Los Angeles' First Houses of Worship - A History

Last entry I introduced a new tool in talking about the planning of Los Angeles, SimCity. The model used by the city planning epic is great for looking at what cities need and how they fulfill those needs. One of my other favorite tools is looking at word etymology. When talking about oranges I showed how the word history shows the route the fruit traveled in eventually coming to America. Those oranges then needed to be shipped around America either by freight train or cargo freighter putting many people to work.

The word freight comes into English in the middle ages, in the sense of renting a ship for the transport of goods. The Dutch, like the Venetians, were shipbuilders because their lot of land was low to sea level and conducive to shipbuilding and trade. In fact, Nederlands (the Dutch name of the country) literally means low lands, as opposed to the German highlands. It's from middle Dutch/Low German yrecht a variation of vrecht which meant ships cargo that we get the word freight.

Interestingly, the word freight is related to the word fraught. Fraught means filled with, laden, and comes from the middle Dutch for load with cargo. It's likely the English bought Dutch ships for use in trade, and from there this words crept into the language. The word cargo is a Spanish loanword coming into the language in the mid 17th century. So you can see as the English started to become players in world trade with their territory claims in the New World, they borrowed words from the Dutch and Spanish who had been doing it for a good while longer.

A few centuries later, the English speakers who settled in San Pedro loaded the crates of oranges they received via freight train onto cargo freighters that took those oranges around the world. It's all kind of neat to think about.

But enough of this big picture stuff. I've prattled on for long enough about shipping and trade and commerce. I just wanted to wrap and reintroduce some themes before I talk about the other big motivator for human interaction, religion.

You can see why I was stalling.

I brought up SimCity 4 because last time I mentioned how Seaports and Airports were cap busters for Industrial and Commercial areas, respectively.  Airports also helped relieved the freight burden, whatever was the fastest way to get your goods moving.

In residential areas, the cap busters were usually things that raise property values; parks mostly. When your population reached certain levels you were alternatively offered a House of Worship or a Cemetery. At 1,000 you were offered a House of Worship at 2,000 a cemetery. A city would have three cemeteries and four houses of worship when all the caps were met.

Because Los Angeles was founded as a Spanish city, the oldest church built was Catholic. In 1784, Nuestra Señora Reigna de los Angeles Asistencia was founded as a sub mission (asistencia) to the Mission San Gabriel. It's mission was twofold, both to convert the natives in the area so as to fold them into the flock (and use them for labor) and to provide a place of worship to those growing crops to feed the population of Mission San Gabriel.

As the pueblo grew, there became less need for a sub-mission, and more need for a church to serve the inhabitants. In 1814, Franciscan Fray Luis Gil y Taboada placed the cornerstone for a new church on the ruins of the old adobe church, and by 1822 the church was completed.

La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles. Photo credit LAPL

In 1822, those living in Los Angles were no longer Spanish but Mexican. The Treaty of Cordoba had been signed granting them independence from Spain in 1821. So when the church was completed in 1822, La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles served a liberated Mexican community.

You can tell the photo is from the 1920s, with the trolley and all the automobiles. So try and imagine this an unpaved plaza, and that church the tallest thing around. The oldest church in Los Angeles was dedicated December 8th, 1822 and still is used today.

La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Angeles. Photo LAPL.

The church and plaza was the city center through Spanish, Mexican, and ultimately American rule in 1847. In 1861 the little chapel had to be rebuilt from materials from the old church. The 1861 version is the one that has been declared a California landmark and still stands today. In 1871 Los Angeles became a catholic dioceses with the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana.

Cathedral of Saint Vibiana. Photo LAPL

Up until now, we've stayed with the angel theme started by naming the mission after St. Gabriel the Archangel. Our Lady Queen of the Angels refers to Mary, Mother of Jesus. But a cathedral houses a bishop, which means the pope has to get involved. Pope Pius XI chose the cathedral's name, after third century Roman martyr St. Vibiana. Her remains were removed from the catacombs of rome and reentered inside the cathedral where they remain today.

So the pope in Vatican City has now recognized this catholic community in Los Angeles, and installed one of his officers. I bring this up because remember, in SimCity they were called Houses of Worship. America is a country of religious freedom. So this little Catholic community was about to get crowded with the statehood of California in 1849. The first Protestant church service on record was in 1850 (didn't take long) when Rev. J. W. Brier held a Methodist service. Luckily the Protestants were a bit blunter in their house of worship naming.

Los Angeles churchscape, photo LAPL

Before Los Angeles had a skyline, it had a church line. The church in the center is First Presbyterian Church at Fort and 2nd. To the right is Congregation B'nai B'rith, a Jewish temple. Built in 1872 it was the first Synagogue in Los Angeles, though Jewish services had been held in the city since 1854. St. Vibiana's Cathedral is in the background, and Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church South is at the far left at First and Spring. The photo is dated 1890.

So you can see the immediate impact California statehood had on Los Angeles. Suddenly LA went from a small Mexican Catholic community to an inclusive space where Jewish and European-American Protestants could all worship together. The old plaza chapel by the 1920s would also serve an Italian community, which practiced the Catholic faith and made and sold wine.

If SimCity taught me anything it's that residents of a city, when they're not growing and packing and shipping, need a place to reflect on their lives. I love the photo with all the churches within walking distance cause it shows the ideal of the new city. Much like America was originally pitched to Europeans, Los Angeles was pitched as a refuge for all.

Of course, it was pitched that way so real estate men could make fast cash on all the developable land, but that's the cynical way of looking at it; and I am no cynic.

~

I mentioned at the beginning of the post that word history can help an understanding of world history. I want to go back again, since this is a post dominated by Roman Catholicism, and talk a bit about how the Romans used words in spreading the Christian religion (once Constantine declare all the Romans to be Christian).

