March 1, 1905: The 1st Great Los Angeles Trial

March 1, 1905: The City of Los Angeles has seen many big trials since this date. This was when the 1st big one concluded.

Griffith Jenkins Griffith was born on January 4, 1850 in Bettws, Wales. He came to America in 1865. In 1873, he moved to San Francisco, California, and became manager of the Herald Publishing Company. This led to him making contacts in the mining industry, where he made a fortune. In 1882, he moved to Los Angeles. In 1887, he married Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer, known as Tina. Their son, Vandell Mowry Griffith, was born the next year.

In 1896, Griffith J. Griffith donated 3,015 acres to the City of Los Angeles for use as a public park. He told the City Council, "It must be made a place of rest and relaxation for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people. I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happy, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered." It was named Griffith Park in his honor.

Had he died on the morning of September 3, 1903, at the age of 53, he would have been mourned as one of the finest citizens in California history. Instead, that day, he and his wife were vacationing at the Arcadia Hotel in Santa Monica, and he shot her in the head. She survived, but was disfigured, and lost her right eye.

He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder. The prosecution was led by former Governor Henry T. Gage. The trial revealed that Griffith was an alcoholic and prone to paranoid delusions. The insanity defense was rare at the time, or else it might have been used.

On March 1, 1905, Griffith was convicted of a lesser charge, assault with a deadly weapon. The judge sentenced him to two years in San Quentin State Prison, in the Marin County northern suburbs of San Francisco, and a $5,000 fine, instructing that he be given "medical aid for his condition of alcoholic insanity."

He served a year and 8 months, during which Mrs. Griffith was granted a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, and she was awarded custody of their 16-year-old son, known as Van. The court also stated that the father would pay for his son's education at Stanford University.

He was released after being considered a model prisoner, and began a lecture tour on the subject of prison reform. In 1912, he offered another "Christmas present": An offer to build an amphitheatre in the style of ancient Greece, and a science center. This time, the City rejected the offer.

His liver damaged by his years of hard drinking, he died on July 6, 1919, at the age of 69. His will provided the funds for the constructions he had previously offered. Now that he was dead, and could not personally benefit from the publicity, the Greek Theatre and the Griffith Observatory were built in Griffith Park. The Park would go on to include such landmarks as the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry Museum of the American West, and the most famous structure in the American West: The HOLLYWOOD Sign.

Tina Griffith lived on until 1948. Her son, Van Griffith, later served as Police Commissioner of Los Angeles, and lived until 1974.

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March 1, 1905 was a Wednesday. Baseball and football were out of season. Basketball barely existed. And the Ottawa Silver Seven had already wrapped up the Stanley Cup. So there were no scores on this historic day.