Guide to the W.H. Kindig Collection 050
Michele McKinnon Fricke and Monique Sugimoto
Palos Verdes Library District, Peninsula Center Library. Local History Center.
2023 October 17
701 Silver Spur Road
Rolling Hills Estates, California 90274
localhistory@pvld.org
Contributing Institution:
Palos Verdes Library District, Peninsula Center Library. Local History Center.
Title: W.H. Kindig Collection
Identifier/Call Number: 050
Physical Description:
.5 Linear Feet
1 legal document box
Date (inclusive): 1925-1936; bulk 1931-1933
Physical Location: Local History Center
Abstract: Materials mostly document homesteading claims and literature from the 1920s on the validity of Mexican land grant patents,
and subsequent investigation by the Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys by the U.S. Senate. Also includes
publications by Silver Shirts of America and a case file on gas and oil rights.
Language of Material:
English
.
Container: 1
Conditions Governing Access
Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the Local History Center for access information.
Conditions Governing Use
The collection is open for research use.
Preferred Citation
[Name of item], W.H. Kindig Collection (Collection 050). Local History Center, Peninsula Center Library, Palos Verdes Library
District, Rolling Hills Estates, CA.
Biographical / Historical
William Harvey (W.H.) Kindig (1869-1946) was a real estate salesman and a broker. He was associated with the Palos Verdes
Project as early as 1922, where he worked in the General Sales Office underwriting subscriptions for E.G. Lewis. Kindig was
also an early lot owner in the Palos Verdes Project. The Palos Verdes Homes Association permit files from 1928 show Kindig
listed as the owner of 4021 Via Nivel (#148), 4177 Via Solano (#149), 400 Via Colorin (#150, #304), and 216 Via Colorin (#151).
From 1935-1937, Kindig was a City Councilmember in Los Angeles representing the 7th District. In 1938, he become the Sales
Manager for the real estate firm, Willett & Crane, the exclusive agents for the Palos Verdes Trust. He was also the manager
of the Alpha Syndicate Corporation, the first independent real estate office in Malaga Cove Plaza.
Just prior to lots in Palos Verdes being sold in earnest from 1923, homesteading claims on former Spanish land grant areas,
including Palos Verdes, were being filed with the General Land Office in Los Angeles on the claim that patents to these lands
were fraudulent and therefore open to entry. By 1925, a reported 300 claims had been made on land in Palos Verdes.
By the late 1920s, the Citizens Land Association led by Harry Newkirk (H.N.) Wheeler, a self described "crusading California
Homesteader, in a patriotic campaign to arouse the Nation to the "The Peril of the Gangster and Communist," was distributing
pamphlets and other writings on the supposed fraudulent titles. For filing and retainer fees, Wheeler worked on behalf of
homesteaders to file applications.
In 1929, the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Surveys led by Senator Sam Bratton and Senator Gerald Nye convened to
investigate the merits of the homesteaders' claims. Kindig testified in the hearings, and later through correspondence urged
the Subcommittee to issue a report as land sales in Palos Verdes were being affected by the claims of questionable titles.
The December 1930 issue of the Palos Verdes Bulletin noted a lot purchaser filed a lawsuit against the Palos Verdes Trust
to cancel the purchase because a homesteading claim had been filed on the lot.
The Senate Subcommittee issued Report 426 on March 14, 1932, finding the charges of fraudulent patents were without merit.
In September of the same year, Wheeler and three of his Citizens Land Association associates were indicted on 21 counts of
conspiracy to use the mail to defraud in connection with the filing of homestead applications. Wheeler was convicted on one
charge of mail fraud and sentenced to five years in prison. He died at McNeil Island Penitentiary in 1935 waiting for his
case to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically into four series: Clippings, Correspondence, Government and Judicial Documents, and Publications;
thereunder chronologically.
Scope and Contents
Collection includes W.H. Kindig's correspondence file, clippings, and collection of Citizens Land Association publications,
judicial hearings and reports, court cases, U.S. House bills, and publications by the Silver Shirts.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated to the Palos Verdes Library District Local History Center.
Processing Information
Initial housing and stabilization of materials by library volunteers into ephemera box labelled California Land Fraud. Final
arrangement and description by Michele McKinnon Fricke and Monique Sugimoto October 2022.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Land grants--California
Land titles
Land tenure--Law and legislation
Correspondence
Homestead law--California.
Citizens Land Association
Legislative hearings
Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
Clippings
1925-1936
Scope and Contents
Includes clippings on homesteading claims, investigations into H.N. Wheeler and land fraud cases.
General
Original clippings in envelope photocopied and discarded.
Correspondence
1931-1932; 1936
Scope and Contents
Includes correspondence to and from W.H. Kindig and U.S. Senators Sam Bratton and Gerald Nye, Secretary of Interior Ray Lyman
Wilbur, and Manager of the Civic Development and Real Estate Department of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce C. J. S Williamson,
regarding publications and claims by H.N. Wheeler and Williamson Summers on homesteading activities on former Mexican Land
grant properties. Also includes letter from C.C. Moore, Commissioner of the General Land Office, with Senate Report 426 attachment;
and letter from T.A. Walters, Acting Secretary of the Interior, to W.H. Kindig regarding court case A. 17366, U.S. v. State
of California and Standard Oil Company of California, et. al. and copies of Appeal From the General Land Office (1935) and
Motion of Rehearing (1936) for case A. 17366 signed by Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior.