In 597, Pope Gregory I dispatched a band of missionaries to the Angles (Angle-Land = England). St. Augustine was leader of this band and in 601 he was named Archbishop of Canterbury. This brought the Roman alphabet and a whole slew of loan words to the Angles; abbot and alter and nun and purple as examples.

In other cases, words were repurposed. Heaven and sky were both words used at the time to refer to the atmosphere above us, but the Romans used the OE word heofon to get across where god was (Latin deus), and the place they wanted to avoid - hell. Sky and good still have common use, but the words the Romans gave religious significance have kept it.

I also wanted to bring up my own family history. My great-great grandparents (a Garbarino and a LaCaze) were married in Lousiana, and then my great-grandparents (a LaCaze and a Campbell) were married somewhere in Los Angeles. My Protestant great grandmother converted to Catholicism, and they were married in a Catholic church somewhere in Los Angeles.

For me, studying the history of Los Angeles is deeply personal. It's an attempt to see what this city was like for my great grandparents, for my grandparents, and for my parents. It's an attempt to understand why a family in Louisiana sold their home and moved to LA, and what kind of city was awaiting them when they got there.

Thanks for following along on my journey.

Los Angeles Municipal Airport - A History of Flight

In SimCity 4, there are two types of ports; seaport and airport. The main goal of the game is to expand your population with a proper balance of residential, commercial, and industrial zones. Roads and electricity are necessary for these spaces to develop, but city planners will also run into growth caps without building cap busters. Essentially, everything that isn't a zone or a road is a cap buster.

The seaport should be attached to an industrial zone, farmland being the cheapest industrial zone to build. I've already written about the building of LA's seaport, and one of the county's biggest agricultural exports. The seaport also needs to be placed partially on water, and not just on any grade of beach. In my LA Harbor article I talk about the money that went into preparing San Pedro, before building any of the structures. Between the Southern Pacific freight trains and the freighters docking at the Port of Los Angeles, tons of oranges and other goods were shipped around the country.

In the SimCity model, industrial areas (farms and factories) produce goods that need to be shipped. Trucks are the least efficient, and clog traffic. Trains and seaports can handle higher volumes of goods, wish will inspires more industry to move in.

Commercial areas (retail areas and office buildings) operate the exact opposite way. Whereas goods need to be shipped as quickly and as efficiently as possible, commercial areas form at the places where traffic is clogged. Not gridlock, but retail only works if there are plenty of customers to lure into your shop.

At the turn of the century, Los Angeles underwent an extreme real estate boom. Culver City, Huntington Beach, wealthy men developed former farmland and sold off houses by the lot. With a real estate boom comes the need for more jobs, and the farms need to turn to factories while the retail shops turn to offices.

The transition from farms to factories is fairly simple. The factories can provide more jobs and churn out more goods, and with the air pollution caused by factories the city instantly becomes undesirable for farmers.

With retail shops and offices, it's a bit more complicated. Your city needs middle class citizens before it can offer middle class jobs, which requires an education system amongst other things.

Once you have an office center set up, the accoutrements that come with being a commercial center start to come all at once, as it did in Los Angeles. In 1921 Los Angeles got it's first radio station, KQL which could send out programming to the masses paid for by companies wishing to get their advertising to the masses.

Of course, if you wanted to sell your company's goods in other cities, you needed to be able to take meetings in other cities. Passenger train stations had been present in LA since the 1880s, but after the first World War passenger air travel became the desirable way for executives to travel.

The land where the airport would be built was originally a land grant known as Rancho Sausal Redondo. Much of the land was used for cattle and sheep grazing, and later for wheat and barley. In the 1920s, a small portion of the land was made into a makeshift airstrip for pioneer aviators. In 1927 a group of Inglewood citizens pushed for the development of a major airport, lead by Harry Culver (who developed Culver City) as well as others.

In July of 1927, real estate agent William Mines, representing the owner of the ranch, offered 640 acres to be turned into an airport for the city. This airport was known as Mines Field, and Charles Lindberg flew in the first passenger plane with Will Rodgers as a passenger.

In 1928 the Los Angeles City Council approved the site as the official airport of Los Angeles, and on 1929 the airport opened Hangar one, and on June 7th 1930 the whole airport was officially dedicated.

Los Angeles Airport dedication, photo credit LAPL

Hangar one still stands, as it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The building cost the city $35,000 and was leased to Curtis Wright Flying Service. You can see the crowd that gathered for the dedication getting a flyover from a fleet of biplanes.

Earlier photo of the dedication, photo credit LAPL

 Los Angeles Municipal Airport, as it was then named, hosted the National Air Races. The 1933 race was won by James R. Wendell in the Wendell-Williams "44". The model 44 was featured in the 1939 movie Tail Spin produced by 20th Century Fox starring Alice Feye, Constance Bennett, and Nancy Kelly as female aviators.

The city purchased the airport in 1937, making a rectangle of land twenty miles from downtown part of Los Angeles. Commercial flights would not begin until 1946. In the meantime, it was a significant airstrip in a city which had the likes of Howard Hughes developing aircraft.

Los Angeles International Airport is now one of the busiest in the world, but in 1928 it was just a site for hobbyists to get together and dream of a world where flight was commonplace.

The Hollywood Canteen - Helping The War Effort

The intent of this blog was always personal, a place for me to record the history of the LA I read about on the internet. It's a weblog in the truest sense, like a captain's log on a sci-fi series. Today's entry has been written about before, and probably more thoroughly done, elsewhere. Before this afternoon, I never knew that a building I had been in many times before, Amoeba Records, sat on the site of one of World War II era Hollywood's most important night spots.

1451 Cahuenga Blvd. was originally the spot of a livery stable. That stable became a nightclub fittingly called the Old Barn, and with a war on in 1942 it reopened as the Hollywood Canteen. The canteen had sister outfits in New York featuring Broadway stars and in London. Much like the USO provided entertainment for soldiers abroad, the idea of the canteens was to give soldiers on leave an experience they'd never forget.



