Roundup: March 12, 2014

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Speaker: Fellow LA Westerner, Jerry Selmer 
Subject:  A Great American General – War Chief Joseph of Nez Perce

Click here to view photos from the event.

The public policy of Manifest Destiny dictated the expansion of the United States from the original thirteen colonies to the Pacific Coast.  Most of this activity took place in the nineteenth century.  Although settlement of this new empire was relatively slow at first, the upheaval and dislocations caused by the Civil War (1861-1865) impelled many to seek a new life in a raw and untamed land.  The problem was, of course, there were already people living there – the Native American Indians.  The various tribes abounded throughout the region. To the new white settlers, they were a menace to be removed.  Thus, the Indian Wars that came about during this settlement period.  Since it was Federal policy to encourage settlement, it fell to the U. S. Army to remove them.

This talk will describe one such situation, the Nez Perce War.  This tribe occupied a highly desirable piece of real estate in the Pacific Northwest.  Therefore, they must be removed or exterminated.  There arose from their midst a great heroic figure who possessed remarkable qualities of leadership seldom seen among any people.  Chief Joseph took on the responsibility of command and led his people during the difficult and dangerous days of escape and battle.  This heart-rending story is as suspenseful as a work of fiction.  But, it all really happened.

Plan to join us for a thoughtful look at an important moment in time in the history of the Old West.

Jerry Selmer is a thirty-nine year member of the Corral who was our Sheriff in 1985. He has served numerous historical organizations in Board and executive capacities including the Southwest Museum as Executive Director. A third generation native born Californian, Jerry received his B.A. in Public Administration from UCLA before serving in the U.S. Army for two years of  active duty and six years of Reserve duty. He attained the rank of Captain. He served 31 years in administrative and executive capacities with the City of Los Angeles, holding the position of Assistant City Administrative Officer for 12 years.  He has written articles and book reviews for the Branding Iron as well as previously delivering his excellent presentations to us.

Click here to view photos from the event.

Larry L. Boerio           
Sheriff

Roundup: March 12, 2014

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Speaker: Fellow LA Westerner, Jerry Selmer 
Subject:  A Great American General – War Chief Joseph of Nez Perce

The public policy of Manifest Destiny dictated the expansion of the United States from the original thirteen colonies to the Pacific Coast.  Most of this activity took place in the nineteenth century.  Although settlement of this new empire was relatively slow at first, the upheaval and dislocations caused by the Civil War (1861-1865) impelled many to seek a new life in a raw and untamed land.  The problem was, of course, there were already people living there – the Native American Indians.  The various tribes abounded throughout the region. To the new white settlers, they were a menace to be removed.  Thus, the Indian Wars that came about during this settlement period.  Since it was Federal policy to encourage settlement, it fell to the U. S. Army to remove them.

This talk will describe one such situation, the Nez Perce War.  This tribe occupied a highly desirable piece of real estate in the Pacific Northwest.  Therefore, they must be removed or exterminated.  There arose from their midst a great heroic figure who possessed remarkable qualities of leadership seldom seen among any people.  Chief Joseph took on the responsibility of command and led his people during the difficult and dangerous days of escape and battle.  This heart-rending story is as suspenseful as a work of fiction.  But, it all really happened.

Plan to join us for a thoughtful look at an important moment in time in the history of the Old West.

Jerry Selmer is a thirty-nine year member of the Corral who was our Sheriff in 1985. He has served numerous historical organizations in Board and executive capacities including the Southwest Museum as Executive Director. A third generation native born Californian, Jerry received his B.A. in Public Administration from UCLA before serving in the U.S. Army for two years of  active duty and six years of Reserve duty. He attained the rank of Captain. He served 31 years in administrative and executive capacities with the City of Los Angeles, holding the position of Assistant City Administrative Officer for 12 years.  He has written articles and book reviews for the Branding Iron as well as previously delivering his excellent presentations to us.

Larry L. Boerio           
Sheriff

Corral  News & Other Subjects

About Dinner Reservations:

Dinner reservations are $35 and the deadline is March 6, 2014. Late reservations can be accepted, but reservations made on time will assure you the entrée of your choice. Walk-ins are $40.00 for potluck.  Checks are payable to “Westerners, Los Angeles Corral”. Please mail to Registrar of Marks & Brands Pete Fries, 28160 Newbird Drive, Santa Clarita, CA 91350-1836. You may call Pete at (661) 296-7713 with questions or for late reservations.

