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6/10/2007

Besides being the most populous county in the United States, Los Angeles County may also have the highest concentration of illegal immigrants in the nation. An estimated one in ten Angelenos are believed to be in the country illegally. Estimates of the illegal population in Los Angeles County range as high as one million (or more) with close to 400,000 in the City of Los Angeles alone.

Guy Orlando Rose (1867-1925), a California impressionist painter born in San Gabriel, was the first native Southern Californian to receive international fame. His paintings of coastal and inland  Carmel and Laguna Beach made him one of the most renowned California painters in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The Los Angeles Community College District is the largest community college district in the nation. Its nine colleges enroll 100,000 students - eight percent of all community college students in California.

Ketab Corporation of Los Angeles maintains what is believed to be the largest Persian language bookstore outside of Iran.  It offers some 10,000 titles including every book in English about Iran and books in English written by Iranian authors.  Opened by Bijan Khalili in 1981, it also became the first such book store opened in the United States.

The new mayor of Los Angeles will be Antonio Villaraigosa. Villaraigosa will become the 41st elected mayor of American Los Angeles and the 85th man to lead the city since its founding in 1781 as a Spanish settlement. Villaraigosa is also the first Latino to be elected mayor since Cristobal Aguilar served as Los Angeles mayor from 1871 to 1872 (see following paragraph). Villaraigosa will lead a city now teeming with a population of almost 4 million residents. The first man to serve as mayor of  Los Angeles was a 28-year old Indian named Jose Vanegas appointed in 1786 to oversee the tiny new Spanish settlement. It then had an population of about 100.

The annual Port of Los Angeles Lobster Festival at Ports O' Call Village in San Pedro is the  largest in the nation, drawing more than 40,000 visitors and serving 30,000 pounds of lobster!  It is usually scheduled for around September.

The County of Los Angeles, with 92,714 budgeted employees, is the largest employer in Southern California. Of these employees, 26,684 are in law and justice; 26,531 are in health services, and 20,808 are in social services. The spectrum of job listings - from clerk to truck driver, sanitarian to psychiatrist, scientist to scuba diver, attorney to helicopter pilot - encompasses nearly every trade and profession, and illustrates the complexity of county government.

In 1915, brothers Albert and Hugh Gerrard introduced a self-service grocery shopping system at their Triangle Grocerteria store in Pasadena that arranged groceries alphabetically.  Thus was introduced the "Alpha Beta system." Two years later, the brothers selected their Pomona store to become the first to be named "Alpha Beta." By 1918, seven stores operated under the name. Alpha Beta Food Markets was incorporated in 1929. Due to later mergers and acquisitions, the storied market name disappeared during the late 1980s.

4/1/07
According to figures compiled by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, if Los Angeles County, with a gross domestic product of $410.8 billion in 2003, were a separate nation, it would rank 14th in the world for gross economic output. Its gross economic output in 2003 was larger than that of either Australia, the Netherlands, Russia, Taiwan, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Saudi Arabia, or Norway. Los Angeles County ranks second nationally only to New York City ($488.8 billion in 2003).

According to 2003 California Employment Development Department figures, the government sector in Downtown Los Angeles (local, state and federal) averaged 271,350 workers. This gives Downtown Los Angeles the largest concentration of public sector workers in the nation outside of Washington, DC.

The Los Angeles International Short Film Festival is the largest short film festival in the World.

8/8/07
According to the 2000 Census, Los Angeles County has the largest population of any county in the United States. It has almost twice the population of the county with the nation's second largest population (Cook County, Illinois - encompassing the city of Chicago).

The Tehachapi Train Disaster - The deadly January 2005 Metrolink train disaster in Glendale that killed 11 people was the worst train disaster in the nation in nearly six years. More than a hundred years ago, Los Angeles County saw another even deadlier train disaster. On January 20, 1883, a Los Angeles-bound train stopped at the Tehachapi Station at about 3 a.m. A strong, cold wind was blowing through the snowy pass. The engine was detached for purposes of going ahead for water and the conductor went into the station to make a report. The brakeman, in his haste to accompany a young lady from the train to the station, forgot to fix the brakes. The wind started the stationary cars to move down the heavy grade. When the conductor came out of the station, the cars were already moving down the track. By the time any of the passengers had any idea that something was not right, the cars had obtained tremendous velocity and leap the tracks into a ravine. Heaped into a crushed mass, onboard lamps and stove-fires set the pile of splinters on fire. Surviving passengers crawled out of the debris in nightclothes and attempted to rescue as many as they could. Among the survivors was former California Governor John Downey. No trace was ever found of his wife. The accident claimed the lives of 22 people.

The Santa Clara River, which flows approximately 100 miles from Acton in Los Angeles County down through Ventura County to the Pacific Ocean, is the last natural river (not lined with concrete channels) left in Southern California.

Statewide, the 10 cities and communities with the highest median home prices in California during November 2004 were: Los Altos, $1,400,000; Malibu, $1,387,500; Saratoga, $1,300,000; Burlingame, $1,300,000; Manhattan Beach, $1,267,000; Calabasas, $1,175,000; Newport Beach, $1,050,000; Palos Verdes Estates, $980,000; Hermosa Beach, $972,000; La Jolla, $947,500.
Statewide, the 10 cities and communities with the greatest median home price increases in November 2004 compared with the same period a year ago were: Adelanto, 84.5 percent; Calabasas, 59.5 percent; Santa Barbara, 58.7 percent; San Bernardino, 55.6 percent; Cathedral City, 54.3 percent; Inglewood, 53 percent; Pomona, 51.3 percent; West Sacramento, 49.8 percent; Barstow, 49.7 percent; Beaumont, 49.6 percent.

