The Workman and Temple Families of Southern California,1830-1930

Winner of the American Association for State and Local History's 2009 Award of Merit. In an era in which most people never traveled further than a few miles from home their entire lives, William Workman, David Workman, Jonathan Temple, and F. P. F. Temple left their homes in England and Massachusetts on journeys covering thousands of miles via ship and overland to such far-flung exotic places as Taos, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Los Angeles. Once in southern California, these men and their descendants played active roles in the transformation of the Los Angeles region from an isolated frontier area of Mexico with only a couple of thousand people to a burgeoning metropolitan area of several million. Few families played as active, diverse, and longstanding a role in the development of southern California as the Workmans and Temples. As cattle ranchers, farmers, politicians, bankers, businessmen, and real estate developers, they achieved great success and wealth, but also experienced the pain of failure. Through thorough research in archives, public records, family documents, and other sources, Paul R. Spitzzeri takes the reader on their own journey into the story of Los Angeles's amazing transformation, as experienced through the lives of the men and women in the Workman and Temple families.