Water and Power Associates Informing the Public about Critical Water and Energy Issues facing Los Angeles and California

Historical Notes

San Vicente Boulevard is named for the Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica that had previously occupied the area. The road runs diagonally because it was originally the San Vicente line of the Pacific Electric Railway.

Wilshire Boulevard was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire (1861–1927), an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate, farming, and gold mining.  In 1895 he began developing 35 acres of a barley field, stretching westward from Westlake Park for an elite residential subdivision, and donated to the city a strip of land 120 feet wide by 1,200 feet long for a boulevard, on the conditions that it would be named for him and that railroad lines and commercial or industrial trucking would be banned.  The road first appeared on a map under its present name in 1895.

At time of the above photo Fairfax Avenue north of Wilshire was called Crescent Avenue.

Historical Notes

Olympic Boulevard was originally named 10th Street. In 1932, the entire length of the street, from East L.A. to Santa Monica, was renamed Olympic Boulevard for the Summer Olympics being held in Los Angeles that year.

Historical Notes

In 1922, J. Harvey McCarthy began the development of an upscale residential district along the San Vicente Boulevard line of the Pacific Electric Railway, bounded by Wilshire Blvd. on the north, Fairfax Avenue on the east, Olympic Blvd (then 10th Street) on the south and Schumacher Drive on the west. McCarthy originally named the district Carthay Center (Carthay being a derivative of the developer's last name). The areas to the south of Olympic Boulevard remained undeveloped until 1933, when developer Spyros George Ponty built several hundred homes in two districts later named "South Carthay" and "Carthay Square".

Historical Notes

Within a relatively short period of 8 years, the area surrounding the intersection of Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards would see dramatic changes. J. Harvey McCarthy's 1922 Carthay Circle development would be the catalyst to the region's explosive growth.

Historical Notes

The Carthay Circle Theatre was one of the most famous movie palaces of Hollywood's Golden Age. It opened at 6316 San Vicente Boulevard in 1926 and was considered to be developer J. Harvey McCarthy's most successful monument, a stroke of shrewd thinking that made a famous name of the newly developed Carthay residential district in the Mid-City West district of Los Angeles.

Historical Notes

Initially developed by Fox, it was called the Fox Carthay Circle Theater. The theater became better known than the development in which it was located, and this has led to confusion in the name of the area. The theater's name meant "the Circle Theater, by Fox, located in Carthay", but became incorrectly interpreted as "The Fox Theater, located in Carthay Circle." The misinterpretation has stuck, and now the region is more or less officially known as Carthay Circle, even as its theater namesake has been gone for half a century.

Historical Notes

Carthay Center Elementary School opened in 1924 to serve Carthay Center, a subdivision in mid-city Los Angeles planned by developer Harvey J. McCarthy. The school was located just opposite the famous Carthay Circle Theater, which hosted such dazzling movie premieres as "Snow White," "The Wizard of Oz," and "Gone with the Wind."  Although the theater was demolished in 1969, the beautiful school building was preserved and remains an architectural centerpiece of the neighborhood. ^

Historical Notes

The Carthay Circle Theater provided the "circle" for which Carthay Circle has come to be named. The auditorium itself was shaped in the form of a perfect circle, extended vertically into a cylinder, set inside a square that fleshed out the remainder of the building. McCarthy's development was called Carthay—an anglicized version of his last name. The theater was called the Circle Theater for its unique floor plan.*^

Historical Notes

Originally named Carthay Center, Carthay Circle was developed as an upscale residential district in 1922 by J. Harvey McCarthy, who founded the 136-acre, mainly Spanish Revival, community. No two homes are alike due to the rule that all homes had to be designed individually by an architect, and notable designers such as Irving Gill, Paul Williams and Robert Byrd contributed to the neighborhood. It was one of the first neighborhoods in Los Angeles to have underground utilities.*