Arguably, the world's largest riveter is located in Building 52 at the Boeing plant in Long Beach. The giant riveter at Boeing sews fuselage panels together for the U.S. Air Force's C-17 cargo transports. It spans 300 feet of floor space.

Las Posadas, celebrated annually at Olvera Street, is said to be the oldest, continuously celebrated Christmas event in Los Angeles.

Tom Brokaw, retiring anchor of NBC Nightly News, was a street reporter and anchor for Los Angeles KNBC (Channel 4) from 1966 to 1973. Ten years after leaving Los Angeles, Brokaw became anchor for NBC Nightly News.

The Great Wall of Los Angeles, completed in 1983, is a half mile-long mural painted on one of the concrete sides of  the Tujunga Wash portraying the history of California. It is billed as one of the longest murals in the world.

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The Denny's Restaurant chain, now found nationwide, was  founded by Harold Butler in 1953 in Lakewood and first opened as a single donut shop named Danny’s Donuts.  Butler added more shops during the following year and also added sandwiches and other entrees to the menu.  The shops were renamed Danny's Coffee Shops. By 1959, the chain had expanded to 20 restaurants and was renamed Denny's.

03/15/08
The writer of the novel Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs, owned a ranch in the middle of the San Fernando Valley that was called Tarzana. The community that grew up around the ranch kept the same name.

11/7/2007
In 1962, Los Angeles became the first city in the nation to enact a Cultural Heritage Ordinance to ensure that its historical treasures would be preserved.  Since then, the city has designated more than 700 cultural monuments. The first of these  was the Leonis Adobe located at 23537 Calabasas Road (near Calabasas city limits).  It is City of Los Angeles Monument No. 1, approved on August 6, 1962.  Parts of the adobe are believed to date back to 1844.

Ralph J. Bunche, the first African American to win a Nobel Prize (the Nobel Prize for Peace, 1950), grew up in Los Angeles and attended Jefferson High School and UCLA.  Dr. Bunche served as a Professor at Howard and Harvard Universities,  a senior Director at the United Nations, and made his mark mediating a peace treaty between Arab states and Israel in 1948.

The tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia was closely felt in the Los Angeles area. Key portions of Columbia were designed, engineered, and built at the former North American- Rockwell International plant in the City of Downey.  These components included the crew module, the rear fuselage, and the forward reaction control system. The parts were later transferred to Palmdale for final assembly of the complete shuttle. The Downey plant was located on Lakewood Boulevard between Stewart and Gray Road and Imperial Highway. It closed in 1999.  See the Aerospace Legacy Foundation

Approximately 2,882,784 vehicle trips are taken on L.A.'s 650 miles of freeways and 22,000 miles of surface streets each day between 7-8 a.m. on weekdays.  This is the equivalent of the entire population of Dallas, Texas.

12/19/2007

Bing Crosby, along with the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra, recorded Irving Berlin's song "White Christmas" for Decca Records on May 29, 1942, in Los Angeles. The song was to be featured in the movie "Holiday Inn," starring Crosby and Fred Astaire, released the following August.

The corner of First and Main Street is the center of the street and house-numbering system for the City of Los Angeles.  Many street numbers in the city are numbered according to how far they are from that downtown intersection (such as 266th Street at the south end of Harbor City).

In 1858, four members of the Sisters of Charity opened a small hospital in an adobe on Buena Vista Street. This became the first hospital in Los Angeles. The sisters had arrived in California from Maryland a few years earlier at the request of the Bishop of Los Angeles and Monterey. In 1884, they opened a larger hospital on Sunset and Beaudry. This eventually became St. Vincent's Hospital.

According the 2000 Census, 1,529 persons living in Los Angeles County were age 100 and over. Of these, 48 were age 110 and over.

According to a formula developed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, of the 3,133,774 households in Los Angeles County, an estimated 990,273 households own dogs, 855,520 own cats and 144,154 own birds.

5/20/07

According to Professor Vyacheslav Ivanov of UCLA, there are at least 224 identified languages spoken in Los Angeles County. This does not include differing dialects. Professor Ivanov estimates that publications are locally produced in about 180 of these languages. He further believes that the linguistic landscape of Los Angeles may even be important for the study of the world's languages. He explained that, although there were about 6,000 known languages in the world in 2000, 90% of these would vanish within a generation. That would leave only about 600 languages in the world, a third of which continue to be spoken in Los Angeles.

7/29/08

The most intense earthquake experienced in the Los Angeles area (and one of the most intense in the nation, for that matter) was the Fort Tejon earthquake that exploded along the San Andreas Fault north of Los Angeles on February 9, 1857. The quake was believed to have measured 7.9 to 8.0 on the Richter Magnitude Scale!  This magnitude ranks as a "Great Quake" where, in heavily populated areas, tremendous destruction and loss of life occurs. Despite the magnitude of this monster, only two people were reported to have lost their lives. The Los Angeles area was sparsely populated at the time.

Significant L.A. Earthquakes

Know what to do before, during and after an earthquake.

5/20/2009
The best place to see any part of the monstrous, 800-mile San Andreas Fault is in Palmdale in a road cut along the Antelope Valley Freeway (Route 14) just north of Avenue S. The last time this part of the fault was active was in 1857 during the Great Fort Tejon Earthquake.

One of the hottest young chefs in Orange County is actually an Angeleno. He is 29-year-old Diego Velasco, a partner-chef with the successful Memphis Soul Cafe & Bar in Costa Mesa. Velasco, a graduate of the California Culinary Institute in San Francisco, further learned the culinary arts under such well-known Los Angeles chefs as John Sedler and Hans Rockenwagner. The L.A. Times recently listed Velasco's "Soul Burger" among those offered by five restaurants in the Los Angeles area "that take the American classic a step farther" (and we very much agree). Not long after Memphis first opened, L.A. Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila stated that despite "the slenderest of budgets...Velasco still manages to cook rings around chefs with more resources." Where did he pick up this love for cuisine? "I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my grandmother," he explained. Later this year, Velasco and partners Dan Bradley and Andy Christenson will be opening the new restaurant, " Memphis at the Santora," in Artists Village in Santa Ana.

