisced in the 1940s, his generation of Los Angeles-based capitalists had foreseen
lucrative possibilities south of the border. They sincerely believed that American capital
applied to Mexican natural resources would yield good profits for investors while
simultaneously developing Mexico into a modern nation.
As explored in this chapter, grassroots efforts in Mexico coupled with compliant
local governments created space for Mexicans to lay claim to foreign owned land.
Refusing to wait for the federal government to redistribute land following the Revolution,
Mexican agraristas strategically pursued their own economic interests. They created
alliances with the military and pushed local government agencies to implement land
reform policies and challenged American landowners, sometimes at gunpoint. As Jesús
Cibrián Zamudio, president of the Union of Peasant Day Laborers remarked to the
governor of Baja California in 1937, “Look, Mr. Governor, Article 27 of the Constitution
says that the lands are the property of the nation; that is why we request them. If you are
going to deny us our constitutional rights as Mexicans, we will use force to take the
lands.”
125
The push for land and the implementation of Article 27 came from the bottom
and in the cases of SIRC, Quimichis, and CRLC, was successful.

125
From an interview in David Acosta Montoya, “Precursores del agrarismo” y “El as alto a las tierras”
en el estado de Baja California (Baja California, Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1985),
75.

224
This redistribution of private property troubled investors, who commented with
some bitterness on their efforts in Mexico. Reflecting on his family’s fifty-year
investment in the Quimichis Colony in 1958, Richard Bard lamented, “All in all, our
Mexican venture dating back to 1909 and ending a year or so ago, was a constant
headache and a great financial loss. We invested either 35 years too late or 35 years too
soon, as we hit the era of revolutions.”
126
In 1910, investors such as Bard, Keller, and
Chandler, had little doubt they had secured stable and profitable properties. American
power and economic innovation, they firmly believed, would turn the Mexican
countryside into profitable properties. Mexico had invaluable natural resources. They
believed the labor force was stable, adaptable, and willing to work. The Revolution,
however, undermined these easy assumptions. After witnessing the impact of the
Revolution and the expropriation of American properties, Bard commented wistfully,
Mexico was “beautiful…rich in soil and rich in forests, where as the old hymn goes,
‘every prospect pleases and only man is vile.’”
127

As Bard noted, however, the 1940s, thirty-some years after the outbreak of the
Mexican Revolution, would offer new opportunities for cross border investment and
Mexican-American alliances. Depression and world war, travel and tourism, new state
executives and foreign policies, would open different investment opportunities for both
Mexicans and Americans. Chapter 5 explores how transnational infrastructure spanning
the length of the western hemisphere embodied these trends in the post-revolutionary era.

126
Letter from Richard Bard to M. L. Applegate, undated, box 2, TBC, HL.
127
Letter from Richard Bard to H. C. Thompson, June 16, 1959, box 2, TBC, HL.

225
Chapter Five
“Destiny of the West”: The International Pacific Highway and Reconnecting the
Western Hemisphere, 1929-1957

Introduction
Early on the soggy morning of March 15, 1930, a crowd of five hundred
Automobile Club of Southern California staff, well-wishers, reporters, and photographers
milled around a caravan of five touring cars in the courtyard of the club’s headquarters in
Los Angeles. Equipment for a rugged journey packed the five big Fords—a portable
radio transmitter, camping equipment, emergency rations, distilled water, cameras and
film, spare car parts, first aid kits, medical supplies, ropes, picks, shovels, gas cans, oil,
tools, and a “liberal supply” of high powered rifles, shotguns, revolvers and ammunition.
1

Nine men squeezed into the laden vehicles. Each wore a uniform they thought
appropriate to their journey—heavy boots, khaki knickerbockers, and pith helmets. With
a shout to clear the way and a rattling of motors, the crowd parted, and the caravan
passed under the Spanish-inspired archways of the club building and jostled onto
Figueroa Street. The convoy, with the flags of the United States and Mexico fluttering
from radiator caps, quickly turned southeast toward Arizona and the U.S.-Mexico
border.
2

The men departing from the Automobile Club of Southern California were part of
the First Expedition of the International Pacific Highway, charged with finding a drivable

1
Earnest E. East, “The International Pacific Highway: Los Angeles to Mexico City Section Report,”
(prepared by the Automobile Club of Sothern California, 1930), folder 611, box 19, Report Collection,
Automobile Club of Southern California Archive, Los Angeles (hereafter ACSC Collection).
2
Phil Townsend Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac: The Adventures and Achievements of the First
International Pacific Highway Expedition of the Automobile Club of Southern California in Mexico,”
Touring Topics, July 1930, 12.

226
route between Los Angeles and Mexico City. The route they were in search of was part
of the International Pacific Highway (IPH), a 12,000-mile road linking the west coasts of
North, Central, and South America, envisioned by a group of Mexican governors and
businessmen and members of the Automobile Club of Southern California (ACSC).
Initiated in 1929, the road began in Anchorage, Alaska and headed south through every
country in the Americas that bordered the Pacific Ocean. When complete, it would
traverse thirteen nations and constitute the longest highway in the world.
3

The project, particularly the discourse that surrounded its launch, offers a new and
regional perspective on U.S.-Mexico relations in the interwar period. Following the
intense international conflict produced by the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and
foreshadowing Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy (1933), IPH promoters on both sides
of the border hoped to advance hemispheric solidarity, tourism, and commerce through
the construction of transnational infrastructure. Despite almost two decades of tension
produced by revolution, anti-American sentiment, and the expropriation of foreign-
owned properties in Mexico, road builders in Los Angeles and Northwest Mexico hoped
to renew trade, tourism, and friendly international relations through a shared road.
4
In
particular, IPH promoters believed that Southern California and the west coast of Mexico
would collectively benefit from international tourism. They maintained that their
region—the West coast of the Americas—created common commercial interests and a

3
Ibid.
4
Due to anti-Americanism and threats to expropriate foreign-owned properties, the American federal
government continually threatened to intercede diplomatically and militarily in Mexico during the Mexican
Revolution. The U.S. did send troops into the neighboring country twice during the Revolution—the
occupation of Vera Cruz (1914) and the Pershing Expedition (1916-1917). These interventions and threats
of future interventions kept relations between the two countries tense for almost twenty-five years.

227
shared identity. Mexican and American road builders utilized this mutual Pacific identity
to sidestep traditional diplomatic channels; they worked largely independently of the U.S.
and Mexican federal governments to build a productive relationship between the Pacific
regions of both countries.

Figure 16, “World’s Longest Road.”
5

5
“World’s Longest Road,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1934, E1.

228
The traditional historiography of U.S.-Mexican relations during the interwar
period focuses on the efforts of federal agencies such as the State Department to create a
more genial relationship between the two nations, culminating in the announcement of
Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy in 1933.
6
It favors the actions of presidents and
diplomats over the lives and experiences of ordinary people or even regional elites such
as the Los Angeles and Mexican IPH promoters.
7
Border and borderlands historiography
offers a compelling counter narrative to traditional American foreign relations history by
emphasizing local and regional cross-border interactions between Mexicans and
Americans during this period.
8
Much of this historiography, however, emphasizes the
border itself or the towns and communities immediately adjacent to it.
9
Recent work on
consumption in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, for example, highlights leisure activities
that linked Southern California and Tijuana during the interwar period.
10
Examining the
IPH offers a perspective on broader transnational projects that brought Los Angeles
businessmen and policymakers from across Mexico’s West coast into a regional alliance.

6
See, for example, Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin
America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998) and William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of
American Diplomacy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1959).
7
More recent work in foreign relations history calls for a cultural and local approach to understanding the
place of the United States in the world. For an excellent discussion of the cultural turn in foreign relations
history see Andrew Rotter, “The Cultural History of Foreign Relations,” in Karen Halttunen, ed., Blackwell
Companion to American Cultural History (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), 425-437.
8
See work included in Samuel Truett and Elliott Young, eds., Continental Crossroads: Remapping U.S.-
Mexico Borderlands History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).
9
For an excellent example of a study focused on the border and borderlands communities, see Rachel St.
John, Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2011).
10
For discussions of consumption in the borderlands, see Alexis McCrossen, ed., Land of Necessity:
Consumer Culture in the United States-Mexico Borderlands (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009) and
Paul J. Vanderwood, Satan’s Playground: Mobsters and Movie Stars at America’s Greatest Gaming Resort
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).

229
Considering the highway’s regional promoters also adds texture and depth to the history
of U.S.-Mexico foreign relations; their activities explain how local and non-state actors
fostered a cooperative agenda in a broad borderlands region following the Revolution.
11

As the IPH demonstrates, regional Mexicans and Americans had an ardent interest
in promoting the growth of international travel and tourism well beyond the border.

Mexican governors wanted infrastructural development and tourist dollars across the
Mexican North and West. Angeleno businessmen wanted to secure a trade route with
Mexico and facilitate international tourism from Southern California into Latin America.
In their efforts to encourage these interests, local, regional, and non-state actors played a
significant role in promoting a more amicable affiliation between Mexico and the United
States well before Roosevelt announced a new era of diplomatic neighborliness. In
particular, proponents of tourism and trade from the western coasts of both countries
promoted the IPH and renewed exchange between Southern California and the states of
Western Mexico as a means to promote hemispheric alliances. They maintained that
common interests united the western edge of the Western Hemisphere across

11
Notably, the friendly discussions of increasing American tourism in Mexico took place against the
backdrop of the Depression and aggressive demands for the exclusion of Mexicans and Mexican
Americans from employment in Los Angeles. Harry Chandler proposed the highway in 1929, just months
before “Black Tuesday” sent the country into an economic tailspin. Economic chaos translated into
increase competition for jobs and repeated calls across Southern California to preserve work for “real”
Americans. Dwindling employment opportunities and increased nativism lead many Mexican residents in
Los Angeles to move back to Mexico beginning in the winter of 1930. Although he encouraged a friendly
relationship with the Mexican nation, President Hoover also denounced the presence of Mexicans in the
United States as a threat to Anglo American workers. Chandler, however, and others of his economic class
in Los Angeles, opposed state and federal programs to deport Mexican immigrants. He traveled to
Washington, DC, in 1930 to testify before the House Immigration and Naturalization Committee that
“Mexicans never have created problems in Los Angeles.” See George Sánchez, Becoming Mexican
American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993), 209-226 and David G. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans,
Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 44-48.

230
international boundary lines. Ultimately, they believed that a united Pacific coast was the
“destiny of the West.”
12

Road Builders and Hemispheric Alliances
The IPH was the brainchild of several Mexican governors and businessmen and a
handful of enthusiastic Los Angeles boosters who shared a passion for promoting
international tourism and who believed that Los Angeles and Western Mexico shared a
common future. In promoting the highway, they constructed a common identity for
Southern Californians and Mexicans based on their shared position on the Pacific Coast.
They described their collaboration in terms of hemispheric solidarity and a transnational
Pacific Coast identity.
Both Angeleno and Mexican IPH promoters viewed their project as beneficial for
the entire Western hemisphere. As ACSC board member Henry Workman Keller
maintained, “The great international project will bring to the nations of the Western
Hemisphere returns of far greater proportion in social, cultural and economic
development than have heretofore been dreamed of in visions of Western supremacy.”
13

Echoing his American counterpart, Governor Filiberto Gómez described the IPH as
creating better understanding between two nations: “I believe that we shall manage to

12
Harry Carr, a member of the expedition and a reporter for the Los Angeles Times dubbed the IPH the
“destiny of the West” in his reporting on the trip. Peter Trubowitz, a political scientist, is one of the few
scholars to consider the historical impact of region in relationship to American foreign policy. He
maintains that since the nineteenth century, the divergent interests of the American Northeast, South, and
West shaped and often determined American foreign policy. See Peter Trubowitz, Defining the National
Interest: Conflict and Change in American Foreign Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
13
“Transactions of the First International Pacific Highway Conference Held Under the Auspices of the
Automobile Club of Southern California,” (Report compiled by the Automobile club of Southern
California, 1930), folder 1, box 46, Henry Workman Keller Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino
(hereafter Keller Collection, HL).

