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He was always shrewd, working his way west from Indiana, where he was born in 1828. While traveling a true Western Stagecoach experience filled with adventure, he traded horses, owned grocery stores and even sold brandy to Brigham Young's brother while in Salt Lake City.  When Baldwin landed in San Francisco, he continued to trade, bought a hotel and got involved in making bricks for the government; but the lure of the Comstock Lode drew him to Virginia City during the 1860's, where he ran a lumber yard while learning about mining.  His various successes resulted in him going on a world tour in 1867, soon after, thanks to his varied success he earned the nickname "Lucky" when stock he thought he'd sold off actually stayed in his name long enough to see a bonanza spike and make him a multi-millionaire. 

Right: Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin with his parrot.

Anita continued to run the farm after Lucky's death in 1909, reorganizing it into the Anoakia Stock and Breeding Farm; and building her landmark Arcadia house, Anoakia in 1912. Anita's 100-room Arcadia house was built on 20 acres in 1913 for about $250,000.  It contained stables, barns, a swimming pool, bowling alley and a tennis court; and Anita lived in it, semi-reclusively, until her death in 1939. 

In the 1920s, the Baldwin luck continued as oil was discovered on Baldwin land, and the Montebello and Inglewood Oil Fields were developed thereafter.

Right: The beautiful Anoakia exterior. 

Rancho Santa Anita evolved into a thriving farm under Lucky's, and then Anita's, direction, producing everything from peaches and oranges to livestock, wine and brandy; and importing trees, flowers and peacocks.  

Left: Anita Baldwin and Red Star Equestrians at The Rose Parade. She was always a favorite at the Pasadena Rose Parade, where she came out of seclusion dressed in formal habit and sitting atop of her prancing, high-tailed horse.  Less is known about Anita than might be, since her papers were burned as requested in her Will.

EJ was unarguably a philanderer, but Jennie Dexter was purported to be his one true love. Their daughter Anita was born in 1876.  EJ built the cottage for Jennie in 1881, but their union was short, as she passed from tuberculosis in 1883.  Anita named her own daughter Dextra, after her mother. 

It is thanks to Anita's daughter and Lucky's granddaughter, Dextra Baldwin McGonagle, that the Dextra Baldwin McGonagle Foundation was created upon Dextra's death in 1967.

Right: Dextra and Baldwin Baldwin, 1915.

"I have seen a number of botanical gardens in different parts of the world, but there are few more beautiful than the grounds about this home of Lucky Baldwin.  It is one of the prettiest places in the world, and every tree and shrub connected with it has been planted by his direction.  He took this vast estate when it was practically a desert, and he made it a land of flowers, trees and of fruit-bearing orchards"  [LAT 6/11/83] 

The Foundation would like acknowledge Sandra Snider and recommend the biography, "Elias Jackson 'Lucky' Baldwin, California Visionary", Sandra Lee Snider, 1987, The Starwell Group Publishers.