Just by showing up in uniform, soldiers were given a free meal, and the chance to dance with beautiful women. At the Hollywood Canteen soldiers got to meet movie stars, chat with them, get an autograph, maybe even get a dance and a kiss. You see, the whole thing was run by celebrities volunteering their services.

Servicemen chatting up a pair of starlets. Photo credit LAPL

The founding members were actor John Garfield and actress Bette Davis. The head of the Music Corporation of America Jules Stein headed up the finance committee. They received generous funding from Ciro's Nightclub founder Harry Cohn, who was also the head of Columbia Pictures.

Bette Davis, looking as ravishing as ever. Photo credit LAPL

Davis made a good career playing a mean girl for Warner Bros. She won Academy Awards for Dangerous and Jezebel, and was nominated every year from 1938 to 1942. Forty-two was a big year for Davis, as she became heavily involved in the war effort. Before starting the night club, she once sold $2 million in war bonds in two days. 

Cutting a cake dedicated to the Russian Army. Photo credit LAPL

The clubs were open to all allied soldiers, even if it was mostly American servicemen who frequented them. Here we see a cake dedicated to "Our Gallant Russia" on their 26th anniversary. Bette Davis is preparing to cut the cake with three Russian soldiers and the chef looking on. The man in the suit is a Russian Counsel.

Brief history lesson: The Red Army was formed in 1918 as the communist combat groups of the Russian Revolution took over the country after the first World War. Russia remained an Allied Power in the second World War, and suffered the heavy bulk of the casualties. Clearly at this point, US-Russian relations were just fine. 

It wasn't until after the war and Russia declared they wanted to create the Eastern Bloc because European countries kept trying to invade them that communism became identified as this huge evil power trying to take over the world. This photo is from 1944, two years later the Red Army would become the Soviet Army. 

Soldiers getting autographs. Photo credit, LAPL

The lines were long to get in, and you'd have to wait in line for your meal, wait in line to get an autograph. Still, it's hard to be cynical about the women of Hollywood volunteering their time to try and help the war effort in whatever little way they could. 

The Hollywood Canteen became so popular that in 1944 Warner Bros made a film called the Hollywood Canteen starring Betty Davis. The year before, United Artists made a film called Stage Door Canteen, the name of the New York counterpart. This musical was shown on KCET this past weekend as part of their Cool Classics series, inspiring this post. You can watch the film below. 

The newsreel that I lead with was shown with the film, as the Classic Cool series always accompanies the film with a cartoon, newsreel, and music video to give the piece context.

The cartoon this week was a Superman serial. There were seventeen films produced, first by Fleischer Studios and then by Famous Studios which succeeded Fleischer. The Fleischer brothers had made the animated feature Gulliver's Travels that came up in my entry on Paramount (there's a picture there of Gulliver's opening at the Paramount Theater downtown). Paramount released the Superman films, which during the Famous Studios period became propaganda films showing Superman besting Hitler and Nazi soldiers. You can watch the last of these short animated films, Secret Agent, here:

The Orange, the California Ambassador

As an English major, one of the classes I took at the University of California was on the history of the English language. Etymologies of English words are often fascinating, watching the words pass from one language to the next. It's said that nothing rhymes with orange, and part of the reason for that is the word comes to English with a Persian origin.

The citrus fruit we know as orange is the sweet variety (there's also a bitter orange), and it's an ancient hybrid of a Pomelo and a Mandarin. The orange was originated in Southeast Asia, and are believed to have been cultivated in China in 2500 BC. In many languages it's known as the Chinese Apple, but the English refer to it by Persian name.

Many English words for food come from Old French, because when the Normans invaded England in 1066 they made French the language of the court and the words they used for food became the dominant word in English. The English were still the ones raising the food, which is why we have disparities like cow/beef, pig/pork, deer/mutton.

The Persian word for orange is narang, just like naranja in Spanish. This makes sense considering most of Spain was occupied by Arabian Muslums from the 8th to the 15th centuries. Before the word enters English, it gained a from vowel in Old Occitan, spoken in Catalonia and Southern France. They called it auranja, which became aurange or orrange in Northern France and Southern England.

Valencia, Spain was in Muslim occupied Spain and became known for its sweet oranges. Orange trees are ubiquitous in the region, and the industrial center on the coast is known as the Orange Blossom Coast.

William Wolfskill acquired land from the Mexican government in 1831, and started planing grapevines. Wolfskill also sold lemons and oranges to gold miners, beginning Southern California's vine and citrus industries almost singlehandedly.

He owned farmland all over the southland, and is credited with coming up with the Valencia Orange varietal (named for the city in Spain) on his farm in Santa Ana. The hybrid was later sold to the Irvine Ranch, who made it's cultivation a top priority.

Orange Crate Label

Oranges, and their association with sunshine and health became part of the myth used to sell Southern California as the area prepared for a real estate boom. In the late 1880s, many of the orange growers formed cooperatives (cooperatives are common in farming so everyone gets a fair price for their product) as seen on this label for the Redland Cooperative Fruit Association.

Higher levels of organization would mean better bargaining power, and as such the Southern California Fruit Exchange was founded in Claremont.

Nice to see a little color on the blog for a change, no? The navel orange was the other big variety grown in the area. The navel orange had been imported into the United States in 1870 from Bahia, Brazil. The Portuguese import was categorized by the department of agriculture, then sent to California and Florida. Navels are more common as a table fruit, whereas Valencias are juicers.

Claremont was identified mostly as a college town even back then, and you can see the building on the label is labeled College Heights Orange and Lemon association. From there to Southern California Fruit Exchange. By 1905, it represented 45% of the California citrus industry, and dropped Southern from it's name. In 1908 it became Sunkist Growers, Inc.

