LA


Industrial


After the petty war between the US and Mexico, California became part of the masonic nation in 1850; and the pueblo of Los Angeles would transition from Mexican-agricultural to American-industrial after they found oil in the area by the 1890s — and thanks to some surviving mansions and industrial buildings you can go back to the Gilded Age days of SoCal


Time period: 1870s - 1910s

Movie/book: Safety Last (1923)/Inventing Paradise by Paul Haddad

Soundtrack: Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins/Blues music

Fashion: black and white outfit, a coat plus a hat

Budget:

Elliott Publishing Co.: bird's-eye view map of Los Angeles, California; LA, 1891

Elliott Litho: Bird's-eye view map of Pasadena, California; LA, 1893

This walking tour would take you around the resort town of Pasadena: where grand hotels and Gilded Age Mansions got built for the industrial elite in the outskirts of the city; and through Downtown LA: the neighborhood where clothing factories, warehouses and banks buildings got built financed by oil and the food industry. The area is characterized by: Beaux Arts architecture, hilly streets and Bungalow houses. The agricultural production of Southern California boom even more during the Second Industrial Revolution (1860s-1910s) when many cattle ranches (today Orange County) got transformed into citruses farms/vineyards using new technologies like: tin cans to store food, long iron pipes for irrigations systems, and the railroads for transportation. Agricultural towns appeared in Southern California like: Annaheim (1857), Santa Ana (1869), the renamed Orange (1871) and Alhambra (1874) created for a wave of midwestern white farmers that were to come by train. In 1868 the Los Angeles - San Pedro Railroad got built to move products from the industrial hub to the port town; and in 1876 the Southern Pacific Railroad connected the booming area with San Francisco and therefore the rest of the country thanks to the Transcontinental Railroad. The industrialist started traveling to SoCal building Gilded Age Mansions and grand hotels in the resort towns of Santa Monica and Pasadena; then the two got link in 1895 when two separate lines merge to form the Pasadena & Pacific Railway with the slogan “from the mountains to the sea”. SoCal became known for: its great weather, exotic landscapes, Native American mysticism, “Mediterranean” architecture, peaceful beaches and the spirituality of the San Franciscans missions. But the industrial era was just beginning! Edward L. Doheny drilled a well around the Dodgers Stadium in 1892 hitting oil and in doing so finding the oil field of the city of Las Angeles (literally underneath downtown); then in 1900 the oil field of Beverly Hills got discovered fallowed by the oil field of Salt Lake (underneath Fairfax) in 1902. The red-cars entered the SoCal scene in 1902 thanks to Henry Huntington who opened the first line of the Pacific Electric Railway to Long Beach. Latter on lines to Santa Ana, Newport Beach, Glendale, Huntington Beach and Covina were finished. After The Great Merger of the "New" Pacific Electric in 1911 it became the largest network of public transportation in the world with over 1,000 miles and 2,160 daily trains. But once again Los Angeles would transition thanks to a handful of Eastern European Jews Immigrants who brought the film industry to Hollywood; and old money families who developed their land replacing their farms/oil fields. The tour suggests having breakfast and visiting 3 mansions in the morning; then spending the afternoon on a beaux-art architectural walk tour through downtown Pasadena and LA with a coffee break at Fair Oaks Pharmacy; and to end the day the Angels Flight railway plus dinner at Grand Central Market.

Stops:

1 Breakfast at Marston’s


2 Mansions of Millionaires Row Pasadena


3 Beaux-Arts Architecture Walking Tour


4 Window Shopping Colorado Ave.


5 Fair Oaks Pharmacy


6 Old Bank District Walking Tour plus coffee break


7 Angels Flight


8 Dinner at Grand Central Market

Unknown Photographer: Toluca Oil Field (now Echo Park); LA, 1895

Unknown Illustrator: Los Angeles County Postcard; LA, 1925