Historical Notes

Also known as the Daniel O. McCarthy Pioneer Fountain, or the Miner's Statue, this work, located in Carthay Circle across from the Carthay Theatre, honors the memory of the California Pioneers of '49.' The plaque reads, "This fountain is a memorial to the gallant pioneers of '49 of whom Daniel O. McCarthy, patriot, miner, leader, was an outstanding example. He was born Raleigh, N.C., August 24, 1830. Died Los Angeles, August 13, 1919. Through his newspaper The American Flag, San Francisco, he helped preserve California to the Union. This long useful life is a heritage of which the Golden State is justly proud.” Dedicated by Ramona Parlor 109 NSGW. Signature on miner: Henry Lion 1924,25.*

Historical Notes

The Carthay Circle Theatre hosted the official premieres of some of the more notable films of the 1930s including: The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Romeo and Juliet (1936), Walt Disney's first animated feature length film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Gone with the Wind (1939), among many others.

For Disney's Fantasia (1940), the most elaborate audio system in use at the time, Fantasound, a pioneering stereophonic process, was installed at this theatre.^*

Historical Notes

The Carthay Circle Theatre was demolished in 1969. Today, two low-rise office buildings and a city park occupy its former site.

Click HERE to see more early views of the Carthay Circle Theatre.

Historical Notes

On November 2, 1927, city and county officials, together with Pacific Electric executives, gathered for the opening ceremony of the Pico Boulevard Viaduct to be used by the PE Red Cars. The new viaduct replaced a very dangerous, at-grade crossing of the line with Pico Blvd. There is a banner hanging on the bridge over Pico, one can only guess that the banner was touting the safety aspects of the new span.

Historical Notes

The importance of the great viaduct was short lived. After just 13 years as an important asset to the Santa Monica via Beverly Hills line, through service to Santa Monica was abandoned in about December of 1941. Thereafter, the viaduct served as a back door entry to the West Hollywood Car House and maintenance complex, and for rush hour service on the W. 16th Street local service.*

Historical Notes

After 23 years of service, the rail service using the span was abandoned at the same time as the Venice Short Line in September of 1950. The viaduct would stand, unused, for another 14 years. Then in 1964 the mighty span that could have lasted more the 100 years was bulldozed away with none of the pomp and circumstance as its opening some 37 years before.*

Historical Notes

Terminal Market, located at Seventh and Central, was constructed to provide a larger central marketplace for wholesale produce.  Where previously the market was crowded with horses and buggies, this new site was designed to be large enough to accommodate automobile traffic.*

Historical Notes

In 1926, horses were legally prohibited on streets, making wagons an obsolete method for transporting produce.

Intolerance was a colossal undertaking featuring monumental sets, lavish period costumes, and more than 3,000 extras. Griffith began shooting the film with the Modern Story (originally titled "The Mother and the Law"), whose planning predated the great commercial success of The Birth of a Nation, which had made $48 million, about $681 million in 2016. He then greatly expanded it to include the other three parallel stories under the theme of intolerance.

Actual costs to produce Intolerance are unknown, but best estimates are close to $2.5 million (about $47 million in 2016), an astronomical sum in 1916.  The film was by far the most expensive one made up to that time. When it became a flop at the box-office, the burden was so great that in 1918 the Triangle Film Corporation had to be put up for sale.

Griffith mostly financed the film, which contributed to his financial ruin for the rest of his life.^*

Historical Notes

A replica of an archway and elephant sculptures from the Babylon segment of the film serve as an important architectural element of the Hollywood and Highland Shopping Center center in Hollywood (built in 2001).

Historical Notes

Franklin Hills borders Los Feliz proper on the northwest and west; Silver Lake on the northeast, east, and southeast; and East Hollywood on the south. The area is residential, boasting very well-kept homes set on the hills east of Los Feliz Village.

