Joseph Widney saw southern California as a "Garden of Eden".
70 Facts About Joseph Widney
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Joseph Widney was a strong proponent of the new University of Southern California, and became its second president and the founding dean of its school of medicine.
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Joseph Widney's real estate interests in California flourished, and he was an early environmentalist as well as promoter of the new metropolis.
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Joseph Widney believed deeply in Los Angeles becoming a major city with a seaport.
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Joseph Widney was a founder of the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles, as well as a Methodist pastor.
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Joseph Widney published many books, mainly on his views about California and its history, but only Race Life of the Aryan Peoples was commercially published.
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Joseph Widney died at 96, having seen Los Angeles become a major city and seaport.
8.
One of the "most conspicuous Southern Californians of his generation", Widney was a cultural leader in Los Angeles for nearly seventy years.
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Joseph Pomeroy Widney was born December 26,1841, in Piqua, Ohio.
10.
Joseph Widney's father died of pneumonia at the age of 42, when Widney was 15.
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Joseph Widney served as a medical corpsman on ships on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
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Joseph Widney was discharged in 1862 due to physical and nervous collapse.
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Joseph Widney travelled throughout California, visited missions and lived with the Spanish-speaking inhabitants.
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Joseph Widney returned to university in 1865, receiving a Master of Arts degree from the California Wesleyan College.
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Dr and Mrs Widney moved to 150 W Adams Boulevard, nearer the new University of Southern California.
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Mary Bray Widney died on March 10,1903, at their home at 150 W Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles.
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Joseph Widney graduated from Toland Medical College, then the only one in California, on October 2,1866.
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Joseph Widney re-enlisted in the army as a military surgeon.
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Joseph Widney was posted to Drum Barracks in Wilmington, California, for a month in 1867, and was named Acting Assistant Surgeon for the Arizona Territory during the Apache Wars.
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Joseph Widney began his medical practice on October 8,1868, sharing offices with John Strother Griffin.
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On January 31,1871, Joseph Widney helped found the Los Angeles County Medical Association, the oldest such association in California.
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The founders wanted to establish medical schools and publications, and raise medical standards Joseph Widney advocated aid to "the sickly poor" as a facet of public health and civic philanthropy.
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Joseph Widney was one of the first licensed by the medical society.
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On May 12,1937, a bust of Joseph Widney commissioned by the Los Angeles County Medical Association was placed in the lobby of their headquarters.
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Joseph Widney believed in scientific medicine, and opposed faith healing or "mind cure" practitioners.
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Joseph Widney advocated the creation of the Los Angeles and California Boards of Health, and was Los Angeles' first public health officer.
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Joseph Widney was chairman of the Los Angeles Meteorological committee for several years.
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Joseph Widney credited white settlement with improvements in the Southern California climate, including less variation in temperature, milder winds, and increased rainfall.
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Joseph Widney was concerned about water conservation, and warned what is called smog, identifying it as a concern in 1938, well before it gained official recognition in Los Angeles.
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Joseph Widney sought the preservation of three great forest areas for future generations.
31.
In January 1873, Joseph Widney suggested the Colorado Desert be flooded to re-establish Lake Cahuilla.
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Joseph Widney thought it was a semi-tropical island, inhabited by peoples from the Americas rather than from Europe.
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Joseph Widney believed that there was a submerged lost continent in the South Pacific Ocean.
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Joseph Widney saw the potential of Los Angeles on his first visit in January 1867 while posted to Drum Barracks.
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Joseph Widney's brother, Robert Maclay Widney, had arrived in Los Angeles in 1868, and was a lawyer, and later judge, as well as the city's first real estate agent.
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Robert Joseph Widney was the publisher of The Real Estate Advertiser.
37.
Joseph Widney invested in real estate in the Los Angeles area, which made him financially independent, and allowed him to retire from the practice of medicine at 55.
38.
Joseph Widney owned the parcel of land where the Los Angeles City Hall now stands, as well as much of Mount Washington, Los Angeles, where his last home stood.
