Behind a whole part of the United States are the traces left by adventurers, coureurs des bois, artists, entrepreneurs, lumberjacks, Franco-American, Creole or French-Canadian métis travelers whose names have sometimes been altered and history erased. At the time of the American presidential elections, the series Destins Américains invites you to follow the trail of some of the characters of a forgotten Franco-America. After the story of Damien Marchesseault yesterday, here is that of Prudent Beaudry, also mayor of Los Angeles.
Between 1862 and 1885, Jean-Louis Beaudry was mayor of Montreal three times. During this time, his brother, Prudent Beaudry, managed to become mayor of… Los Angeles! Through the story of the five Beaudry brothers—Jean-Louis, Jean-Baptiste, Prudent, Joseph and Victor—the complex history of a forgotten America is drawn.
The Beaudrys came from a family of prosperous farmers on the north shore of the island of Montreal. Prudent was to be associated with his brothers in import-export business. He studied commerce in New York before moving to New Orleans, a city that was still largely French.
In 1850, at the time of the California Gold Rush, Prudent Beaudry finally found his brother Victor in San Francisco. Two years earlier, this man with the air of a dandy had reached California by taking a route that took him first to Panama where, from the island of Taboga, he had sailed along the coast of the continent. After various unsuccessful commercial attempts in San Francisco, the Beaudry brothers launched a liquor business in California.
The city of Los Angeles already owed a large part of its development to Prudent Beaudry when he managed to get himself elected mayor under the Republican banner in 1874. The previous year, Beaudry and his capitalist friends had taken over the Los Angeles Herald. As a shareholder in this important newspaper, Beaudry now had the means to promote himself better than ever.
Los Angeles linked to Montreal
Prudent Beaudry is as rich as Croesus (or as rich as Bill Gates, depending on which image you prefer). In 1875, having become mayor of Los Angeles, he donated $2,000 to the founding of the École Polytechnique de Montréal (now Polytechnique Montréal), the equivalent of nearly $100,000 today. This donation was accompanied by an annual scholarship for the institution.
Prudent Beaudry turned to the École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1877 when he needed engineers to begin major infrastructure projects in California. He made Montreal engineer Émile Vanier his protégé.
It was Vanier who set up steam pumps to circulate water in Los Angeles. Vanier also worked, at Beaudry’s request, on the construction of a tunnel at Rancho San Rafael, a huge portion of territory of which Beaudry had appropriated 1,702 acres, the equivalent of 6.9 km2to speculate.
A golden bridge
After the failure of their business in San Francisco, the Beaudry brothers did well to migrate to Los Angeles. Prudent was the first to arrive there, starting in the spring of 1852. With the help of their compatriot Damien Marchesseault, who would become mayor of Los Angeles three times, the Beaudrys did very good business there, first thanks to a saloon. In truth, Prudent was interested in anything that could bring him money.
In 1855, he left California, passed through Montreal and New York, boarded a ship and undertook a tour of Europe. Then, he left straight away for California. During the American Civil War, the Beaudry brothers became regular suppliers to the Northern Army, while also selling building materials to the surrounding area.
Prudent and Victor began to rely, starting in 1866, on the activities of a general store that they managed on the edge of a mining site. Their business was located near the rich Cerro Gordo mines, in the high Inyo Mountains. There, the Beaudrys used a debt to their advantage that allowed them to buy back a portion of the operation at a discount.
Prudent Beaudry will get his hands on lead and silver mines. The brothers also own several water sources. An inestimable value in this mining region.
Furnaces to transform their ore were built. Two to three hundred men were employed in mining galleries that would reach a depth of more than 900 meters. Transporting the ore to San Francisco required 50 to 60 teams of men. They were led by a French Canadian. All of this exploitation was not without its problems. In any case, the Beaudry buildings were burned by Aboriginals, reported Joseph Tassé in 1878.
A powerful speculator
In Los Angeles, Prudent Beaudry’s personal property, immense for the time, lined with lemon and orange trees, is considered one of the most beautiful. Prudent undertakes to buy up the lands in the surrounding area. He launches into land speculation. He acquires vast portions of land, more than 900 acres in the surrounding hills.
The Bunker Hill lands were divided into 80 lots for resale. For $517, he bought 20 acres in a now-popular neighborhood north of Pershing Square. Beaudry and his partners also acquired land in Angelino Heights, now one of the city’s beautiful historic neighborhoods.
Prudent Beaudry saw to it that a huge park was built, part of which would later be sold for the construction of a hospital. He produced development plans, all bearing his name. He had streets designed, one of which would be named “Beaudry”, as was fitting, and another named “Montreal”.
The entire Beaudry family, even when they were expatriated to the United States, kept their eyes fixed on Montreal. Victor returned to spend the last years of his life there, settled in a rich stone house on Sherbrooke Street. At the age of 47, he married Angélina Leblanc, 21, the daughter of a sheriff. Their Montreal home now serves as a consulate to Algeria.
Meanwhile, the value of the Beaudrys’ land in Los Angeles has increased tenfold. How?
Blue gold
At the end of the 1860s, Beaudry set up a company to provide the municipality with a more modern water system. This network soon served part of his suddenly valuable land… The system, initially designed with wooden pipes, showed failures. His friend Damien Marchesseault, mayor of Los Angeles, paid the price. To the point of citing it to justify his suicide.
Soon, Prudent Beaudry was providing water not only to private homes, but also to farms. He had retention basins built. On his many plots of land, he financed construction projects. Under his leadership, Los Angeles suddenly expanded.
When he died in Los Angeles in 1893, his funeral was celebrated with great pomp at the Sainte-Vibiana Cathedral. His body was brought back to Montreal to be buried in the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery. The architect Napoléon Bourassa, father of the founder of the Dutydesigned in his honor a project for a quasi-royal tomb, surmounted by a high dome and a stone angel.
Not without reason, a street in Los Angeles still bears his name.