Historical Notes

Intolerance is a 1916 epic silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Widely regarded as one of the great masterpieces of the silent era, the three-and-a-half-hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines, each separated by several centuries: (1) a contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption, (2) a Judean story: Christ's mission and death, (3) a French story: the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, and (4) a Babylonian story: the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia in 539 BC. ^*

Historical Notes

Opening in 1915 as The Vitagraph Studio, the original silent film plant included two daylight film stages, support buildings and many exterior film sets. In 1925, Vitagraph's founder Albert Smith sold the company to the Warner brothers. In 1927, the facility became The Warner East Hollywood Annex and was used for many large-scale films. Here, in 1927, Warner Bros. shot portions of the historical first sound film, The Jazz Singer, using the Vitaphone process which synchronized audio and picture.

In 1948, the property was sold to the newly formed American Broadcasting Company, and the film lot was transitioned into the new world of television as the ABC Television Center.

In 1996, ABC became part of The Walt Disney Company, the origins of which trace back to its first studio in Silver Lake. As the television and film industry entered the next millennium, the lot was renamed The Prospect Studios.^*

Historical Notes

Franklin Hills is home to the Shakespeare Bridge, a small 1926 built bridge on Franklin Avenue east of Talmadge Street that links Franklin Avenue between two tall, steep hills. To the east of the bridge begins the Franklin Hills public stairway system, which provides pedestrian linkages among the curvy streets, a series of 14 staircases originally built in the 1920s to provide hillside homeowners pedestrian access to the trolley lines below.^*

John Marshall High School first opened its doors on January 26, 1931, with approximately twelve hundred students and forty-eight teachers. Joseph Sniffen, for whom the auditorium was named, served as the first Principal, while Hugh Boyd and Geraldine Keith acted as Marshall's first Vice-Principals. The football field was named in honor of Mr. Boyd, while the library was named for Mrs. Keith.^

Historical Notes

The ravine over which the bridge was built was once a perennial stream called Arroyo de la Sacatela.

Historical Notes

The Gothic-style Shakespeare Bridge was built in 1926 and designed by J.C. Wright of the City Engineer's Office. It is 30-feet wide and 230-feet long and is made of concrete.^

Historical Notes

As for why it’s called the Shakespeare Bridge, that seems to be a mystery. It was originally known as the Franklin Avenue Bridge, but the name changed at some point, with most information pointing to a neighborhood council-type decision.

Historical Notes

The Shakespeare Bridge begins on Franklin Ave at St George Street, a little less than a mile east of Vermont Street in the Los Feliz or Franklin Hills area. Built in 1926

Historical Notes

The bridge was rebuilt in 1998 after the Northridge earthquake due to concerns that the structure would not be stable in the even of an earthquake in the Franklin Hills area. As part of the seismic retrofit, the deck, sidewalks, and railings were removed and reconstructed using reinforced concrete. The expansion joints were also removed, so the bridge deck is now a one-piece structural diaphragm built to transfer all seismic forces into the abutment walls at either end of the bridge. All of the rebuilding was done in an effort to preserve the historic appearance of the bridge.^

Historical Notes

In 1974, the Shakespeare Bridge was designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #126 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

The Fourth St. and Lorena St. Bridge was constructed in 1927-28 as a complex grade separation that assured the flow of traffic from Fourth Street downtown to East Los Angeles. The bridge is noted as an engineering achievement in catenary arch, reinforced concrete, bridge construction.^*#

Historical Notes

In 1983, the Fourth and Lorena Street Bridge was dedicated LA Historic-Cultural Monument No. 265 (Click HERE to see complete listing).

Historical Notes

The 4th and Lorena Street Bridge-Built in 1928, is one of the few remaining catenary, or curved, arch bridges in the city. It is one of the most graceful of the open spandrel arch bridges designed in 1920’s.