231
understand each other and that this understanding will bring with it the complete
disappearance of all suspicion substituting in its place an era of harmony and mutual
understanding.”
14
Gómez also argued that international roads “blot out frontiers” and
would promote amity and goodwill amongst the Americas. IPH advocates also pointed to
the common history of Southern California and Mexico to promote a shared future.
Earnest E. East, who directed the Automobile Club’s engineering department and led the
IPH’s two path finding expeditions, maintained that “the west coast [of Mexico] is one of
the most entrancing and richest sections of Mexico and is closely connected, by business
and sentimental ties, with the Southwestern United States.”
15
Miguel Angel Menédez, an
IPH promoter from Baja California wrote poetically that Mexico had left the “luminous
wake of its potent spirit” in California; this common past, he maintained, portended a
mutual future.
This regional plan and Pacific identity also positioned the Club and its Mexican
partners in lieu of the Mexican and American federal states. Arguing for hemispheric
solidarity while virtually ignoring Washington and Mexico City, IPH builders created a
regional and transnational project that bypassed traditional diplomatic channels. They
assessed a regional need, developed a plan for transnational infrastructure, and built a
productive partnership between a Los Angeles non-profit organization and dozens of
local Mexican policymakers without involvement from the federal governments on either
side of the border. Both Presidents Hoover and Rubio expressed their support for the

14
Ibid.
15
East is quoted in Phil Townsend Hanna, “ Linking the Americas with an International Highway,” Los
Angeles Times, January 2, 1930, C10.

232
project but neither administration became deeply involved in it, and the ACSC and its
Mexican Partners pushed ahead without them. An ACSC staff member acknowledged
the “seeming braggadocio” of the project but argued that the club “has always kept well
to the front in its serving the motorist…from an agency of national service to one of
international is but another step.”
16

The key road builders included Harry Chandler, Filiberto Gómez, Henry
Workman Keller, and Cayetano Blanco Vigil. The group credited Chandler, a man who
had invested in Mexico for more than forty years, with the initial idea for the IPH. As
explored in previous chapters, Chandler had a long-term interest in promoting
commercial links between Southern California and northern Mexico. He held extensive
property investments in Baja California and in Chiapas and used publications such as the
Los Angeles Times and Pan Pacific Progress as platforms to promote trade around the
Pacific basin, from Mexico to Japan. He believed infrastructural development in Mexico,
particularly development that promoted tourism, would have a reciprocal benefit for
Southern California. Just nine days after convincing the ACSC board of directors to
sponsor the road, Chandler directed Los Angeles Times staff writers Charles Owens and
Harry Carr to pull together a pictorial map and extensive news piece on the new project.
17

Carr’s article in the Times presumably reflected his employer’s perspective on the IPH
project. Carr maintained that the IPH would “offer a dazzling commercial future to both

16
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 14.
17
East, “Los Angeles to Mexico City Section Report.”

233
continents,” promote and secure world peace, and “open up the most alluring tourist route
in the world.”
18

Gómez served as the governor of the State of Mexico from 1929 to 1933 and also
presided over the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Party or
PNR). He led fellow governors in state road building projects, enthusiastically securing
state funds and establishing road counsels to oversee local and regional projects. Friends
called him “the road builder.”
19
According to Carr, Gómez had already built roads “like
billiard tables” across his state prior to joining the IPH project and had extensive
experience in road building.
20
Gómez founded and headed the Comisión Permanente for
the Carretera Internacional del Pacífico in 1930 and organized local committees to
promote the IPH across northern and western Mexico.
Over the highway’s thirty-year history, Henry Workman Keller and Cayetano
Blanco Vigil proved the IPH’s most ardent promoters and boosters. Keller joined the
Automobile Club’s Board of Directors in 1909 and became the Club’s First Vice
President in 1921. He owned the San Isidro Ranch in Baja California with Chandler
(discussed in Chapter 4) and had a lifelong interest in promoting ties between Mexico and
Los Angeles. Keller was born in 1869 in the heart of Los Angeles at a house on the
corner of Aliso and Alameda (the current site of Union Station). After only twenty years
as an American city, Los Angeles still clung to its Mexican roots in the 1860s. Keller’s

18
Harry Carr, “Road Plan to Link Coast with South America,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1929, E1.
19
Instituto Mexicano del Transporte, Historia de las Juntas Locales de Caminos, 1933-1980 (México:
Instituto Mexicano del Transporte and Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes, 1980), 24.
20
Harry Carr, “Mexican Notables due for Road Conference,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1930, A1.

234
father, an Irish immigrant, used a Spanish moniker—Don Mateo Keller—and had
extensive business ties with the city’s Californio population.
21
Keller grew up bilingual,
learning to speak fluent Spanish from the Mexican-American children in his
neighborhood and school. In addition, Keller invested heavily in Mexican ventures prior
to the Mexican Revolution. He owned mines in Sonora and spearheaded the founding of
the San Isidro Ranch Company. Keller felt a close personal bond to Mexico as a result of
his long residence in Los Angeles, his relationships with Mexican-Americans, and his
multiple investments below the border. Chandler described Keller as “a real friend to
Mexico and its interests.”
22

Vigil spearheaded the IPH following the death of Gómez in the 1930s. He was
one of the founders of the Mexican Automobile Association, head of one of Mexico’s
largest auto insurers, and worked closely with Keller on the IPH through the 1940s and
1950s.
23
Intensely interested in completing the highway, Vigil networked with public and
private interests on both sides of the border and provided a link between the ACSC and
local Mexican governments to push work forward on the road.
These IPH promoters were part of a generation of civic leaders who believed
well-constructed and efficiently managed highways led to an “autopian” future. Los
Angeles was a global pioneer in the rise of automobile culture and manufacturing and the
development of modern road systems. Southern California also boasted a robust tourist

21
“Henry Keller, Pioneer, Civic Leader, Dies,” Los Angeles Times, November 11, 1958, B1.
22
Letter from Harry Chandler to A. V. Vierhus, General Manager, Colorado River Land Company,
November 9, 1935, folder 26, box 20, Keller Collection, HL.
23
Dina Berger, Pyramids by Day, Martinis by Night: The Development of Mexico’s Tourism Industry (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 51.

235
industry.
24
Across the border, the post-revolutionary Mexican state eagerly pursued new
industries to help rebuild the country’s war-torn economy. Mexican policymakers
believed a state-directed tourism industry offered a solution to some of the nation’s
serious financial problems.
25
Roads also offered a means to unite a fractured nation and
build state power. While promoting assistance from well-developed neighbors such as
the United States, post-revolutionary Mexican leaders hoped to shape road building and
tourism in a way that was compatible with Mexico’s revolutionary nationalism.
26

24
By the late 1920s, when Chandler, Keller, and members of the Automobile Club of Southern California
(ACSC) began envisioning a drivable route connecting all the Pacific coast countries of the Western
hemisphere, Los Angeles was already a pioneering force in automobile manufacturing, the construction of
well-designed roads, and a culture of auto tourism. Historian Kevin Starr describes Los Angeles in the
1920s as the most “automobilized” city in the nation. Much of car ownership and road building centered
on leisure and recreation; Southern Californians wanted to motor along scenic routes to the region’s
outdoor attractions. Motor-able destinations included miles of coastline, Yosemite, Spanish-era missions,
desert getaways, and rugged mountain retreats. IPH promoters believed that extending good highways
through “scenic” Mexico was a natural extension of the motoring culture developing north of the border.
By 1923, almost a million and a half tourists visited Los Angeles every year and by 1930 tourism
represented 10 percent of the city’s economy. Beginning in the 1920s, they also indulged in cross-border
leisure activities at places such as Tijuana’s lavish Agua Caliente resort. See Kevin Starr, Material Dreams:
Southern California through the 1920s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) and Lawrence Culver,
The Frontier of Leisure: Southern California and the Shaping of Modern America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010).
25
Newspaper coverage reflects an intense interest in roads in Mexico in the early 1930s. Major newspapers
regularly published long discussions from politicians, engineers, and economists on the importance of roads
for the country. For example, see Leon Salinas, “La Construcción de Caminos Carreteros in México,” El
Economista, December 16, 1930, 9; “México, La Primera Nación Latina en Las Carreteras,” El
Economista, January 4, 1930, 1; “Informe Sobre Los Caminos de México,” El Economista, September 1,
1930, 2; “Coordinación del Sistema de Caminos en el País,” El Nacional Revolucionario, May 24, 1930, 8;
“Para el año de 1933 Podrá Recorrerse el Territorio Nacional, de Frontera a Frontera, a Bordo de
Automóviles,” El Nacional Revolucionario, January 16, 1930, 8; “Los Caminos de Sonora Listos para el
Turismo,” El Universal, May 8, 1931, 9.
26
Like regional policymakers in Southern California, Mexico’s post-revolutionary state believed good
roads led to increased trade, vibrant commerce, and a modern nation. President Plutarco Elías Calles
(1924-1928) launched Mexico’s first significant road building campaign. Calles and his administration saw
roads as a means to connect the nation’s rural and isolated agricultural communities to an emerging
national economy. Roads also provided a way for a post-revolutionary administration to consolidate and
maintain power—they could be utilized to move troops and reunite a regionally fragmented country. To
promote the development of national highways, Calles and state leaders collaborated to create the Comisión
Nacional de Caminos in 1925. The Comisión created a plan for road building in a law passed by Congress
in 1926—the Ley de Caminos y Puentes (Law of Roads and Bridges). The law prioritized constructing
roads that would link Mexico City (and the Mexican federal state) to state capitals, international borders,

236
Mexican leaders, however, also looked for ways to strategically collaborate with
American businesses and organizations experienced in developing roads and tourist
amenities, including partnering with the ACSC.
27
Throughout the 1920s, the ACSC
collaborated with Mexican officials around issues of road building and fostering
international tourism. ACSC engineers shared expertise and experience from highway
projects across Southern California with Mexican civic officials and private investors
interested in developing Mexico’s post-revolution infrastructure. For example, General
Fausto Topete, governor of Sonora, invited ACSC engineers to extend a highway from
San Diego, California, to Nogales, Sonora in the mid-1920s.
28
ACSC staff also traveled
to Mexico City to meet with officials about road projects and served as hosts in Los
Angeles for Mexican bureaucrats when they passed through Southern California.
29
At the
request of several Mexican state governors, ACSC engineers also surveyed proposed

and important ports. Mexican federal government took a growing interest in American tourists such as
those who flitted in and out of Tijuana resorts. In 1928, President Emilio Portes Gil created the Comisión
Mixta Pro Turismo (Mixed Pro-Tourism Commission) to oversee the country’s growing tourist industry.
Gil charged the commission with promoting public-private partnerships to increase and oversee
international tourism in Mexico. By the 1930s, Mexican promoters of the nation’s tourism industry argued
that the country could foster state-guided programs that would create an industry run by and for Mexicans.
See Benjamin Fulwider, “Driving the Nation: Road Transportation and the Postrevolutionary Mexican
State, 1925-1960 (PhD Diss., Georgetown University, 2009); Dennis Merrill, Negotiating Paradise: U.S.
Tourism and Empire in Twentieth-Century Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2009; and Berger, Pyramids by Day.
27
As the club grew through the first decade of the twentieth century, it expanded its activities to include the
publication of a motoring magazine, Touring Topics, a touring and outing bureau, legal services, and road
charting and sign posting. The Club also began campaigning for improved roads at the city, county, and
state levels. They lobbied the Los Angeles city council for paved thoroughfares, campaigned for county
bond measures to build a highway system, and networked with state officials to improve roads statewide.
By 1930, the club boasted 130,000 members and a staff of 1400. J. Allen Davis, The Friend to All
Motorists: The Story of the Automobile Club of Southern California through 65 Years, 1900-1965 (Los
Angeles: Automobile Club of Southern California, 1967), 12.
28
Carr, “Road Plan.”
29
East, “Los Angeles to Mexico City Section Report.”

237
highway routes in Mexico and marked hundreds of miles of highways, particularly in
Baja California.
30

In addition to an ardent interest in road building, the post-revolutionary Mexican
state and Southern California shared a passion for promoting tourism. Southern
California had a long history of defining itself as a tourist destination. Railroad links
established in the 1870s brought waves of eastern migrants in search of gentle winters
and cures for cold weather and pulmonary or respiratory disease. Beginning in the 1920s,
organizations like the All-Year Club of Southern California pulled together multimillion-
dollar promotional campaigns to draw tourists from across the country and around the
world to Southern California.
31
By 1923, almost a million and half tourists visited Los
Angeles every year and by 1930 tourism represented 10 percent of the city’s economy.
32

The explosion of automobile ownership and culture also changed the face of Los Angeles
tourism. Visitors who had previously arrived via train now crossed the country in their
own cars. The ACSC calculated that 250,000 people ventured to Los Angeles in 125,000
automobiles in 1926.
33
Tourists swarmed to Southern California to tour Hollywood, to
dip their toes into the Pacific, and to bask in the “Mediterranean” sunshine.
Much of the promotion of Southern California as a tourist destination rested on
the region’s quixotic and mythical past. Mission nostalgia and restoration, the
construction of El Camino Real, the emergence of Spanish revival architecture, and a

30
Phil Townsend Hanna, “El Camino Pacifico to Unite All Americas,” Touring Topics, September 1929,
24.
31
See Starr, Material Dreams.
32
Ibid., 95-96.
33
Ibid., 96.