You can see the orange wrapped in cellophane labeled Sunkist on both the labels. Sunkist became an umbrella for these collected exchanges. Sunny Heights grown in Redlands and packed by the Redlands fruit co-op. College Heights "Washington" Navels, packed in the Claremont, California packing house and sold by the San Antonio Fruit Exchange. Let's check out one of these packing plants.

Citrus packing house in Covina. Photo credit LAPL

They don't look particularly happy, but at least there's plenty of natural light. All the female packers have their own crate, and they're stuffing them with oranges off the line. The label says Florencia, and the crate is stamped with Sunkist Oranges. A closer look at the label, since they're such fun works of art.

Valencia oranges, Damerel-Allison Association, in Covina, California. 

The name Sunkist was a version of sun-kissed, but made unique so it's easier to copyright. Much like the Sci-Fi channel becoming Syfy. This bit of branding was done by the ad agency Lord & Thomas founded in 1873 in Chicago which is still in business today.

Sunkist had to find new ways to get people to buy oranges year round. One such way was the heavy promotion of orange juice, which became the second most purchased drink at soda fountains only to Coca-Cola. Here's one of their early magazine ads, informing readers to look for the official Sunkist juicer at their local soda fountain.

Ads asked consumers to take the daily orange, eaten or drank, and went heavy on the vitamin content and health benefits. Lemon juice was promoted as a hair tonic. Lemonade was healthy! Have an orange before bed! California had a ton of oranges, and a great orange packaging machine. Now it just needed the rest of the country to by them by the ton.

When Walt Disney opened Disneyland in 1955, there were two places inside where visitors could buy Sunkist orange juice. There was the Sunkist Citus House on Main Street serving fresh squeezed orange juice and lemonade, as well as Sunkist, I presume in Adventureland.

The Sunkist Citrus House lasted until 1997, when it became the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor. Sunkist, I Presume became the Bengal Barbecue in 1990. The Citrus House also featured orange cheesecake and lemon meringue pies. All the orange juice was freshly squeeze in front of the guests with one of the machines featured in the ad, which did most of the squeezing work but still had to be fed one at a time by hand. The lemonade came from concentrate, too easy to have a bad batch when you're making lemonade.

Most kids today know Sunkist for the soda bottled by 7-Up/RC Cola. Thanks to aggressive marketing around the turn of the century through to the 50s, oranges were as closely associated with California as movies. Florida has taken over the orange crown, but the orange was California's main game too once upon a time. It created jobs for thousands, it gave us something to ship from that new port in San Pedro, and it cemented orange juice's association with health and vitality.

And because the orange and California were so closely linked, California became associated with health and vitality. Millions moved out west on that promise of a healthier lifestyle. All because of good marketing.

The Free Harbor Fight - A Lesson in Commerce

This is the story of how the Spanish Empire's fear of pirates in the 16th century led to a battle to develop a port for Los Angeles between two powerful shipping magnates from back east in the 19th. The Gold Rush, trade with Hong Kong, the Comstock Lode, all factor in. The characters in the story founded LA's railroad system, it's ports, made Santa Monica a resort town, and developed many suburbs in Orange and LA county. It's the story of almost everything and I'm only going to brush up against it. I stopped when I felt I'd filled in enough gaps, but I haven't even begun to cover everything.

I admitted last week to Crash Course World History being a huge source of inspiration. This week's episode is about the trade relationship between the Venetians and the Ottomans. Our handsome (married, darn it) host has taken us down the Silk Road, discussed the Indian Ocean trade routes, and now wants to talk about Venetian trade.

Venice, that series of islands in the northeast corner of the Mediterranean, was made for trade. It's easy for boats to get in and out of, so the Venetians became expert boat makers. They were importing pepper from Egypt and latter goods from the Ottoman Empire and from there they spread throughout Europe. 

This control of the Eastern spice trade was what led the Portuguese and Spanish to look for alternate trade routes. It was just such an adventure that led Columbus to try sailing West and landing in what he called the West Indies. 

Since these European trade routes came to define the modern Americas and Africa, they're kind of important. Brazil became the landing point for the Portuguese before the sailed "around the horn" of Africa. Another modern Portuguese speaking nation, Mozambique was stop number two, then it was off for India. 

For the Spanish, they stuck to that Western route out to Havana, Cuba. Veracruz and Acapulco in Mexico became important Spanish ports, and then the Spanish conquered the Philippines to give them an Eastern port in Manila. 

North America really wasn't a factor at this point, the Europeans were after the cool stuff the Ottoman Empire and Chinese were producing, because those places were so much cooler than Europe. 

Why did I run down all of that on a Los Angeles history blog? Well the Spanish eventually ventured north out of Mexico, and by that time their city founding policy had been shaped by their experiences with pirates. 

Surely you heard of pirates, they have that ride at Disneyland that pretty much sums it up. The Spanish were wealthy, and so there were pirates, in the Caribbean, who made it their business to be able to raid Spanish Galleons. 

So the Spanish came up with the Leyes de Indias or Laws of the Indies in 1573. One of these laws stipulated that Spanish New World Cities should be twenty miles from the sea, near a freshwater source, and close to a native tribe. 

The site eventually chosen for El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de la Porciuncula in 1781 is about thirty miles from Santa Monica Bay, pretty close to the Los Angeles river as well as near Yangna, a Togvas Indian tribe on the LA River.

Of course, the Los Angeles settlement was founded ten years after Mission San Gabriel Archangel was erected along the Rio Hondo, although along the Santa Ana River was the first choice. The Mission was founded as a stop along El Camino Real, before there was an attempt to found a city.

Which is all to say the inland location of Los Angeles is very much a reflection of the city's Spanish heritage. One only need to look at New Orleans or New York that had the English or French been the ones to originally settle California, downtown would probably extend from here.