Historical Notes

Dayton Avenue (later N. Figueroa Street) has had four different bridges. The Riverside Drive-Dayton Avenue Bridge, first built in 1903, was replaced with a concrete one completed in 1928. In 1938, after heavy floods and the Elysian Park landslide, the Army Corps of Engineers built a replacement bridge with steel trussing, known as the Riverside Drive Bridge (Riverside-Figueroa Bridge). In 2008 eleven bridges were designated as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments including the Riverside-Figueroa Bridge #908, however, because of seismic safety issues, the bridge was once again replaced by a newer one in 2014.

Historical Notes

This concrete bridge replaced the earlier Dayton Avenue Bridge built in 1903. The new bridge was later renamed the Riverside Drive-Dayton Avenue Bridge, alternately called the Riverside Drive-Figueroa Bridge, when Dayton Avenue was renamed North Figueroa as a continuation of original Figueroa Street.**^**

Historical Notes

The N. Figueroa Street Bridge opened in 1937, providing a wider and direct Los Angeles River crossing than the Dayton Avenue Bridge. After passing over the river and San Fernando Road, it tied into Dayton Avenue (Figueroa Street) south of Avenue 26.^*

Historical Notes

The new (3rd) Dayton Avenue Bridge will now link Riverside Drive and San Fernando Road with a reach of about 700 feet, including approaches, over the Los Angeles River.  It will have one 238-foot steel span directly over the river.

Historical Notes

The new Dayton Avenue Bridge was built, by the Army Corps of Engineers. Though the deck of the bridge retains more-or-less the character of the earlier bridge, the graceful concrete arch below is replaced by a steel truss span.

Historical Notes

In 2008, the Riverside-Figueroa Bridge that links Cypress Park and Elysian Valley was designated Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument No. 908.

Historical Notes

Due to safety concerns regarding the seismic fitness of the Riverside-Figueroa Bridge, the City Council decided it needed to be replaced. In 2011, the city began construction on the widened replacement bridge seen above.

Historical Notes

There was nearly a year-long effort to save the concrete and metal-truss  bridge for use as a public space similar to the Hi Line in NY. However, the courts ruled in favor of the city and the last steel truss bridge to span the LA River would be demolished (2014). +^^

Historical Notes

The Muller family is one of Hollywood’s pioneers. Jacob Muller came to Hollywood in 1893, establishing the first meat market in Hollywood, across from the present Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard. He sold the market in 1907 and established the first ice company in Hollywood, selling that business in 1913. The family’s original house was built Sunset Boulevard at Ivar. This site later became the location of  the RCA Building, built by the Muller Family in 1963. (currently the Los Angeles Film School Building).

Jacob Muller’s sons, Walter and Frank, opened the Muller Bros. Service Station in 1920.^*^*

Click HERE to see more Early LA Gas Stations.

Historical Notes

The Muller Brothers Service Station was located on the south side of Sunset Boulevard on 4 acres, where the Cinerama Dome Theater is now located. Opened in 1920 by the Muller brothers, Walter and Frank, this became the largest service station in the world (including a large automobile supply center), employing 120 people by 1937. Celebrities, from Rudolph Valentino to Clark Gable, came by regularly to get gas or just work on their cars. In 1963 the site was sold for the Cinerama Dome Theatre, and, at that time, an eventual hotel.^*^*

Click HERE to see more in Early Views of Hollywood (1920 +).

Historical Notes

In the late 1930s the 1.5-mile stretch of Wilshire Boulevard between Fairfax and Highland Avenues would be named the Miracle Mile.

Click HERE to see more Early Views of the "Miracle Mile".

Historical Notes

In the distance can be seen the construction of Immanuel Presbyterian Church.  This was their second location. The first one was located on the SE corner of Figueroa and Olympic.

Modeled after French Gothic cathedrals, the Immanuel Presbyterian Church was designed by architect Chauncey Skilling.  The building's stone-clad corner tower soars 205 feet above Wilshire, supported by a steel frame that allows for a strikingly spacious interior.