Although it lies just north of the Los Angeles County line, "the Grapevine" is almost as well known to Angelenos as the Hollywood Freeway.  It is the six-mile stretch of Interstate 5 descending from Fort Tejon to the bottom of the grade where the freeway enters the San Joaquin Valley.

So why do we call it "The Grapevine?"

In 1772, searching for a shorter pass between San Diego and Monterey, Acting Governor of Alta California Pedro Fages discovered a canyon pass that led to the Santa Clarita Valley. He named it "La Canada de Las Uvas" or Canyon of the Grapes because of its abundance of wild grapevines. Although it proved to be an excellent pass, early travelers had to hack their way through thickets of grapevines. You can still see wild grapes growing along the canyons today that are, at quick glance, easily mistaken for ivy.

March 22, 2009
At one time, Grizzly Bears roamed widely throughout Los Angeles County and Southern California. Hunting, however, decimated the numbers of this magnificent beast. In 1916, the last Grizzly seen in Southern California was shot and killed in Los Angeles County. Grizzlies, whose image appears on California's state flag, are now extinct in California. By 1933, bears of any sort were already extinct in the mountains of Southern California. That year, in an attempt to reintroduce bears to the Los Angeles area, rangers from Yosemite National Park introduced 11 California Black Bears to the San Gabriel Mountains near Crystal Lake. The Black Bear is a smaller and much less aggressive cousin of the Grizzly. Biologists estimate that there are now about 150 to 500 Black Bears roaming Angeles National Forest.

June 9, 2008
In 1936, construction workers excavating a storm drain in the Ballona Creek area of West Los Angeles, unearthed the mineralized cranium of a human skull. These remains that came to be known as Los Angeles Man are among the oldest human remains found in North America. Although radiocarbon dating at the UCLA radiocarbon laboratory indicated an age of about 23,500 years, the sample from the skull was small and did not produce a conclusive date. Because scientists see no conclusive evidence of human habitation in the Los Angeles area prior to 10,000 years ago, having a 23,500-year-old Los Angeles man presents a problem. It is perhaps safer to maintain that Los Angeles Man is closer to 8,000 to 10,000 years old.

There are more than 2.6 million privately-owned cats and dogs in Los Angeles County. As for "exotic" pets, more than 90 percent are reptiles.

Animal control agencies in Los Angeles County process more than 500,000 animals each year. Most are stray or abandoned pets. Only 25 percent of these animals are placed or purchased.

Source: Los Angeles County Department of Health Services

St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood lays claim to being the largest and busiest private emergency medical center in Los Angeles County.

In 1946, Burton Baskins opened an ice cream shop in Pasadena and his brother-in-law, Irvine Robbins, opened another in Glendale that same year. Baskins had learned to make ice cream while in the Navy in the South Pacific. Robbins learned to do so while in Tacoma, Washington. By 1947, the brothers-in-law decided to combined their ice cream businesses to form Baskin-Robbins.

On May 1, 1960, a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft  "U-2" was shot down as it flew high over the Soviet Union. The aircraft, on a CIA-directed mission, was piloted by Captain Francis Gary Powers who managed to survive the crash by parachuting to safety. He was captured by the Soviets. The incident led to the collapse of a summit between the U.S., the U.S.S.R., Great Britain and France. Initially, President Eisenhower denied knowledge of any reconnaissance flights, asserting that the aircraft was on a joint NASA/USAF weather service mission out of Turkey that accidentally strayed. After the Soviets produced Powers, however, Eisenhower attempted to salvage the summit by ordering a cessation of U-2 flights over the U.S.S.R. At the summit, Eisenhower reasserted his cancellation of U-2 flights but refused to apologize, as demanded by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev walked out from the summit and withdrew an invitation to Eisenhower to visit the U.S.S.R. Powers was sentenced to ten years in a Soviet prison. In 1962, the Soviets agreed to exchange him for convicted Soviet spy Rudolph Abel.

After leaving the Air Force, Powers found work as a helicopter traffic reporter for television station KNBC in Los Angeles. Sadly, he was not as fortunate in this new airborne career. He died in a helicopter crash in Encino on August 1, 1977. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1916, at the age of 32, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus was appointed principal of Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles - the first woman principal of a California high school. While teaching at Lincoln High in the six years prior to becoming principal, she had earned her master’s and doctorate degrees at USC. Dr. Andrus taught and served as principal at Lincoln High for 34 years.
After her retirement in 1944, Dr. Andrus did not end her remarkable accomplishments. She became active in retired teacher’s causes and began to see the need for a national organization to represent the interests of retired teachers. In 1947, she established the National Retired Teacher’s Association (NRTA). Among other benefits, the organization preceded Medicare in providing health insurance to retirees. This only revealed the need for affordable health care insurance for all retirees. In 1958, Dr. Andrus went on to found the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). She served as AARP’s first president and editor of its magazine, Modern Maturity. AARP’s membership now stands at 33 million.
After Dr. Andrus’ death in 1967, President Lyndon Johnson wrote: "She has left us all poorer by her death. But by her enduring accomplishments, she has enriched not only us, but all succeeding generations."

Some Movies/TV Shows About or Featuring the LAPD:

Sierra Madre is home to one of the world's seven horticultural wonders - a Chinese Wistaria that is the largest flowering plant on earth. The giant vine in Sierra Madre is more than a century old, weighs 250 tons, and covers more than an acre. Its branches extend more than 500 feet and grow at a rate of up to one inch per hour. During its five-week blossoming period in the spring, the vine is covered with an estimated 1.5 million lavendar blossoms. It was planted in 1894 by William and Alice Brugman who purchased the plant in a one gallon can at a Monrovia nursery for 75 cents. Since 1918, Sierra Madre has celebrated this awesome vine with the annual Wistaria Festival.

