St Charles Hotel

 United States > California > Los Angeles

---

View looking southeast on the 300 Block of N. Main Street showing the St. Charles Hotel, originally the Bella Union Hotel. Horses and buggies are lined up along the street. In the foreground a sign reads, “Rifle and Pistol Shooting,” a reminder that Los Angeles was a Western frontier town. In its early years, Los Angeles was a city of violence. Murders, riots, slaughter on the highways, and crimes of passion were daily occurrences. During the years 1834 – 1874, the first and last recorded lynchings in the city, the citizens resorted with distressing frequency to vigilant actions. During the 1850s, almost every issue of the local press noted several murders. Death by violence seems so common that these crimes seldom received more than a few lines. Even in the 1870s, when the local paper was daily, most issues carried items about assaults, cuttings, and, less frequently, a murder.