Santa Monica Pier, 1877. Photo credit LAPL

That photo is of a pier built in Santa Monica by the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad. Railroad Tycoon was where I learned about railroad building of the second half of the 19th century, the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) probably being a well known example.

The LA&I was supposed to extend from Santa Monica Pier, to downtown Los Angeles, and on to Independence, CA - a small trade town in the Owens River Valley. The company was founded in 1875 and using mostly Chinese labor laid track between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles.

Before I continue, one brief final note about the Laws of the Indies. Not only are they the reason downtown Los Angeles is thirty miles inland, they're also the reason the grid is tilted 36 degrees. These original streets comprise an area of four Spanish leagues square, you can see on a map of Los Angeles the streets at an angle. Where they go straight north and south is how you can tell the boundaries of the original city.

Now what happens next is very much a story of merchants and men with funny hats. Because the Spanish hadn't developed a major port near Los Angeles, the race was on as men from the East with Jeffersonian ideas tried to be the one to control LA's trade potential. The other entrant in the race was San Pedro.

Port of Los Angeles, 1924. Photo credit LAPL

The man spearheading the San Pedro-Wilmington initiative was Phineas Banning. While Santa Monica and Redondo Beach were natural harbors, San Pedro was too muddy to allow ships in port. The cargo either had to be unloaded, or the ship had to beach.

Phineas Banning arrived in Los Angeles in 1851 at the age of 21, having taken the journey from Wilmington, Delaware, across the isthmus of Panama, and up to California. Banning ran a stagecoach line from the sleeping fishing town of San Pedro up to Los Angeles, and used the profits to expand all over the Southwest. Staging wasn't the future, and Banning knew it. In 1868 he invested in rail lines to Los Angeles, the first to connect the two areas, as he sought to make San Pedro a shipping destination.

Colis Huntington was born in Harwington, Connecticut, but came out to Sacramento during the Gold Rush to make money as a merchant. Huntington, as well as another famous name Leland Stanford and others formed the Central Pacific Railroad to build the western half of the Transcontinental Railroad.

The Big Four involved with the Central Pacific Railroad later invested in the Southern Pacific Railroad. The first goal was traveling south, but in 1871 the SP was able to name their price for connecting Los Angeles with a southern transcontinental route across Texas into New Orleans. They wanted $600,000 cash, a wide right of way, 60 acres of downtown property, and Banning's 20 mile Los Angeles and San Pedro railroad, plus the link to the harbor.

Remember the LA&I railroad. That had been founded in 1874 by Nevada senator John P Jones. He made his money on the Comstock Lode, and completed his railroad in 1875. The SP went out of their way to undercut that business, and on July 4th, 1877, the SP acquired the tracks the LA&I had laid down.

Banning had dredged the San Pedro harbor in 1875, and built a breakwater in 1873. Even having to pay SP's prices to move his goods over land, by his death in 1885 the San Pedro port was doing 500,000 tons in shipping goods each year. Much of that was trade between San Pedro and British controlled Hong Kong. With the Panama Canal opening up soon, Los Angeles was going to explode as a trade port.

In anticipation, other groups laid track to the area around the San Pedro bay, angering Huntington. He went full in to the Santa Monica port, opening a long harbor in 1893. He named it the Port of Los Angeles, and strong armed area merchants into using Santa Monica or not be able to use his railroads. San Pedro was the customs center for Los Angeles, but Huntington had Santa Monica declared a sub port of entry.

Now up to this point, this was simply a case of two businesses going toe to toe. Huntington controlled the rails, Banning developed a port. When Huntington realized a free port would hurt his business, he set out to develop a private port. However, with the Panama Canal opening things were about to heat up.

Congress had concluded in 1890 that LA needed a deep water port necessary for handling large deep sea vessels. $4 million was allocated to build a breakwater. San Pedro and Santa Monica were the two developed cities, and thus were the two entries for the money. The city knew Huntington would only increase the power of his monopoly if Santa Monica were chosen, so they backed San Pedro.

The LA Times and it's publisher Harrison Otis (a key figure in the development of the San Fernando Valley) also sided with San Pedro, lest the government give funds to a single corporation. The Free Harbor Fight as it was called in the press saw the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce vs Huntington and the Southern Pacific. The Chamber of Commerce found a hero in Stephen M. White.

By the way, it's amazing to roll through all these names cause growing up by the port, they're everywhere but not many know who they are. Banning's house is now a museum, so he's pretty well known and the Wilmington High School is named after him. Stephen M. White got a middle school in Carson.

Anyhow, White filibustered for two days, damning the Southern Pacific's practices and amending the 1986 Rivers and Harbors bill to read that if Santa Monica were chosen, any railroad could connect for a nominal fee. The bill was adopted with this language, and in 1897 San Pedro was chosen by a team of engineers.

So in this battle, the funny hats won out over the merchant, but that'll happen in a democracy. After all, White was speaking for his constituents, the plurality, and Huntington had become a funny hatted Baron looking out only for himself.

I mentioned that Banning's family donated his mansion and drum barracks in Wilmington as a park and museum. The Huntington Library, a major research library, was donated by Colin Huntington's more benevolent nephew.

Henry Huntington operated the Los Angeles Pacific railway after his uncle had abandoned the line to the port. This combined with the Pasadena and Los Angeles railway to form the Pacific Electric Railway in 1901. The Red Cars of the PE became the dominant means of transport in Los Angeles until the advent of the freeway system in the 50s. The PE became so important to Los Angeles life, a small beach town south of LA sold it's naming rights to his land development company (Huntington Beach, natch)

As for San Pedro, it was annexed as well as 16 mile strip of land known as the Harbor strip and the city of Wilmington into the City of Los Angeles. This gives Los Angeles it's strange southern appendage. A long story full of intrigue that could have been avoided if it weren't for the Spanish being so afraid of pirates.

Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena - A Promise Ignored

I learned a few things writing that article about Dodger home stadia. First, that construction photos from newspapers are really cool. Because it's not just a photo, it's a photo that was used to tell a story and I love stories more than anything. With the Dodger Stadium construction photos, the focus seemed to be on access roads.

I was inspired to go see what other stadium construction photos sit in the LAPL newspaper archives, and I wasn't disappointed. I've written here about the LA Kings' history in Los Angeles, about the Pan Pacific Auditorium with a brief touch on the Sports Arena and Forum.

Today I'm going to try and dive into that latter history. Like the Dodgers, I feel sort of strange doing a history because they're so large. They've been in the spotlight so long, I feel like any stories I find to tell about them have already been told many times over.

Still, like Walter O'Malley last time, the story of how Jack Kent Cooke thumbed his nose at the City of LA is an interesting one. It's interesting to note just how many teams the City of LA had as tenants but ultimately chased away. The Dodgers, the Angels (AL), the Lakers, the Clippers, the Rams, the Raiders, UCLA football, and the Kings. Throw in the City of Pasadena and you can add the Galaxy.

Not that there was always conflict in those situations. I think ultimately most teams would rather own their own facility as opposed to renting, that way you can make improvements as you feel necessary and you don't have to worry about the city shoving other teams in. The Angels and Rams didn't last too long, the Giants and 49ers was always an uneasy relationship, the Raiders and A's aren't best buds.

Now, while building giant outdoor stadiums probably isn't in the best interest of a city, arenas are a different beast. Indoor venues can be used for conventions, concerts, rodeos, trade shows, you name it. The Pan Pacific Auditorium was one such venue, and the city of LA Junior Chamber of Commerce had plans to build a LA Civic Convention Hall between Grand and Broadway downtown back in 1935, the year the PPA opened.

Sports Arena under construction. Photo credit LAPL

Now as they were building the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 1958-59, it was discovered that Los Angeles had been chosen to host the 1960 Democratic Convention. The city would be inundated with 17-18 thousand extra people and millions of extra dollars would flow into its coffers.

Photo credit LAPL

This photo has what they call the first and second tiers of permanent seats, but there's also a lower bowl still to be built. You can already tell the space their creating isn't going to be well lit or spacious. It's functional, I'll give them that.

So then, that 1960 Democratic convention was actually quite monumental as it's where John F. Kennedy finally won the Democratic nomination, and in a surprise move made his closest competitor Lyndon Johnson his running mate.

Now while Los Angeles had built itself a large convention and concert venue, just in time for stadium rock, the city did not yet have a NHL or NBA team. The NHL was still the big dog in arena sports, even though it was only in six cities at the time. The city had landed an NFL team a decade prior, which made sense as there were the fewest road games to schedule of any league. With the Dodgers moving west in 1958, LA was starting to turn into the west coast sports capital many imagined it would eventually be.

The Lakers began with the purchase of a disbanded NBL team, the Detroit Gems, in 1947. George Mikan led them to many championships, but retired in 1956. Attendance and performance plunged, leading to a sale of the team to an investment team led by Bob Short.

Things got so dire for Short that the league threatened contraction, and to move to team to a new location. Short decided to move to Los Angeles with the Sports Arena set to open in 1959. The league initially voted against the move, but when Short threatened to move to a rival league the near unanimous no vote became a unanimous yes vote. Again, merchants have the power not the rule makers wearing funny hats.

So the Lakers move into the Sports Arena for the 1960-61 season, and they've got Elgin Baylor now and fortunes are improving. Short's ownership group, which consisted of mostly Minnesota businessmen, was able to flip the Lakers for a then record $5,175,000 having purchased them for $200,000. Jack Kent Cooke was the man who bought them in 1965.

Before we talk about Cooke, we have to talk about the Western hockey league. Hockey was still king of arena sports back then, basketball just a seat filler in between home games. Indeed, when the Sports Arena was built, a hockey rink was part of the design despite LA not having a hockey team.

Sports Arena ice rink. Photo credit LAPL

LA had lost it's PCHL team the Los Angeles Monarchs when the league merged with the Western Canada Hockey League to form the Western Hockey League. Given that the Sports Arena was built with a hockey rink, from the day it opened it had been trying to gain an NHL franchise, and since it couldn't General Manager Bill Nichols announced intention to affiliate with the WHL. The Victoria Cougars ownership was transferred to Jim Piggott - a construction mogul from Saskatchewan - and Dan Reeves owner of the Los Angeles Rams.

Jack Kent Cooke was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1912. In 1941 he began to make his fortune buying radio stations and newspapers. In 1951 he made his first sports purchase, the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club. Cooke would be a major proponent of bringing major league baseball to Canada, putting in bids when teams went up for sale and even backing the Continental League which never played a game but did set of MLB expansion.

Now in 1961, Cooke purchased 25% of the Washington Redskins. As he was not an NFL majority owner, he was free to purchase other teams and did just that in 1965 buying the Lakers. However, as a Canadian Cooke's first love was hockey, so when the NHL announced the sale of six expansion teams in 1966 Cooke was first in line. His biggest competitor being the guys already running an LA hockey franchise, Piggott and Reeves with the Blades.

Jack Cooke at the Forum Construction site. The iconic columns are instantly recognizable. Photo credit LAPL

The NHL wanted an owner willing to build their own arena, so that they could set their own schedule. Cooke began work on building the Fabulous Forum, and the City of LA was left with a WHL franchise that would soon be irrelevant. As Cooke would move the Lakers into his arena, and change their colors, the Sports Arena would go from buzzing to empty in the space of eight years.

The Sports Arena eventually got a new basketball team. The rival ABA would begin with a franchise in Anaheim known as the Amigos. After one season they were sold, moved into the Sports Arena, and renamed the Los Angeles Stars. Two seasons later they'd move to Utah.