Historical Notes

Wilshire Boulevard was designated by The Octagon Museum of the American Architectural Foundation as one of the 'Grand American Avenues' was decorated with this Wilshire Special pole and lantern for nearly six miles of its length. Approximately 100 poles still remain over the distance of about one-and-a-half miles. The original lanterns are solid bronze and stand 7½ feet tall from the base of the lantern to the top of the finial.^^#

Historical Notes

Click HERE to see more in Early Los Angeles Street Lights

Historical Notes

KFWB's history goes back to 1925, when it was launched by Sam Warner, a co-founder of Warner Brothers. The station launched the careers of such stars as Ronald Reagan and Bing Crosby. The station was the first to broadcast the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena.

The original KFWB studios and transmitter location were at the Warner Bros. Studios, which is now KTLA, at 5800 Sunset Boulevard. One of the two original towers still stands prominently out front. Due to RF interference getting into the movie studio's "talkies" sound equipment, the transmitter was moved in 1928 to the roof of the Warner Theater, now the Hollywood Pacific Theatre, at 6423 Hollywood Blvd. Eventually the studios were also moved to the Warner Theater. Those two towers are still there, as well.^*

Historical Notes

The Hall of Records was built in 1906 and demolished in 1973; the County Courthouse was built in 1891 and demolished in 1936; the Hall of Justice was built in 1922 by Allied Architects and is the only one of the three buildings still standing today.^

Historical Notes

The new 28-story Los Angeles City Hall was replacing the old City Hall building located on Broadway between 2nd and 3rd Streets that had been government headquarters since 1889. That building had replaced a one-story adobe City Hall, formerly the old Rocha House, on the northeast corner of Spring and Court Streets.*^*^

Historical Notes

Temple Block, one of the earliest buildings in Los Angeles, is seen still standing at left center. The Old Courthouse occupied Temple Block between 1861 and 1891.*

Historical Notes

This site, at the intersection of Spring, Main and Temple, is where John Temple built his original two-story adbobe two-story adobe in the early 1800s.

Jonathan Temple was one of Los Angeles’ first developers, constructing the original Temple Block and the Market House, which later served as city and county administrative headquarters, contained the county courthouse, and featured the first true theater in southern California. Temple Street carries his name.^*

Historical Notes

Arcadia St. was just one block long, running between Main and Los Angeles Sts., and was named for Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker. She was first married to Abel Stearns, who built the Arcadia Block, and then after his death she married Robert Symington Baker, who built the Baker Block on the site of the former Stearns residence, a large and apparently lavish adobe (and he also co-founded Santa Monica, among other things). So both of the buildings that bordered the south side of Arcadia St. were built by Arcadia's husbands.**^

Click HERE to read more about Arcadia in Early Views of Santa Monica.

Historical Notes

City Hall's distinctive tower was based on the purported shape of the Mausoleum of Mausolus and shows the influence of the Los Angeles Central Library, completed soon before the structure was started.

An image of City Hall has been on Los Angeles Police Department badges since 1940.^*

Historical Notes

The big dedication, overseen by Sid Grauman and attended by an estimated 15,000 people, featured emceeing by Joseph Schenck and speeches by Mayor George E. Cryer and San Francisco Mayor James Rolph, Jr. After Rolph spoke, Irving Berlin sang, as did “Chief Yowlache, the Yakima Indian; Elsa Alsen, the grand opera singer; the Mexican chorus of Los Angeles, in costume; Virgil Johannson, and others." *^*^

Historical Notes

April 26, 1928, was a day of thrills. On that date was thrown the new City Hall, a great white building towering 28 stories, and casting its shadow upon the historic spot where a century and a half before came a ragged and footsore procession, grubbed out standing room in the tangle of sage and cactus, and christened the spot “Queen of the Angels.” Past the impressive granite entrance rolled hour after hour a mighty host. There were National and State troops, cadet bodies from neighboring cities, marines, and bronzed and swaggering sailors, ex-soldiers and veteran organizations. Mounted and afoot, and on gorgeous floats, came groups of foreign-born, in gay and picturesque native costumes. The police and firemen made a tremendous showing, as did the departments of public parks, schools and libraries, water, power and harbor, the street and sanitary forces, those of the engineering and accounting departments – employees by the thousands. There was stirring music by bands and bands without number. Hour after hour the public stood rooted, amazed at the vastness of its own machinery of service and government.