238
myriad of Spanish-themed events and attractions followed the publication of the
extraordinarily popular novel Ramona, set on a Mexican-era California rancho.
34
The
association of Southern California with an idyllic past tinged with the exoticism of its
Spanish and Mexican histories proved to be tourist gold. Americans flocked to Southern
California for its mild weather and to enjoy a safe dabble in a region with “exotic,”
“international,” and cosmopolitan flair.
35

Before IPH organizers began plans for a tourist road south of the border, Southern
California’s Spanish fantasy past and tourist industry had already spilled across the
international boundary line. Crossing the border into Mexico—particularly after the
violence of the revolution subsided in 1920—offered American tourists the “real thing,”
an opportunity to experience the romance of “old Mexico” in Mexico. The passage of
prohibition in the United States heightened Mexico’s attraction as a tourist destination as
Americans looked for alternative locations to imbibe alcoholic beverages. Restrictions

34
As a number of historians have identified, nostalgia for a romantic “Spanish fantasy” past in Southern
California likely began with the publication of Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona in 1884. The best-
selling novel, set on a fictional and idyllic Spanish rancho, sparked a national fervor for a mythical past of
demure señoritas, gallant caballeros, and romantic ranchos. Southern Californians capitalized on their
region’s new historical, albeit mythical, identity. See Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island
on the Land (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1980), Phoebe Kropp, California Vieja: Culture and
Memory in a Modern American Place (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), William Deverell,
Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2005) for excellent discussions of the Spanish fantasy past.
35
The development of the Camino Real connecting California’s Spanish and Mexican era missions
provided a model road building project north of the border. As historian Phoebe Kropp skillfully outlines,
the construction of the road, beginning in 1902, not only provided a physical link between the present and
the Spanish fantasy past but also redefined the history and significance of Southern California.
Enthusiastic supporters of California’s Spanish missions proposed a state highway, romantically dubbed El
Camino Real, to provide a drivable tourist route between the state’s twenty-one missions. Individual and
business promoters of the highway lobbied state policymakers to construct the highway, arguing that not
only would it preserve and promote the state’s dreamy past but would also bring thousands of tourists and
their cars and their dollars into the state. Camino Real promoters also redefined the meaning of California
missions, transforming them from contemporary spaces to ghostly relics of a bygone romantic past. Like
the Fiesta de Los Angeles, the Camino Real transformed California’s racial and ethnic realities into a
distant, safe, and alluring memory. See Kropp and Deverell.

239
on gaming and gambling, pushed by progressive reformers in Southern California, also
made Tijuana and adjacent border towns enticing places for leisure activities. Bars,
resorts, and racetracks, many constructed in the Spanish revival style, brought thousands
of pleasure-seekers south. Film stars, business tycoons, sports celebrities, politicians, and
diplomats flocked across the border to gamble, soak in mineral hot springs, and enjoy a
cocktail at locations like the Tijuana racetrack and the lavish Agua Caliente resort.
36

Baja California towns like Tijuana became places to indulge in leisure activities that were
illegal or not readily available north of the border. In 1920 alone, over 60,000
Americans, many from Southern California, drove south to Tijuana.
37

Following the end of the revolution in 1920, the Mexican federal government
took a growing interest in American tourists such as the ones who flitted in and out of
Agua Caliente. In 1928, President Emilio Portes Gil created the Comisión Mixta Pro
Turismo (Mixed Pro-Tourism Commission) to oversee the country’s growing tourist
industry. Gil charged the commission with promoting public-private partnerships to
increase and oversee international tourism in Mexico.
38
Working with several bi-national
private organizations, the commission published and distributed travel materials,

36
There are several excellent pieces on Tijuana and the California-Baja California cross border
entertainment industry. See Vanderwood, Satan’s Playground; Josh Kun, “Tijuana and the Borders of
Race,” in William Deverell and Greg Hise, eds., A Companion to Los Angeles (Malden, MA: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2010); Eric M. Schantz, “Behind the Noir Border: Tourism, the Vice Racket, and Power
Relations in Baja California’s Border Zone, 1938-65,” in Dina Berger and Andrew Grant Wood, eds.,
Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist Encounters (Durham: Duke University
Press, 2010).
37
Kun, “Tijuana and the Borders of Race,” 317. Kun also argues that Tijuana became a “transnational
circuit” for African American entertainers hoping to escape from racially restrictive policies and practices
in the United States.
38
Merrill, 58.

240
established tourist bureaus, and created easier entry and exit policies at Mexican border
towns and ports.
39

In 1929, Gil announced that Mexico was officially pursuing tourists and
proclaimed itself a tourist destination that could rival destinations in Europe or other parts
of Latin America, particularly Cuba, which enjoyed an avalanche of American travelers
and their dollars. The commission also helped to establish cross-border private
organizations like the Asociación Mexicana Automovilística (Mexican Automobile
Association) in 1929.
40
The AMA provided an organizational impetus to unite
government officials, private investors, and allies in the American business community
around the goals of development in Mexico. As the country entered the 1930s, Mexican
promoters of the nation’s tourism industry argued that the country could foster state-
guided programs that would create an industry run by and for Mexicans. As historian
Dina Berger notes, tourists would travel across state-funded highways, purchase gasoline
from the newly nationalized petroleum industry, and sleep and eat at locally built and
owned hotels and restaurants.
41

Mexican and Angeleno IPH promoters believed an international highway would
entice hundreds of thousands of tourists and billions of their dollars to Southern
California and Western Mexico. Based on statistics from auto tourists entering
California, IPH organizers predicted that Mexico could expect over 1.5 million visitors to

39
Ibid.
40
Berger, 23.
41
Ibid, 2.

241
enter Mexico every year via an international road.
42
Based on the rapid increase in
American motorists, ACSC and Mexican IPH promoters believed that if Mexico
completed the IPH they would have twenty-six million eager tourists primed to drive
south into Mexico with their dollars. Promoters also eagerly eyed the billion dollars
spent by American tourists in Europe and Canada as potential profits for Southern
California and Western Mexico.
43
Highways, they tersely stated, became “income
producers.”
Although they planned for the highway to eventually span the hemisphere from
Alaska to Argentina, Gómez, Keller, and the ACSC identified the IPH route between Los
Angeles and Mexico City as the most immediately important section of the highway.
Planners were optimistic that road conditions in Mexico would be good but lacked
adequate information to map the route. To move the idea forward, the road-builders
outlined a plan. First, the ACSC would sponsor and pay for a “pathfinding” expedition to
identify the best route from Los Angeles to Mexico City. Along the way, they would
meet with key players in each Mexican state, including many of the governors who
promoted road building agendas. Then they would convene a meeting in Los Angeles—
the International Pacific Highway Conference—for ACSC staff, Los Angeles
businessmen, and Mexican officials to discuss next steps. Aside from the pathfinding
expedition, which the ACSC organized and funded, the IPH planners anticipated the club
playing only an advisory role to Mexican road-builders. They hoped the expedition
would heighten interest in the road in Mexico and that the conference would provide

42
“Transactions of the First International Pacific Highway Conference.”
43
Ibid.

242
space and time for Mexican officials to make definite road construction plans. They
anticipated that much of the route between Los Angeles and Mexico City was already
built in the form of local roads and hoped that all the IPH required for a drivable route
was signage, well-marked roads, and detailed tourist maps.
The Expedition
Although the IPH expedition cars that left Los Angeles for Mexico in early 1930
proudly displayed the flags of the United States and Mexico, the expedition nonetheless
revealed the challenges that faced the Los Angeles-Mexico road building alliance. A
shared Pacific identity did not emerge without obstacles. Despite the friendly language
of international harmony and the hopes of a shared future, the IPH, particularly the
“pathfinding” expedition to Mexico, contained undercurrents of friction between

Figure 17, “Breaking a New Tourist Trail.”
44

44
“The International Pacific Highway: Los Angeles to Mexico City Section,” published by the Automobile
Club of Southern California, 1930, ACSC Collection.

243
Angelenos and Mexicans as they struggled to understand and redefine a cross-border
relationship marked by almost a century of territorial expansion, economic imperialism,
military intervention, and revolutionary violence.
45
As IPH promoters began to explore
how Mexico and the United States would interact following the Mexican Revolution they
faced a legacy of racial tropes and a long history of imperialist interventions.
Conflict over the meaning of the IPH permeated the arrival of the expedition in
Mexico. Angeleno members of the expedition approached Mexico with friendly
intentions but also infused their discussions of Mexico and the IPH with romanticized
notions of Mexican culture and a persistent idea that Angelenos knew best how to pave
the way to the future. In Mexico, regional policymakers, many of whom supported the
project before the expedition even crossed the international boundary line into Mexico,
met its arrival with vocal support while also strategically positioning the IPH into their
own road building agendas. The Mexican press met the expedition and the IPH project
with initial suspicion, criticism, and legitimate concerns about the motivations behind
American interest in Mexican roads. Ultimately, the expedition exposed divergent
American and Mexican views on the meaning of the highway.
The Los Angeles men who donned pith helmets before leaving Los Angeles and
crossing into Mexico held a very particular perspective on their role as goodwill

45
Tensions between the United States and Mexico, from the annexation of Texas through the Mexican
Revolution, are well documented. See, for example, Amy Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the
Antebellum American Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); John Mason Hart, Empire
and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico Since the Civil War (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2002); Frederick Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); Daniel Nugent, ed., Rural Revolt in Mexico and U.S.
Intervention (San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1988);
Ramón Eduardo Ruíz, The People of Sonora and Yankee Capitalists (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,
1988).

244
ambassadors for the Western hemisphere and pioneering crusaders venturing across a
new frontier. The party included Phil Townsend Hanna as correspondent for the club’s
magazine, Touring Topics; Harry Carr of the Los Angeles Times; Earnest East, chief
engineer for the ACSC; Carlos Ariza, a bilingual Mexican-American member of the
ACSC staff; and several additional ACSC staff members. Their extensive reporting on
the trip revealed that they believed the road they were helping to develop would provide a
meaningful connection between two countries with a strained relationship; they even
claimed their expedition was the “greatest gesture of American friendship for Mexico”
since Charles Lindbergh flew to Mexico City in a gesture of goodwill in 1927.
46

Journalist Phil Townsend Hanna provided the lens through which the American
public read and learned about the IPH project, and his writings on the expedition reflect
myriad perspectives on the significance of the trip. Born in Los Angeles in 1896, a fluent
Spanish speaker, and author of several books on Mexico, Hanna had a deep interest in the
historic and cultural relationship between Southern California and Mexico. He joined the
IPH expedition as the editor of ACSC’s magazine, Touring Topics. His extensive writing
on the expedition, the following conference, and continuing work on the highway
provided the narrative arc for the entire endeavor. Hanna’s writings, both about the IPH
and more generally about Mexico and Mexicans, also reflect a struggle to understand
Southern California’s relationship to a country that had just rebelled against American
economic imperialism.
47

46
“With the First International Pacific Highway Expedition,” Touring Topics, May 1930, 20.
47
Hanna was born in Los Angeles in 1896 and lived in the city almost his entire life. He attended the
University of Southern California and after graduating worked as the automobile editor for the Los Angeles
Tribute and night editor for the Los Angeles Times from 1915 to 1919. He then worked for a year as the

245
The terms the members of the expedition used to describe themselves and their
endeavor reflected contradictions within their mission. They considered themselves
goodwill ambassadors, generous men eager to help a neighboring nation as it struggled to
rebuild after a devastating civil war. Their discussions of the expedition and road plans,
however, reflected the expedition’s struggle to meet Mexico and Mexicans on their own
terms. The project was not simply one of colonial uplift but of creating collegial and
equal relationships with a new generation of Mexican leaders. On the other hand, a note
of superiority tinged the project with racialized condescension and an undertone of
discovery, exploration, and encounters with people expedition members believed to be
less civilized than they. As Phil Hanna noted as he embarked with the expedition, “The
project has a peculiar fascination because it appeals to the pioneering spirit that is
inherent in the American people.”
48
In this sense, terms like “pioneer” harked back to
centuries-old American ideas about manifest destiny and racial hierarchies.

manager of the Los Angeles Bureau of the Associated Press. Hanna put aside press work for six years,
from 1920 to 1926, to work on highway building projects throughout the American west. In 1926 he
became the editor of the ACSC magazine, Touring Topics, and also worked as the organization’s public
relations counsel. Hanna joined the IPH expedition as the editor of Touring Topics to provide extensive
reporting from the road for the publication. In addition to his work with the ACSC, Hanna authored a
number of books about Southern California and Mexico, including Mexico in the Machine Age, Libros
Californianos, California through Four Centuries, California Under Twelve Flags, The Dictionary of
California Land Names, and The Wheel and the Bell: The Story of the First Fifty Years of the Automobile
Club of Southern California. He translated and edited a number of volumes of Mexican and Central
American literature. Hanna was also involved in the Los Angeles region’s major literary and cultural
circles and served as director of the California Library Council and the Friends of the Huntington Library.
He also served as a trustee for the Southwest Museum and was a member of the Southern California
Historical Society, Sunset Club, Samorano Club, and the California Club. Finding Aid for the Phil
Townsend Hanna Papers, UCLA Special Collections and “Phil Hanna, Auto Club’s Publicity Director,
Dies,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1957, B1.
48
“Editorial: Linking Two Continents,” Touring Topics, September 1929, 11.

