Los Angeles – Southern California photos from the 1910s.
Above: the intersection of Fourth and Main, no later than 1917.
The Hotel Lankershim, (230 West Seventh Street). The bottom postcard probably dates to around 1910, the year of the Los Angeles International Air Meet, which was the first major air show in the United States.
Hose Co. No. 4, (circa 1910) formerly located at 137 S. Loma Drive in Los Angeles. (LAPL)
A funeral procession at the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, c. 1910. It operated on donated land near Sawtelle Blvd. It was later renamed the Sawtelle Veterans Home.
An early farmer’s market at 9th and San Pedro Street in 1910.
Co-ed calisthenics at the Manual Arts High School, circa 1910, around the time the school first opened. Manual Arts was the third high school in Los Angeles, and it is located at 4131 South Vermont Avenue near Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. At the time this photo was taken, the school was surrounded by bean fields.
A.C. Bilicke was a real estate developer who was one of the original owners of the Alexandria Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. He lived a full life, having lived in Tombstone, Arizona, at the time of the gunfight near the O.K. Corral. His family said that he was friends with Wyatt Earp. A.C. and his wife were on board the Lusitania when it was struck and sank by a German torpedo during WWI. Although Mrs. Bilicke survived the disaster, A.C. didn’t. His body was never found.
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The California Club building at 451 S. Hill, next to Central Park (now Pershing Square), c. 1910.
A delivery wagon for Crescent Creamery, circa 1910. Crescent’s address back then was 241-249 Winston Street, and the proprietor was C.M. Flint.
Note the sign in the back? It may have been for a piano store.
The Wheelmen were regular participants in the La Fiesta de Los Angeles downtown parade in April. Here they are in 1910.
A picnic in the Arroyo Seco Canyon, c. 1910.
The Glendora Livery Stable was once located around 148 N Glendora Ave. Today, Classic Coffee occupies the site. The photo is probably from the early 1910s.
The northeast valley of Eagle Rock in 1910. (LAPL 00044175)
The American Woman’s League of Compton, circa 1910.
Broadway at night, looking North from Fifth Street.
Bekins Van and Storage at 250 S. Broadway. Postcard image dates to 1910-1911.
Hot air balloon rides at the corner of 5th Street and Towne Avenue for prospective real estate investors. Photo, circa 1911.
The Japanese Christian Institute was a building that formerly stood at 936 Wall Street in Los Angeles. It opened in 1911 but shut down during WWII.
The Kimona section of the Sing Fat Co. downtown Los Angeles. Postcard probably from the 1910s.
The Sing Fat Co.’s Art Goods section.
An unpaved Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills, circa 1911. (LAPL)
An atmospheric postcard view of the “Moonlight on San Pedro Harbor.”
Broadway at night, circa 1911.
Spring Street, circa 1912.
Broadway at Night, c. 1912.
A 1912 postcard depicting a mule train traveling along a trail that led to the top of Mt. Wilson.
The Hayes and Sanderhoff Saloon was once located at 117 W. Third St. in Los Angeles, circa 1912. Richard Sanderhoff was the bartender.
The Pin Ton Confectionery Parlor, once located at 427 S. Broadway Street in downtown Los Angeles. The postcard is from 1912 or so.
This is what real estate developer Harry H. Culver saw when he was looking for land to build a city halfway between Los Angeles and the ocean. In other words: you’re looking at Culver City in 1913. Two years later, Harry’s dream project would have 450 residents, its own chamber of commerce, and a movie studio. (LAPL)
The Chocolate Shop, originally located at 207 W. Fifth Street (across the street from the Alexandria Hotel), prior to 1914. This location is now the CB1 Gallery.
A 1912 postcard view of the Pacific Ocean from Mt. Washington in Los Angeles.
“View from roof garden of Mt. Washington Hotel.” The hotel opened in 1910, offering 18 guest rooms, and became a popular place for stars like Charlie Chaplin to stay when shooting at makeshift studios once located around the area. However, after motion picture companies began to migrate to other parts of the city in 1913-14, the hotel went into decline, eventually closing around 1921.