From the broad steps of the great building Mayor Rolph of San Francisco – like the good neighbor that he was, spoke with eloquence and feeling. President Coolidge, at the White House, touched a button that set aglow the Lindbergh Beacon, perched festivities roared.

Los Angeles was opening one of the nation’s most beautiful and modern public buildings, on a site hallowed by a century and a half of historical association. The “city without a past,” that “has no memories, because it has nothing to remember,” was establishing anew its “capitol” on ground where it had governed itself in the days of the alcaldes and the ayuntamientos. Here it could commune with its Fathers while looking with Anglo-Saxon eyes into the future. This was possible, for does not the old Spanish proverb say that “the walls have ears”? Who knows but that from out a romantic past, the winds may carry to the great white tower the strum of guitars and the click of castanets at the Governor’s fandango; the creaking of Don Juan Temple’s ox carts; the vengeful shouts of Pico’s Vigilantes; the cheers of Hancock’s Boys in Blue; the song of paisanos laboring in Pryor’s orange groves; the laughter of children and the hum of bees under Vignes’ arbors? Do not the shades of all these mingle in the very shadow of the new yet ancient seat of City Government? Quien Sabe? **

Historical Notes

Los Angeles’ thrid City Hall was erected in 1888 at 226-238 South Broadway.  This grand Romanesque edifice of marble and red sandstone building stood for 40 years until 1928 when the present day City Hall was completed.

On January 10, 1928 an auction of the furnishings and other items inside the structure was conducted on the front steps before the building was torn down later that same year. A new, larger City Hall had been built to replace this historic building that for so long was the seat of Los Angeles government.*

Historical Notes

Spring Street was realigned in 1927 to allow for the construction of the new City Hall, seen in the foreground. By 1931 Spring Street would also be extended north of Temple all the way to Sunset Boulevard eliminating most of the buildings seen here at far right including the Los Angeles County Jail.

Historical Notes

By 1931 Spring Street would be extended in a straight line north of Temple all the way to Sunset Boulevard eliminating most of the buildings seen here at lower ight including the Los Angeles County Jail.

Historical Notes

This will complete the Spring Street realignment which started in 1927 from 1st Street to Temple (to allow for the erection of the new City Hall, behind the camera and to the right) and now, in 1931, with this extension through to Sunset Boulevard. The north portal of the Broadway tunnel is just around the brow of Fort Moore Hill up ahead to the left. The east slope of Fort Moore Hill has been excavated and reshaped (on the left) and Justicia Street, which had traversed the shoulder of Fort Moore Hill, has been lost. Partial view of Hancock Banning's house on the hill upper left. New Hall of Justice is just out-of-frame to the left, new roadbed has swept away the old City Jail and the old Hall of Justice, which sat just about where the camera is situated. Building on the right is one of several Brunswig Drug Company outbuildings. Prudent Beaudry's house (501 New High Street) had been just this side of the Brunswig building. It has just been torn down. In the distance, on a direct line with Spring Street we can see the dark outline of the Hotel Sunset (which is not on Sunset. go figure), NW corner of N. Spring Street and Ord, with the predominant turret spire.

Historical Notes

The old LA County Courthouse was demolished in 1936.

The Hall of Records stood until 1973.

Historical Notes

Although there are dozens upon dozens of buildings, for decades no building in Los Angeles was allowed to exceed the height of City Hall, until 1957. It remained the tallest building in California from 1928-1964, at 28 stories tall (450 feet).^

Historical Notes

The Central Library building was constructed between 1922 and 1926.