246

Figure 18, Sandham, the expedition’s radio operator is on the left. Henry Workman Keller is in
the center, ca 1930.
49

According to IPH organizers, the First International Highway Expedition, which
ran 1600 miles from Los Angeles to Mexico City, was the first to completely traverse the
western coast of Mexico via automobile. The ACSC decided to fund and organize the
expedition after officially sponsoring the IPH project on the recommendation of Chandler
and Keller. They hoped the expedition would spark interest in the project and
demonstrate that the route was already almost entirely drivable. According to Hanna, the
expedition was an “exploration…equipped to locate and map the highway, study
construction problems and give currency to the scenic beauties and the historical regions
of Mexico, [and] would sublimate the universal interest in the road into material
accomplishment toward its improvement.”
50

Motoring across Mexico, along a route that IPH promoters claimed had never
before been traveled in its entirety by automobile, became a feat of conquest. Motoring

49
Photo from the Automobile Club of Southern California Collection at the Huntington Library, San
Marino.
50
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 14.

247
was a sport but it was also an act of knowing and even possessing another territory. For
example, in its report on the pathfinding expedition, a Touring Topics editorial described
the goal of the ACSC and the expedition: “It must constantly keep its eyes above far
horizons, questing for new, interesting and rewarding lands in which the motorist may
profitably journey…South of these United States are a score of countries, untrodden as
yet by tourists; virgin in their customs, manners and attitudes; captivating in their scenery
and man-made embellishments.”
51
Tourism represented a brand new frontier and the
ACSC and First Pathfinding Expedition were bravely blazing a path through new
territory.
The expedition’s drive through Yaqui territory in the State of Sonora exemplified
the road builders’ ideas about conquest and desire for adventure. Perhaps because they
were encountering an indigenous people, members of the expedition drew from the
rhetoric of “civilization” and “barbarism” to describe their drive through Sonora. Hanna
excitedly reported that although they had been reassured that the Yaqui no longer “carve
their tribal signs on the flesh of living men” or “slice the skin from the bottoms of the
traveler’s feet and then make him walk across the thorns of the desert,” one could never
be too careful. After all, he informed his readers, “We knew the Yaqui’s history.”
52

Hanna also noted that four hundred years of civilizing efforts had failed to turn the Yaqui
into a peaceful or “tamed” people. The expedition, however, offered a solution, however
naïve or misguided: “We knew, too, that every effort to tame them would be a failure
until they were shown another occupation more pleasureful than war—motoring along

51
“Editorial: See All the Americas First!” Touring Topics, July 1930, 11.
52
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 22.

248
the International Pacific Highway, for example.”
53
Hanna’s comments reflect two
impulses within the expedition. On the one hand, expedition members found encounters
with the Yaqui people exhilarating, an authentic and masculine experience on the edge of
what they considered the civilized world. Their excitement revealed a desire to live
through an adventure that brushed up against the danger of a frontier. On the other hand,
expedition members also saw their project as a civilizing force, a road that would bring
contemporary technology to a region they considered backward.
Even vestiges of the revolution seemed to add to the adventurous spirit of the trip.
As the expedition passed through Nayarit, Hanna noted that a military convoy
accompanied the members through the heart of “bandit infested” country to ensure their
safety.
54
Once the official convoy left them, however, several trucks with ununiformed
men followed them at an uncomfortable distance. Members of the expedition assumed
the armed men belonged to a local group of bandits. According to Hanna, “They had no
uniforms, but each bore a rifle and bandoliers of cartridges were draped across their
shoulders. They were as fierce and bloodthirsty a looking aggregation as ever I saw.”
55

After enquiring, Hanna discovered that the convoy was actually a group of Yaqui soldiers
who, although commissioned by the federal government, refused to wear uniforms. They
had driven alongside the expedition to escort them safely through their territory. The
Yaqui response to the IPH expedition is intriguing. Although there are no records left

53
Ibid.
54
“With the First International Highway Expedition,” Touring Topics, May 1930, 21.
55
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 22.

249
from the perspective of the Yaqui soldiers, their actions as recorded by Hanna suggest a
grim approval of the road builders.
Groups of armed men who continued to operate outside the authority of the
Mexican state even after the end of the revolution added excitement and prompted further
commentary on travel through post-revolutionary Mexico. As the expedition left the
town of Rosario in Sinaloa, the mayor warned that the adventurers were entering the
“domain of Mexico’s most active and vicious bandits.”
56
Duly warned that they might
encounter titillating danger, the expedition described the fifty-seven miles between
Rosario and its next destination, Acaponeta, as “thrillers.” The route alternated between
thick patches of jungle and smooth tidal plains. The motorists and their escort of five
Mexican soldiers all held their breaths, cautiously and excitedly, for a glimpse of bandits.
The army escort gave precise orders—load the guns, stay in close formation, drive fast,
and do not turn on any headlights after nightfall. Hanna reported, with a touch of
exhilaration, that groups of bandits had recently burned two bridges and were currently
holding an American for hostage. Concerned for their safety and simultaneously thrilled
by the possibility of danger, the expedition rushed forward: “We tied bandana
handkerchiefs over our mouths and noses to protect us from the dust of high-speed travel.
Had any bandits confronted us then and there in our regalia of war, I’m sure they would
have been the first to retreat. Never will civilized men look more unholy, more vicious,
and I may say, more ludicrous.”
57
Hanna’s account reveals a simultaneous fascination

56
Ibid., 26.
57
Ibid., 27.

250
with and fear of the people the expedition encountered in Mexico. They enjoyed an
adrenaline-charged experience encountering and imitating Mexican bandits.
58

The Mexican landscape also offered an opportunity for the expedition to test its
pioneering prowess, narrated most explicitly in descriptions of crossing the Sierra de
Nayarit. Referencing military tactics, the expedition referred to this segment of their trip
as the “assault on the barrancas of Nayarit.”
59
The barrancas were a series of deep,
mountainous ravines that divided the west coast of Mexico from the country’s interior.
An old road, used by mule carts and later the Southern Pacific Railroad, ran through the
barrancas but had been abandoned when the Southern Pacific finished its line down the
west coast of Mexico. As the expedition prepared to cross the barrancas in Tepic, locals
told them no one had ever traversed the route in an automobile and expedition members
explicitly identified themselves as path breaking explorers about to conquer territory as
yet unexplored by the new technology of the automobile. They considered the barrancas
the most challenging part of their journey; Hanna described the route: “The precipitous
Sierra de Nayarit, rising to a great height and cut by numerous deep barrancas, must be
crossed between this point and Guadalajara, and it is generally considered to be
impassable except for mules and the existing railroad.”
60
The expedition hoped, and
expected, to be the first automobiles to pass through the difficult terrain. They also felt

58
Matthew Frye Jacobson explores the contradictory American relationship with racial “inferiors” inside
and outside of the United States. He argues that Americans simultaneously relied on foreign peoples as
consumers and as a source of labor while also reviling their presence. See Matthew Frye Jacobson,
Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917 (New
York: Hill and Wang, 2000).
59
Phil Townsend Hanna, “The Assault on the Barrancas of Nayarit,” Touring Topics, July 1930, 43.
60
“With the First International Highway Expedition,” Touring Topics, May 1930, 21.

251
that the success of their entire mission hinged on their ability to cross the range: “It is
conceded by all familiar with Mexico that if the party is able to negotiate the Sierra de
Nayarit, that it will have demonstrated the practicability of the West Coast Route through
Mexico.”
61
If they could not cross, the viability of their entire highway plan seemed
painfully perilous.
As they deliberated about the best route across the mountainous terrain, Juan
Collignon, an old friend of Hanna’s from Guadalajara, arrived and reported that the
Guadalajara Chamber of Commerce had dispatched the country’s best motorcar driver,
Hernández Matute, into the barrancas a week earlier. The Chamber hoped Matute would
be able to navigate the barrancas, driving west, and meet the IPH expedition in Tepic as
they prepared to cross driving east. So far, nothing had been heard from him and the
expedition speculated that he was injured or wrecked somewhere in the “mysterious and
forbidding” depths of the canyons.
62
They probably expected to rescue him as they
began their trek east. The next morning, however, the expedition received a telegram
from Matute, modestly reporting, “I am here. Advise me where I can meet you.”
63
The
expedition replied with an incredulous message to which Matute reported cryptically, “I
have passed, and will pass again, by auto, through barrancas.”
64
The expedition
responded with a note of congratulations and commended Matute on his service to
Mexico: “Deeds such as yours make a country.” Hanna had to report to his readers,

61
Ibid.
62
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 31.
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid.

252
perhaps with a hint of jealously, “to Matute goes the honor and the glory of traversing the
barrancas for the first time by automobile.”
65

Despite the fact that a Mexican citizen had stolen a bit of their pioneering
bravado, the expedition finished its preparations in Tepic, packed up, and headed
southeast towards the sierra. Once at the barrancas, the expedition stopped and set up
camp. East secured a horse and headed out alone to determine the condition of the road
ahead of them. At the end of a long day of exploring on horseback he returned to the
camp and reported cryptically as he headed for his tent, “It can’t be done.”
66
Other
members of the expedition responded with a competitive urgency: “A Mexican driver had
crossed those dreadful canyons. We could, too. If we didn’t, our cause was eternally
ruined.”
67
East clarified—he did not think the cars could pass on their own power but
with the assistance of teams of hefty oxen, they might make it. Given the rough terrain,
East ordered half the expedition to drive to Ixtlán and ship the supply trucks by rail. Two
cars would carry East, Hanna, Ariza, and Matute through the barrancas. They stripped
the cars of any extra equipment to lighten the load and ease the journey.
They set off only to pause at the edge of the barrancas: “Across to the east was a
jumbled skein of mountains—mountains that at first glance appeared impenetrable. At
our feet gapped a deep gorge.”
68
As they approached the precipice, Hanna felt moved to
compare their experience to the Jesuit explorer, José Ortega, who traveled the same road

65
Ibid.
66
Ibid., 34.
67
Ibid., 34.
68
Ibid., 35.

253
in 1784, “It is so wild and frightful to behold that its ruggedness, even more than the
arrows of its warlike inhabitants, took away the courage of the conquerors.”
69
The
expedition inched forward and then dove into the canyons with the experienced Matute
driving the lead car. As the road steepened, they slowed to walking speed, stopping
every few minutes to fill a deep hole with shovels or shift large boulders with picks and
pinch bars. On a jagged section of road with a grade of 40 per cent, the party broke out
block and tackle and hoisted the cars upward.
Although Hanna would later declare the successful navigation of the barrancas an
achievement unique to the American IPH expedition, he noted the Mexican labor
required to make it happen. As the caravan inched down its first mountain, a group of
Mexican laborers met them and offered their services to help the expedition creep over
the jagged peaks. Hanna interpreted their offer as a “public-spirited, civic-minded
effort…[they were] anxious to assist us with the only thing that could help us—physical
toil.”
70
The group had heard about the highway and believed it would be extremely
beneficial to their relatively isolated town. As became evident at the end of the day,
however, assisting the expedition also opened an opportunity for paid work. The group
informed the expedition that they expected payment for their backbreaking labor and
requested a wage of a peso apiece. The expedition assessed that they would not be able
to complete the trek across the sierra without more arms and backs to push the vehicles
up the steepest grades and holding them from tumbling down the other side. They paid
the wage and engaged the workers for the rest of the barrancas section. Workers attached

69
Ibid.
70
Ibid.

254
rope to vehicles and physically hoisted them through difficult sections. As they passed
around one particularly steep and narrow bend, Hanna reported, “The outer edge of the
road began to crumble, trickling rocks and sand into the canyon…frantically the
campesinos set to work [attaching] ropes to the wheels on the treacherous side, passing
them over the top…half a dozen men held to them as an anchor. At a veritable snail’s
pace, with the laborers holding the car well into the hill, they passed around the slope and
on to firm ground.”
71

Figure 19, Mexican workers pushing an expedition car through the Sierra de Nayarit. Photo taken
by Phil Townsend Hanna.
72

71
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 36.
72
Hanna, “The Assault on the Barrancas,” 43.