Membership Wrangler Needed:

If you are interested in serving the Corral in this very important capacity, please contact Sheriff, Larry Boerio at 714-264-7575 or larrybemail@yahoo.com. This is an extremely exciting position heading a team currently made up of three others (more may be added) whose objective is to strengthen & revitalize membership based activities to achieve an increased number of a) overall members, b) members who are professional & serious historians, and c) Active members from within the membership pool. You need not be a long-term member of the Corral to fill this position. New ideas and creative approaches are welcome!

Interesting upcoming local events:

Saturday, March 8, 2014, 2:00 PM – 4:00PM. Chasing Ghosts: Chronicling Los Angeles’ Hidden Italian History – Speaker: Marianna Gatto, Executive Director of the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles.  This is the first in a series of lectures entitled: “What Happened to the Ethnic Communities of Historic Los Angeles?” The series is co-sponsored by Los Angeles City Historical Society and the History Department of the Richard J. Riordan Central Library. Lectures are held in the Mark Taper Auditorium, on the first floor of the Central Library (640 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles). Admittance is free and open to the public.

Thursday, March 27 – Saturday March, 29, 2014. Symposium on the Southern Emigrant Trail in Temecula at the city Conference Center. This event is free to the public. Los Angeles Corral member, Phil Brigandi will be speaking on “Emigrants on the Southern Trail”.  Additionally, our February speaker, Will Bagley will present “Salt Lake to Southern California; Route and Travelers”.  Speakers are Thursday 8-4 and Friday 8-12. On Saturday, there will be a tour of historic sites in Temecula. The conference is sponsored by the Southern Trails Chapter of the Oregon California Trails Association and the City of Temecula Conference Center.  For questions and itinerary, please contact Jud Mygatt at jvm@onemain.com  or call 559-816-9404.

Through April 19, 2014 at the Pasadena Museum of History. The Colorado Street Bridge Centennial Exhibition.  The mystique of the Colorado Street Bridge is undeniable. For nearly a century, the grand landmark has stood as a beacon to all who come to Pasadena. The exhibit pays homage to the people who built and preserved a beloved local landmark: the architects, the engineers, the builders, the civic leaders, and the community organizers who worked tirelessly to make it possible and to preserve it.  Admission is $7, $6 for Seniors.  Wednesdays through Sundays, 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. at 470 West Walnut Street, Pasadena.

Roundup Photos: January 8, 2014

Roundup: February 12, 2014

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Speaker: Will Bagley
Subject:  Hurrah for the Handcart Scheme!

Click here to view photos from the event.

“We cannot afford to purchase wagons and teams as in times past, I am consequently thrown back upon my old plan―to make hand-carts, and let the emigration foot it, and draw upon them the necessary supplies, having a cow or two for every ten,” Brigham Young wrote in 1855. “They can come just as quick, if not quicker, and much cheaper.” This decision to rely on what a Danish emigrant called “two-wheeled torture devices” set in motion the worst disaster in overland trail history, one that killed six times as many people as died with the Donner Party. Will’s third presentation to the LA Westerners, “Hurrah for the Handcart Scheme!,” will resolve a few puzzles left unresolved in his 2009 article, “‘One Long Funeral March’: A Revisionist’s View of the Mormon Handcart Disasters,” which is available here:

http://user.xmission.com/~research/central/handcart.pdf

Will Bagley has written about overland emigration, frontier violence, railroads, mining, computers, and Utah and the Mormons, and as novelist Sandra Dallas says, “No one tells the history of the early western trails better” than he does. He has appeared in dozens of films, including the American Experience episode of “The Mormons” and the Discovery Channel’s recent “Gold Fever.” The Salt Lake Tribune published more than 220 of his historical commentaries. Bagley had edited the Arthur H. Clark Company’s 16-volume documentary series, Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier. He has won the Western Heritage Award (the Wrangler), three Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, and Best Book awards from the Western History Association, the Denver Public Library, and Westerners International. His fourteenth book, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, will be out in April.

Click here to view photos from the event.

Jim Macklin           
Deputy Sheriff

Roundup: February 12, 2014

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Speaker: Will Bagley
Subject:  Hurrah for the Handcart Scheme!

“We cannot afford to purchase wagons and teams as in times past, I am consequently thrown back upon my old plan―to make hand-carts, and let the emigration foot it, and draw upon them the necessary supplies, having a cow or two for every ten,” Brigham Young wrote in 1855. “They can come just as quick, if not quicker, and much cheaper.” This decision to rely on what a Danish emigrant called “two-wheeled torture devices” set in motion the worst disaster in overland trail history, one that killed six times as many people as died with the Donner Party. Will’s third presentation to the LA Westerners, “Hurrah for the Handcart Scheme!,” will resolve a few puzzles left unresolved in his 2009 article, “‘One Long Funeral March’: A Revisionist’s View of the Mormon Handcart Disasters,” which is available here:

