The Street Seen: Pre Post Office
5th Street @ Arizona Ave
The Santa Monica post office is constructed in 1937-38 on the northwest corner of 5th St. and Arizona. The site is previously occupied by a large 3-story Queen Anne style residence.
In January 1876 Joseph Perkins (1810 - 1884), a recent arrival from Vallejo, buys property at 5th & Arizona and builds a house. In April 1876, Dr. J.S. Elliott (1808 – 1892) a retired Minneapolis physician, who moves to Santa Monica for his health, buys the house and property from Perkins for $1,600. Over the next 16 years, Dr. J.S. Elliott acquires extensive Santa Monica real estate and leaves the 5th & Arizona property to his son Dr. A.F. Elliott.
As a sanitarium, Santa Monica has no equal - Dr J.S. Elliott
In 1893 Minneapolis residents, who spend the winters in Santa Monica, Dr. A.F. Elliott (1836 – 1901) and his 2nd wife Mary Elliott (1849 – 1905) build a palatial 3-story, 15-room house on the 5th & Arizona property. When Mary Elliott dies in 1905, most of the Elliott estate (the Elliotts have no children) is left for a memorial building at the University of Minnesota. The 1254 5th St property (lots I, J, K, L of Block 120 of Santa Monica Tract) is left to her attorney Walter J. Trask (1862 – 1911) as payment for his services.
Trask quickly sells the 5th & Arizona property in 1906 for $20,000 to Reuben Fogel (1849 – 1918),1 a silver miner from Leadville, CO. Fogel, who arrived in Santa Monica in 1903, has already purchased from Mary Elliott, 1247 5th St across 5th St ( lots M, O, P, Q, and R of Block 119 of Santa Monica Tract).
In 1912 Fogel sells 1254 5th to J.B. "Black Jack" Newman (1862 – 1928),2 a copper miner from Globe, AZ who comes to Los Angeles in 1910. In 1920 Newman moves into a house he has built at 445 Georgina.
In 1912 Fogel moves across 5th St. to 1247 5th St. Fogel had arrived in Santa Monica in 1903 a wealthy person, but suffers losses in mining speculations. In 1913 he sells the remaining half of his Leadville business. In 1918 Reuben Fogel is murdered during a robbery in Los Angeles.3
In 1920 Mrs. Clementine F. Campiglia4 opens the Santa Monica Sanitarium at the 5th & Arizona property. In 1925 the sanitarium abruptly relocates to 1213 3rd St.
The history of the 5th & Arizona property goes quiet from 1925 to 1930 - during that period the house disappears.
By 1930 the vacant 5th & Arizona property is owned by Mark Sayre.5 Sayre, whose middle name by coincidence is Elliott, also owns the old Elliott property across the street at 1247 5th St. on North East Corner (NEC) 5th & Arizona. In the 1930s, a Tom Thumb miniature golf course fad sweeps the country, and Sayre opens a Tom Thumb miniature golf course at 5th & Arizona.
Santa Monica has long sought a new main Post Office. In 1932, the US Treasury seeks bids for a property on which to build a new Santa Monica Post Office. Preferably the property will be a conveniently located corner lot with approximately 29,000 sq-ft. and 160 feet along the more important street. Twenty bids from $15,000 to $270,000 are received. Three bids of interest to us are:
The US Treasury evaluates and negotiates the bids, and in 1933 agrees to buy 4 lots (I, J, K, & L of Block 120) from Sayre and 1 adjacent lot (H) from L.W. Zonker (1890 – 1959) on North West Corner (NWC) of 5th & Arizona for $47,500.
The Treasury contract requires that property be free of all obstructions. Sayre donates the trees (planted for his golf course) on his property to the Salvation Army to be cut and sold as firewood. A 2-story wood frame house on the Zonker lot ( 1238 5th St.) is demolished. The Treasury purchases the Sayre & Zonker property in 1934, and the post office is constructed in 1937-38.6 The post office is sold by the US Postal Service in 2012. The now privately owned site is designated a Santa Monica Landmark in 2014.
Reuben Fogel (1849 – 1918) was born in Ohio. He marries Kate Esther Miller (1860 – 1957). Fogel arrives in Leadville, CO in 1881 where he is superintendent of the Goldfield Consolidated Mining Company. By 1882, Fogel also operates his own silver mine, the Valley Mine. In addition, Fogel operates a jewelry business. In 1903 Fogel and his family (Leo John Fogel (1898 – 1974), Moe Miller Fogel (1889 – 1991), and Marguerite Fogel Richardson (1894 – 1980)) move to Santa Monica. Fogel continues to be involved in Leadville affairs, and frequently returns to Leadville to check on his jewelry business and his stake in the Valley Mine. In 1913 Fogel sells the remaining half of his business and leaves Leadville to permanently reside in Santa Monica.
John Barry “Black Jack” (Neumann) Newman (1862 – 1928) is born in Prussia and immigrates to the US around 1876. After working at various jobs in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Texas, by 1883, he arrives in Globe, Arizona, and is hired on as a mucker at the Old Dominion Mine. He has a ”nose for ore” and stakes or acquires numerous claims in the area west of Globe, including the Miami Copper Co. Arizona's first large-scale porphyry copper producer. Newman has other claims in the area that became part of the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co. Newman invests money from these successful copper mining ventures into building apartment houses, and the Dominion Hotel in Globe. By 1910 Newman moves to Santa Monica, where he invests in real estate and farming (a 900-acre ranch at Visalia). He dies in Santa Monica in 1928 with an estate of $2MM. His widow Mima Newman (1884 - 1939) is often in the newspapers.
On October 29, 1918 Reuben Fogel is bludgeoned to death in an unoccupied house in Los Angeles. The circumstances around Fogel’s murder are murky. Fogel is lured, by a phone call from a supposedly destitute woman who needs to sell a $500 bond, to a house in a fashionable section of Los Angeles where he is beaten to death and robbed of $490 in cash. Early speculation is that Fogel is a victim of an elaborate scheme run by a circle of mediums and psychics. Los Angeles police are of the opinion that he was a victim of the Dale Jones gang.
Anthony Campiglia (1872–1958) born in Italy comes to the US in 1886. In 1895 in Denver CO, he marries a nurse Clementina Brindisi (1878 – 1967).
Mark Elliott Sayre (1885 -1949) Born in West Virginia, opens a men’s clothing store in Santa Monica in 1909. He is a salesman at the Santa Monica Ford dealership, and in 1914 moves to Shawnee, OK to open a Ford dealership. He marries Maud B. Sayre. In 1920 Sayre sells his Shawnee properties and returns to Santa Monica as a real estate investor. In 1924 he builds a house at 537 Alta Ave. By 1930 Sayre is divorced, and he dies in Oregon.
The Great Depression requires prolonged negotiations with Federal legislators to get the support and ultimately the necessary monies allocated to plan, design, and build the post office. Other than the schools damaged by the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake, the post office is one of only two federally funded Public Works Administration (PWA) building projects funded under the New Deal program in Santa Monica - the other is City Hall built in 1938-39.