255
On the first day through the barrancas, the expedition moved six miles in ten
sweaty, laborious, mosquito-bitten hours. They camped the night in a canyon and
continued through the last section on the second day. When they finally emerged from
the mountain range, they had driven nine miles in eighteen hours of travel. The difficult
route, however, created a sense of camaraderie between expedition members and the
Mexican workers who lifted them across the barrancas. When they finally reached a
level road, the entire party celebrated. The workers shouted “Adios a las barrancas” and
the expedition echoed the sentiment in English.
73

The expedition considered their drive through the barrancas of the Sierra de
Nayarit the most important feat of their trip, despite the fact that a Mexican driver
completed the trip first and a group of Mexican workers literally carried the expedition’s
caravan across the ravines. In a photo piece entitled the “Assault on the Barrancas of
Nayarit” in Touring Topics, Hanna contended that “as a motoring stunt it has never been
excelled.”
74
The expedition also announced that they passed through the barrancas
despite the fact that locals and proclaimed the route impassable for automobiles. These
assertions on the part of the expedition came even after Hernández Matute drove the
route a just a few days before they even arrived to meet them and guide them back over
the sierra. To legitimize their project, the expedition needed to be able to claim they were
the first. Pioneering required that no one else, particularly not a Mexican citizen, had
navigated the jagged canyons before them.

73
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 36.
74
Hanna, “The Assault on the Barrancas of Nayarit,” 43.

256
While the men of the expedition indulged in racialized conceptions of Mexicans,
particularly indigenous Mexicans and revolutionaries, they simultaneously spoke warmly
of the individuals they met along the route. And individual Mexicans joined or supported
the expedition to further their own futures. In Tetitlán, a young Mexican named Nicolás
Pinto offered to work for Hanna as a “mayordomo.”
75
Pinto had migrated south from the
village of Colotlán in the State of Jalisco and went by the nickname “el Norteño.” He
likely came from a very modest background; he was traveling through Nayarit as an
itinerant worker and carried everything he owned in a small bag slung across his back.
When he bumped into the IPH expedition, he must have seen a window of opportunity, a
chance to work with a group of wealthy Americans on an expedition through his country.
According to Hanna’s account, Pinto offered his services and worked tirelessly to assist
the expedition as it crossed the barrancas and headed to Mexico City. He carried the
moving and still picture cameras on foot through rough terrain, guarded the cars and
equipment, operated the radio, cooked meals, washed dishes, and assisted in “a thousand
tasks.”
76

Pinto also became good friends with the entire expedition and candidly told them
that “his one ambition was to go to the United States.”
77
His hard work endeared him to
the IPH expedition members and they agreed to finance his trip to Los Angeles, help him
find work, and assist him in enrolling in school. Hanna explained their rationale: “To
give a youth such as that, with a splendid native intelligence, the chance to pull himself

75
Ibid., 32. Mayordomo translates literally as “butler.”
76
Ibid.
77
Ibid.

257
above his slaving brethren; to educate him and send him back to his countrymen with a
better sense of things was our object.”
78
Pinto saw the IPH expedition as an opportunity
to align himself with some well-connected Americans, possibly find steady employment,
and immigrate to better work possibilities north of the border. The IPH expedition saw in
Pinto an opportunity to “uplift” a Mexican laborer and send him back to Mexico a well-
educated, experienced, and cosmopolitan leader. Despite these varying motives for the
relationship between Pinto and IPH expedition members, their relationship also held
genuine love and mutual respect. When the U.S. consulate tersely informed them that
contract labor laws strictly forbid Pinto’s immigration to the United States, el Norteño
and the expedition had to painfully part ways. According to Hanna, everyone exchanged
tearful embraces and “the toughest cynic among us was a sentimental wreck.” A deep
and sincere bond had developed between the expedition members and Pinto, one that they
continued to share even after the expedition returned to the United States.
79

In addition to building warm friendships with individual Mexicans like Pinto, the
men of the expedition received enthusiastic welcomes from the Mexican communities
they traveled through. Mexicans seemed excited about the possibilities a new road would
offer along their West coast and greeted the expedition with interest and excitement. In
Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, Governor Francisco Elías welcomed the expedition
with a well-appointed reception.
80
He had helped plan the expedition and was happy to

78
Ibid.
79
Hanna reported a continuing correspondence with Pinto that extended several years after the end of the
expedition. According to letters from Pinto, he had returned to his hometown to live with his mother, had
tracked down a copy of his birth certificate to help him in the immigration process, and was waiting for
approval on his immigration application.
80
“With the First International Pacific Highway Expedition,” 20.

258
see it realized. In Guaymas, several hundred residents lined the streets as the expedition
rolled into town. According to an excerpt from the expedition’s daily log, “progress
during the past two days has been slow on account of numerous receptions and fiestas at
all towns en route.”
81
In Zacapu, Hanna reported that over a thousand villagers greeted
them with confetti and flowers, despite a heavy rainstorm.
82
Mexican public officials also
organized automobile caravans to travel portions of the route with the expedition and
appointed delegations at state boundary lines for ceremonies celebrating the placing of
IPH signposts.
Fiestas and welcomes also had other goals or at least reminders; Mexicans looked
to the IPH on their own terms. They tempered their celebratory welcomes with firm
reminders that Mexico was building roads in accordance with its own agenda. As they
traveled, the pathfinders met with Mexican governors, senators, mayors, and other civic
officials. A number of them made explicit that Mexico was not interested in an ongoing,
however revised, imperial relationship with the United States. They mixed warm
welcomes with nationalist undertones. Colonel Leopoldo Gallardo, chief of staff for
Governor and General Lázaro Cardenas, welcomed the party for a lavish luncheon in the
countryside of the State of Michoacán.
83
Despite his generous hospitality, however,
Gallardo refused to allow members of the expedition to speak English while his guests.
He politely but firmly informed them that they were in Michoacán and had to speak the
local language. He had previously instructed his staff to ignore any conversation in

81
Ibid.
82
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 40.
83
When the expedition traveled through Michoacán, Cardenás was the state’s governor. He became
president of Mexico in 1934.

259
English, and they obediently disregarded any requests for food or other accommodations
that were not made in Spanish.
84
Gallardo’s language policies demonstrated that he
wanted to convey a sense of nationalist pride in both his country and its language and to
politely remind the expedition that they were guests in a country with its own language,
heritage, and culture. They were not colonizers, he firmly reminded them, who could
impose their own language on another country. The expedition struggled through some
conversation in Spanish and finally interpreted Gallardo’s language restrictions as a
joke.
85

While Mexicans celebrated the arrival of an exploration and goodwill tour from
Los Angeles, they also made Mexico’s local and national priorities clear. During the stop
in Hermosillo, Elías welcomed the party and took its members on a tour of roads he was
building in the state. Elías, a cousin of President Plutarco Calles (1924-1928) and
governor of Sonora, was also a strong proponent of road building in Mexico and became
a staunch supporter of the IPH. A borderlands resident, Elías also spoke English fluently
and had extensive relationships with American businesses along the U.S.-Mexico border.
During his tenure as governor, he aggressively promoted highway construction in Sonora
and purchased the most up-to-date equipment from the United States to build an
extensive network of roads for his state.
86
While showing the IPH expedition over some
of the state’s newly constructed thoroughfares, Elías forcefully informed them that the
region’s most pressing need and highest priority was for adequate roads to connect

84
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 39.
85
Ibid.
86
Harry Carr, “Mexican Notables Due for Road Conference,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1930, A1.

260
agricultural areas with market centers.
87
He recognized the significance of the IPH and
promised to apply some resources to its proposed route, but his priority, he reminded
them firmly, was to build a network of roads and highways that would promote the local
and regional interests of the State of Sonora. Elías did, however, take advantage of the
visit of experienced road engineer Earnest East to discuss and compare best practices for
road building. After touring a number of local thoroughfares, Elías hosted a banquet in
honor of the IPH expedition and organized an informal conference with Mexican
engineers before they left for Guaymas.
88

The Mexican regional and national press held a more critical perspective on the
IPH. As the expedition traversed Mexico, Mexico City newspapers like El Economista
accused Chandler and the ACSC of refusing to consider Mexico’s needs in planning the
IPH route.
89
Mexico would only endorse the highway, they contended, once Mexican
engineers and policymakers had studied the nation’s needs and identified the benefits of
the IPH. Other newspapers and journalists speculated that the ACSC eagerly promoted
the highway because they planned to make it a lucrative venture. Although the ACSC
did not have any direct financial interests in the highway, Mexicans still lived under the
shadow of Porfirio-era concessions to foreign firms, and argued that the ACSC planned
to profit from the IPH by loaning money to Mexican states at high interest rates for road
construction. Suspicions lingered in Mexico that American involvement in the country
would not benefit Mexicans.

87
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 20-21.
88
Ibid., 21.
89
Hanna, “Pilgrims to Anahuac,” 20-21.

261
At the close of the trip, expedition members reported that they had found the route
between Los Angeles and Mexico City almost completely navigable via automobile.
With the exception of a very rough section through the barrancas on the border between
the states of Jalisco and Nayarit, the expedition believed that any American tourist with
decent skills as a driver could easily enjoy an extended road trip from the U.S.-Mexico
border to Mexico’s capital. In fact, they noted that they found Mexico’s road system as
drivable as the U.S. highway system had been just fifteen years before.
Ultimately, the First International Highway Expedition exposed conflicts within
the project and its promoters’ efforts to create a shared identity as Pacific Coast residents.
Although highway promoters on both sides of the border hoped to use the road to further
the mutual interests of Southern California and Western Mexico, the interactions between
expedition members and Mexican policymakers during the trip revealed that they did not
completely share a vision of each other or the highway. Even as they built friendships
with individual Mexicans, expedition members ultimately thought the road would civilize
a backwards nation. Although they believed in possibilities for international partnership,
they struggled to see Mexico as a nation of equals. Savvy Mexican policymakers sensed
this and met the expedition with assertions of national pride and sovereignty. Yes,
Mexico wanted to participate in this international project but Mexican leaders clearly
prioritized the needs of Mexico.
The Conference
Henry Workman Keller delivered his opening address to the International Pacific
Highway Conference in flawless Spanish and English. His bilingual speech set a bilateral
tone for the meeting. Noting the setting—his hometown—he asserted, “It is fitting that

262
this Convention should meet in Los Angeles, bordering the International Line, for
because of our historical background and constant intercourse with our neighbors to the
South there exists a friendly status builded [sic] on mutual respect and confidence.”
90

Keller spoke with enthusiasm about the ability of the IPH to unite the people of the
Western hemisphere into a shared and friendly entity, a lateral network of sovereign
nations that would collaborate to create better lives for its citizens.
91

Through the grand prose of hemispheric solidarity, the discussions between
Angeleno and Mexican delegates at the IPH conference resolved some of the tensions
exposed during the expedition. Following the return of the expedition to Los Angeles,
the ACSC and its Mexican partners organized a group of seventy-five Mexican and
American elected officials, engineers, and financiers to attend the First International
Pacific Highway Conference. Conference organizers planned to discuss the findings of
the trip and hoped to offset some of the tensions revealed by the expedition. Delegates
from both sides of the border assured each other that past patterns of American
investment in Mexico would be broken. They repeated language that disparaged
American control of Mexico and emphasized the need for cultural understanding.
Mexican and American delegates also envisioned a post-revolutionary relationship
between Southern California and Mexico that respected Mexico’s revolutionary
nationalism while simultaneously promoting cross-border infrastructure, trade, and
tourism.

90
“Transactions of the First International Pacific Highway Conference.”
91
Phil Townsend Hanna, “Conference Gives Impetus to International Highway,” Touring Topics,
December 1930, 20.