Believe it or not, the building still exists at Washington Drive and San Rafael Avenue, though it is not easily accessible. It has had many incarnations, including a military academy, a hospital, and a spiritual center.
Believe it or not, there were electric-powered vehicles in the early 1900s. One manufacturer was Lansden Electric, which introduced its electric-powered transport wagon as early as 1904. Lansden was later absorbed into General Motors in the 1910s. By the early 1920s, the electric wagon was retired in favor of gas-driven machines. This photo was taken in Los Angeles, circa 1912. (Photographer: G. Haven Bishop/Huntington)
The Western Lubin Studio in Los Angeles was once located at 4530 Pasadena Ave. Its manager, Wilbur Melville, lived nearby at 4550 Pasadena Ave. The company went bankrupt in 1916.
A Lubin Studios film crew on location in the Arroyo, circa 1912-1913.
Sunset Park (now Lafayette Park) in January 1913. The photo was taken from the top of the Bryson Apartment building, which opened that same month and year.
The Western Ave. gate to Berkeley Square in 1913.
To find out more about this lost West Adams neighborhood street, click here:
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In 1913, the Pacific Motor Coach Company purchased a fleet of 22 Kelly-Springfield buses “for the establishment of a 15-minute service between Los Angeles and Venice and Pasadena.” The following year, the company bought an additional 105 buses for San Francisco and rural areas outside of Los Angeles. Each bus carried up to 56 passengers.
Before the Tower Theatre, there were two earlier theaters that once existed at 802 S. Broadway. The first was the short-lived Hyman Theatre, which opened in 1910. A year later, the name changed to the Garrick Theatre, which operated until 1927 before being torn down.
This photo comes from the Southern California Edison Company collection and shows the Garrick Theatre in 1913.
Los Angeles’ first uniformed motorcycle police squad in 1913. They issued tickets to speeding motorists traveling in excess of 20 m.p.h. In 1932, the squad became part of the California Highway Patrol. (LAPL)
The New Majestic Motion Picture Company once occupied the Thanhouser studio lot at 651 Fairview Ave. in Los Angeles in 1913-1914 (when this photo was taken). The location was later replaced by the 101 Freeway.
A group photo was taken in Laurel Canyon (back when it was called Bungalow Land) in the 1910s. The cabin referenced in the photo was probably the Laurel Canyon Tavern, where the trackless trolley line ended.
In late February of 1914, three days of heavy rainstorms and strong winds wreaked havoc all over Southern California. On February 20-211, the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco flooded. Over 100 homes were lost and the city incurred approximately $1.5 million worth of damage.
The Mt. Wilson Toll House, circa 1914, was once located near the intersection of East Altadena Drive and Mendocino Lane.
A drive through Newhall Pass in 1914.
A Pierce Bros. ambulance parked in front of a house on Dayton Avenue, circa 1914.
Pacific Electric’s El Segundo line, which operated from 1914 to 1930. (LAPL 00073815)
Fun times at the Playa del Rey, circa 1914.
An undated (possibly 1910s), view of the base of a funicular known as Court Flight. It was a funicular railway that was once situated a couple of blocks north of Angels Flight. (Los Angeles Public Library 00012815)
A cozy patio view of downtown Los Angeles circa 1914. The Elks Club, where this photo was taken, was located at 300 S. Olive Street. The big steeple in the distance is the old Los Angeles City Hall.
The Bullock’s Department Store Tea Room in downtown Los Angeles (Seventh & Broadway), circa 1915.
The Merced Theatre (420 N. Main St.) around 1915. LAPL 00015404.
Outside the Los Angeles Examiner Building at 146 W. 11th Street on the night of its opening in 1915. (LAPL 00018620)
The 500 block of Broadway Street facing north from near 6th Street. Notice the Pantages, Clune’s Broadway, and Quinn’s Superba theaters?
A wagon decorated for the parade on May 3, 1915.
