Developer and Trolley Magnate Brought Thousands Weekly to PdR
D. J. “Duke” Dukesherer is a local writer and official historian of the Ballona Blog. He is the author of Beach of the King, The Early History of Playa Del Rey, Westchester, Playa Vista, CA, and ‘Round the Clump of Willows.
“General” Moses Hazeltine Sherman, 1853-1932
By Duke Dukesherer
Vermont born Sherman moved to Arizona as a schoolteacher but soon began his long career in banking, land speculation and the development of transportation systems. After running a canal project in Arizona, he moved to Los Angeles in 1889.
Despite a long history of bank fraud scandals and conflicts of interests, he, along with his brother-in-law Eli Clark, began buying up horse-drawn rail lines and converting them to electric power, founding the Los Angeles Consolidated Electric Railway Company. His Playa del Rey lines were eventually acquired by Henry Huntington of the Southern Pacific, and serviced the area purchased by the Beach Land Company–the former Port Ballona–in which he was, of course, a stockholder.
He was never a General of the Army, and bestowed that title on himself; creating an interesting and timely confusion between himself and the great Civil War hero General William Tecumseh Sherman.
In 1902 he was appointed to the first Los Angeles Water Commission. He later went of to develop the town of Sherman; now West Hollywood, California, and much of the San Fernando Valley, which was made habitable when the first Los Angeles Aqueduct was started at Owens Valley in 1905. Sherman Oaks is named for him, as is the Valley’s Hazeltine Avenue.