263
The conference pulled together Los Angeles business interests, the ACSC, the
governors of twelve Mexican states, and road engineers from both sides of the border.
92

Delegates from Mexico included many of the regional policymakers and road builders
that greeted the expedition in Mexico a few months before including Filiberto Gómez;
Francisco Elías; Alejandor Villaseñor, mayor of Nogales, Sonora; and Luis Pastor, head
of the National Tourist Commission in Mexico City.
93
Conference organizers also
expected Lázaro Cárdenas, then the governor of the State of Michoacán, who would later
oversee the expropriation of American petroleum and agricultural properties as President
of Mexico. Delayed at the last moment, Cárdenas sent a representative to Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Times described the delegates as a “progressive” group: “It is not only
that they are FROM Mexico; they ARE Mexico.”
94
The front-page Times piece also
identified the group as part of a new generation of young post-revolutionary leaders in
Mexico, deeply concerned with rebuilding Mexico as a modern nation.
95

92
“A Road to Bind the Americas,” Westways, December 1930, 11. In addition to extensive coverage in the
Los Angeles Press, the conference also received significant attention in the Mexican press. See “Porvenir
en Carreteras de la Nación: La Conferencia Internacional de Caminos en Los Angeles,” El Nacional,
October 19, 1930, 8; “La Carretera Occidental en México,” La Prensa, October 18, 1930, 2.
93
Hanna, “Conference Gives Impetus to International Highway,” 18.
94
Carr, “Mexican Notables due for Road Conference.”
95
Mexican President Pascual Ortiz Rubio sent a telegram to the governors of the States of Sonora, Sinaloa,
Nayarit, Michoacán, Mexico, Puebla, Oaxaca, and Chiapas requesting that they attend the conference. He
considered it an excellent opportunity to expand Mexico’s tourism industry and highway system. “En vista
de lo cual y deseóso [sic] de que Delegados Mexicanos obtengan importantes datos que redundarán
positivo beneficio entidades correspondientes y progreso nuestra Patria respetuosamente permítome [sic]
tomar la libertad sugerir se procure la presencia personal ante esta Convención de Señores Gobernadores
Estados mencionados.” Telegram from Pascual Ortiz Rubio to the Governors of Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit,
Michoacán, Mexico, Puebla, Oaxaca, Chiapas, October 3, 1930, expediente 13, registro 7319, año 1930,
AGN.

264
As the delegates delved into the conference, formalities such as appointing a
conference chairperson assumed diplomatic significance. While welcoming Mexican
delegates, ACSC representatives noted that the City of Los Angeles considered it a high
honor to host more Mexican officials in one meeting than any time before in the history
of the neighboring nations. They also repeatedly deferred the structure, itinerary, and
leadership of the conference to Mexican delegates, insisting that this was their conference
and the ACSC representatives attended solely as technical advisors. As the conference
began, Keller announced that it would be left entirely to the Mexican delegates to chair
and run the proceedings. He politely declined a nomination made by Gómez to chair the
conference and deferred to Mexican leadership. He stated that he hoped the delegates
would “consider this a Mexican conference” and pushed for a Mexican delegate to
preside over the proceedings.
96
Mexican delegates politely assumed the conference’s
leadership positions and conducted most of the meetings in Spanish.
Three days of speeches, from both American and Mexican delegates, followed
and resounded with declarations of hemispheric fraternity. Elías, for example, echoed
many of Keller’s sentiments and proclaimed that the IPH would “bring about an
additional link in the complete understanding and union of all the nations of this
continent.”
97
Elías also alluded to the tensions that had historically strained the U.S.-
Mexico relationship but argued that the IPH would help the two countries transcend those
conflicts. Mexicans, he noted, had their own traditions and culture, as did Americans, but

96
“Transactions of the First International Pacific Highway Conference.”
97
Quoted in Hanna, “Conference Gives Impetus to International Highway,” 20.

265
the highway would “serve to bring about a mutual understanding.”
98
Like Elías, most of
the Mexican delegates diplomatically encouraged their American audience to get to know
Mexico and Mexicans, ideally via the IPH. Cultural sensitivity and understanding,
facilitated by transnational infrastructure like highways, would help Americans fully
understand and appreciate their southern neighbors.
ACSC conference organizers also reassured their Mexican guests that the
highway would not replicate pre-revolution patterns of American investment. They
reiterated to the Mexican delegates that the club had no direct financial interest in
promoting the IPH and would not attempt to dictate the route, construction, or use of the
highway. This was not, they repeated, a project in line with pre-revolutionary American
investments in Mexico. In an effort to allay the suspicion expressed in the Mexican
press, for example, ACSC representatives emphasized that their interest in the highway
stemmed from a desire to promote good trade, international neighborliness, and
transnational tourism. The club’s status as a non-profit organization, Keller stated
explicitly, prohibited it from making loans or investing in for-profit enterprises in
Mexico. Their interest was solely to promote international tourism between Southern
California and Mexico and to enjoy the auxiliary profits that a booming tourist industry
would bring.
Gómez repeated the sentiment from a Mexican perspective. In his address to the
convention he stated unequivocally, “Mexico, a young and pushing country, is open
rather to spiritual conquest by men of good faith than to capitalistic colonizing. We are
eminently understanding and understandable to whoever comes with his mind made up to

98
Ibid.

266
understand us and respect us in the sacred spot of our nationality.”
99
For Gómez and
Mexico, partnerships were acceptable; imperialism was not. Gómez seemed to believe
the rhetoric of goodwill and neighborliness. During the conference he sent a telegram to
President Pascual Ortiz Rubio stating that the gathering represented a group of Americans
sincerely interested in assisting Mexico in expanding its tourism industry.
100

Conference organizers hoped to cement friendships between Mexican and
American delegates through an educational and recreational road trip across Southern
California and a brief excursion to Baja California. They followed three days of speeches
and discussion with a six-day driving tour of California’s road building successes and
failures. In a luxury bus, conference delegates toured Los Angeles, San Diego, Tijuana,
Calexico, the Salton Sea, and San Bernardino. These locations also gave the ACSC
representatives a chance to indulge in the Spanish romanticism with which they
associated Southern California. They drew on the region’s fantasy past to demonstrate to
Mexican delegates what they considered the historic and spiritual connections between
the two regions.
101
They also used this imagined past to envision a future that would
bind Southern California and Mexico.

99
“Transactions of the First International Pacific Highway Conference.”
100
In Spanish, “Tómome [sic] libertad hacer notar importantísimo tema turismo tratarase [sic] ampliamente
por competentes personas sinceramente interesadas a intensificar desarrollo turismo en México.” Telegram
from Filiberto Gómez to Pascual Ortiz Rubio, October, 1930, expediente 13, registro 7319, año 1930,
AGN.
101
As a number of historians have identified, nostalgia for a romantic “Spanish fantasy” past in Southern
California began in the late nineteenth century and sparked a national fervor for a mythical past of demure
señoritas, gallant caballeros, and romantic ranchos. This fictional history served two purposes; it
simultaneously promoted a tourist culture based on an exotic history while also obliterating the conditions
under which Mexican-Americans lived and worked in Southern California. As the history of the IPH
demonstrates, however, boosters and promoters in Southern California constructed a shared history with
“Old Mexico,” while they also grappled with the emergence of Mexico as a modern and independent
nation-state. For Southern California’s policymakers and financial leaders, Mexico represented not only a

267
The imagined Mexico constructed across Southern California seemed to interest
the delegates from Mexico. Carr noted that they were “tickled pink” when the expedition
stopped for lunch in San Clemente and found that the “illustrious caballero, Don Ole
Hanson, has built a beautiful Spanish city where all other architecture is forbidden. It
also impressed them to notice the names of the towns as they dashed by—Balboa,
Laguna, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, San Luis Rey, La Jolla, San Diego—the
flavor of Old Mexico.”
102
Although deeply problematic in its erasure of the Mexicans
who lived in Southern California in the 1930s and the strict racial boundaries they faced,
the Spanish fantasy past also allowed the ACSC to construct a past and a future linked to
Mexico. Carr explicitly linked the emerging road to the region’s Spanish past,
particularly its veneration of California’s mission history. Reflecting on a day of travel
with the expedition, he wrote, “It has been a day of riding along new pavements laid on
top of old, old trails.”
103
In other words, the IPH might be new but its Spanish past had
led directly to a Mexican and American future.
When conference members reached Tijuana, they paused to meet with Baja
California officials, relax in a deluxe tourist resort, and toast the success of the highway
and amicable relations between the two nations. Carr enthusiastically observed, “When
the Americans are not standing up toasting health, wealth and joy to President Ortiz
Rubio, the Mexicans are standing up toasting President Hoover. At the end of the dining
room are the Mexican colors flanked on both sides by the Stars and Stripes. Mexicans

nostalgic past but also the path to the future via international commerce. See McWilliams, Kropp, and
Deverell.
102
Harry Carr, “Road Envoys at Tia Juana,” Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1930, 1.
103
Ibid.

268
who can’t speak English are exchanging heart beats of eternal friendship with Americans
who have no Spanish.”
104
Despite language barriers and their varying interests in road
building, delegates eagerly celebrated the new relationship they were forging between the
United States and Mexico.
By the end of the conference, Mexican delegates had organized a formal
International Pacific Highway Association to advance the project. They voted
unanimously to lobby the Mexican federal government for funds for each state to
complete their respective portions of the highway. They also agreed to reconvene in
Mexico the following month to continue planning logistics for the project. Finally, they
telegraphed President Pascual Ortiz Rubio to inform him of their progress and call for his
support of the IPH. Presumably, both American and Mexican delegates returned home
pleased with their progress; their road, which represented a new relationship between the
United States and Mexico, felt well under the way to completion.
Mexican participants in the IPH conference pursued road building with zeal upon
their return to Mexico. Gómez, elected president of the Comisión Permanente for the
Carretera Internacional del Pacífico, launched an aggressive campaign to see the road to
completion. He organized local IPH committees, regularly traveled the West Coast of
Mexico to inspect progress on portions of the highway, and initiated a press campaign to
build support for the road.
105
He also submitted detailed reports to President Rubio on
road conditions and local road commissions. In one update, he reported, “The enthusiasm
aroused by the highway project was visible and everyone present unanimously acclaimed

104
Ibid.
105
“La Gran Carretera en la Parte de Nayarit,” El Universal, August 22, 1931, 9.

269
you for paying close attention to the construction of a communication system that will
solve serious economic problems for that region.”
106

As Gómez traveled to different states and towns to build support for the IPH he
noted growing enthusiasm for the project. In Magdalena, Jalisco, he called together a
meeting of the mayor, various municipal officials, and the chamber of commerce to
organize a comité local for the IPH. The new comité noted that their city lacked any
reliable system of transportation or communication and enthusiastically supported the
IPH project as a solution to this problem.
107
In Tepic, local leaders welcomed Gómez
with so much excitement that they decided to have a general city meeting while he was
there to allow him to explain the project and invite interested and supportive parties to
join the local committee. At the close of the meeting, held in the municipal theater to
accommodate everyone, the assembly elected members to the committee.
108
Local
people in Nayarit also expressed a keen interest in seeing the highway completed.
According to the press, “the announcement of the construction of the IPH has awakened
an interest in all of the local population because it will benefit them directly and the
authorities and local population have offered their help and all kinds of items for the

106
Letter from Filiberto Gómez to Pascual Ortiz Rubio, August 22, 1931, expediente 13, registro 7319, año
1931, AGN. In Spanish, “Fue visible el entusiasmo que despertó el proyecto de la Carretera y todos los
presentes unánimemente aclamaron a usted por haberse dignado prestar su elevada atención a la
construcción de una via de comunicación que vendrá a resolver graves problemas económicos para aquella
región.”
107
Letter from El Comité Local de Magdalena to Pascula Ortiz Rubio, August 19, 1931, expediente 13,
registro 7319, año 1931, AGN.
108
Letter from El Comité Local de Tepic to Pascual Ortiz Rubio, August 16, 1931, expediente 13, registro
7319, año 1931, AGN.

270
work.”
109
Although aware that the road would eventually connect the region with
California, most of the local IPH commissions identified the local needs that road
building would fulfill: “[This work] is of great importance to this region…everyone here
recognizes its importance.”
110

Figure 20, Signatures of the IPH Comisión Local of Nayarit on a map of the IPH, 1931.
111

109
“La Realización de un Magno Proyecto,” El Universal, August 16, 1931, 9. In Spanish, “Al solo
anuncio de que está para construirse el camino internacional del Pacifico, se ha despertado el interés de
todos los vecinos de la región por ser los directamente beneficiados, y autoridades y vecinos caracterizados
han ofrecido su ayuda y toda clase de elementos que puedan proporcionar para los trabajos.”
110
Letter from El Comité Local de Nayarit to Pascual Ortiz Rubio, August 16, 1931, expediente 13,
registro 7319, año 1931, AGN. In Spanish, “…una obra de tanta importancia que beneficiaría directamente
a la propia región…manifestaron la buena disposición y entusiasmo de que se encuentran animados para
cooperar a los trabajos de la Carretera, cuya importancia reconocían todos los presentes.” Gómez also set
up local committees in Guadalajara and Tepic. Letter from El Comité Local de Guadalajara to Pascual
Ortiz Rubio, August 20, 1931, expediente 13, registro 7319, año 1931, AGN; Letter from El Comité Local
de Tepic to Pascual Ortiz Rubio, August 16, 1931, expediente 13, registro 7319, año 1931, AGN.
111
Letter from El Comisión Local de Nayarit to Pascual Ortiz Rubio, August 16, 1931, expediente 13,
registro 7319, año 1931, AGN.