The Skinny House, located at 708 Gladys Avenue in Long Beach, is believed to be the nation's narrowest privately-owned home. It was built in 1932 by Nelson Rummond on a bet that he could not build a habitable residence on a lot that only measured 10 by 50 feet. The house has three stories, 860 square feet and is built in the Old English Tudor Style.

The last Latino to serve as mayor of the City of Los Angeles was Cristobal Aguilar who twice held office from 1866 to 1868 and 1871 to 1872. Aguilar is credited with making a key decision that had great significance for the future of the tiny city. During his administration, Los Angeles was only a small town with less than 6,000 residents. The city council proposed selling off the city's water rights to bring in much needed revenue, but Aguilar had sufficient vision to see past any short-term gains from the sale. He vetoed the proposal. Had Aguilar not done so, Los Angeles would have lost control of its water rights and, thereby, its ability to expand into a major metropolis. Furthermore, Mayor Aguilar signed an ordinance in 1866 to set aside five acres of land as "a Public Square or Plaza, for the use and benefit of the Citizens in common…" This public square is now known as Pershing Square.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (2nd District) can take credit for a number of "firsts" in local and national politics. In 1966, upon her election to the California Assembly, she became the first African American woman to serve in the California legislature. In 1972, she was elected to Congress, becoming the first African American member of Congress from the American West. That same year, she also became the first African American and first woman Vice Chair of the Democratic National Convention. While in Congress, Burke became the first woman to chair the Congressional Black Caucus and, in 1973, the first member of Congress to take a leave of absence to have a baby. After leaving Congress, Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Jr. appointed her in 1979 to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to fill a vacant seat. She became the first woman and first African American to serve in that office. She stepped down from the Board in 1980, only to win back a seat in 1992. In 1993, she became the first Chairperson of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Burke has not, however, always been successful. She lost her bid in 1978 to become California's first African American and first woman Attorney General.

The famed top-secret aircraft development operation in Palmdale known as the "Skunk Works" is traced back to the aeronautical development team led by engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson at the Lockheed plant in Burbank. In 1943, Johnson and his team took the assignment to design and built their first top-secret aircraft, the XP-80, that ultimately became the first operational U.S. jet fighter. The nickname "Skunk Works" is traced to the comic strip "L'il Abner" where the characters operated a moonshine still in which "Kickapoo joy juice" was produced from old shoes and dead skunks at a "skonk works." Johnson's team first operated in a rented circus tent near a smelly plastics factory. After an aircraft designer answered the phone one day with "skonk works," the name stuck. Johnson and team explained that they were "stirring up some kind of potent brew." The Skunk Works went on to develop the F-104 Starfighter, the U2 spy plane, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117A Stealth Fighter and the YF-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter. The Skunk Works relocated to Palmdale in the early 1990s.

2/25/08

Culinary Invention Claims From the L.A. Area

The French Dip Sandwich
by Phillipe Mathieu (Phillipe Restaurant, L.A., 1918)

The Cheeseburger

Lionel Sternberger (Rite Spot Restaurant, Pasadena, 1924)

The Hot Fudge Sundae

at the late C.C. Brown's in Hollywood (closed in 1996)

The Shirley Temple & the Cobb Salad

at L.A.'s Original Brown Derby (Hollywood)

Many people think that the official song of California is "California, Here I Come" (by Al Jolson & Joseph Meyer, 1924). In fact, the official state song is "I Love You, California." The song, written in 1913, is credited to two Angelenos,  F.B. Silverwood (lyrics), a Los Angeles merchant and Alfred Frankenstein (score), a former conductor of the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra. The song was designated the official state song by resolution of the State Legislature in 1951 and, in 1988, adopted by law due to the efforts of State Senator Tim Leslie. Upon its adoption, Senator Leslie actually sang the song on the State Senate floor.

1/2/08

The first of hundreds of mission bell markers installed along the historic 700-mile El Camino Real (the King's Highway) was dedicated in front of the Old Plaza Church in Los Angeles in 1906. Much of the credit for initiating this commemoration and marking of the old highway goes to Anna Pitcher of Pasadena, Mrs. A.C.S. Forbes of  Los Angeles and Mrs. Caroline R. Olney of Los Angeles. For more detail on the story behind these bells, see Mission Bells on Highway 101.

The first U.S. Little League team to win back-to-back world championships was from Long Beach. Although the 11- and 12-year old players, nicknamed the "Beach Boys," were initially defeated in 1992 by the opposing Filipino team, the Filipinos were disqualified for fielding illegal players (too old). In 1993, the "Beach Boys" again won the championship by defeating Panama, 3-2.

Also -- speaking of Little League -- the first American girl to play in the Little League World Series was Victoria Brucker of San Pedro (August 23, 1989).

Source: Awesome Almanac, B&B Publishing

Oct 7, 2008

The longest street in Los Angeles is Sepulveda Boulevard which runs 26.4 miles through the city. It actually stretches a total of 76 miles through all of Los Angeles County from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach. The shortest street in Los Angeles is Powers Street, located in downtown Los Angeles. It extends a mere 13 feet. The steepest grade in Los Angeles (at 32 percent) is Fargo Street in Silver Lake.
Source: Los Angeles A to Z by Leonard & Dale Pitt

Farmers Market, located at the corner of Fairfax and Third Street in Los Angeles, opened in 1934 at what was then known as the Gilmore Ranch. 18 farmers parked their trucks on the corner and began selling produce from their tailgates. The Market now features almost 100 shops visited by an estimated 3 million people visit each year (approximately one-third of which are tourists). Vendors at The Market speak about 23 different languages. Click here for other interesting Farmers Market facts.

Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena (695 East Colorado Boulevard) is Southern California's oldest and largest independent bookstore. It has been open since 1894.

Beverly Hills started on the road to becoming a celebrity bedroom community when silent film stars Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford moved into an old hunting lodge at 1143 Summit Drive in 1919. Their home, later known as Pickfair, became the Hollywood party center. Other celebrities, such as Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson and Will Rogers, later moved into the city as well. Pickfair was said to have featured Southern California's first private residential swimming pool. In 1988, the historic house was demolished and rebuilt by actress Pia Zadora and her husband Meshulam Riklisin

During the late 1800s, the site in downtown Los Angeles south of the New Otani Hotel on Second Street was occupied by a windmill-manufacturing firm named the Southern Steel Wind Mill Company. The highly agricultural landscape of Los Angeles County during the late 1800s and early 1900s was dotted with windmills such as those manufactured by this company. One of the last surviving original windmills in the county (although not a Southern Steel product) is the restored Vetter Windmill in Hermosa Beach. It was built in 1903 and is now located in Greenwood Park at Pacific Coast Highway and Aviation. It is one of the oldest surviving structures in Hermosa Beach and perhaps the oldest windmill in Los Angeles County.

Contributed by Steve Storm, Windmill Restorer 

The Greater Los Angeles Auto Show is one of the largest automotive shows in the world. It features more than 1,000 new and concept vehicles in five exhibit halls at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It also offers the largest display of automotive accessories and performance products of its kind in the nation. See www.laautoshow.com.

One very popular form of entertainment during the Spanish colonial period in California (especially among the great rancheros of Southern California) was a fight set up between a grizzly bear and a bull. Grizzly bears (since hunted to extinction in California) were hunted down by vaqueros (Spanish for cowboy), roped, tied up and dragged back to a makeshift bullfighting ring (such as was often set up at the old Plaza at today's Olvera Street).  There, the hapless bear would have to face off with a fighting bull. More often than not, the bear lost. Betting on these events became so passionate and popular that some historians suggest that it gave rise to our modern stock market terms bear and bull market - bears swipe downward and bulls hook upward. Source: Susan & Lee A. Silva as written for the former Fedco Magazine.

7/20/07
The first star placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame^® was for Joanne Woodward on February 9, 1960. Within 13 months, 1,557 additional stars had been installed on the Walk. There are now 2,089 stars in place. Approximately one to two new stars are added each month. One name is misspelled among the stars. Director Mauritz Stiller's name is misspelled "Morris Diller." Mickey Mouse has a star, but you won't find one for Donald Duck. In fact, Mickey Mouse is one of six fictional characters who have stars on the Walk - the others being Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker and Snow White. To have a star with your name placed on the Walk , you must be nominated to and approved by the Walk of Fame Committee of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. If you are among the 10 to 15 selected as eligible each year, you must pay a fee of  $3,500 before being awarded a star. To watch for  the latest ceremonies, visit the Chamber's website and click on Upcoming Ceremonies.

The first gasoline station in Los Angeles and, in fact, the first in the United States, was opened by Earle Anthony at the corner of Grand Avenue and Washington Street in 1912. According to Frank Thompson of Los Angeles Uncovered (Seaside Press), people were already complaining about the restrooms by 1913.

At one time, not long ago, a fleet of 300 Helms Bakery vans cruised the neighborhoods of the Los Angeles area summoning people with their distinctive whistles to purchase bread and pastries. The center of this operation was the Helms Bakery building on Venice Boulevard in Culver City (still located there with original Helms logo). The company, founded by Paul Helms in 1931, eventually succumbed to competition from emerging supermarkets and closed in 1969. Still today, an independently operated former Helms Bakery truck, perhaps the last, cruises the neighborhoods of Montebello, tooting its whistle and offering bread and pastries. Source: Los Angeles A to Z by Leonard & Dale Pitt.

The community of Val Verde, just north of Santa Clarita and south of Castaic (map), was a sort of Palm Springs for African Americans during the 1920s. Legendary entertainers such as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Della Reese and Billy Eckstein spent time there and were said to sometimes give impromptu concerts at Val Verde Park. By the 1960s, racial segregation at other popular vacation spots began to disappear and Val Verde eventually ended up as a community for farm workers. Source: Curbside L.A. by Cecilia Rasmussen

In every presidential election since at least 1928, the majority of Los Angeles County voters have picked the winning U.S. Presidential candidate - except for 1988 when 52% of L.A. County voters selected Michael Dukakis over George Bush Sr. In 2000, 64% of L.A. County voters selected Albert Gore over George Bush Jr. At press time, it appears that L.A. County will again be wrong about a Bush. See Presidential Election Results, L.A. County, 1928 - 2000.

Perhaps, the most "haunted" location in Los Angeles County is the Queen Mary, the great oceanliner permanently docked in Long Beach Harbor. Lights flicker and doors slam on "G" deck - thought to be the location of the ship’s morgue. A ghost of a middle-aged woman in an old-style swimsuit dives into the empty ship’s swimming pool. A young woman in a mini-skirt paces around the pool area and disappears behind a pillar. Unknown sounds of shouting and splashing have been heard from the deserted poolside deck. A mysterious elegantly dressed woman in white has been seen around the salon’s piano. A ghostly ship’s officer has been seen walking near the ship’s bridge. Lights mysteriously turn on and off, dishes move and utensils vanish from a ship’s gallery where a cook was killed in a brawl when the ship ferried troops during World War II. A mysterious black-bearded man in coveralls has been seen riding the engine room escalator. The engine room seems to be the most haunted location on the ship. Ship’s staff and tour guides have reported strange sounds, chains dangling in mid-air and balls of light moving slowly across the walls. See Ghosts & Legends.