39.
Joseph Widney formed the Hesperia Land and Water Company to create a town.
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The Los Angeles Times of June 2,1887 said that Joseph Widney had purchased a hotel and several bath houses in the town of Iron-Sulphur Springs, once known as Fulton Wells and now as Santa Fe Springs, fifteen miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
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Joseph Widney supported the development of Los Angeles even at the age of 95.
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Joseph Widney envisioned Los Angeles "developing into the health capital of the world, a heliopolis of holistic health culture".
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Joseph Widney was a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce from October 1888.
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Joseph Widney helped define the railroad, maritime and commercial policy of Southern California.
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In 1871, Joseph Widney wanted Los Angeles to have a harbor, and with Phineas Banning successfully lobbied the United States Congress for funding for the harbor at San Pedro, California.
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Joseph Widney was chairman of the Los Angeles Citizens' Committee on the Wilmington Harbor.
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Joseph Widney successfully opposed the attempt of the railroad interests of Collis Potter Huntington and his partners from claiming the state tidelands of the harbor for their own purposes, ensuring these lands remained in public hands.
48.
Joseph Widney supported dividing the state of California and establishing the commonwealth of Southern California.
49.
Joseph Widney was regarded as "one of the ablest and most enthusiastic advocates of the new 'California of the South'".
50.
For many years Joseph Widney advocated the division of the state of California into at least two states, in order to maximize its representation in the US Senate.
51.
Joseph Widney indicated in 1880 that "the topography, geography, climatic and commercial laws all work for the separation of California into two distinct civil organizations".
52.
In 1888, Joseph Widney said that "two distinct peoples are growing up in the state, and the time is rapidly drawing near when the separation which the working of natural laws is making in the people must become a separation of civil laws as well".
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Joseph Widney was interested in the progress of prohibition, and served as head of the city's nonpartisan anti-saloon league.
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Joseph Widney is regarded as "the outstanding early educator of Los Angeles".
55.
Joseph Widney was involved in the University of Southern California from its conception in 1879, and served as a member of the Board of Trustees of USC from 1880 to 1895.
56.
Joseph Widney was heavily responsible for the creation of the USC College of Medicine in 1885 at the beginning of a three-year "boom" cycle in Los Angeles, and served as founding dean, a responsibility he accepted for the next eleven years until his resignation on September 22,1896.
57.
Joseph Widney first set up a separate governing board for the College of Liberal Arts, both to refinance the debt and of tying that branch of the institution more closely to California Methodism.
58.
Joseph Widney raised $15,000, giving his own personal security to back up the loans, saving USC from bankruptcy.
59.
Joseph Widney announced his intention to spend a year studying in the East.
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In October 1894 at the dedication of the Peniel Hall, Joseph Widney announced his intention to organize a Training Institute, in which Bible and practical nursing were to be the principal studies.
61.
Joseph Widney was raised in the Greene Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Piqua, Ohio.
62.
Joseph Widney supported the Los Angeles City Mission, founded in 1886 as the Los Angeles Mission and was non-denominational and nonsectarian.
63.
On October 30,1895, Bresee and Joseph Widney organised the Church of the Nazarene.
64.
Joseph Widney returned to the Methodist church as a pastor and was appointed to the church's City Mission of Los Angeles, where he ministered to thousands over the next several years.
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Joseph Widney paid the full cost of construction and ministered without compensation.
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Joseph Widney was influenced by the teachings of preacher David Swing and Thomas Starr King, a broad-minded, religiously inclusive Unitarian minister.
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Joseph Widney lamented the decline in influence and power of the original Hispanic population of California.
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Joseph Widney attributed his longevity to living simply and keeping busy.
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Joseph Widney recommended at least eight hours sleep each night and short naps throughout the day.
70.
Joseph Widney's portrait was painted by American artist Orpha Mae Klinker, and a bust of Widney was sculpted by Emil Seletz.