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    Greetings from Los Angeles
    Greetings from Los Angeles
    Greetings from Los Angeles
    Ebook220 pages43 minutes

    Greetings from Los Angeles

    By Peter Moruzzi

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    About this ebook

    This book of vintage photographs, postcards, magazine ads, and other ephemera tells the story of Los Angeles from dusty pueblo to thriving metropolis.

    Greetings from Los Angeles tells the story of the city’s long and largely forgotten history, from its early years as a tiny Spanish village through its many transitions over the centuries. Here are rare glimpses of Chinatown’s evolution; the orange empire; backyard oil wells; Venice of America; the roaring 1920s and corrupt 1930s; glamorous Wilshire Boulevard; movie studios and the lavish movie star estates; as well as theme parks such as Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Marineland of the Pacific. 

    Through these images, readers witness the birth of midcentury modernism, futuristic Googie coffee shops, and the space-age Los Angeles International Airport. Author and architectural historian Peter Moruzzi offers insightful commentary that provides essential historical context
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 1, 2017
    ISBN9781423647263
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      Book preview

      Greetings from Los Angeles - Peter Moruzzi

      Greetings From

      Los Angeles

      Peter Moruzzi

      Gibbs Smith Logo

      Photo of Case Study 22.

      Greetings From Los Angeles

      Digital Edition 1.0

      Text © 2017 Peter Moruzzi

      All images from author Peter Moruzzi’s collection except those noted.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except brief portions quoted for purpose of review.

      Gibbs Smith

      P.O. Box 667

      Layton, Utah 84041

      Orders: 1.800.835.4993

      www.gibbs-smith.com

      ISBN: 978-1-4236-4726-3

      Greetings From Los Angeles

      Table of Contents

      From Dusty Pueblo to BoomtownWater and PowerInvasion of the Midwestern ProtestantsDepression, Corruption, War Paradise

      From Dusty Pueblo to Boomtown

      1850–1900

      Photo of graphic.

      The area that would become the city of Los Angeles began as a village established by the Native American Tongva (or Gabrieleño) people. In the 1760s, the Spanish Crown expanded its reach from Mexico north to Alta California, founding a pueblo in 1781 that they named El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (the Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels), or Los Angeles for short.

      Starting in 1769, the government of New Spain established a series of Franciscan missions from San Diego to San Francisco, each separated by about a day’s horse ride. New missions continued to be founded even after Alta California came under the jurisdiction of a newly independent Mexico in 1821. In the vicinity of Los Angeles were the San Gabriel and San Fernando missions, each of which was a self-sufficient compound of agriculture, livestock, and accommodations for the priests. Local Native Americans compelled into servitude provided most of the labor.

      Photo of Women packing oranges for shipment east.

      Women packing oranges for shipment east.

      Spanish and Mexican land grants became the famous ranchos of the Los Angeles region controlled by extended families of Californios. They included such familiar names as San Pedro, Los Feliz, Topanga Malibu, La Brea (Hollywood, West Hollywood), Boca de Santa Monica, Cahuenga (Burbank and Toluca Lake), and Los Encinos. In the years following the American takeover of Alta California in 1848 at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, the ranchos eventually ended up in the hands of Yankees who either married into Californio families or purchased the land outright. These trends were hastened by the discovery of gold in Northern California in 1849 and the granting of statehood by the United States in 1850, when Southern California became a key source of beef cattle and agricultural products for the northern miners.

      Los Angeles’s original civic, social, and commercial heart was La Plaza, now a historic district where the Avila Adobe, La Placita parish church, and the elegant Pico House hotel from 1870 still stand.

      Photo of Franciscan friar Junipero Serra established the first nine California missions.

      Franciscan friar Junipero Serra established the first nine California missions.

      Image: Chris Nichols Collection.

      Photo of ruins of the San Fernando Mission.

      The ruins of the San Fernando Mission, built in 1797.

      Photo of La Plaza, the historic heart of Los Angeles, circa 1873.

      A rare photo of La Plaza, the historic heart of Los Angeles, circa 1873. The actual plaza is in the center. Pico House on the right fronts Main Street. Note the misspelling of the city’s name.

      With a population of around 1,600 in 1850, Los Angeles remained geographically isolated until the Southern Pacific Railroad extended their intercontinental line from San Francisco to the dusty frontier town in 1876. Then, in 1885, the competing Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway reached San Diego, and two years later Los Angeles, instigating a price war between the rail companies. For one day in 1887, the fare from St. Louis to Los Angeles was one dollar, touching off a real estate boom as investors rushed to Southern California. In 1887 alone, 36 cities or towns were established in the San Gabriel Valley as middle-class midwesterners and easterners purchased lots for speculation without any intention of actually building homes there. Monrovia, Pomona, South Pasadena, and Azusa were a few of the towns born in the boom that survived the real estate bust of 1888 and the resulting economic depression that descended upon the region. Dozens

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