Commercial Street

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Early view of Commercial Street, looking east from Main Street, just north of Temple Street, near the site of the later City Hall. On the right is Polaski and Goodwin's Dry Goods Store, sold to them by I.W. Hellman in 1868, and where the Farmers and Merchants Bank did business for years. Charles Ducommun operated a jewelry and hardware store in the building in left foreground. In the background is Herman Heinsch's Saddle and Harness shop, a newly-erected brick building. On of LA's first gas streetlights is seen at lower-right.Charles Louis Ducommun, a watchmaker by training, emigrated to the US from Switzerland in the early 1840s. He started a general store, providing supplies (and credit) to gold prospectors and other pioneers who had settled in the burgeoning pueblo of Los Angeles.In 1867, Los Angeles Gas Company, the forerunner of today's Southern California Gas Company, installed 43 new gas lamps along Main Street, making the city safer at night.