Government and judicial documents
Appeal In the matter of the application to homestead certain lands in Los Angeles County, California, by Morrill Allen, Jr.,
and others; Before the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. [re: Rancho de los Palos Verdes]
ca 1931
Scope and Contents
Includes two copies of brief and argument by Jesse H. Evans and William Boone Douglass on behalf of appellants, Morrill Allen,
Jr. and others from L.A. case No. 049472 et al.
Mexican land grants in California: hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on public lands and surveys, United States
Senate Seventy-first Congress, first session, pursuant to S. Res. 291, a resolution to investigate charges of the illegal
delivery to private interests of lands ceded to the United States by the government of Mexico.
27 May 1930
Scope and Contents
Includes bound transcript of hearings and testimony. GPO publication with notes: "Printed for the use of the Committee on
public lands and surveys;" "April 2-6, December 5, 1929, February 6 and May 27, 1930". Gerald P. Nye, chairman.
U.S. House Bill 6098 (73rd Congress)
12 Jun 1933
Scope and Contents
Includes two copies of text of bill introduced by Jennings Randolph "to collect and pay into the Treasury of the United States,
$4,000,000,000, the value of oil, gas, and minerals on lands, the property of the United States, which were ceded to it by
Mexico and which have been unlawfully, illegally, and wrongfully taken and withdrawn by foreign, as well as domestic, corporations
and persons, and for other purposes."
U.S. House Bill 8495 (73rd Congress)
6 Mar 1934
Scope and Contents
Includes text of bill introduced by U.S. Representative George Washington Edmonds "to authorize the Secretary of the Interior
to repossess certain mineral lands ceded by Mexico to the United States of America by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and
to provide for the national defense, and for other purposes."
U.S. House Bill 8496 (73 Congress)
6 Mar 1934
Scope and Contents
Includes text of bill introduced by U.S. Representative George Washington Edmonds "to withdraw from "disposition and sale"
under the public-land laws all lands lying within the exterior boundaries of "alleged" or "duly asserted" Spanish or Mexican
land grants, and for the protection of bona fide homesteaders, settlers, and/or innocent purchasers thereon, and for other
purposes."
Bulletin No. 3
November 1931
Scope and Contents
Includes volume 3, number 1 of publication by James E. Welch, a contractor and builder from Louisiana and employee of Standard
Union Oil Company of Venezuela with updates on his lobbying efforts to the U.S. State Department to regain custody of his
Venezulean-born child and the activities of the Venezuelan governmnet. Lead article includes, Land Thieves Protected in Their
Raids on California: Gigantic Land Frauds Rapidly Becoming A National Scandal. Page four includes letter of support for
Welch by H.N. Wheeler.
Citizens Land Association publications
ca 1931-1933
Physical Description: 4 Folders
Scope and Contents
Includes press releases, handbill, power-of-attorney form and numbered and unnumbered pamphlets. Numbered pamphlets include:
Chapters 2-5 Mexican Grant or United States Public Domain? The Truth about the Ranchos and the Mexican Grant Racketeers; Chapters
5-7 Mexican Grant or United State Public Domain?: Is it a Great Conspiracy to Defraud the Government and the Homesteaders?
Chapter 7 Mexican Grant or United State Public Domain?: Is it a Great Conspiracy to Defraud the Government and Ruin California?;
Chapters 8-9 Mexican Grant or United States Public Domain?: The Truth of the Ranchos and the Great Conspiracy; Chapters 9-13
The Betrayers of the United States: Selling "Mexican Grants" or "Looting the Public Domain?"; Chapter 14 When the Statute
Begins to Run: The Facts of the "Great Criminal Conspirarcy"; Chapters 15-16 California's Ranchos: Why They are Being Homesteaded;
Chapter 16 California Lands: Acquired by Fraud / Protected by Politics / Disposed of by Deception / Sustained by Intimidation;
Chapter 17 "Halt American and Salute the Jew! (or Communist)": California Put and Take; and Chapter 18 A California Mystery:
How the Torrens Title System Would Eliminate the Title Insurance Racketeers.
Unnumbered pamphlets include: The Truth of the Ranchos, XMAS, 1931, Looting The Public Domain; Mexican Grant or United States
Public Domain? The Truth of the Rancho and the Disposition and Sale of the Public Lands of the United States; and the British
Secret Service Report: Do the British Jews Plan to Take the USA with the Aid of the Hoover Administration? (Second Edition).
General
Some volumes contain multiple chapters. Duplicate pamphlets included in folder 4.
Fraudulent California Land Grants by Clinton Johnson
December 1926
Creator: Johnson, Clinton
Scope and Contents
Publication outlines Mexican and Spanish land grants asserting patents issued are fradulent. Author uses Palos Verdes as
an example of invalid land grant.
Plain Talk Magazine
ca 1931
Scope and Contents
Article by H.N. Wheeler titled, 'Those California Land Frauds' in which Wheeler claims that land grants in California are
fraudulent and as such all land is in the public domain and subject to homesteading rights.
Silver Shirts of America publications
1932-1933
Scope and Contents
Includes two copies of "For crimes and misdemeanors that have bankrupted the United States Treasury I Hereby Impeach the Federal
Reserve Board!": McFadden's Epochal Indictment in Congress, May 23, 1933; "The sack of these United States by the Federal
Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks is the Greatest Crime in History!": McFadden's Epochal Speech in Congress, June
10, 1932; and What Manner of Government is the Christ to Set up? L, Article 1 of the 22 Articles of the Christ Democracy.