3/2/2008

The first regional shopping mall in Los Angeles County opened in 1947 as the Crenshaw Shopping Center, located at Crenshaw Boulevard and Santa Barbara Avenue (now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard). After remodeling and expansion, it still exists today as the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. Besides the 45 regional shopping malls in Los Angeles County, there are thousands of mini-malls (small L-shaped retail centers, usually found on corner lots). The "Father of Mini-Malls" is said to be Tom Layman of T.W. Layman Associates, a Van Nuys architectural firm. Layman is credited with the design of 300 of these. Today, it is estimated that there are as many as 2,000 mini-malls in Los Angeles County. Source: Los Angeles A to Z by Leonard & Dale Pitt

The Los Angeles County Superior Court is the busiest court system in the United States. It handles more than 600,000 cases per year and, as the second largest employer in the county, employs 34,000 people (including more than 540 judges and commissioners).

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the first woman physician to practice medicine in Southern California was Dr. Elizabeth A. Follansbee (1839-1917).  She was first licensed in 1877 and set up a practice in Los Angeles that same year. In 1885, she joined the inaugurating faculty at the new medical school at USC as a professor of children's diseases - the first woman faculty member at a medical school in California. Woman physicians were not fully accepted by male peers during this period of time. They were apparently tolerated only as long as they limited their treatment to women and children. Dr. Follansbee died in poverty in L.A. County Hospital. This remarkable woman was "noted for her liberality and friendship to any woman in distress." She had apparently given away most of her income to charity.
 Special thanks for research by Helen Haskell and Cindy McNaughton (Los Angeles Public Library), Mike Germroth (MCLS Reference Center) and Cecilia Rasmussen (L.A. Times).

The geographic label "Southern California" has fairly recent origins. It was only during the 1920s that it became a common practice to capitalize the "S." During the 1800s, Southern California was referred to as "California del sur," "California of the south," "subtropical California," "the cow counties," and "the land south of Tehachapi." The term "Southland" is normally only used by television news reporters. Source: Los Angeles A to Z  by Leonard & Dale Pitt

L.A.'s Oldest Surviving Restaurants & Eating Establishments

The 1932 10th Summer Olympiad held in Los Angeles became the first Olympics to provide an Olympic village for housing athletes (located in Baldwin Hills) and the first Olympics where medal winners received their medals on a victory stand. It was also the first Olympics to feature a unique logo for its games. In addition, the 1968 Olympiad held in Mexico City became the first to feature an official Olympic mascot (a stylized red jaguar), but the 1932 Los Angeles games had an unofficial mascot of its own - Smokey, a live dog .

The official residence of the Mayor of Los Angeles is the Getty House. The mansion is located at 605 South Irving Boulevard in Hancock Park. The 14-room, three-story home has six bedrooms, a library, a game room and children's rooms. The acre estate provides a garden, a tennis court and a swimming pool. The property, built in 1921, was originally a private home and once served as the residence of Hollywood couple Dolores Costello and John Barrymore. It was purchased by the Getty Oil Company during the 1950s and later donated to the city in the 1970s. Although the late Mayor Bradley and his family lived in the mansion for most of his term of office, it is currently vacant because Mayor Riordan has elected to live elsewhere. Visit the Getty House website. Source: Los Angeles A to Z by Leonard & Dale Pitt.

Two of the original settlers of Los Angeles,  Antonio Mesa and Luis Quintero, were black men and two others,  Manuel Camero and Jose Moreno, were mulatto (part African descent). The granddaughter of Luis Quintero, Maria Rita Valdez, owned the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas with her husband, Vicente Ferrer Villa. The land would later become Beverly Hills.

Los Angeles has twice hosted the summer Olympic games, doing so in 1932 and 1984. In fact, the 10th Summer Olympiad, held in Los Angeles in 1932, gave birth to two Olympic traditions. For the first time, an Olympic village was provided to house Olympic athletes. The village, containing 550 two-bedroom portable bungalows with dining halls and a hospital, was built atop Baldwin Hills. Also for the first time, triumphant athletes mounted a victory stand to receive their medals. On another Los Angeles Olympic note, Olympic Boulevard was named in 1932 in honor of the 10th Olympiad. Source: Los Angeles A to Z by Leonard & Dale Pitt.

The place names Azusa, Cahuenga Cucamonga, Malibu, Pacoima, and Saticoy, are all derived from the language of the original native people of Los Angeles - the Tongva. The Tongva, who numbered anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 upon the arrival of the first Europeans in 1542, were related culturally and linguistically to the Shoshone and Uto-Aztecan (Utes, Paiutes, Pueblos, Yaquis and Aztecs). The Spaniards gave their own name to the Tongva - Gabrielinos, after the Mission San Gabriel which proselytized them.

On November 28, 1983, Lily Lee Chen became Mayor of Monterey Park - the first Chinese American women mayor in the nation.

The fortune cookie is generally believed to have been invented in 1918 by David Jung, a  Los Angeles noodle manufacturer (Hong Kong Noodle Co.).  He was said to have invented the treat with its encouraging messages for unemployed men who gathered on the streets. Some claim that his motivation was more for promotional purposes than for social concern.

The Angelino Heights housing tract located on a hillside near downtown L.A. became the first true suburb of Los Angeles. The Victorian homes (mostly Queen Anne/Eastlake style) were built during the population boom of the 1880s at the terminus of a streetcar line near Echo Park.  More than a dozen of these beautiful homes still line the 1300 block of Carroll Avenue and are maintained as private residences. In 1983, Angelino Heights became the first community in Los Angeles to be designated a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone.

