The story of the Badilla brothers and their coffee venture in the 1870s is the genesis chapter of Covina history. The families of Julian and Antonio Badilla were the first to settle the north regions of Rancho La Puente, and had their pioneering enterprise been profitable and all debts duly paid, Covina and West Covina would never have existed. Cities would certainly have been established here, but they'd be quite different in name and form had the Badillas not been dispossessed by J. Edward Hollenbeck's foreclosure of 1879. That legal action changed the course of our history, but the passage of time has obscured the circumstances and people involved. Long assumed lost, I recently found the official court records for Hollenbeck vs. Badilla et al., and what they reveal will significantly broaden our understanding of Covina's past.
The court case that set the stage for Covina's birth.Source: Los Angeles area court records, 1850-1911, Call number: mssLAACR, Item number: 05091, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Because this article is rather lengthy, I'm going to begin with some tl;dr bullets of my principal findings:
• Contrary to legend, the Badillas did grow coffee here, and wheat in abundance. Their only failure was financial.
• The old story also said Antonio Badillo was a debtor landowner whose mortgage was foreclosed, and that entire characterization was false.
• The Badillas did not use any of their own money to buy the land in Rancho La Puente. Instead, the Badillas and Rowlands arranged a seller-financed mortgage for the $45,000 purchase price.
—The down payment of $15,000 was borrowed from the Commercial Bank of Los Angeles.
—The $30,000 balance was financed with two one-year-term $15,000 promissory notes.
• Plaintiff Hollenbeck was not the original mortgage holder. Rather, he purchased the Badillas' delinquent mortgage from the Rowlands, then foreclosed.
• Hollenbeck did not buy the former Badilla land at the Sheriff's auction, he was granted title to it as payment-in-full for the court's decree.
• Two future California politicians were involved with this case. The judge was a member of the influential Sepúlveda family, and the Badillas' defense attorney would go on to become a United States Senator.
The Badillo Legend
In my 2021 article about Hollenbeck and the Badillas, I presented proof that several elements of the familiar Badillo story were untrue. Now, after years of further research and studying these newly-discovered court records in particular, I'm more certain than ever that the narrative once considered historical fact long ago crossed over into the realm of fiction.
The most complete telling of the Badillo legend is found in Donald Pflueger's Covina (1964), and can be summarized as follows:
Julian and Antonio Badillo were wealthy Costa Rican plantation owners who met Hollenbeck when he lived in Central America. Hollenbeck convinced the Badillos to leave Costa Rica and grow coffee in southern California, where they bought 5,500 acres of Rowland land in Rancho La Puente for $4 an acre. Unfortunately, being unfamiliar with the area's semi-arid climate and its relative lack of rainfall, the Badillos failed twice to grow coffee. Julian became discouraged and left, but Antonio stayed and borrowed large sums of money from the Los Angeles bank of which Hollenbeck was principal stockholder. Antonio tried growing other crops, but he failed at that, too, and defaulted on his loan. The bank foreclosed on Antonio in 1879 and Hollenbeck purchased all the former Badillo land for $16,692. Then in 1880, Hollenbeck deeded 100 acres back to Antonio as a gift.1
For more than a half-century before and after Pflueger's book, this was considered settled history.
Real Facts Emerge
In 2011, however, descendants of Julian Badilla discovered their genealogical connection to his 1870s coffee experiment in Rancho La Puente, and new historical facts came to light.
Most importantly, the descendants' search revealed that a third Badilla brother—the eldest, a Catholic priest named Pedro Maria Badilla—was the real co-owner with Julian, not younger brother Antonio.2 This was never known before! I was excited by this finding. The new history about Father Badilla came not from a traditional story but was a hard fact gleaned from an actual legal document.
Only Pedro Maria and Jose Julian Badilla were named in the 1876 deed's granting clause.
Source: Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.3
Although the deed states that the purchase price was "Forty five Thousand Dollars gold coin of the United States," the Badillas didn't actually plonk down sackfuls of gold to buy the land from the Rowlands. In fact, they didn't use any of their own money at all. My most surprising discovery in the foreclosure action's official court documents was that the land was purchased using what today we would call seller financing.
In the present instance, the Badillas took out a $15,000 loan from the Commercial Bank of Los Angeles for their down payment to the Rowlands, then the $30,000 balance was to be paid over time with two one-year-term $15,000 promissory notes. And here below are those original promissory notes, signed by J. Julian and Pedro M. Badilla in their own hand.
These promissory notes were Exhibit "A" in the 1879 foreclosure action.
