They wanted to kill him. Said so in the papers. And once you know what J.F.T. Titley did, you’ll know why that man’s life was in danger.
This story takes us back to the early 1900’s. Back then real estate was booming and land was selling like hot cakes. Hustlers with checkered jackets and wide lapels were behind every bush. Well, not exactly, but you get the idea.
Here’ are a couple facts to show how fast local land was developed. In the City of Pasadena, from 1900 to 1910, more than 330 residential tracts were recorded. During this time, the City’s population tripled.
The flurry of buying and selling was the perfect set up for a deceitful huckster to ply his trade. And the small town of Lamanda Park was the perfect spot to find a poor unsuspecting mark.
Enter J..F.T. Titley.
Now, Mr. Titley and Henry Potter may have shared the same stone cold greedy heart, but they were very different. Our Mr. Titley was but a kid, a wunderkind of sorts. Born in the West Indies and brought here as a boy, by age 20 he was buying and selling local real estate.
Somehow Titley managed to acquire a small tract of land. That land, named The Titley Tract, was generally south of Foothill Blvd. and between present day Kinneloa and Daisy Streets. Today, there’s a freeway over most of it.
Anyway, Titley subdivided the land and built small homes for “sale.” He called the area “Titleyville” and the LA Times (exercising immense literary license) gloriously described the place. “Titleyville is a town between Lamanda and Arcadia. It lies romantically under the bending bows of the trees and its cottages are covered with vines and roses.”
Titley even got a street. Until 2009, there was, in fact, a stub of street named Titley Avenue, which marked the location of Titleyville.
So, I imagine Mr. Titley was likely a plucky young man with the gifit of gab. Maybe a slight British accent. He certainly talked a good game.
Reportedly Titley said he wanted to help the poor by giving them a chance to own their own homes.
Working with his brother, Frank, Titley filled his tract with small homes. And, then he offered the small homes for sale. Well, he kind of offered the homes for sale.
It’s the “kind of” part that got him into trouble. You see he offered the homes for sale but only on the “installment plan.”
Here’s how it worked: “Buyers” of Titley homes got to occupy the properties and paid Titley their monthly installment toward the purchase price. But, and here’s the catch — Titley kept the title in his own name. Under the installment contract, Titley only had to convey title when all the installments were fully paid.
As you might guess, the installment contracts left a lot of room for fraud.
The “buyers” of Titley’s homes were unsophisticated and made their payments without any lien or deed of trust on their properties. So, as long as Titley kept mum about his installment deals, it appeared as if he had “clear” title. So, the slick young Mr. Titley went out and got loans using the title as collateral.
Titley obtained a loan from Pasadenan Susan Reeves. He did the same thing to get another loan from Mutual Savings in Pasadena.
So, now young Mr. Titley was pocketing the installment payments from his “buyers” and cashing in the loan proceeds too.
As you might guess, this story does not end well. Titley defaulted on his loans whereupon the lenders foreclosed and became the owners of Titleyville. The poor “buyers” had been fleeced of their hard earned installment payments and were left with nothing.
Titley’s fraud and the plight of his poor “buyers” made news. On May 3, 1908 LA Times reported the story under the headline, “Whole Town Loses Hard-Earned Homes — People discover They Have Been Paying Installments to a Man Who Doesn’t Own Land.”
And, the Fresno paper aptly described the fraud pointing out that the poor “buyers” often “went without the necessities of life” to pay the schemer Titley. If Mr. Titley ever set foot in town again, they declared “he will not leave alive.”
As far as I can tell, the cheated “buyers” never got their money back from Mr. Titley. Reportedly, the new owner, Mrs. Reeves, took pity on the poor victims and allowed them to stay in their homes. But, she made them start all over with new deals to buy the properties.
As for Mr. Titley, there is no record of him ever returning to his namesake Titleyville. Good thing for him, I’d say.
The Times reported that Titley high-tailed to Riverside County where he embarked on a “ranch scheme.” And, supposedly, the county records are littered with quit claim deeds and the like bearing Titley’s name all of which looks suspicious given Titley’s penchant for the swindle.
And then there’s this ad Titley placed in the Lake Elsinore newspaper complaining that someone stole a gas tank and grain from him. So, let’s end this story here with the scoundrel Titley on the receiving end of some of his own medicine.
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