Naturalists estimate that about a dozen mountain lions (also known as pumas or cougars) prowl the mountainous areas of Beverly Hills, Studio City, Tarzana, and Chatsworth. These big cats hunt at night and prey on small game, deer, and, on occasion, unfortunate stray pets. About 40,000 years ago, Los Angeles saw the likes of a larger, considerably more powerful cat called the saber-tooth cat. These were as large as African lions yet more powerful with large deadly canines measuring up to eight inches. Author Jeff Rovin brought them back to life to terrorize Southern California in his novel Fatalis.

Los Angeles County's newest complete freeway, the Glenn Anderson Freeway (Interstate 105 or Century Freeway), is named for Glenn Malcolm Anderson (1913-1994) who represented the South Bay in the U.S. Congress for eight terms (1968-1984) and also served as Mayor of Hawthorne (1940-?) and Lieutenant Governor of California (1958-1966). Anderson rose in Congress to become Chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee. In this position, he fought for and won funds to build the I-105.  The 17.3 mile freeway was completed in 1993 at a cost of $2.2 billion.

For much of its history, the Los Angeles Basin was mostly a vast wetland with islands of forested land and dense shrub. The Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers watered the basin with most of the water sinking into the soil before reaching the coast. Periodically, the Los Angeles River would flow hard and fast enough to push its way into Santa Monica Bay at what is now Marina Del Rey. This changed significantly, however, when, in 1825, an epic flood from Big Tujunga Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains forced the Los Angeles River to begin emptying into San Pedro Bay. The river flows there today.

More than 25,000 inmates are incarcerated in jails and detention centers in downtown Los Angeles. This gives the City of Los Angeles the largest incarcerated population of any city in the nation.

People from more than 140 countries reside in Los Angeles County. The largest communities outside their homelands of Mexicans, Koreans, Filipinos, Armenians, Salvadorans and Guatemalans live here. Additionally, the largest concentrations of Japanese, Iranians and Cambodians in the United States live in L.A. County.

The City of Los Angeles owns about 300,000 acres in Inyo and Mono Counties to the north. The total area is about the size of the city itself. The city began purchasing this land during the early 20th Century to secure water rights for the enormous thirst of the rapidly-growing Los Angeles region. It is not uncommon today to encounter City of Los Angeles maintenance vehicles on Highway 395 in the Owens Valley several hundred miles north of L.A.

The Los Angeles Lakers professional basketball team won 6 NBA Championship Finals through 1999 (not including 5 titles when they played for Minneapolis). This year will mark the 25th time the Lakers will have been to the NBA Finals - more than any other NBA team. The last appearance by the Lakers in the NBA Finals was in 1991 where they lost to the Chicago Bulls, 4 games to 1. The last time the Lakers won the Finals was in 1988 when they bested the Detroit Pistons, 4 games to 3.

Los Angeles County is home to the largest concentration of Native Americans (or American Indians) in the United States. In 2000, the U.S. Census reported the Native American population in the county to be 75,398 (with other estimates as high as 200,000). The largest group, a bit more than 15,000, are Latin American Indians (Mayan, for example). Of Native American peoples from the United States, those claiming to be Cherokee (3,445) numbered the most.

According to Forbes Magazine, the wealthiest person in Los Angeles County in 1999 is Eli Broad of Los Angeles. Broad, age 66, is determined to have a net worth of $4 billion, making him the 48th wealthiest person in the United States and the eighth wealthiest in California. In 1998, Broad sold his financial-annuities company, Los Angeles-based SunAmerica, to American International Group for $18 billion. Broad graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelors degree and is married with two children.

By late 1954, the Long Beach Pike amusement pier (opened in 1902) was the leading amusement attraction in the Los Angeles area and the fifth largest in the United States. The Pike drew tens of thousands of summer visitors to its roller coaster, merry-go-round, bathhouse, two pavilions, band shell, and many other smaller attractions. At its peak, it featured 218 concessions.  Within a few short years, however, the Pike began to succumb to the popularity of the newly opened Disneyland in Anaheim.  In fact, it was said that Walt Disney cited the Pike as an example of the type of sleazy amusement zones Disneyland was meant to replace (ironically, Disney's Paradise Pier in the California Adventure Park is seen as an attempt to replicate the atmosphere of the Pike). The famous Cyclone Racer Roller Coaster (larger than New York's Coney Island Cyclone) closed in 1966. What was left of the original Pike finally closed in 1979. In 2004, after decades of waterfront redevelopment, Long Beach reopened a new (and less exciting) version of the Pike featuring restaurants, shops, movie theaters and a Ferris wheel.

In 1850, Augustin Olvera was elected to become the first County Judge of the newly formed County of Los Angeles. Along with his legal duties, Olvera was also responsible, with his two associate justices, for administering County business (the Board of Supervisors was not be established until two years later). Olvera could speak only Spanish and at least one of his two associates justices could speak only English. L.A. County's first Sheriff, G. Thompson Burrill, who could speak both languages, was hired to serve as Interpreter.

In January of 1847, Mexican militia fought their last two serious military engagements against U.S. forces invading California. The Battle of the Rio San Gabriel occurred in Montebello (January 8) and The Battle of La Mesa occurred in Vernon (January 9).

In 1928, the City of Los Angeles purchased land that would become the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The land had originally been used as a bean field.

The Academy Awards ceremony has been postponed only three times since it began in 1929: in 1938 for one week due to severe flooding in Los Angeles; in 1968 for two days out of respect for the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King; and in 1981 for one day due to the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

Los Angeles was the first city to allow recall elections at the municipal level. The charter provision was first invoked in 1904 to remove Councilman James P. Davenport from office for voting a city contract to the Los Angeles Times despite more competitive bids. He became the first elected official in the nation to be recalled. Source: Los Angeles A to Z by Leonard & Dale Pitt.