Click on the image to view an enlargement. Source: Los Angeles area court records, 1850-1911, Call number: mssLAACR, Item number: 05091,
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
So it turns out I was wrong when I concluded previously that Hollenbeck had at some point made a secured personal loan to the Badillas which he subsequently foreclosed. What actually happened was that Charlotte Rowland and her two adult children had financed the Badillas' purchase, the brothers had not paid back what they owed the Rowlands, so in 1879, the Rowlands sold the delinquent mortgage to Hollenbeck who then foreclosed.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here. There's still someone new to this story who requires a proper introduction.
Padre Badilla
Just who was this eldest brother—Pedro Maria Badilla—and what was his role in all this? Fundamentally, he was the head of the Badilla family. It's important to understand that Latin societies in that era still practiced strict cognatic primogeniture, whereby upon the death of the father, the eldest son inherited the entirety of his estate and became the new family head. However, because Padre Badilla had taken the priestly vow of poverty, the purse strings of the family would have been vested in the second-oldest son: Jose Julian. That said, in order for him to conclude any business in the family name, he still had to receive the blessing of Padre Badilla. This is why Julian could not purchase that land in Rancho La Puente without his elder brother co-signing.
But as a priest, Padre Badilla's holy orders were his true vocation. Not long after coming to California, he became an episcopal assistant to Los Angeles Diocesan Bishops Amat and Mora,4 and dwelt with them in the Bishops Residence.5 Also, as Padre Badilla's arrival in Los Angeles coincided with the consecration of the Co-Cathedral of Saint Vibiana in May, 1876,6 he would have been one of the first priests to celebrate Holy Mass in the new bishops seat.
Thus, even though Padre Badilla was titular co-owner of his family's land in the Puente Rancho, he was a silent partner who was fully immersed in his clerical life a day's journey away. The management of the coffee ranch and its financial affairs would have been left entirely in the hands of trusted second brother, Julian.
And yet, once again, the old legend never mentioned any of this.
San Isidro Ranch
Julian and Antonio named their ranch "San Isidro"7 after their home district in Heredia Province, Costa Rica. As I told in my previous article, as soon as they took possession of their new lands, the two brothers and Antonio's sons Rafael and Vicente got right to work building homes and starting their coffee plantings.
Bounds (yellow) of the 5,563-acre San Isidro Ranch in Rancho La Puente, 1876-1879. ★ marks the location of the Badilla farmstead.
Source: Library of Congress.
Also, contrary to the old legend, the Badillo Brothers (their trade name as coffee growers) did not "fail" to cultivate the bean here. It was widely reported at the time that they succeeded in raising half their plants to bearing, and which grew even into their second year.8 What the Badillos found they could not do, however, was grow the crop profitably.9 But insofar as their skill as agriculturists was concerned, the Badillos were anything but failures.
This was even more evident the following year when they turned their attention to wheat. Calling their new enterprise "Badilla & Co.,"10,11 the brothers' farming expertise once again brought them favorable publicity. The Egyptian strain they chose to grow was resistant to a fungus that devastated almost every other wheat crop in southern California in the summer of 1878. Badilla & Co. shipped out "about a thousand sacks" of the grain daily,12 and the crop was considered so valuable that it was sold for its seed rather than for milling.13 The Troubles Begin
So with that additional success in mind, it's very odd, indeed, that the summer of 1878 was also the beginning of the Badillas' financial troubles. They (and I should say Julian specifically) apparently didn't have enough money to pay a surveyor and engineer named Walter J. Rumble for his services. So in September, 1878, Rumble was deeded 300 acres of Badilla land instead.14 Then in November, there were two lawsuits: the proprietors of the agricultural supply firm Barrows, Furrey & Co. sued the Badillas for $4,642,82 in outstanding debts,11 and even their neighbors on San Bernardino Road—the Aguayos—took the Badillos [sic] to court.15
Then, suddenly, in December, 1878, these advertisements started appearing in the Los Angeles Herald. Two-thousand acres of the Badilla ranch were for sale. Were the brothers giving up? They just had a record wheat harvest six months ago, and now they want to sell their best land?
Making matters even worse, in February, 1879, the County of Los Angeles levied Julian individually for $647.07 in back taxes.16
After this, I could find no record of Julian Badilla in association with the land in Rancho La Puente, or anywhere else in California or in the United States at all until 1884.17 From Friend to Foe
The tragic irony underlying this lawsuit is that J. E. Hollenbeck started out as the Badillas' business associate in Central America1 and their benefactor faciliating the family's emigration to America.18 So why did this formerly amicable relationship turn hostile? The available evidence suggests bad debts—specifically, in Hollenbeck's case, the loan that was made to the Badillas by the Commercial Bank of Los Angeles in 1876.
