450 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1901 on Lot 4 in Block 8 of Daman & Millard's Subdivision of the Shaw Tract by mining man Samuel Gibson Lawton
  • An item in the Los Angeles Express on October 1, 1901, noted that Lawton had received a permit to begin construction of a residence at 450 East Adams with a budget of $2,750
  • Samuel and Elizabeth Lawton had been married in San Diego on July 18, 1900. Five and a half years later, the Los Angeles Herald was reporting on December 4, 1906, that "On accusations of a most unusual nature Elizabeth T. Lawton and Samuel G. Lawton of Adams street, husband and wife, have based their claims for divorce from one another before...the superior court.... Both want decrees of divorce on the ground of cruelty...their short period of married life was crowded with strange happenings which deeply interested the neighbors." According to the couple's own testimonies, the marriage began to break down almost immediately after they exchanged vows; a lovely new Adams Street house seems to have done nothing to make them happier. The Lawtons accused each other of verbal and physical cruelty. In addition to vile language, fists, feet, skillets of bacon and eggs, a flatiron, a bread knife, and chairs had been employed as weapons toward one or the other, as was a revolver, which went off (accidentally, according to Elizabeth), shooting Samuel through the shoulder. (In its report the Times threw in a gas jet as another means of possible dispatch, in that case his attempted asphyxiation of her.) Elizabeth was accused of disparaging Samuel's female relatives, including his first wife, née Mary Peck, as women of low character; he claimed she inflicted injuries on herself to gain the sympathy of neighbors she hoped would testify on her behalf in court. Ten women were called "to give choice bits of evidence relative to the conflicts of a personal character occurring at the Lawton home." Mercifully, there were no children. A decree, not surprisingly, was granted, with Samuel before long moving on to a third spouse
  • Whatever the division of property was after the Lawtons' divorce, Samuel retained possession of 450 East Adams and would remain there until his death 33 years later. On April 24, 1908, now 43, he married 31-year-old Norwegian-born Carla Hansen, with whom he appears to have been more compatible than he was with his first two wives. The couple did not have children and lived quietly together at 450, with nary another item in the press, not even a social note, until his death in the house on January 24, 1940, a month after his 75th birthday. His obituary in the Times the next day noted the cause as a heart ailment and referred to him as a veteran mining man who prospected "from Mexico to Alaska." Carla Lawton remained at 450 East Adams until her own demise on May 10, 1951
  • While the ownership of 450 East Adams before the mid-1950s is unclear, a Mrs. Riceal Jones, apparently recently arrived from Dallas, occupied the house for several years before 1956
  • Ngon Oy Lew, who had arrived in the United States from China in 1947, acquired 450 East Adams by 1956; the Lew family appears to have owned the house ever since
Illustration: Private Collection