261 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Completed in 1903 on a parcel comprised of Lot 4 and two-thirds of Lot 3 in Shafer's Re-Subdivision of the Daman & Millard Tract by retired Chicago liveryman and judge Stephen Dixon Underwood
  • After a few winter visits, Stephen and Anna Underwood retired permanently to Los Angeles in 1894. Within a few years, they were settled in a house on Washington Street across from Rosedale Cemetery; 1782 West Washington appears to have already been the property of the Underwoods' son and daughter-in-law, Charles and Belle Underwood, who transferred the deed to his parents in February 1896. The Stephen Underwoods were still living in Chicago, where he ran a livery and undertaking establishment, but were formulating plans for their own permanent move west
  • On December 11, 1902, the Los Angeles Express reported that a permit had been issued by the Superintendent of Buildings to Charles D. Underwood for a two-story, eleven-room house at 261 East Adams Street; the cost of the house was estimated at $4,600. A barn was also included in the contract with Jewell Brothers, contractors and builders. Anna and Stephen Underwood had already sold the Washington Street house the previous October, with the extended family possibly renting it back while awaiting the completion of the new house. In the early 1900s, development in what was even then called South Los Angeles was as active as any in the westward-spreading bon ton West Adams district; the Underwoods, who seem to have been a family uninterested in fashion, were bucking the civic drift toward the Pacific by moving east to East Adams Street. The Underwood family would remain at 261 East Adams for the next 57 years, rarely mentioned, if at all, during those decades except in obituaries
  • A serious fire occurred at 261 East Adams in the fall of 1911. The Department of Buildings issued a permit on November 7 allowing for the replacement of first-floor joists and girders and other repairs
  • Anna Underwood died at home on September 27, 1916, age 83, just after celebrating a 59th anniversary with her husband. Stephen Underwood expired at 261 East Adams on November 10 of the following year. He was 85. A news item in the Los Angeles Herald nine days later noted that he had served on the Chicago bench for 13 years despite contracting an illness during his army service in the Civil War that had left him "a cripple for life"
  • The Charles Underwoods continued to live quietly at 261 East Adams. They advertised from time to time "large cool rooms" for rent. The immediate neighborhood was changing into one that included multi-unit housing—either apartment buildings or converted residences—an unsurprising development given that the Los Angeles Railway ran its Yellow Cars along Maple Avenue, just at the side of 261. The three-story John Adams Apartments—like the boulevard, a namesake of the second president of the U.S.—was built in 1912 a few lots east of the Underwoods at 415 East Adams. (There is no 300 block of East Adams Boulevard.) A store building appeared on that northeast corner in 1923—one of the hundreds of strip malls of the day built across the city, though presenting a much more attractive façade than their modern counterparts, and built to the sidewalk. It contained a drug store and a Sam Seelig grocery store, the latter a predecessor company of Safeway. The same year, an even more egregious commercial interloper appeared at the intersection when the Standard Oil Company opened a filling station caddy-corner to 261 East Adams
  • Before the appearance of the store building and the filling station at the Underwoods' intersection and perhaps anticipating them, Myrtle Underwood—who seems to have taken charge of the household at 261 East Adams—was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings on March 15, 1923, to glass in the east end of the front porch, which appears in the images here
  • Belle Smith Underwood died in Los Angeles on April 16, 1942; Charles Underwood followed her and his parents to Rosedale after he died at home on May 15, 1944. (Curiously, his obituary in the Los Angeles Times three days later referred to his survivor as Patricia rather than Myrtle)
  • In the fall of 1943, between the deaths of her parents, another fire occurred at 261 East Adams. On November 12, Myrtle Underwood was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to repair damage to the roof
  • Myrtle Underwood remained at 261 East Adams until her death on May 22, 1960
  • The Underwood property, occupied by the same single family for almost 60 years, was acquired by the Standard Oil Company, which was issued a demolition permit for the house by the Department of Building and Safety on March 7, 1962. Before long there were three filling stations at the Adams-Maple intersection: the new Standard Oil Chevron station on the site of 261 (now addressed 257), a Gulf Oil outlet across the street at 258 East Adams, opened in March 1963, and the former Chevron at the southeast corner, 400 East Adams, now selling Mobil Oil products. All the stations have now been replaced by other businesses


February 1, 1948: Looking north on Maple Avenue, the Underwood house appears on the far left
corner; the fence of the Bassett-Jones house at 258 East Adams is seen at the near left. The
building at the far right corner still stands, though aesthetically destroyed. The Chevron
station became a Mobil outlet; Gulf Oil opened on the site of 258 East Adams in
1963. A third filling station opened on the site of the Underwood house
after that. The rails and wires of Los Angeles Railway's H line
remain in place for the time being following the line's
replacement by buses after August 3, 1947.
The couple at right wait under a new
triangular "BUS STOP" sign.



Illustrations: Private Collection; USCDL