It stands to reason that immigrants fresh off the boat from Costa Rica couldn't just walk in to a bank and obtain a $15,000 cash loan without someone of great wealth and status vouching for them. In this instance, that man would have been the Badillas' patron, J. Edward Hollenbeck. We can further deduce that the Badillas did not repay that loan, because the Commercial Bank's Cashier, E. F. Spence, was named as a lienholder defendant in the foreclosure action. So when Julian Badilla thus displayed bad faith to Hollenbeck and to the bank of which he was now president,19 it became a matter of honor to set things right.
But why didn't the bank itself foreclose? Well, consider: if it was true that the Badillas got the loan solely as a result of Hollenbeck's personal assurance of their full faith and credit, then Hollenbeck himself would have to answer for the $15,000 debt. Imagine the potential damage to his position and his bank's reputation.
So Hollenbeck would need to take a different legal tack. Turned out Julian Badilla also did not fulfill his obligation to pay off the Rowlands' second promissory note which had become due September 2, 1878. So on May 12, 1879, Hollenbeck came to the Rowlands' (and his own) rescue and bought the delinquent Badilla mortgage from them for $13,000. Then, only six business days later, he used that instrument to bring suit against someone he once regarded as a friend.
Tragic irony, indeed.
Court in Session
Hollenbeck's pleading was heard in District Court of the Seventeenth Judicial District of the State of California. The presiding judge was a scion of the famous Californio family Sepúlveda and a future California legislator: the Honorable Ygnacio Sepúlveda.
The defendants named in Hollenbeck's complaint were: The attorney representing J. Julian and Pedro M. Badilla was Stephen Mallory White, who in 1893 would become the Democratic junior United States Senator from California.
Summonses were issued on May 20, 1879, and the defendants served on the 21st and 22nd—all except Julian Badilla, who along with his family had presumably departed for Mexico sometime during the previous months.
The complaint as described in the summons can be read here. The particulars: the plaintiff prayed judgment against defendants J. J. and P. M. Badilla for the sum of the promissory note due Sept. 2, 1878, in the amount of $15,000.00; 8 months past-due interest at 7% per annum, $700.00; back taxes,17 $647.07; court costs, $45.05. Total demanded of defendants to close the mortgage: $16,392.12.
In a preliminary session on May 26, defense attorney White filed a demurrer, alleging "said complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action." (Stephen M. White's handwritten and signed note can be read here.) Judge Sepúlveda summarily overruled the pleading, and the matter was ordered to proceed to trial.
The foreclosure action was heard on June 3, 1879. Notably, none of the defendants appeared in court to answer to the complaint. Consequently, plaintiff's attorney Col. James G. Howard petitioned for and was granted a default judgment against the defendants, the declaration of which can be read here.
Judge Sepúlveda then entered a decree for Hollenbeck as prayed for, ordering that the mortgaged property be sold at auction and the proceeds paid to plaintiff for the amount of principal, interest, taxes, court costs, and now adding attorney fees of $76.48; the adjudged sum total being $16,468.60.
*gavel drop* The Sheriff's Sale
After the court's decree, these ads ran daily in the Los Angeles Herald for the following three weeks.
The Sheriff's auction took place on June 27th, and Hollenbeck was the sole bidder. Here is Sheriff H. M. Mitchell's bill of sale...
...and Hollenbeck's signed receipt.
The cursive scrawl reads: Note two things. First, the phrase, "...in U.S. gold coin," does not mean that literally. The United States was on the gold standard at that time, so that verbiage simply meant "dollars backed by gold," much like we would say "lawful money" or "legal tender" today.
Second and more to the point, the old legend told us that Hollenbeck paid $16,692 for the Badillo land. However he signed this receipt acknowledging that he received that amount. That's because he didn't buy the land—it was deeded to him because the Badillas could not pay the $16,392.12 the court demanded to close their mortgage. What's confusing is our understanding of the word "bid." The online Merriam-Webster dictionary gives its proper definition as "...to offer a price whether for payment or acceptance (emphasis mine)." So Hollenbeck's bid of $16,692.01 at the Sheriff's sale was simply him stating that he would accept the land in Rancho La Puente at that price as payment-in-full for the defaulted promissory note. Pretty convoluted way to go about things, but that's basically what it amounted to.