A back building sign (above the words ‘Drink Coca-Cola’) reads The Frankfort Apartments. A billboard on the right advertises a new play called “The Claim Agent” at the downtown Pantages Theatre. Also advertised on the billboard is a vaudeville sketch called, “The Serpent of the Nile.” It starred female impersonator Bothwell Browne as “Cleopatra.”
In 1915, the parade started at the intersection of 11th and Hill streets, moved north on Hill to 9th, then east on 9th to Broadway. It then turned north on Broadway to 1st, then east on 1st to Spring. It then finished its route by heading south on Spring to 9th.
Actors at work for a silent film shoot at what used to be the Bonadiman farm in Edendale, located near what is now known as Benton Way in Silver Lake. Photo circa 1915. (LAPL)
Dorothy Davenport is far left as cameramen ready themselves to shoot a silent movie scene in Edendale. This set is located at the Bonadiman farm (no longer around), near what is now Benton Way in Silver Lake. Photo circa 1915.
A near Los Angeles collision in 1915.
Photo: Southern California Edison Photographs and Negatives/Huntington Library.
Traffic along South Broadway Street, circa 1916. The tall building on the right is the Broadway Central Building on the 400 block.
The free shuttle from La Grande Station to the Occidental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Based on room rates, this postcard probably dates to 1916 or thereabouts. On the back of the card, it reads: “Occidental Hotel. Rates, $1.00 to $2.50. Through the “Block” from Hill Street, to Broadway. Main Entrance, 428 So. Hill Street Los Angeles.”
Another view of South Broadway. This time the Broadway Central Building is on the left.
Hill Street Station, circa 1910s.
A photo-op at Newhall Pass in 1916.
The Lookout Mountain Inn in 1916. Built by Charles Spencer Mann, who developed Laurel Canyon. The Inn burned down in 1920.
I should note that a different Charles Spencer Mann built a real estate office at Kirkwood and Laurel Canyon Blvd years later. Neither Manns (pun sort of intended) were related to one another, but I can’t help thinking that the newer Mann had to have benefited from having the same name.
A “Rain Cloud” float at the Knights Templar Electric Parade, held on the evening of June 17, 1916. There were sixteen floats in all.
The young women riding on the Rain Cloud float were Ruth White, Adeline Nathan, Beatrice Gilman, Nada Lloyd, Minnie McKearney, Frances Rutledge, Ora Thalman, Edith Varney, Alma Wilson, Leona Lynch, and Gladys Moss.
The Knights of the Templar event lasted several days. The Shrine Auditorium, Alexandria Hotel, and the Morosco Theatre hosted events for them. The event ended with a second parade on June 20th.
An undated photo of the Battery Leary-Merriam at Ft. MacArthur in San Pedro. The large gun was installed around 1916. (LAPL)
A family on their way to Los Angeles for a visit in the 1910s.
A 1917 downtown view of Spring (left) and Main (right) Streets looking north from 9th Street.
Another view of Main and 9th Streets from 1917.
An auto accident in 1917. The road sign reads Gallardo Street. (Huntington Library)
Movie extras lining up for costumes at the Fox Studio lot in Edendale (Los Feliz). Photo, circa 1916-1918. At that time, they were paid $5/day. If an Extra was promoted to a film character, his/her pay went up to $7.50 to $10 per working day.
Enjoying the swimming pool at the Los Angeles National Forest, circa 1918.
The Cajon Pass, a scenic route between Los Angeles and San Bernadino. Photo, circa 1918.
A Ralphs Grocery truck, circa 1919.
A child poses next to a Studebaker touring car. Behind him is Jefferson High School (1319 East 41st Street) in Los Angeles, which opened in 1916. Photo was taken in 1919.
Another postcard view of Broadway sold in the late 1910s.
One thought on “Los Angeles – Southern California photos: 1910-1919”
I ‘m researching the actual lifestyles of 1914 in Los Angeles, and general Southern California area. Any info and photos of people, houses, indoors, outdoors, anything, is very valuable. This site is the best one so far.