Jacob Kuhrts

Jacob Kuhrts (August 14, 1836 – January 29, 1926) original spelling Kuhrt), nicknamed "Uncle Jake", Honorary pallbearers included Albert Workman, Thomas Strohm, Isidore Dockweiler and John Schumacher.

Family In a manuscript that transcribed an oral synopsis of his life in 1906, Kuhrts recalled how he changed his "wild life to that of a law-abiding citizen." He said that he tried to attend a dance in the Arcadia block but he was turned away at the door because the management would not admit any "desperadoes in here, for this is a German ball, and people have to dress decently."

By this time I took an inventory of myself and found it not very inviting. ... Fancy a man with his pants on the other side of his boots, partly split open from the hip down and tied with a baling rope; a gray shirt not overly clean; a dirty handkerchief around his neck; a big sombrero on his head; not having shaved for two months, very little soap had touched the face up to this time; and a great dragoon pistol on his hip. I came to the conclusion that I did not look very inviting, so back to the corral I went and hunted up my friend, Mike Nolan, a brother teamster. He was the only one who had a boiled shirt and store clothes, as we called them at the time. I found Mike and he loaned me his "duds." and George would be hired by Henry Huntington as the chief engineer and manager of the Los Angeles Railway (Yellow Cars).

Vocation

Kuhrts left home at the age of twelve and became a sailor, voyaging to England, South America, Australia and China. From the latter country he sailed to Monterey, California, in 1848 and debarked, going to San Francisco to work at the Mission Dolores. He was one of the first to experience the 1849 Gold Rush in Placer County, and remained there until 1857, until 1864.

After settling in Los Angeles, he worked in a lumberyard until 1865, and in that year or in 1866 he opened a retail store at First and Spring Streets (later the site of the Schumacher Block), moving to First and Main in 1870. The homestead and retail store which he built at corner of First and Main was the first 2-story brick building in Los Angeles. He retired from business in 1878. during the latter period he was council president.

There was also a Kuhrts Street between the Los Angeles River and Mission Road. It is now part of Main Street North.

References and notes Access to the Los Angeles Times links may require the use of a library card.

Other reading History of the Los Angeles Turners recounted by Jacob Kuhrts, "Turn-Verein: Laying the Cornerstone of the New Turnhalle," Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1887, page 1