Where L.A’s Future Meets California’s Past

Drive south on Lankershim Boulevard toward the Hollywood Freeway and there’s no avoiding the dust and rumble of Metro Rail construction. Here, across the street from the Texaco tower and the offices of Universal Studios, work crews with heavy equipment labor to build Los Angeles’ future.

And here too, on small, well-kept grounds obscured by the tumult of subway work, volunteers labor quietly on L.A.’s past. “It’s like we’re under siege,” says Guy Weddington McCreary, a foreman of sorts for this other project.

This is Campo de Cahuenga, the memorial grounds for what McCreary insists is arguably the most important historical site west of the Mississippi River--right up there with the Alamo, Little Big Horn, you name it. What happened here on Jan. 13, 1847, may have lacked the drama of battle, but there’s no denying the significance of the so-called Treaty of Cahuenga under which Gen. Andres Pico, commander of the Californios, capitulated to American forces led by Lt. Col. John C. Fremont.

This was the event that effectively made California part of the United States. Yet Campo de Cahuenga has always been a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of place, clouded by its own history long before Metro Rail construction commenced.

So McCreary and his fellow history buffs are staging a fiesta here Sunday to ensure that the 150th anniversary of California’s American birth will not pass without celebration.

The fiesta has become an annual event, and it is historically appropriate, McCreary says, given that so much goodwill, so much “peace with honor” was evident in the dealings between Fremont and Pico. America’s war with Mexico continued elsewhere, but on that day 150 years ago, a fiesta was held to mark the end of the conflict in California.

This sesquicentennial event will feature men and women in period uniforms and dress, including those portraying Fremont, Pico and others. There will be dancing, a display of relics from the Mexican-American War and discussion of the somewhat murky history surrounding the treaty, particularly Fremont’s controversial activities.

Over a breakfast of English muffin and coffee, Guy Weddington McCreary, a longtime San Fernando Valley political activist, warmed to the tale. A passion for local history may be a family legacy; the Weddingtons arrived in the Valley 110 years ago, and the family’s name graces parks and a street.

A recent survey of historians, McCreary noted, found that only Washington, Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt achieved true greatness as presidents. Just as McCreary insists on Campo de Cahuenga’s preeminence in the saga of the American West, he suggests that history should anoint James K. Polk a great president as well, for fulfilling Thomas Jefferson’s vision of Manifest Destiny.

Was Polk a master manipulator of the geopolitics of the age or just in the right place at the right time? Did Polk sanction Fremont’s seemingly renegade ways?

What is beyond dispute, in retrospect, was the political instability of California. Not long after it had been transferred from Spanish to Mexican rule, the Californios, as they were called, were so unhappy with Mexico City’s authority in the 1840s that they raised their own army and defeated Mexican federals in the near-bloodless Battle of Cahuenga on Feb. 20, 1845. The casualties in that skirmish, a few miles west of Campo de Cahuenga, totaled one horse, perhaps two. Nevertheless, the Californios established their autonomy, at least temporarily.

Many Americans had already immigrated to California, and the United States, still wary of English intentions, coveted the Mexican holding.

Fremont, already famous for his expeditions exploring the West, journeyed from the Oregon Territory and helped inspire the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma on June 14, 1846, in which Americans proclaimed California an independent republic. A few weeks later, war between the United States and Mexico was declared and Fremont soon led American forces south, securing Pico’s capitulation.

Today a fountain at Campo de Cahuenga is dedicated to Donna Bernarda Ruiz, the woman who conceived the terms of the treaty that allowed Californios to retain their property. The accord was a precursor to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which halted the war and ceded to the United States the vast Mexican lands north of the Rio Grande.

Fremont’s legend continued to grow, but to Army brass, he was no hero. In California he had been operating under the orders of Navy Commodore Robert F. Stockton, but Army Gen. Stephen W. Kearney, who was badly wounded in fighting with Mexico, accused him of disobedience. In 1848 Fremont was found guilty of mutiny, but President Polk canceled the punishment. Fremont resigned his commission and entered business and politics.

Andres Pico adapted so well to the United States that he would go on to become a California congressman. Fremont became a senator as well as the Republican Party’s first candidate for president in 1856. He carried several states but lost to Democrat James Buchanan.

Buchanan’s backers had argued that Fremont’s election would surely inspire the South to secede. That didn’t happen until the next election, after a different Republican took office.

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There are two histories to Campo de Cahuenga: Pico’s capitulation to Fremont and the tale of the monument itself.

Tomas Feliz’s adobe was gone when Fremont, as an elderly man, made a sentimental journey in the 1880s. He retraced his path from the San Fernando Mission and identified the spot where he and Pico had met.

In 1897, the Society of California Pioneers urged preservation of the site. A generation later, petitions carrying 35,000 signatures persuaded the City Council to buy the property, clear the land and create Fremont-Pico Memorial Park. It fell into disrepair in the Depression of the 1930s but was resurrected after World War II. Casa de Cahuenga, a structure on the site, was built adobe-style in 1949 to house artifacts, but McCreary says insufficient security has prompted the memorial group to loan some of its properties to the Southwest Museum and other institutions.

Campo de Cahuenga, as it is, is a humble place that has seen better times. The grounds are nice, but the Ruiz fountain has been shut down since the Northridge earthquake. Worse, Metro Rail construction has walled it in.

But McCreary believes its best days are ahead, especially with the Metro Rail station opening next door, bringing the present and past together. Maybe, he says, the MTA will call it Universal City/Campo de Cahuenga Station.

“We’re going to fight for that.”

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Calif. 91311. Please include a phone number.

This was the event that effectively made California part of the United States. Yet Campo de Cahuenga has always been a blink-and-you’ll-miss- it kind of place.