In 1970 the NBA expanded with the Portland Trailblazers, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Buffalo Braves. The Braves moved to San Diego in 78 and became the Clippers, and then the Clippers moved to Los Angeles in 1984. The Clippers would play in the Sports Arena for sixteen years before moving in with the Lakers and Kings.

The Sports Arena would even get hockey again. In 1972 LA was given World Hockey Association team called the LA Sharks that would last two seasons before moving to Detroit. In 1995 San Diego's minor league hockey team moved north to become the Los Angeles Ice Dogs. After just one season, the Ice Dogs moved down the 710 freeway to Long Beach.

In the case of all those franchises, they would occasionally have to play games in Long Beach due to schedule conflicts at the Sports Arena. Which is exactly what the NHL feared. Now, technology has improved now to where Staples Center downtown can host doubleheaders, even with two different sports.

The Sports Arena got to host plenty of hockey and basketball and concerts over the years, but after starting out on such a good foot it was effectively destroyed by the NHL. Cooke's arena became the beloved one in Los Angeles, especially after the Laker championships of the 80s. Then when AEG bought the Kings, they built their own vision of Staples Center and adjacent Nokia Center. Now AEG is looking to build an NFL stadium on the same site. All of those things sound better than the arena the city of Los Angeles built.

Dodger Home Ballparks - A History

So one of my favorite video series' in the whole wide webaverse is Crash Course World History.  Not only is the subject matter interesting, but the host is a charming fellow with an amusing way of telling a story. As an underemployed journalist and an amateur historian, that's all I really want to do. Find something interesting to talk about, and then talk about it in an amusing way. Kind of like teaching, but without the rigid pedantic formality.

Anyhow, one of the things Crash Course said in it's last World History episode is that history is often told through the people with funny hats, but what happened amongst the people is usually way more interesting. Merchant history, the history of how things were traded between places necessitating roads and increasing wealth among the polity, is way more interesting that who claimed to be ruling whom.

Local history is full of funny hat people, they put their names on our parks and on subway stations. They have passed laws and enacted ordinances, but as Crash Course World History points out, there's anyways some city nearby willing to lower taxes to take your business away. The LA film industry knows this all too well. So less interesting that who is in charge, is who were they trying to attract.

That's been my focus here since I've drifted away from phone numbers and roads. In talking about Hollywood it was the people who moved in, not the laws that made, that makes the Hollywood story so interesting.

I've talked before about Wrigley Field in South LA, and today I want to talk about all the things that had to happen for a man in New York to turn LA Wrigley Field into Dodger Stadium. I may have glanced against it in my Wrigley Field article, but here's the whole tamale. The fun part is how it's a great example of the people with funny hats needing merchants, and not the other way around.

So Charles Ebbets became the full owner of the Dodgers in 1902 when they were known as the Superbas. In 1912, Ebbets financed the building of Ebbets Field by selling half his shares to the McKeever brothers. In 1925 Ebbets died, and a trust controlled his shares of the Dodgers (although they were known as the Robins at that point). The nickname wasn't as important then as it is now, those Brooklyn teams wore an old english B on their chest at home, and Brooklyn spelled across the front on the road.

It wasn't until 1932 that the Dodgers (short for trolley dodgers, for the trolleys you had to dodge to get the Ebbets field) became the teams official nickname and became the first nickname to grace the Brooklyn franchise's uniforms.

This switch is actually important. Once the team was branded by a nickname and not by the place where they play, it's much easier to think of as a business, and relocation is a part of business. Manchester United couldn't up stakes and move to London, but if the UK had gone like the US and put Red Devils on all the official merchandise, then it's a bit easier to see.

So in 1942, Walter O'Malley is brought in as the Dodger's attorney. At this point, Ebbet's field is thirty years old. Two years later, O'Malley became a minority owner and by 1950 he was president and chief stockholder. There's a bunch of business stuff and rivalry stuff that happened in that six year period, but that's boring.

What's interesting is that in 1956, O'Malley sold Ebbets Field to Marvin Kratter and agreed to lease the stadium for three years. Given that the Dodgers moved west in 1957, clearly something happened.

Attendance for the Dodgers in the mid fifties, with Ebbets Field forty some years old and the cultural makeup of Brooklyn dramatically shifting, had fallen about 700,000 from what it was in the 40s. O'Malley wanted to build elsewhere in Brooklyn, but he ran into an opponent in Robert Moses.

Moses wasn't a funny hat man, he held no political office, but he had plenty of influence and access to plenty of city funds. Instead of running for office, Moses controlled several public benefit corporations. The corporations then built things like the Triborough Bridge and the Brooklyn Battery Bridge.

Moses favored cars over trains, and was against O'Malley's plan to build a ballpark at Flatbush and Atlantic at the end of the Long Island Railroad. That centralized real estate would be better served by a parking structure in a car based city, Moses felt, and would rather a large sports stadium be placed way out in Flushing Meadows, Queens; a former World's Fair site.

O'Malley, successful merchant that he was, did not bow to the wishes of a quasi-government official. The Dodgers had picked up the Portland Beavers of the PCL as a AAA affiliate in 1956 (the PCL at this time was an open classification league, limiting the rights of major league teams to draft players off the team). At that year's Winter Meetings, O'Malley and Cubs owner Wrigley swapped teams putting the Los Angeles Angels under O'Malley's care.

Following the 1957 MLB season, O'Malley moved the LA Angels to Spokane where they became the Spokane Indians. To provide some continuity, he kept the interlocking LA logo for his Dodger's caps (still in use today) as he took his Brooklyn Dodgers (who no longer owned Ebbets Field remember) and moved them to Los Angeles. Later, he sold the Angels name to Gene Autry to use for his American League Los Angeles baseball club.