During a 24-hour period from December 31, 1933 through January 1, 1934, 7.36 inches of rain fell on the Los Angeles Civic Center, a record for a 24-hour period at that location.

On June 21, 1913, over Los Angeles, Georgia Broadwick became the first women to parachute from an airplane.

With 750,000 titles and six and a half miles of shelving, ACRES OF BOOKS in downtown Long Beach is one of the largest and oldest used book stores in California.

3/11/08

The County of Los Angeles was incorporated on February 18, 1850 as one of California's original 27 counties (there are now 58). It originally included all of what would later became Orange County and portions of what would later become the counties of Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura.  Orange County was formed from the southern portion of Los Angeles County in 1889.

In 1786, a 28-year old Indian named Jose Vanegas became the first mayor (Spanish alcalde) of the settlement El Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles that would become the future City of Los Angeles.

Marine artist Wyland painted the 122,000 square foot mural "Planet Ocean" on the Long Beach Arena. The mural, featuring life-sized images of gray whales and dolphins, is the second largest mural in the world.

Rose Bowl Game National "Firsts"
First wire-photo transmission of a bowl game (1925)
First transcontinental radio broadcast of a sporting event (1927, on NBC)
First national telecast of a college football game (1952, on NBC)
First coast-to-coast color telecast of a college football game (1962, on NBC)

Los Angeles ranks 19th among U.S. cities for the most per capita ski magazine subscribers.

The first public defender in the United States, Walton J. Wood, began practicing in Los Angeles on June 13, 1913.

In the mid-1970s, a Marin County bumper sticker read DON'T LOSANGELIZE MARIN. Los Angeles, in turn, countered with the sticker, DON'T MARINATE LOS ANGELES. - Labels for Locals by Paul Dickson

Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. used to be known as Santa Barbara Avenue. Cesar E. Chavez Avenue used to be known as Brooklyn Avenue. Thanks to a question from Stan Levinson, San Angel Advertising.

The University of Southern California (USC) has been playing football for 105 years.

Los Angeles is closer to Mexico City (1,555 air miles) than it is to Washington, D.C. (2,308 air miles).

An attendance record of 134,254 was set at the Los Angeles Coliseum on September 8, 1963 for a Billy Graham Crusade.

About 1 in 4 Californians and 1 in 29 Americans live in Los Angeles County.

Thanks to Henry E. Huntington, surfing was introduced to Southern California in 1907 at Redondo Beach by Irish-Hawaiian surfer George Freeth. His memorial bust stands on the Redondo Pier.

About 30 earthquakes occur every day in Southern California. Most have a magnitude of less than 2.0.

Air Passengers from New York to Los Angeles in the 1930s left Newark, New Jersey, and flew 19 hours, refueling four times. The planes could seat only 20 passengers and were not pressurized.

The average boat in California is about 16 feet long and sits in the driveway.

When Willmore City went bankrupt in 1888, it recovered by adopting a new name and advertising itself as a sea resort.  The new name was Long Beach.

With more than 3.6 million members, the Los Angeles Archdiocese is the largest Roman Catholic Diocese in the world.

The first television station west of the Mississippi was KTLA in Los Angeles.  The station began broadcasting in 1947.

In Los Angeles during the 1910s and 1920s, the socialist newspaper The Appeal to Reason rivaled even the circulation of the Los Angeles Times.

During the early 1920s, Douglas Aircraft designed the Douglas World Cruiser as part of a secret U.S. Army project to build an aircraft that could circumnavigate the globe. On March 17, 1924, four of these aircraft, the Seattle, the Boston, the Chicago and the New Orleans, took off from Santa Monica for Seattle. Following their departure from Seattle on April 7, the Seattle was lost in an Alaskan storm and the Boston was forced to land in the mid-Atlantic. The remaining two Douglas World Cruisers continued to fly with dozens of parts replacements from spare-part stashes pre-located around the world. On September 28, 1924, a little more than six months and 27,553 miles later, the Chicago and New Orleans arrived back in Seattle, completing the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe.

The first gold strike in California actually occurred in Los Angeles County. In March of 1842, almost six years before the Sutters Mill discovery, shepherd Francisco Lopez discovered gold flakes clinging to the roots of a wild onion in Placerita Canyon.

5/1/07

Because of the marriage of one of their players, the Brooklyn Dodgers, later to become our own Los Angeles Dodgers, were originally named the Brooklyn Bridegrooms.    Their name was later changed to the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers because of the trolleys prevalent in Brooklyn at the time. The name was eventually shortened to Dodgers. Source: Los Angeles A to Z by Leonard & Dale Pitt

The first TV news helicopter was introduced in Los Angeles by KTLA Channel 5 on July 4, 1958. It was known as the "Telecopter."

Albert Einstein taught for a period of time at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech).

4/27/2008
Two key candidates in the 2008 Presidential race have direct and indirect ties to Los Angeles County.  Following graduation from high school in Honolulu in 1979, Barack Obama moved to Los Angeles and studied at Occidental College for two years.  Also, the mother of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dorothy Howell Rodham, spent most of her childhood growing up in Alhambra and graduated from Alhambra High School in 1937.

4/27/2008
The Eleven Percent Mayor of Los Angeles - Antonio Villaraigosa, the media-chasing mayor of Los Angeles, may be spending more time promoting himself than actually managing the City of Los Angeles. In September 2008, the LA Weekly newspaper reviewed the mayor's daily schedules over a ten-week period (a total of 900 hours) and found that the mayor devoted only 96 hours or eleven percent of his time on direct work on city business. The other 89 percent of the mayor's time was spent on out-of-town travel (310 hours or 34 percent), vaguely identified gap time such as traveling from one event to another (220 hours or 24 percent), blacked out time said to be fund-raising, personal and "security-related" time (186 hours or 21 percent), and ceremonial or public relations time (88 hours or 10 percent).

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