Posted: June 30th, 2005

José Cristóbal Aguilar, Mayor of Los Angeles
1866-1868, 1871-1872
by
William Estrada

Dr. Estrada is the author of the forthcoming book, The Los Angeles Plaza: Sacred and Contested Space (Univ. of Texas Press 2006), and Curator of the History Division at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument.

Introduction: With the recent election of Antonio Villaraigosa as the fourth Mexican American mayor of Los Angeles to serve in the American era and the first since the 19th century (Antonio F. Coronel being the first Mexican American to serve from 1853-1854, followed by Manuel Requena, Acting Mayor from September to October 1856), very little is known about the last Mexican American mayor of Los Angeles, Cristóbal Aguilar.

Evolution of the Office of the Mayor: Since the founding of the pueblo in 1781, the chief administrator of Los Angeles (Mayor) has gone through various transformations in title and function. Mayors of Los Angeles have been uniquely talented people. They were either appointed or elected as executive officers presiding over the lives of their neighbors, friends and families. The first office was that of Comisionado or Comisionado militar (military commissioner), with José Vicente Feliz serving as the first Comisionado from 1781 to 1786. In 1786, José Vanegas became the first Alcalde (Mayor) of Los Angeles. He served from 1786 to 1788. In 1839 the office of Alcalde was abolished and replaced with the office of Juez de Paz (Justice of the Peace). Two Jueces de Paz governed Los Angeles. The office of Alcalde was restored in 1844 with two people serving as First Alcalde and Second Alcalde. The last Alcalde of the Mexican era was an Anglo, Stephen C. Foster, who served from 1848 to 1850. The first “Mayor” of Los Angeles under American rule was Alphesus P. Hodges, who served between 1850 and 1851.

Mayor Cristóbal Aguilar: José Cristóbal Aguilar was born in Los Angeles in 1815 to José María Aguilar and María Y. E. de Aguilar. The Aguilars were a prominent ranchero family who lived in a spacious adobe on North Main Street. In 1857, the Sisters of Charity who founded the Los Angeles Infirmary used a portion of this adobe as the first hospital of the city. Early census records list his name as Cristóval, (rather than Cristóbal) which is a common Spanish usage/pronunciation. On October 30, 1848 he married Dolores Yorba at San Gabriel Mission, who was the daughter of José Antonio de los Remidios Yorba and María Catalina Verdugo. The Yorbas, whose vast land holdings included most of the Santa Ana Valley (present-day Orange County), were among the most prominent ranchero families in Southern California. Cristóval and Dolores had five children—a daughter, Librada (born in 1850), a son, José (born in 1851), a second son, Matias, born in 1858, Guadalupe, born in 1860, and their youngest daughter, Rosa, born in 1863.

In 1850 Aguilar was elected to the Common Council (later to become the Los Angeles City Council) for the first of five terms, which he served from 1850 to 1868. In 1854 he was elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. He served a second term from 1862 to 1864. According to the 1860 United States Census for Los Angeles (which reported a population of 4, 385), Cristóval and Dolores Aguilar, along with their children and Catalina Yorba and Catalina Nadal (Dolores’ mother and sister) were living in an adobe on North Main Street. His occupation was listed as ranchero (stock raising) and his combined net worth in real and personal property was $19, 000. In 1866, he was elected to his first term as Mayor (1866-1868). During his first year as Mayor, as the city’s business district gradually moved southwest from the Plaza, he signed an ordinance to create La Plaza Abaja (Lower Plaza), later to become Central Park, City Park, 6th Street Park, St. Vincent’s Park, and since 1918, Pershing Square. In 1867 he was also elected to the office of City Zanjero (City Wateroverseer) in charge of the municipal water resources and operation of the Zanja Madre (Mother Ditch) and zanja water system, which delivered water to the pueblo and surrounding farmlands. He served a second term as zanjero from 1873 to 1878.

Aguilar’s most important decision as Mayor occurred in 1868 when he vetoed an ordinance to sell the city’s water-works to a private company headed by Dr. J.S. Griffen, Prudent Beaudry and Solomon Lazard. Earlier, the Common Council contracted with prominent French businessmen, Jean Louis Sainsevain, to lay 5,000 feet of 2” and 3” iron pipe at a cost of $46,000 in scrip. But after experiencing heavy financial losses, Sansevain transferred his lease to Griffen, Beaudry and Lazard.

Griffen and his associates proposed to lease the water-works from the city for a term of 50 years, but soon changed this to an offer to buy it outright. The matter came before the City Council for adoption, but the vote deadlocked in a tie. Consequently, after considering all present and future implications, Mayor Aguilar vetoed the ordinance, thereby keeping the city’s water-works in the public domain. Griffen and associates then offered to lease the water-works for 30 years, paying $1,500 per year, including other services relating to the water-works. The City Council voted to accept the franchise. Dr. Griffen and associates soon transferred their 30 year lease to a new corporation, the Los Angeles City Water Company, located on the east side of the Plaza, in which they and their associates became trustees. In 1902, the City of Los Angeles seized the assets of this privately owned company and created a public water utility, the Department of Water and Power—a major achievement for the city that the former mayor would not see.

Aguilar failed to win reelection in 1872, losing in a highly contested campaign waged by James R. Toberman who made reference to the Mayor’s poor English in his appeal to voters. After retirement from politics he wrote a regular column for La Cronica, the leading Spanish-language newspaper in the city in which he discussed local community issues. He died of heart disease on April 11, 1883 at age 68. His mother, María Y.E. de Aguilar had preceded him in death only three months before. Sadly, an April 12, 1903 news article in the Los Angeles Times reported that Aguilar’s widow, Dolores Yorba de Aguilar was living in dire poverty at 414 Bellevue Avenue in Sonoratown (present New Chinatown) and was dependant upon the charity of friends and the Catholic Church for food, clothing and rent.

Today, Cristóbal Aguilar’s contributions to the City of Los Angeles have gone largely unrecognized, despite the fact that his decision to keep the city’s water resources in the public domain may have been the most important decision ever made by a Los Angeles mayor; a decision that was critical to the future development of the city.