Huntington, the one-third man

April 25, 1913: San Marino officially marked its incorporation as a city, starting off life “with a silver spoon in its mouth,” The Times reported. The new city, the newspaper wrote when the incorporation was voted on earlier that month, “includes 2,500 acres of the finest land in all California, and is inhabited by people whose homes, exclusive of the land, in the majority of cases cost $30,000 to $50,000.” Some cost much more, the newspaper went on to say: “There is not a lot under an acre in this whole city, and the largest is the Henry E. Huntington estate of more than 800 acres, which, therefore, includes a third of the entire city.” The Times said that the city came into being after nearby Alhambra, which incorporated in 1903, threatened to annex the community. The city’s founding fathers, including Huntington and George Patton, father of the famed World War II general, decided to form a municipality that would ban bars, gambling and apartment houses.