So at long last, it was over for the Badillas. Their 5,563-acre tract was now the Hollenbeck Ranch. Arizona, Ho!
And what became of the dispossessed brothers?
Sometime presumably after the foreclosure, Pedro Maria Badilla's episcopal duties in Los Angeles came to an end. His next known confirmed whereabouts was recorded in the 1880 U. S. Census, which showed him living on Marina Street in Prescott in Arizona Territory. Following that, Father Badilla was assigned to the Pueblo of San Juan in the territory's untamed northeast where he founded a parish, became a beloved pastor, and lived out the rest of his life in the service of God. He passed into the open arms of his Lord and Savior on May 3, 1901.4
After departing California, Julian Badilla and family evidently spent several years in Mexico. (His last child—Maria Francisca Margarita Badilla—was born August 5, 1880, in Altar, Sonora.)20 The first record of Julian living in Arizona Territory was his filing of a declaration of intention to become a U.S. citizen recorded in Phoenix on October 15, 1884.17 The 1900 Census showed "Joseph" Badilla still in Phoenix, occupied as a laborer, and in 1910 as a newspaper editor. Jose Julian Badilla died the following year in Phoenix, A.T., on November 11.20 Hollenbeck's Gift
And what became of our now thoroughly exonerated brother: Pedro Antonio? Following the foreclosure, Hollenbeck graciously allowed Antonio and his family to remain in their house at the former San Isidro Ranch. I'm speculating now, but Hollenbeck may even have hired Antonio to manage his vast new property. Certainly no one else knew the land better than he. But the sad times weren't over for Antonio. Only a year after the foreclosure, his wife, Juana Margarita, died following the birth of his last child, Raphaela.21
Still, despite the compound losses of his brothers and wife, Antonio continued on. By all accounts, he was very highly thought of by his neighbors,22,23 and especially so by Ed Hollenbeck, who in September, 1881,24 gifted Antonio the 100 acres he and his family called home. I can't emphasize strongly enough how extraordinarily generous that gesture was. In Covina's citrus days, a man could earn a comfortable income with only ten acres of land. To be given ten times that... well, I can only infer that Hollenbeck must have regarded Antonio as being akin to a brother or even a son to endow him with such a treasure. It's perhaps instructive to consider how differently Hollenbeck treated Julian versus Antonio. He hauled the former into court and stripped him of all his land. To the latter, Hollenbeck freely gave a bounteous property befitting a gentleman of means.
Covina founder Joseph Phillips was also fond of Antonio. The two men and their families were next-door neighbors on San Bernardino Road for five years. However, when Phillips finally laid out his tract in 1884, it must have been heartbreaking for Antonio to see the land he'd worked with his own hands turned into a subdivision. The wide boulevard that now passed straight through his farm may have been named for him, but that was probably little consolation. This new town called "Covina" no longer felt like home.
So in February, 1886, Antonio Badilla sold his land for $12,00025 and returned to Costa Rica.22 There he resumed growing coffee in a place where there was no doubt he could succeed. And succeed he did—wildly, in fact—for in the years after he left Covina, Pedro Antonio Badilla Bolaños became far richer than Phillips or even Hollenbeck, ending up as one of the wealthiest men in all of Central America.26 Closing the Book
So how did our history end up with such a distorted account of the Badilla coffee venture and Hollenbeck's foreclosure? Interestingly, the deviations from fact first began when many who were living witnesses to these events were still alive. The earliest telling of the Badillo legend that survives was printed in 1912,22 and already "Anton Badillo" was portrayed as the sole owner of the plantation and the party responsible for the bad debts and foreclosure. We now know none of that was true. Subsequent re-tellings only repeated and embellished these misstatements, much like the children's game of "Telephone." This is the main problem with oral histories in general, and why I always prefer to use primary sources (such as these court documents) in my own research.
I suppose the biggest unanswered question remains: why did Julian Badilla abandon his enterprise here, particularly immediately after he and Antonio had a famously bountiful wheat harvest? I doubt we'll ever know for certain, but it seems to me the most logical explanation for why things didn't work out for Julian was that he'd simply bitten off more than he could chew. He bought way more land and took on way more debt than he could manage, and in the end, it overwhelmed him.
It's sad, really. Julian Badilla's vision had so much potential. If only he'd been thriftier and persevered, there might someday have been a thriving city here called "San Isidro" instead of Covina. (Sorry, San Ysidro, we would've had the name first!)