Originally named the Central Library, the building was first renamed in honor of the longtime president of the Board of Library Commissioners and President of the University of Southern California, Rufus B. von KleinSmid. The new wing of Central Library, completed in 1993, was named in honor of former mayor Tom Bradley. The complex (i.e., the original Goodhue building and the Bradley wing) was subsequently renamed in 2001 for former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, as the Richard Riordan Central Library.^*

Historical Notes

The College Theatre was so named for its proximity to the nearby State Normal School on the block that is currently the site of the Los Angeles Central Library. The theatre located at 441 S. Hill Street was built in 1911 and demolished in 1929. Today, it is a parking lot.^^*#

Historical Notes

*Olympic Boulevard was originally named 10th Street. In 1932, the entire length of the street, from East L.A. to Santa Monica, was renamed Olympic Boulevard for the Summer Olympics being held in Los Angeles that year.

Historical Notes

Built in 1925, Hotel Figueroa was the first hotel to be completely financed, owned and operated by women in the United States. The YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) hired architecture firm Stanton, Reed & Hibbard to design and build the hotel. The Spanish Colonial style of the hotel pays tribute to the city’s Spanish and Mexican heritage. Defining features include the elaborate coffered ceiling, sculpture columns, wrought iron finishes, and ornate floor tiles.^

Historical Notes

Originally the hotel only hosted travelling business women and their children. However, as effects of the Great Depression were becoming more severe, Hotel Figueroa started to accommodate men.^

Historical Notes

The Friday Morning Club (across the street from the Hotel Figueroa) was founded by abolitionist, suffragist, mother, and Los Angeles homemaker Caroline Severance in 1891, with 87 other women in the reading room of the Hollenbeck Hotel, then located at Second and Broadway. It became the largest women's club in California, with membership of over 1,800 women by the 1920s.  Click HERE to see more.

Historical Notes

Note the ornate dual-lamp streetlights that line both sides of Broadway. These were called "Broadway Specials". Click HERE to see more.

Historical Notes

Lang was the chief engineer of the station, which he founded in 1927 under the call sign of KRLO. He sold the station in February 1928 to Ernest J. Krause, who changed the call letters to fit his initials, KEJK. Just two months later, KEJK was sold to R.S. MacMillan Petroleum Company of Beverly Hills, which owned KEJK when this photo was taken. They would change the call letters on March 14, 1930, to KMPC to fit the company name.^

Historical Notes

The Zeppelin was a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States in 1899. Given the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term zeppelin in casual use came to refer to all rigid airships.

Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 34,000 passengers on over 1,500 flights. After the outbreak of World War I, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and scouts.^*

Historical Notes

In 1929, Graf Zeppelin made perhaps its most famous flight; a round-the-world voyage covering 21,2500 miles in five legs from Lakehurst to Friedrichshafen, Friedrichshafen to Tokyo, Tokyo to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Lakehurst, and then Lakehurst to Friedrichshafen again.^*

Historical Notes

In 1930, the Graf Zeppelin began regular transatlantic commercial flights. It had 20 sleeping berths for passengers and a crew of 36. Its first flight was in 1928, its last in 1937, after 590 total flights. The Graf Zeppelin was retired one month after the Hindenberg disaster.^*

Historical Notes

In 1927 Jack L. Maddux, an owner of a Los Angeles Ford and Lincoln car dealership, founded Maddux Air Lines. The airline’s inaugural flight was on September 22, 1927 when the airline’s Ford 4-AT Tri-motor carrying 12 passengers flew from San Diego to Los Angeles.  This flight was to a small dirt landing strip that would later become Los Angeles International Airport, then Mines Field, although the landing strip, called Inglewood Site, was not suitable for the airline, and Jack Maddux chose instead Rogers Airport, with improved facilities, and later Grand Central Airport in Glendale.

On August 26, 1929 a Maddux Tri-motor, along with other aircraft, escorted the famous LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin airship to Mines Field where it stopped during its around the world flight.

