George Hansen, to whose far-reaching foresight we owe the Elysian Park of to-day, was another professional man who was here before I reached Los Angeles, having come to California in 1850, by way of Cape Horn and Peru. When he arrived at Los Angeles, in 1853, as he was fond of recounting, he was too poor to possess even surveying instruments; but he found a friend in John Temple, who let him have one hundred dollars at two per cent interest per month, then a very low rate. Thereupon Hansen sent to San Francisco for the outfit that enabled him to establish himself. I met Hansen for the first time in the last few weeks of 1853, when he came to my brother's store to buy a suit of clothes, his own being in rags. He had been out, very probably, on an expedition such as subjected a surveyor, particularly in the early days, to much hard work and fatigue. Hansen, a good student and fine linguist, was prominent for many years and made more land measurements hereabouts than did any one else; he had the real management, in fact, of Hancock's second survey. Among others who were here, I might mention the Wheeler brothers. Colonel John Ozias Wheeler, at various times an office-holder, came to California from Florida, and having endured many hardships on the trip along the Mississippi, Arkansas and Gila rivers, arrived at the Chino _rancho_ on August 12th, 1849, afterward assisting Isaac Williams in conveying a train of supplies back to the Colorado River. The next year he was joined by his brother, Horace Z. Wheeler, who came by way of the Isthmus, and later rose to be Appraiser-General of the Imperial Customs at Yokohama; and the two young men were soon conducting a general merchandise business in Los Angeles--if I recollect aright, in a one-story adobe at the northeast corner of Main and Commercial streets. Extravagant stories have been printed as to Wheeler's mercantile operations, one narrative crediting him with sales to the extent of five thousand dollars or more a day. In those times, however, no store was large enough to contain such a stock; and two successive days of heavy sales would have been impossible. In 1851 Colonel Wheeler, who had been on General Andrés Pico's staff, served as a Ranger; and in 1853 he organized the first military company in Los Angeles.