It was Don Antonio Coronel, dead but a decade, who most picturesquely and honorably represented to the new Los Angeles the old régime. He was of "courtly presence, ripe experience, high integrity, and great personal fascination," and was to his latest days "a quenchless patriot, white-haired, clear-eyed, and supple," the life of any circle he might be persuaded to adorn. His father, Don Ignacio Coronel, came to the town with the Hijar Colony. He was a man of note and opened in 1839 a school--much needed, if the fact be true that there were then in the pueblo but fifty-four men who could read and write. Antonio was in 1843 Visitador del Sud under the Mexican, and in 1853 Mayor of Los Angeles under the American, Government. He was a warm friend of Helen Hunt Jackson, who thoroughly identified herself with the interests of the older peoples of Los Angeles and its environs. [Illustration FIRST STAGE IN THE ASCENT OF MT. LOWE, CONNECTING WITH ELECTRIC ROAD ON ECHO MOUNTAIN.] Up to 1852 the houses in Los Angeles were of adobe,--the sun-baked brick of the country,--and these were comfortable indeed, cool in summer and warm in winter. It was in one of these ample residences--that of Colonel J.G. Nichols--that the Rev. J.W. Brier, of the M. E. Church, held the first regular Protestant service, and in another that the Rev. Dr. Wicks, a Presbyterian, opened the first English-speaking school. These events were in 1850, so that church and school were ready to receive the first American child (Gregg Nichols, who was born in April, 1851). The corner of Third and Main Streets blossomed into brick in 1852, in the new, proud, one-story building, serving, in 1859, as the home of Captain Winfield S. Hancock, who was always exceedingly popular in Los Angeles. He revisited the city a few years before his death, and received an enthusiastic ovation.