Among the famous aviators who were involved with Maddux were Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. Maddux also had a publicity department that advertised the celebrities who flew with the airline. These included Will Rogers, who rode on the inaugural flight, and Hollywood actors Arthur Edmund Carewe and Dolores del Río.^*

Historical Notes

In 1928, the Los Angeles City Council selected 640 acres (1.00 sq. mile) in the southern part of Westchester as the site of a new airport for the city. The fields of wheat, barley and lima beans were converted into dirt landing strips without any terminal buildings. It was named Mines Field for William W. Mines, the real estate agent who arranged the deal.^*

Historical Notes

Mines Field was dedicated and opened as the official airport of Los Angeles in 1930, and the city purchased it to be a municipal airfield in 1937. The name was officially changed to Los Angeles Airport in 1941, and to Los Angeles International Airport in 1949. The main airline airports for Los Angeles had been Burbank Airport (then known as Union Air Terminal, and later Lockheed) and the Grand Central Airport in Glendale. By 1940 most airlines served Burbank only; in late 1946 most airline flights moved to LAX, but Burbank always retained a few.^*

Historical Notes

Reseda originated as a farm town named "Marian" (or "Rancho Marian") that appeared in 1912. Its namesake, Marian Otis Chandler, was the daughter of Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis, a director of the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company. H J Whitley was the manager of the Los Angeles Suburban Home Company.

The Western Division of the Pacific Electric Railway 'Red Cars Line' expedited development after the Los Angeles Aqueduct brought water to the City of Los Angeles in 1913. Soon, thereafter, Marian would be annexed by the City.*^

Historical Notes

In 1920, Reseda was named after a fragrant North African yellow-dye plant, Reseda odorata, whose English name is mignonette and which grows in hot, dry climates—replaced Marian as a designation for a stop on the Pacific Electric interurban railway running along Sherman Way. The name "Reseda" was given first to a siding on a branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad in the south San Fernando Valley.*^

Historical Notes

Sunland and Tujunga were originally home to the Tongva people. In 1840 the area was part of the Rancho Tujunga Mexican land grant, but later developers marked off a plot of land known as the Tejunga Park, or the Tujunga Park, Tract. The name Tujunga is assumed to have meant "old woman's place" in the extinct Tongva language, where Tuhu "old woman" is a term for Mother Earth in Tongva mythology.

Tujunga's 1,500-foot elevation and geographic isolation from the San Fernando Valley and the Los Angeles Basin freed it from some of the air pollution that was a problem in many other parts of Greater Los Angeles. Because of this, it attracted many asthmatics early on. Coronet magazine once called Tujunga "the most healthy place in the world." In 1929, the Tujunga City Council set policy to establish zones where "sanitariums and other institutions for the care of tubercular patients" could be established.

Tujunga was consolidated by the city of Los Angeles on March 8, 1932, but only after the third election.^*

Historical Notes

The community of Girard is identified in the center-left of photo near the intersection of the State Highway and Topanga Canyon. In 1945 it became known as Woodland Hills.^*

Originally called Zelzah, the town that we call Northridge today was renamed North Los Angeles on July 1, 1929. In 1938, this area of the San Fernando Valley was renamed Northridge Village. Few evidences of the "village" remain.#^^#

The community of Granada was founded in 1926.  The “Hills” was added 15 years later in 1941.^*

The Ventura Freeway would not be completed across the San Fernando Valley until 1960.^

Historical Notes

The Sepulveda Tunnel opened on September 27, 1930.  Until then, the Sepulveda Pass consisted of just a dirt road and some trails.  Most of the traffic between the Valley and the city moved over Cahuenga Pass and narrow passages like Laurel Canyon and Beverly Glen.^^#*

Historical Notes

Sepulveda Pass was paved and became a state highway route in 1935.^^#*

Historical Notes

Prior to incorporation in 1976, La Cañada and Flintridge were two distinct communities. Flintridge was named after Republican Senator and developer Frank Putnam Flint.^

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