271

Conclusion
Despite the road building zeal, twenty-seven years passed between the conclusion
of the IPH conference and the completion of the highway through the barrancas in 1957.
Decades marked by depression and world war slowed progress on completing the route,
particularly the unpaved sections in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit. Keller remained
fiercely determined to see the road completed and worked closely with Vigil, founder of
the Mexican Automobile Association, through the 1940s and 1950s to ensure that the
Mexican federal government allocated funds to support construction through the
barrancas section. At one point during the Truman administration, Keller and Vigil even
pressured the American government to require work on the IPH as a condition of a
$300,000,000 loan to Mexico. Keller and Vigil communicated regularly and followed
Keller’s admonition to “be vigilant in both our countries…the day is not far distant when
our dreams will be realized.”
112
In 1948, Vigil seemed happy to report to Keller that not
only had the Mexican government not abandoned work on the highway but that the
Secretario de Comunicaciones y Obras Públicas had made the IPH route a priority for
the coming year.
113
Vigil pushed the Mexican Congress to allocate funds to complete the
Nogales-Guadalajara section of the route and he exuberantly reported to Keller, “WORK

112
Letter from Henry Workman Keller to Cayetano Blanco Vigil, July 2, 1947, unnumbered folder, box 23,
Keller Collection UCLA.
113
Letter from Cayetano Blanco Vigil to Henry Workman Keller, February 17, 1948, unnumbered folder,
box 23, Keller Collection UCLA. Vigil wrote in Spanish: “No solamente no se ha abandonado la idea de
continuar los trabajos en la carretera, sino que precisamente hace dos semanas el Secretario de
Comunicaciones y Obras Públicas, hizo un viaje de inspección por dicho carretera desde Tepic hasta
Culiacan y anunció por medio de declaraciones a la prensa, que durante el año actual se intensificarían
considerablemente los trabajos de la carretera.”

272
ON THE ROAD WILL ACTIVELY CONTINUE.”
114
Vigil worked with Keller to see
the road to completion and a renewed interest in the road on the part of the Mexican
federal government led to its final completion in 1957.
Although it took three decades for Mexico to complete its portion of the IPH, the
early history of the highway, particularly the accomplishments of its promoters in the
1930s, offers an alternative narrative of U.S.-Mexico relations during the interwar period.
Outside of the high politics of presidents, state departments, and embassies, Mexicans
and Americans in the borderlands and beyond forged a post-revolutionary relationship
between the two nations. In Southern California, a rapidly expanding metropolitan
region adjacent to the U.S.-Mexico border, the ACSC envisioned a highway that would
put Los Angeles at the center of automobile travel along the West coast of two
continents. In Mexico, regional policymakers and businessmen believed highways would
aid national development and American travelers could boost local economies. While
both groups held personal and divergent national agendas, their desire to promote
international trade and travel brought them into a coalition of dedicated road builders.
IPH promoters on both sides of the border, however, grappled with how to create a
mutual and equitable relationship between Americans and Mexicans in a post-
revolutionary context.
Ultimately, the road, for its proponents in Los Angeles and Northwest Mexico,
both symbolized and fostered a new era in U.S.-Mexico relations characterized by
collaborative development and the transnational movement of people, goods, and ideas.

114
Vigil wrote in Spanish, “SERIAN CONTINUADOS ACTIVAMENTE LOS TRABAJAOS EN LA
CARRETRA.” Letter from Cayetano Blanco Vigil to Henry Workman Keller, January 11, 1945, box 23,
Keller Collection UCLA.

273
Vigil, Gómez, Keller, and Chandler envisioned a new period of economic prosperity,
vibrant tourism, and rich cultural exchange expedited by a system of state-of-the-art
transnational highways. Although tensions continued between the two nations through
the Depression and well into the twentieth century, these road builders dreamed of a
highway to the future smoothly paved with internationalism and neighborly goodwill.

274
Conclusion

On May 4, 1957, an elderly man, silver-haired and nearly blind, peered across a
rugged chasm known as the Plan de Barrancas in Jalisco, Mexico. From the top of the
canyon, Cayetano Blanco Vigil could just make out a smoothly paved new road, twisting
up from the river valley below. A fifty-person delegation from the Los Angeles Chamber
of Commerce, several Mexican state governors, and residents from towns and cities along
Mexico’s west coast joined him on the precipice. The group gathered at the top of the
canyon to commemorate the completion of the International Pacific Highway. During
the ceremony Vigil declared, “This camino has linked our two countries with new bonds.
Too, it has opened a great region of commerce for many small cities and villages that
hitherto were isolated as Guadalajara was isolated to the north. Now chickens and
melons and pigs and beef are carried freely over the pavement by big trucks and little
trucks and station wagons and cars; it has opened a new world.”
1
In Vigil’s vision of a
“new world,” the highway paved the way to a future of profitable commerce, dynamic
international trade, vibrant tourism, and rich cultural exchange between the United States
and Mexico.
A plaque unveiled during the ceremony commemorated Vigil and Henry
Workman Keller’s contributions to the International Pacific Highway project, launched in
the boardroom of the Automobile Club of Southern California three decades earlier. The
plaque also acknowledged the “vision and courage” of Harry Chandler—without whose
initial foresight, Vigil noted, the highway would not exist. Newspaper coverage of the

1
Ed Ainsworth, “Mexico Marks New Highway Completion,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1957, 1A.

275
ceremony referred to the road as the “vision of trio,” a bi-national effort spearheaded by
Vigil, Keller, and Chandler to promote the “mutual good of Mexico and the United
States.”
2
Following the violent decade of 1910-1920, and in spite of the contentious
property reform policies following the Mexican Revolution, Vigil, Keller, and Chandler
envisioned a new period of economic prosperity and cultural exchange expedited by a
system of state-of-the-art transnational highways.
Los Angeles and Mexico: Core, Periphery, and Revolution
The Los Angeles city builders discussed in this study hoped for a vast periphery
for the metropolis they were conjuring out of the Southern California landscape.
Regional economic ambitions drove their expansion into neighboring Mexico and they
hoped that a Mexican periphery would help build an American city. Initially, under the
Porfiriato, the interests of Angeleno investors and Mexican officials aligned. Angelenos
looked to expand their Southern California industries south of the border. Mexican
officials, including Díaz, welcomed American investment dollars to develop Mexican
resources. As in the case of the Colorado River Land Company, Angeleno investors and
Mexican officials shared mutual interests in developing rural Mexico.
The arrival of the Mexican Revolution and its nationalist critique of foreign
investment, however, radically disrupted cross-border investment plans and the identity
of interest that Angeleno investors had shared with Porfirian officials. The twentieth
century’s first social revolution leveled critiques at the wealthy, both American and
Mexican, and demanded an economy that did not cater to the needs of an American core.
As explored in the history of the Quimichis Colony, Angelenos felt firsthand the violence

2
Ibid.

276
engendered by the Revolution. The experiences of Quimichis’ Angeleno staff provide
evidence that ordinary Mexicans understood American investment as an integral part of
the country’s economic struggles and deliberately targeted American-owned properties as
a result. William Windham, Quimichis’ resident manager, lost his life in this struggle
between Mexican revolutionaries and American investors.
Threats to Angeleno lives and property propelled Angelenos such as Thomas
Gibbon and Edward Doheny into aggressive foreign policy campaigns. They still
considered Mexico their city’s hinterland and called on the American federal government
to protect their interests across the border. For them, the Mexican Revolution represented
an affront to their economic belief system and, interestingly, their conceptions of
American citizenship. Property rights, they argued, followed them across the border and
around the world. It was the responsibility of the American government, they insisted, to
protect their private property in a foreign country when revolution threatened their
investments.
Taking up the historiography of the Mexican Revolution, this study also finds that
ordinary Mexicans understood the impact of foreign investment on their lives and
implemented the principles of the 1917 Constitution, with or without support from the
Mexican federal government. Examining the experiences of Angeleno investors in
Mexico following the framing of the nation’s new governing document reveals how
Mexican peasants and local officials explicitly named American investors and
landowners as culpable in the country’s economic woes. They also challenged wealthy
foreign investors, often taking the tenets of the constitution into their own hands and
occupying, utilizing, and expropriating foreign-owned properties.

277
Exploring the relationship between Southern California and Mexico into the
1930s and 1940s through the International Pacific Highway reveals the ways in which
both Angelenos and Mexicans still hoped to build a profitable relationship between Los
Angeles and Mexico following the Revolution. As Mexicans asserted both nationalism
and sovereignty, Angelenos struggled to accept their post-revolutionary neighbor. Both
Mexican policymakers and Los Angeles investors and road builders, however, viewed the
development of a transnational road as an immensely and mutually beneficial project. In
a significant shift from the bellicose calls for American intervention in Mexico in the
1910s and 1920s, the 1930s brought a period of renegotiation of the relationship between
city and its imagined hinterland. Revolution demanded that Angeleno investors rethink
how they related both to Mexico and Mexicans.
Ultimately, this study maintains that like many of their nineteenth-century
compatriots, Angelenos believed an expansive hinterland was necessary for the growth of
their city. An international boundary and a nationalistic revolution, however, bisected
metropolis and periphery at the start of the twentieth century. As a result, city builders
and investors struggled to control what they had hoped would be a lucrative hinterland in
the context of international tensions and the complexities of American and Mexican
foreign policy. Mexican economic nationalism demanded a shift in international
investment patterns and ultimately the United States refused to heed the calls of investors
and protect their interests in another nation. Interest in Mexico, however, oriented Los
Angeles toward the Pacific world and made the city acutely aware of its international
neighbors. Investment in Mexico opened the way to Los Angeles’ status as a global city.

278
Into the Twenty-First Century
For all the rhetoric of friendship and prosperity that accompanied the International
Pacific Highway, it did not ultimately lead to economic equality between core and
periphery. Roads did bind Mexico ever more closely to Los Angeles and the United
States in an era that increasingly supplanted railways with highways to move goods and
people. Roads connected the United States and Mexico, but they did so by tying together
two disparate economies into an unequal, albeit intimate, alliance. As historian Benjamin
Fulwider notes, “roads became symbolic of the economic model that Mexico’s leaders
promised would make all Mexicans better off, but which had largely failed to live up to
that promise.”
3
Although Americans and Mexicans touted roads as the path to future
prosperity, Mexico’s economy continued to struggle in the second half of the twentieth
century. The end of WWII and the escalation of the Cold War did not provide Mexico
with the same kind of economic stability that the United States enjoyed. As Mexico
struggled to industrialize in the post war era, the country had to import equipment from
the United States and raise capital north of the border, becoming ever more intertwined,
as a lesser partner, with the American economy. The highway came to symbolize that
dependent connection.
At the same time, Los Angeles did indeed become the economic gateway for
Mexico, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim that city boosters had so hoped for. The Los
Angeles seaport is currently the largest in the nation and the third largest in the world; the
city’s airport is the second largest cargo airport in the United States and the fourth largest

3
Benjamin Fulwider, “Driving the Nation: Road Transportation and the Postrevolutionary Mexican State,
1925-1960,” (Phd diss: Georgetown University, 2009), 2.

