Pioneer Memories:
Wild Times at the Montrose General Store

Continuing with the memories of several CV pioneers that were printed in a 1938 newspaper, we turn now to the memories of Mrs. T.O. Potts.

T.O. Potts opened the first business in Montrose in 1914, a general store on the southeast corner of Honolulu Avenue and Verdugo Road. That same corner building is still there, having been home to the recently closed Benitoite Restaurant. Mr. Potts had visited the area as a lumber salesman and felt there was potential in Montrose. I quote here from the article:

“Mr. and Mrs. Potts and 6-year-old Robert came here. They rented the white brick building on the southwest corner of Honolulu and Montrose avenues and started a grocery store. They had what was known as a general store and ‘everything’ was on sale there. Outside was their gas pump. The rent for the entire building, having space for six stores, was $25 monthly.”

The building was brand new. It was built (surprisingly for that era) by a Los Angeles woman. It was quite beautiful with its bright white brick facing (now covered by stucco). It featured big floor-to-ceiling wraparound windows accented by a section of stunning colored art glass bricks at the top (also now stuccoed over). An old-style glass-topped gas pump protruded from the sidewalk right on the corner.

The store remained isolated initially as Montrose had a slow start. The Pottses established the first foothold in what would soon become a bustling shopping district.

“Looking along Honolulu Avenue when they first arrived, Mrs. Potts recollects that there was not a building in sight. One large mailbox served the community, and mail addressed to Montrose, California arrived safely.

“They did a good transient business there. On the Sparr Ranch there were four or five American families and some Japanese who cared for the orange, lemon and apricot groves.”
Despite the isolation, they had their share of adventures.

“Mrs. Potts remembers there was a contractor who had a gang of Mexicans unloading gravel on Verdugo Road, and he came into the store asking that the men be given credit, and said that on a certain day they would pay their bills. The day of payment arrived and the men were marched into the store. One Mexican said he could not pay.

“Mr. Green, foreman for the Sparr Ranch who was a deputy, stepped forward as Mr. Potts armed himself with a can of corn. The Mexican, sensing the situation, immediately paid. There was an elderly couple from Indiana in the store and they were deeply impressed with the way bills were collected in what they deemed the wild and woolly West.

“One day Jim Burns had an altercation with a man who was trying to ‘do’ him and he chased the man into the Potts’ store. There the man yelled through the door: ‘You can’t touch me now! There is a lady in here!’

“One day a freight car on which Charles Shattuck, freight master of the Glendale & Montrose Railway, was riding, got loose and went on its mad and merry way. Jim Burns and T.O. Potts saw it dashing along and got in an automobile and followed it. The car was almost to Glendale when it became derailed and smashed. When the men arrived, they expected to find Mr. Shattuck dead, but instead saw him limping along with a sprained ankle.”

This was not the only time a freight car from the tiny fledgling electric railway got away from its workers. There are other stories of people chasing loose cars as they picked up speed rolling down Verdugo Canyon toward Glendale.

The Pottses didn’t stay long in the corner building. The gas pump did such good business that after a year they opened a gas station across the street. They abandoned the store and, to emphasize Montrose’s slow start, it sat empty until 1922 when a bank opened there. Later the Pottses sold the gas station and opened another store on the northeast corner of Montrose and La Crescenta Avenue, where the 7-Eleven is today. T.O. Potts could be considered the “father” of the Montrose shopping district.