Fans holds a sign welcoming the Dodgers outside of Wrigley Field. Photo credit LAPL

The one ballpark O'Malley did own was Wrigley Field as part of the purchase of the Angels. So it was assumed that the Dodgers would move in right away. There were even plans on how to expand Wrigley Field. On February 28th, 1957, while the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn but had bought the Angels and announced their intentions, this rendering of a 60k seater version of Wrigley Field ran in the Examiner. 

Photo credit: Los Angeles Public Library

Pretty blah, right? I mean you'd still have the super cool clock tower, but otherwise it's no better than any of the other concrete doughnuts that were about to go in vogue. O'Malley wasn't the only one who wanted to replace his stadium built before the first Great War. 

So O'Malley moves his team out after the 1957 season, doesn't really know where he's going to play yet. An article in the Jan 27th, 1958 issue of Time magazine says there were four considerably different final offers made in five days of negotiation with the City of Los Angeles. Finally they settled on the LA Coliseum at $200,000 per year for 1958 and 59, plus 10% of the gate and all the concession profits from the first nine games of the season after an annual opening series against the San Francisco Giants. The Coliseum sat 101,528 and wasn't built with baseball in mind so the dimensions were quite colorful. 

LA Coliseum with baseball diamond squeezed inside. Photo credit LAPL

As you can see, it was an ungraceful squeeze. A fence had to go up along that short left field, and centerfield is marked by a short fence with plenty of green behind it. Fans sort of just fade out after the foul poles, with no centerfield seating to speak of. In the background that's the LA Sports Arena that opened in July of 59, with the Lakers beginning play there in 1960. Lakers, Dodgers, and Rams all in one complex. 

The Dodgers won the World Series in 1959, playing their home games in that gigantic facility. They'd stay there for two more seasons while work was done in building the Dodgers a permanent home. But where they decided to build that home takes a bit of rewinding of the history machine. 

In 1949, the men in funny hats at the US capitol passed the Housing Act of 1949. This, put simply, gave local governments funds to build housing projects. It was also money for urban renewal, so instead of building out in flat suburban areas cities demolished minority housing and rebuilt new public housing projects. And because of corruption, it wasn't even always used for housing, as seen in New York's Lincoln Center. 

So in the early 50s, Los Angeles like many other cities across the US used eminent domain to kick out the most hispanic inhabitants of Chavez Ravine to build a complex with two dozen 13 story buildings. The Dodgers weren't even a twinkle in Los Angeles' eye yet. 

However, a new mayor in 1953 was against these public housing projects and bought the land back from the Federal Housing Authority. This meant LA had hundreds of acres of developable land right in the center of the city, but the stipulation was it had to be used for a public purpose.

In 1958 they were approached by Walter O'Malley with a purpose. Proposition B was put on the ballot on June 13th, 1958 to approve or disprove a deal that came out of the talks O'Malley had with the City of Los Angeles referenced above. O'Malley would trade his Wrigley Field property for the 300 acres at Chavez Ravine. 

Take a look at the oppositions argument. The Dodgers were locked into the Coliseum already, and of course renovating Wrigley Field was still an option. The deal with the City would not only have LA deed over the land, but pay for the building of infrastructure around the Stadium. Roads and freeway off ramps and all sorts of work would have to be done to make the site viable. 

The City would get no rent, gate receipts, nothing from advertising or radio rights. It's hard not to see this as a raw deal for Los Angeles. However, the City didn't have the leverage. They wanted the Dodgers to stay, and there was nothing keeping O'Malley from shipping off for Seattle or Minnesota or some such after two years. The City wanted the prestige of a Major League team, more than the team wanted to be in that specific city. 

Construction of Dodger Stadium. Photo credit LAPL

This photo from the Examiner collection, dated Feb 25th, 1961. You can see the areas just outside the stadium labeled parking. Off the hill is labeled Hollywood, which I believe is the Hollywood Freeway. There are high rises off in the background, but nothing like the financial center skyscrapers that tower off the hill now.

The area labeled two is what would eventually become the field, and one points out the various levels being carved out in the hill. One of the unique elements to Dodger Stadiums construction is that your ticket would correspond to a parking lot that would be right up against your entry gate. So instead of parking in the city, entering and walking up to your seat; one literally drives right up to their seat. It's this hillside construction that makes that possible.

Construction continues. Photo credit LAPL

We come in again in 1962. The stadium has taken shape, and now it's time to pave the parking lots and build the access roads. The LA River and the Golden State Freeway are up top, Silver Lake in the other corner. Solano ave leading up to the Police Academy is now known as Academy road, and that entrance the Academy gate.

Chavez Ravine Road is now Stadium Way, Elysian Park ave. leads back to Sunset Boulevard making that the Sunset gate. The naval armory labeled there is now a training facility for the fire department. The downtown gate would be built off the Pasadena Freeway.

Walter O'Malley in front of almost completed Dodger Stadium. Photo credit LAPL

Fifty years later and Dodger Stadium is celebrating it's 50th anniversary. Still pretty much the same as it was in 1962. There's less foul territory now, but it's still as O'Malley drew it up all those years ago. Mayors in New York and Los Angeles have come and gone. But one merchant's legacy lives on.

Before I finish, don't mistake this article as an argument for Laisez Faire business with no regulations. My only point is that the things that make us sentimental about Los Angeles were built by private individuals who wanted to do something great. Dodger Stadium, Griffith Park, Disneyland...these things exist because of the visions of the people who lived here, not because the people in charge wanted to something great for it's citizens.

Movie productions continue to happen in Los Angeles despite the heavy taxation, not because of it. Cities need money to build roads and maintain police and fire departments. Taxes are a good thing. But no city should forget there's always a neighbor willing to let your merchants do their thing for less.

Heck, it's called Anaheim, and it took Disneyland, the Angels, and the Rams. None of this is good or bad, it's just what is. The merchants influence the city scape more than the people in charge. As a result, the merchants are far more interesting.