279
in the world.
4
Transnational highways, such as the IPH, and relaxed trade policies such
as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have created one of the busiest
trade corridors in the world between Southern California and Mexico. The five counties
that constitute the Los Angeles metropolitan region now have a gross regional product of
over $651 billion and represent one of the globe’s largest economic regions; greater Los
Angeles has an economy as large as South Korea and larger than Russia.
5
The global
metropolis that Angeleno city-builders envisioned in 1900 arrived in the post-WWII era.
If men such as Henry Workman Keller and Harry Chandler were still alive, they would
undoubtedly embrace this growth as the fulfillment of their early twentieth-century
aspirations.
Los Angeles’ size, influence, and global reach, so crucial to these early city-
builders, now place it firmly within the small set of what geographers describe as “global
cities” or “global city-regions” such as New York, Tokyo, Bombay, and Mexico City.
6

Although, as this dissertation argues, Los Angeles’ global aspirations and influence
stretch back to the nineteenth century, these early efforts produced a metropolis that, in
the second half of the twentieth century, became a central node in the global economic

4
Ibid., 4, 14-15.
5
Steven P. Erie, Globalizing L.A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2004).
6
There is an extensive and growing literature on global cities. See M. Mark Amen, Kevin Archer, and M.
Martin Bosman, eds., Relocating Global Cities: From the Center to the Margins (New York: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 2006); Felix Driver and David Gilbert, eds., Imperial Cities: Landscape, Display,
and Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999); Peter Marcuse and Ronald van Kempen,
eds., Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order? (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000); Gyan Prakash
and Kevin M. Kruse, eds., The Spaces of the Modern City: Imaginaries, Politics, and Everyday Life
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Allen J. Scott, ed., Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory,
Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Michael Storper, The Regional World: Territorial
Development in a Global Economy (New York: Guilford Press, 1997).

280
system. The increasing concentration of global wealth in cities and the free flow of
money and goods across national borders, however, have simultaneously had a
tremendous impact on urban development and created urban spaces that are increasingly
marked by inequality. As urban scholars Peter Marcuse and Ronald van Kempen argue,
There is a new spatial order of cities, commencing somewhere in the 1970s, in a period often
described as one of a globalizing economy. While cities have always been divided along lines of
culture, function, and status, the pattern today is a new, and in many ways deeper-going,
combination of these divisions…They include a spatial concentration within cities of a new urban
poverty on the one hand, and of specialized “high-level” internationally connected business
activities on the other, with increasing spatial divisions not only between each of them but also
among segments of the “middle class” in between.
7

In other words, the processes of globalization and urban development proceed hand in
hand but with uneven results. As some cities have increasingly become concentrated
centers of global capital, they have simultaneously become more divided along the lines
of race and class.
A brief discussion of NAFTA and its impact on Los Angeles vividly illustrates
this pattern. Designed to free the flow of goods and capital between Canada, the United
States, and Mexico, NAFTA has left an indelible mark on Los Angeles. In some ways,
the passage of NAFTA in 1994 can also be seen as the culmination of the types of
economic policies espoused by Los Angeles city builders and investors in the early part
of the century. The international agreement lifted many of the trade barriers that
traditionally demarcate sovereign nations and economies, blurring the economic border
between north and south, and allowing cities with transnational reach such as Los
Angeles to benefit from lowered tariffs and increased trade. In this way, NAFTA met
many of the desires and demands of early twentieth century Los Angeles capitalists such

7
Marcuse and van Kempen, 3.

281
as Chandler, Doheny, Gibbon, Keller, and Otis. It coordinated investment and trade
between the two nations, protected the interests of investors, and opened Mexico to the
United States’ economic needs. At the same time however, inexpensive manufactured
and agricultural goods from the United States, often shipped via transnational highways,
flooded Mexico and destroyed native industries and jobs. As historian Douglas Monroy
insists, NAFTA “is an unmitigated disaster” for Mexico and Mexicans.
8

In contrast to its impact on Mexico, NAFTA has promoted the integration of
Southern California’s regional economy across the border with beneficial results for Los
Angeles. Billions of dollars cross the border every year in commercial transactions
between transnational companies that do business in Los Angeles and along the U.S.-
Mexico border.
9
As political scientist Steven Erie notes, Los Angeles has benefited from
a growth in high-end, high-tech jobs, “especially in among firms specializing in exports
of intermediate goods to the maquiladoras in Mexico.”
10
Between 1990 and 2001,
international trade revitalized the Southern California economy; during this period 60%
of California’s NAFTA trade originated in or was destined for Los Angeles and NAFTA
trade represented 60% of the region’s export growth.
11
Erie projects that between 2004
and the mid 2020s, Southern California’s NAFTA trade will double.
12

8
Ibid., 20-21.
9
See Lawrence A. Herzog, “Global Tijuana: The Seven Ecologies of the Border,” in Michael Dear and
Gustavo Leclerc, eds., Postborder City: Cultural Spaces of Bajalta California (New York: Routledge,
2003), 119-142.
10
Erie, 212.
11
Ibid., 166.
12
Ibid., 12.

282
Although NAFTA opened trade routes, it failed to offer the same freedom of
movement to people and its economic benefits have been extraordinarily uneven. As
historian Mike Davis notes, “In the NAFTA era, capital, like pollution, may flow freely
across the border, but labor migration faces unprecedented criminalization and
repression.”
13
At the same time that economic restrictions eased between the two
nations, Americans barricaded their border against a generation of Mexicans looking for
jobs and economic opportunity. The devastating impact of NAFTA on the Mexican
economy, however, forced many to seek employment north of the border despite
restrictive immigration policies and led to unprecedented numbers of undocumented
immigrants entering the country without visas or work permits. The result: a class of
people who work demanding jobs, pay into the American tax system, enjoy very few
social benefits, and live in constant fear because of their status as undocumented
immigrants.
As it was a century ago, Los Angeles is still a major destination for immigrants
headed north from Mexico. Cities such as Los Angeles offer a “safety valve” for
Mexico’s unemployed, providing service sector jobs that many Americans refuse to do.
14

As Davis notes, “In Los Angeles’ new ethnic division of labor, Anglos tend to be
concentrated in private-sector management…Latinos in labor-intensive services and
manufacture.”
15
Although service and manufacture jobs are hard and underpaid, they

13
Mike Davis, Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. City (New York: Verso, 2001), 39. Davis’
book offers a thoughtful reflection on the Latinization of America, particularly its urban spaces.
14
For a thoughtful analysis of NAFTA in historical context, see Douglas Monroy, The Borders Within:
Encounters Between Mexico and the U.S. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2008), 13-50.
15
Davis, 56.

283
represent a tempting alternative for those laboring in Mexico’s struggling economy. As a
result of the pull of employment, Los Angeles is now the largest Mexican city outside of
Mexico, second in size only to Mexico City. This is the consequence of economic
policies such as NAFTA; it “uproots people from their small villages, puts them in
motion…and draws them to where they are needed.”
16
Immigrants from Mexico,
however, are drawn into a city where there is an ever widening divide between the
“haves” and the “have nots.”
17

Despite these inequalities, the draw that Los Angeles represents to Mexican
immigrants has expanded Mexican Los Angeles exponentially over the second half of the
twentieth century. By the 1940s, Los Angeles was home to more than a million people of
Mexican-origin. Since the 1950s, when most Mexican Americans and Mexican
immigrants lived in clearly demarcated and usually segregated neighborhoods, Mexican
Los Angeles has burgeoned and the presence of Mexicans and Mexican Americans is
ubiquitous across the city. In 1998, Latinos outnumbered Anglo Americans by more than
a million people (80% of whom are of Mexican descent) in Los Angeles.
18
Political
scientist Raymond Rocco refers to this process as the “Latinization” of Los Angeles, and
Davis calls it the “Mexicanization of Southern California.”
19

16
Ibid., 29.
17
Lawrence Bobo, Melvin Oliver, James Johnson, and Abel Valenzuela, Jr., eds., Prismatic Metropolis:
Inequality in Los Angeles (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000).
18
Ibid.
19
Raymond A. Rocco, “Latino Los Angeles: Reframing Boundaries/Borders,” in Allen J. Scott and Edward
W. Soja, eds., The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1996), 366; Davis, 2.

284
Traveling through the city reveals a long history of Mexican Los Angeles as well
as its recent growth. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, Mexican
and Mexican American communities worked, organized, created neighborhoods, built
cross-ethnic alliances, and contributed significantly to the city’s development. Mexican
immigrants have bought homes in the city’s urban center, built new businesses, and
revitalized areas abandoned by white homeowners and city bureaucrats. The city has
once again become Mexican, traveling full circle from the first half of the nineteenth
century. As Davis notes, “the Anglo conquest of California in the late 1840s has proven
to be a very transient fact indeed.”
20

The continuous arrival of immigrants from Mexico and the strong ties they
maintain with friends and family who stay behind have further strengthened the social,
cultural, and financial connections between Los Angeles and Mexico. Families struggle
to reunite in Los Angeles or travel back and forth between Southern California and all
parts of Mexico to maintain familial structures and bonds of love and affection. Mexican
immigrants in Los Angeles also send hundreds of millions of dollars to family and friends
in Mexico, utilizing comparatively higher wages in the United States to help subsidize
family needs at home. The rapid growth of the city’s Mexican population and, as
historian George Sánchez notes, the almost “constant infusion of Mexican culture into
Chicano communities,” has also produced the type of cultural fusion portrayed in the
“MEX/LA” exhibit described at the beginning of this study.

20
Ibid., 59.

285
“I am your past; you are my future.”
21

Like the walls of the “MEX/LA” exhibit, a drive through contemporary Los
Angeles reveals Mexico as the city’s past, present, and future. Angeleno investors who
saw opportunity in Mexico bequeathed the city with tangible remembrances of their
wealth, much of it wrought in Mexico before the Revolution. Colonel Griffith J. Griffith,
who made his first fortune mining in Mexico, his second fortune selling real estate in Los
Angeles, and his notorious reputation by shooting his wife in a drunken rage in a Santa
Monica hotel, gave the city its largest urban park and the observatory that both bear his
name. Edward Doheny also showered the returns of his black gold across the city,
building a gilded library on the University of Southern California campus in honor of his
beloved son, Ned, murdered in a spare bedroom of the family mansion in 1929.
Doheny’s Mexican fortune also benefitted the Catholic Church of Los Angeles, by way
of funds to construct a library and chapel at the St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo. The
library’s design is based on the Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de María, the
church located in Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución and the largest cathedral in the
Americas. In the late 1920s, Harry Chandler helped Christine Sterling raise the funds
necessary to refurbish Los Angeles’ historic Spanish and Mexican center in the popular
Spanish revival style; essentially whitewashing the city’s plaza with the fantasy of an
exotic, bucolic, and quaint past.
A contemporary drive through Los Angeles, however, also reflects a city
struggling with deep structural inequalities. The international story of Los Angeles, the

21
Olivier Debroise, “I am Your Past; You are My Future: Mexico-Los Angeles,” in MEX/LA: “Mexican
Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985 (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2011), 17.

286
history of its close affiliation with Mexico, the connections between north and south,
leave us with serious questions about what it means to live in an increasingly
“transnational” or “globalized” world; a world where elites and their money can traverse
boundaries and borders easily and use this fluidity to reproduce their wealth. The elite
Angeleno men who crafted a close bond between American finance and Mexican
resources in the first half of the twentieth century believed that transnational financial
ventures and the international protection of private property would benefit both the
investor and the working classes. Wealth, to use the prosaic phrase, would “trickle
down” and create an economic system that would benefit all. The Mexican Revolution
challenged this belief system and demanded more from the Mexican state in creating a
more economically just Mexico. In the context of an unequal distribution of power
between the United States and Mexico, however, this transformation has been difficult to
achieve. As a result, we live in a country that places strict boundaries on those who are
not wealthy and across where they live, work, and make a life for themselves and their
families. The increasing links between American capital, American foreign policy, and
the state of Mexico over the past century leave us with the pressing question—in what
ways can transnational relationships be more beneficial for all?
287
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Newspapers and Magazines
El Economista
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El Universal
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Los Angeles Times
New York Tribune
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Report Collection
Comisión Agraria Mixta, Mexico City, Mexico
Población: Quimichis, Municipio: Tecuala, Estado: Nayarit
Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
Bergman Collection
Henry Workman Keller Collection
Robert G. Cleland Papers
Thomas Bard Collection, Quimichis Colony Addendum
Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, CA
Livingston Collection
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD
Records of U.S. and Mexican Claims Commissions, Record Group 76
Registro Agrario Nacional, Tepic, Nayarit
Expediente: Ejidos, Ejido San Felipe
Secretario de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico City, Mexico
Acervo Histórico Diplomático
Sherman Library, Corona del Mar, CA
Anderson Portfolios
Colorado River Land Company Collection
University of California, Los Angeles, Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA
Phil Townsend Hanna Papers

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Creator Kim, Jessica Michelle (author)

Core Title Oilmen and cactus rustlers: metropolis, empire, and revolution in the Los Angeles Mexico borderlands, 1890-1940

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publication Date 07/26/2012

Defense Date 06/08/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag empire,investment,Los Angeles,Mexican revolution,Mexico,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Deverell, William F. (committee chair), Martinez, Maria-Elena (committee member), Pulido, Laura (committee member), Sanchez, George (committee member)

Creator Email jessicamichellekim@gmail.com,kimjm@usc.edu

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