facilities via rail. He also led a fight to give the Santa Fe Railroad access to the waterfront. In January 1925, Edgar McKee, former president of the harbor board, filed suit against Colden, charging him with "having conspired . . . to oust McKee as president of the Harbor Board and to have plotted to ruin him." McKee claimed that Colden and others attempted to involve McKee 'in various deals involving the purchase of lands for the Harbor Commission and through which they intended to make a private profit." Colden denied the charge, and the matter was later settled out of court. City Council See also List of Los Angeles municipal election returns Colden was the first resident of the Harbor Area to serve on the Los Angeles City Council since the area was annexed to the city in 1909 through a shoestring strip that attached the district to the main part of the city some 20 miles to the north. He ran for the council in an at-large election in 1923, but placed 10th in a field of eighteen and only the first nine were elected. In 1925 a new city charter gave the district and 14 others their own representatives on the council. In that year the 15th District stretched north from the Harbor as far as Slauson Avenue between Inglewood and Huntington Park. He ran for this new post and edged James H. Dodson Jr. in the general election, 4,750 votes to 4,599. He was reelected in the May 1927 primary. Colden did not run in the 1929 election, noting his disappointment that the city had chosen to purchase "an airport and the classification yards at the harbor" when "These projects might have been [better] promoted by the beneficiaries and by private enterprise." Congress Colden was elected to Congress as a Democrat from California's 17th district and served from March 4, 1933, until his death in 1938. Liberty Ship The Charles J. Colden (hull number 2691) was one of the type EC2-S-C1 Liberty ships built by Permanente Metals Yard No. 2 in Richmond, California, for the U.S. Maritime Commission from 1941 to 1945. See also List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–49) References Links to the Los Angeles Times require the use of a library card Other references Chronological Record of Los Angeles City Officials: 1850—1938, compiled under the direction of the Municipal