Watts Station - Colorful and Violent History

Colorful and Violent History

From its beginning, Watts Station had a colorful and violent history. Incidents occurring around Watts Station in its early years including the following:

• In 1904, shortly after the station opened, a woman described as "an illiterate Mexican woman" was killed trying to save her six-year-old son who had wandered onto the tracks. She was the first person to die in a train accident at Watts Station, and the Los Angeles Times proclaimed her a heroine who "dashed upon the track" and threw her son out of the path of an oncoming train. The paper also noted: "Children are numerous among the Mexican families who live in the vicinity of Watts Station, and with that childish disregard for danger that marks the age of indiscretion these children play on the tracks of the electric railroad."
• In December 1904, a 40-year-old "maiden lady" living at Watts Station deliberately stepped in front of a rapidly-approaching Long Beach "flyer." The Los Angeles Times reported that "when the body was finally removed from under the wheels it was so badly crushed and torn that it could hardly be recognized as that of a human being."
• In May 1905, a confrontation at Watts Station prompted a remarkable ethnic commentary by the Times. A man known as the "Duke of Watts" had been hired by the Pacific Electric to watch over the "village of child-like laborers" at Watts station and protect them from "the ways of a wicked gringo world." The "Duke" became angered when wagons driven by "some of thim damn dagoes" rolled into the right of way raising a cloud of dust. When confronted by the "Duke," who the Times described as "a beneficent sovereign," the paper reported that "one of the Italians went up in the air, the way they do" and the other Italians "jumped down from their wagons and began gesticulating like crazy men, ringing their arms and howling like agitated monkey." The Italians claimed the Duke pulled a large pistol on them and forced them to leave Watts.
• In July 1905, Jose Bustos, "a Mexican employed by the Pacific Electric railway" was struck and almost instantly killed by a Long Beach car at Watts station. After exiting a train, "intending to go to the Mexican camp," he was struck while crossing the south bound tracks. Another Mexican laborer, C. Medal, sustained fatal injuries after being struck by a train at Watts Station six months later. And in December 1906, a motorman, Charles Vaughn, was pinched between two cars at Watts Station, suffering possibly fatal injuries.
• In January 1906, a shooting at Watts Station shocked "Red Car" passengers. A woman named Mrs. Henry Welsh, while in the midst of divorce proceedings, drew a revolver and shot at her husband, who was waiting for the Red Car. When her husband grabbed the gun, Mrs. Welsh walked to her husband's pool room near the station where she "smashed in the windows and generally demolished things." She then secured another revolver and returned to the station, firing two more shots at her husband. Both shots missed her husband and went into a waiting Red Car, sending passengers into a panic.
• In August 1919, a group of ex-employees of Pacific Electric attacked a Red Car at the Watts Station, breaking windows and throwing stones. When A. W. Moon, a Pacific Electric guard, tried to defend the derailed car, he was arrested and charged with "fighting and threatening to fight." The crowd followed the guard to the Watts jail, jeering at him, "calling him opprobrious names," and threatening him. At his trial, it was alleged that the crowd cried, "String them up," prompting Mr. Moon's attorney to request that the case be moved to a venue out of Watts.