Leland H. Ives visited Chapala in about 1904

In 1905 keen traveler Leland Ives published an article about Chapala in Four Track News, a periodical begun a few years earlier by the New York Central Railroad. The short article contains a memorable description of his stage coach ride from Atequiza to Chapala, and all manner of valuable nuggets of information which indicate Ives was a keen observer and listener. Ives had traveled fairly widely in Spanish-speaking countries before visiting Mexico, so (unlike most modern tourists) could readily manage the language barrier.

Ives took the train from Guadalajara to Atequiza. On stepping down from the train, he remarks that

generally it isn’t every day that the tourist can taste the joys and miseries of coach travel; but the fourteen-mile journey to Lake Chapala is the genuine article…. The roof of the huge box is piled high with baggage, freight and mail, and [three?] lucky passengers fill a seat on deck behind the driver, while inside eight others lurch around hanging to straps.”

• Dating photos of early Chapala stage coaches

In addition to observing closely the attire of the driver and his assistant, Ives had a keen eye for the behavior of the mules pulling the stage, summarizing their lack of discipline by commenting, “If they have ever been broken, their tuition fails to show.”

When they finally entered the village, and the stage coach driver was “urging the mules to a final gallop,” Chapala appeared to be half asleep:

The village isn’t much. There is a good hotel which is the terminus of the route; across the way a typical native inn, a remarkable stately church, and a plaza shaded by sour orange trees [while] along the lakefront in the outskirts are residences built as recreation retreats by merchants in Guadalajara and Mexico City, and one at least belongs to a foreign [family].”

At the hotel, Ives scanned the list of guests, but recognized few of the names “in the hotel register, for Chapala is yet but little known. Until within a very few years it lay nearly eight hundred miles from any railway, and while explorers and geographers have long been acquainted with it, tourists are but just finding out how attractive it is.”

Ives then turned his attention to the local fishermen and the various kinds of boats on the lake. Making regular trips between Ocotlán and Chapala was:

a gasoline launch which was brought from “the states” on a flat-car, and plies [the waters] regularly in charge of its owner, a young Canadian. Off the stone pier a little steamer rides at anchor, which was packed piecemeal over the mountains from San Blas on the Pacific, long before the advent of railroads. “

The “gasoline launch” Ives refers to is almost certainly the Carlota, brought by the Crompton brothers from Canada when they moved to Chapala in 1900. They also brought a 30-seat “electrical yacht” named Carmelita, which made regular runs two or three times a week between Chapala, Ocotlán, La Palma and Tuxcueca to support the booming Hotel Arzapalo, with pleasure trips to Mezcala Island on Sundays. The brothers sold their launches to the Lake Chapala Navigation Company (managed by Julio Lewels) in 1904. (See chapter 2 of If Walls Could Talk.)

Ives’ description of a “little steamer” appears to conflate two distinct vessels. The first steamboat on the lake, launched in 1868, was the Libertad, built in California and carried in pieces over the mountains to the lake. However, it had capsized near Ocotlán in 1889 with a heavy loss of life; it was later refloated, renamed and sent to Lake Pátzcuaro. In the interim, several other small steamships had taken its place, including the Chapala, launched in 1881 and the San Francisco.

Who was Leland Howard Ives?

Leland Howard Ives, the son of John and Wealthy Sage (Merwin) Ives, was born on 16 October 1859 in Meriden, Connecticut. Ives and his parents were active lifelong members of the First Baptist Church Society of Meriden.

Ives entered Yale in the class of 1883 but never graduated. He worked for a dry goods commission house in New York City from 1885 to 1889, before leaving for Europe, to meet friends in London and tour the UK, France and Belgium for six weeks. He later shared his talents and financial acumen with various businesses in his home town of Meriden.

Leland Howard Ives.

Ives traveled widely from a relatively young age, and submitted his accounts of his travels to his local newspaper in Meriden and to magazines such as Outside and Four Track News. Ives also gave lectures about his foreign travels in New York City and elsewhere, illustrated with his own photographs.

He had lengthy trips to the West Indies (1892), Cuba (1893), the north coast of South America (1895) and Puerto Rico (1899).

It is not entirely clear when he visited Chapala. He was definitely in Mexico City in 1901, with plans to also visit Tampico, but there is no record of his time in Chapala beyond the article he published in February 1905 in Four Track News, which was clearly a very personal account. The April 1905 issue had another piece by Ives titled “After Ducks in Mexico.”

Ives’ mother died in 1914 and his father died the following year.

On 12 May 1920, Ives married Mrs. Florence W. Fisk; the couple continued to travel regularly. Ives had no children, and after he died on 31 January 1943, his assets were held in trust for the benefit of his wife and his sister. Following the deaths of his wife in 1950 and his sister in 1951, Ives’ sizable estate was shared between various charitable organizations.

My 2022 book Lake Chapala: A Postcard History uses reproductions of more than 150 vintage postcards to tell the incredible story of how Lake Chapala became an international tourist and retirement center.

Sources

• Arthur Coon Ives. 1932. Genealogy of the Ives Family. Self-published.
• Leland Howard Ives. 1905. “Round About Chapala.” Four Track News, Vol 8, #2 (Feb 1905).
• Supreme Court of Connecticut. 1953. The Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board of the American Baptist Convention et al. V. the Meriden Trust and Safe Deposit Company, Trustee (Will of Leland H. Ives), et al.
• The Journal (Meriden): 2 Sep 1890, 5.
• The Meriden Weekly Republican: 14 Apr 1892, 3; 14 Mar 1901, 6.

Tony Burton

Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).

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