But as fate had it, Julian did leave, the Badilla family lost their ranch, and two years later another by the name of Joseph Swift Phillips came along with a different vision for the land that culminated in the founding of Covina—a town and a city that only came into existence because of the Badilla foreclosure.
Grateful thanks to Madeline Northcote-Smith at the Huntington Library for her help resurrecting this formerly lost history.
References:
1 Pflueger, D. H. 1964. Covina: Sunflowers, Citrus, Subdivisions. Castle Press, Pasadena, California, 372pp.
Los Angeles Herald, December 8, 1878.
Hollenbeck's purchase of the Badilla mortgage would become Exhibit "B" in his forclosure action.
Source: Los Angeles area court records, 1850-1911, Call number: mssLAACR, Item number: 05091, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
• Pedro Maria Badilla*
• Jose Julian Badilla
• Walter J. Rumble—received encumbered property
• E. F. Spence—Cashier of the Commercial Bank of Los Angeles, lienholder
• H. D. Barrows & W. C. Furrey, comprising the firm of Barrows, Furrey & Co.—lienholder
*Padre Badilla was almost certainly a blameless party, but due to his legal co-ownership of the mortgaged land, he had to be named as a defendant.
Los Angeles Herald, June 4, 1879.
Clerk and Sheriff's costs added $223.41 to the adjudged sum for a final total of $16,692.01.
Source: Los Angeles area court records, 1850-1911, Call number: mssLAACR, Item number: 05091, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Source: Los Angeles area court records, 1850-1911, Call number: mssLAACR, Item number: 05091, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Received from H. M. Mitchell
Sheriff the Sum of Sixteen thous-
and Six hundred and Ninety-
two & 01/100 (16692 01/100) in U S gold
coin being amount in full
realized by him for sale
of real estate sold under
foreclosure of Mortgage in
the action of J. E. Hollenbeck
vs Pedro Maria Badilla et al.
in 17th District Court.
The same having been bid
by me at said sale.
/s/ J. E. Hollenbeck
Hollenbeck recorded his land gift to Antonio Badillo three days in advance of his purchase agreement with J. S. Phillips.
Source: Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.25
2 Palma, C., "Cousins’ search for grandfather reveals history of Badillo brothers of Covina," San Gabriel Valley Tribune, November 26, 2011.
3 Grant Deed from Charlotte M. Rowland et al., grantors, to Pedro Maria Badilla and Jose Julian Badilla, grantees, made September 2, 1876. Book 45 of Deeds, Pages 293-295, Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.
4 "The Passing of a 'Padre'," The Tidings, Vol. 7, Nos. 31-32, August, 1901.
5 Los Angeles Herald, December 8, 1878, p.2.
6 Los Angeles Evening Express, May 1, 1876, p.3.
7 Santa Barbara Daily Press, February 7, 1877, p.2.
8 Los Angeles Evening Express, January 20, 1877, p.2.
9 Los Angeles Evening Express, February 26, 1878, p.2.
10 Los Angeles Daily Star, June 16, 1878, p.3.
11 Los Angeles Evening Express, November 15, 1878, p.3.
12 San Luis Obispo Tribune, August 31, 1878, p.2.
13 Ventura Free Press, August 24, 1878, p.4.
14 Los Angeles Evening Express, September 9, 1878, p.3.
15 Los Angeles Herald, November 14, 1878, p.3.
16 Los Angeles Daily Star, February 17, 1879, p.4.
17 Declaration of Intention with Certificate, Jose Julian Badilla, signed September 7, 1878, at Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, California, and recorded October 15, 1884, at Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona Territory.
18 "Hollenbeck and the Badillas," Covina Past weblog, September 7, 2021.
19 Los Angeles Herald, July 14, 1878, p.3.
20 Jose Julian Badilla Bolaños at FamilySearch.org.
21 Pedro Antonio Badilla Bolaños at FamilySearch.org.
22 Griswold, A., "Building a Citrus City," Covina Argus, May 4, 1912, p.20.
23 Eckles, C. M. 1960. Memoirs of Clara Margaret Eckles (1874-1966), Karl W. Blackmun, ed., Unpublished manuscript, Covina Valley Historical Society, 16pp.
24 Grant Deed from J. E. Hollenbeck, grantor, to Antonio Badillo, grantee, made September 7, 1881. Book 81 of Deeds, Pages 364-365, Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.
25 Los Angeles Times, February 3, 1886, p.3.
26 San Francisco Examiner, July 10, 1913, p.3.
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