Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1879 — Lucky Baldwin’s Ranch. [ARTICLE]

Lucky Baldwin’s Ranch.

E. J. Baldwin, everywhere known as Lucky Baldwin, worked on his father’s farm, when young, in Indiana. After twenty-five years of trial at various pursuits, he drifted into the bonanza district, Nevada, and in a few years, by well-judged ventures in mining stocks, realized some millions. He became publicly known by building the “Baldwin,” now so favorably known as a popular house on Market street, San Francisco, 275 by 210 feet. Included in the structure is Baldwin’s Theater. The whole, including furniture, cost $3,000,000. Traveling through Los Angeles county he fancied and bought a Spanish grant of 60,000 acres of beautifully-watered garden-land, and laid it out in princely style. Of this, 13,000 acres are mo’st bottom land, needing no irrigation. Outside of- this he has artificially irrigated most of the propeity by means of six miles of eight-inch pipe, and beautiful lakes are formed here and there, with rustic bridges and other adornments. Some fifty rustic cottages are the homes of his army of working people. All sorts of farm buildings are tastefully arranged, and flowing artesian springs abound, of purest water. The orchard has 1,200 acres, with 18,000 orange and lemon trees, 2,000 almonds, 500 Italian chestnuts, 80 acres of English walnuts, 500 acres of choice grapes, innumerable apples, pears, plums, peaches and figs. He has 60,000 eucalyptus trees of twenty-seven different varieties, and 3,000 of the graceful pepper trees, our most ornate evergreen and drooping variety, bearing a profusion of pepperlooking spice-berries. A broad avenue is laid out, three miles long by 120 feet wide, lined on each side with eucalyptus trees. In the center is a row of peppertrees, making grateful shade in that sunny climate, and the air is cooled by

innumerable fountains. Soon a mansion in keeping with the surroundings will be erected on the rising knoll overlooking this fairy-land, and some hundred tenantry, with gardens and cultivated fields, will enrich the landscape and make this charmed spot a paradise, where the proprietor can pass his declining years in peaceful contemplation of the romance of his creation.— San Francisco Cor. Baltimore Sun.