Charles Hale, later associated with M. W. Childs, had a tin-shop just where Stearns's Arcadia Block now stands. This shop stood on elevated ground, making his place of business rather difficult of access; from which the reader will gain some idea of the irregular appearance of the landscape in early days. Hale in time went to Mexico, where he was reported to have made a fortune.
August Ulyard arrived with his wife on the last day of December, 1852, and rented a house near the Plaza. In competition with Joseph Lelong, who had established his Jenny Lind bakery a couple of years previous, Ulyard opened a bake-shop, making his first bread from yeast which Mrs. Ulyard had brought with her across the Plains. There had been nothing but French bread in Los Angeles up to that time, but Ulyard began to introduce both German and American bread and cake, which soon found favor with many; later he added freshly-baked crackers. After a while, he moved to the site of the Natick House, at the southwest corner of Main and First streets; and once he owned the southwest corner of Fifth and Spring streets, on which the Alexandria Hotel now stands. Having no children of their own, Ulyard and his wife adopted first one and then another, until eventually they had a family of seven!
Picturing these unpretentious stores, I recall a custom long prevalent here among the native population. Just as in Mexico a little lump of sugar called a _pilon_, or something equally insignificant, was given with even the smallest purchase, so here some trifle, called a _pilon_, was thrown in to please the buyer. And if a merchant neglected to offer such a gratuity, the customer was almost certain to ask for it.
Among the meat-handlers, there were several Sentous brothers, but those with whom I was more intimately acquainted were Jean and Louis, father of Louis Sentous the present French Consul, both of whom, if I mistake not, came about the middle of the fifties. They engaged in the sheep business; and later Louis had a packing-house of considerable importance located between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, where he also owned over a thousand acres of valuable land which he sold some time before his death. They were very successful; and Sentous Street bears their name. Jean died in 1903, and Louis a few years later.