USC Is Early Developer’s Monument

Amid the ivy-covered brick buildings and towering palm trees that dot the USC campus sits an unassuming two-story, 120-year-old, white clapboard building that is a direct link, not only to the school’s founder, but also to Los Angeles’ colorful past.

Built in 1880, Widney Alumni House, fondly known as Widney Hall, was USC’s first building and has survived several moves on the campus.

It was built by one of 19th century Los Angeles’ unique characters, a land promoter, attorney and judge who just happened--as it fortunately turned out--to be a deadly pistol shot and “father” of the university.

Robert Maclay Widney was born a poor Ohio farm boy and left home at 16 with an ax, knapsack and rifle. Eventually, he hooked up with a wagon train--led by his future father-in-law--which arrived in Northern California in 1857. After working at odd jobs and graduating from Santa Clara’s College of the Pacific, he taught math and geology while studying law and courting the wagon master’s daughter, Mary Barnes.

In February 1868, Widney arrived in Los Angeles with $100 in his pocket, a small trunk and his new bride on his arm. When the couple’s buggy pulled up to the two-story Bella Union Hotel on Main Street, Mary was dirty and still seasick after the harrowing ride up from Wilmington, where they had arrived by ship.

Her tall, bewhiskered husband, by contrast, cut a poised figure, well turned out in a suit and tie. The newlyweds not only honeymooned at the hotel, but made it their home until their house was built at 4th and Main streets.

Widney hung out his legal shingle on an adobe shack near Main and Arcadia streets, but soon found that land was a far more valuable commodity than legal advice. In short order, the ambitious young husband became the town’s first real-estate salesman-attorney.

When land baron Abel Stearns went bankrupt and retained Widney to divide up his property, the lawyer accepted land in lieu of a fee. Widney took some of Stearns’ former holdings, along with other land he purchased, and developed whole towns, including Pacoima, San Fernando, Ontario, Victorville and Long Beach.

His office was conveniently located, only a block from the popular Bella Union saloon where he occasionally conducted business, though he didn’t drink.

One day Widney stood at the entrance to the jammed saloon, watching as some hard-drinking wise guys used a knot of wood on the wall for target practice. Frustrated by their inability to hit the mark, the drunks turned on Widney.

“Run that damned teetotaler out of town,” shouted one of them, unholstering his gun as he walked over to the lawyer and tried to force him to take a drink.

“I don’t drink,” Widney snarled between clenched teeth as the man slowly backed away. Then Widney drew his own pistol and put three shots into the knot--all dead center.

“You win!” the drunk said.

Working his own printing press, Widney soon began writing the monthly Los Angeles Real Estate Advertiser. As one reader put it, he somehow convinced his readers that they were buying a “corner lot in heaven and had the whiskey concession, too.”

Businessman though he may have been, Widney was never cautious. In 1871, as bloody anti-Chinese rioting raged through the town, he drew his Colt revolver and plunged into the murderous mob, escorting several immigrants to safety. The notorious Chinese Massacre left 19 Asian immigrants dead.

Three months later, Widney was appointed a U.S. district judge and, within weeks, found 37 indicted rioters standing before him in his courtroom. He subsequently sent eight who were convicted of manslaughter to prison, though their convictions ultimately were reversed.

The new judge had his own ideas about courtroom decorum, and once brandished his ever-present pistol at a litigant who didn’t concur.

Meanwhile, Widney continued his promotion of local development. In 1872, Southern Pacific was threatening to build its main line from San Francisco through the Cajon Pass, bypassing Los Angeles. The railroad wanted $600,000 to come to L.A., and Widney, one of the leaders of a 30-member committee, worked out a plan for a $377,000 bond issue and a 60-acre land grant, subject to a special election.

The night before the election, the anti-railroad folks seized almost 300 Mexicans whose votes they had purchased and attempted to hold them in a corral. Later that same night, the pro-railroad people offered a larger price and freed the voters. The bond issue passed.

Two years later, after moving his family to 4th and Hill streets (where the Subway Terminal Building now stands) Widney helped establish the city’s first horse-drawn trolley, starting at the plaza and ending at 6th and Figueroa streets. Cars often went off the track at several curves, so Widney, who did not appreciate the town’s wisecracks about it, redesigned the lines himself.

Later, he would try his luck again at building a narrow gauge horsecar line from the seaside resort Willmore City--whose name he changed to Long Beach--to the Wilmington Depot. The line ran over swampy ground on railroad ties and a timber roadbed that was soon called the GOP RR, for Get Out and Push Railroad.

In 1892, just before the economic panic, Widney rescued the 12-year-old University of Southern California and its 53 students by giving it enough property to see it through the tough times. In 1955, when the university celebrated its 75th anniversary, Widney’s gift was memorialized by naming the oldest building on campus for the school’s first and most colorful great benefactor.