http://user.xmission.com/~research/central/handcart.pdf

Will Bagley has written about overland emigration, frontier violence, railroads, mining, computers, and Utah and the Mormons, and as novelist Sandra Dallas says, “No one tells the history of the early western trails better” than he does. He has appeared in dozens of films, including the American Experience episode of “The Mormons” and the Discovery Channel’s recent “Gold Fever.” The Salt Lake Tribune published more than 220 of his historical commentaries. Bagley had edited the Arthur H. Clark Company’s 16-volume documentary series, Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier. He has won the Western Heritage Award (the Wrangler), three Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, and Best Book awards from the Western History Association, the Denver Public Library, and Westerners International. His fourteenth book, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, will be out in April.

Jim Macklin           
Deputy Sheriff

Additional Upcoming Roundups: 

Wednesday, March 12, 2014:

Speaker: Jerry Selmer
Subject:  A Great American General – War Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

 Wednesday, April 9, 2014:

Speaker: Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
Subject:  Camanche:  California’s Forgotten Ironclad

Corral  News & Other Subjects

About Dinner Reservations:

Dinner reservations are $35 and the deadline is Friday, February 7, 2014. Late reservations can be accepted, but reservations made on time will assure you the entrée of your choice. Walk-ins are $40.00 for potluck.

Checks are payable to “Westerners, Los Angeles Corral”. Please mail to Registrar of Marks & Brands Pete Fries, 28160 Newbird Drive, Santa Clarita, CA 91350-1836. You may call Pete at (661) 296-7713 with questions or for late reservations.

2014 Dues Notice:

Thanks to those who submitted their 2014 dues checks based on the request in the January Roundup mailing.  Over 65% of the members have already paid their dues!  If you have not yet responded, please send your check for $45 payable to “Westerners, Los Angeles Corral” to the Registrar of Marks & Brands, Pete Fries, 28160 Newbird Drive, Santa Clarita, CA 91350-1836.  New members since September 30, 2013 and Honorary members do not have to pay 2014 dues.

You can use the accompanying Roundup reply envelope to submit your check.  If you are sending in a reservation for the February 12^th Roundup, you can include both payments in one check or include a separate check for the annual dues.  Remember that your dues may be tax deductible.

Looking for a Little Sunshine:

Michele Clark, the Corral’s new Sunshine Wrangler, would like to hear from you about any of our members or their spouses who are under the weather, recuperating, or need some attention from the Corral.  We cannot reach out to people unless we know about what they are going through.  Please call Michele at (626) 799-6211 or email her at mclark216@earthlink.net.  Give her as much information about the member’s situation as you can.

Requesting Corral Chips for the “Branding Iron”:

Is there some development in your professional life – research, publications, presentations, honors, etc. – the rest of the Corral would want to know about?  Please complete the Corral Chips Reporting Form enclosed with this Roundup notice.  If have any questions about reporting Corral Chips, please contact Steve Lech, the Corral’s Publications Editor at (951) 686-1476 or rivcokid@gmail.com.

2014 – Roundups

January 2014

February 2014

March 2014

April 2014

May 2014

June 2014 – See Events & Outings

July 2014

August 2014

September 2014

October 2014 (Rendezvous)

November 2014

December 2014

Roundup: January 8, 2014

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Speaker: A. C. W. Bethel, Ph.D. 
Subject:  Los Angeles Transit Planning in the 1920s

Click here to view photos from the event.

Corral member Walt Bethel will speak on a topic that still affects each of us who live in the Los Angeles area on a daily basis.  Early in the 20th century a network of fast, electric interurban railway lines, the Pacific Electric, linked most towns and cities in the Los Angeles metropolitan area with downtown Los Angeles. By the 1960s, nothing of it remained. Some writers have attributed this to a conspiracy by automobile-centered industries to replace rail transit with diesel buses, but the real explanation lies elsewhere. By the early 1920s Los Angeles was becoming a truly decentralized city, and any adequate transportation system would need to be able to take people from anywhere to anywhere else, not just deposit them in an increasingly irrelevant downtown. But when the Pacific Electric proposed a cross-town subway to connect its eastern and western lines, the City Council looked instead for an ideal urban transit system. The result was an unbuildable proposal, and the PE, sidelined, was never able to link its system together.

Walt taught philosophy for 40 years at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Now retired from teaching, with some regret, Walt has shifted to a new career focusing on California history. He has written articles, reviewed books, and delivered presentations on California’s rich and complex transportation history in several professional venues. Even before retiring from Cal Poly, he had reviewed history books for the Pacific Historical Review, California History, and Southern California Quarterly, in addition to our own Branding Iron. Since then he has published articles on California’s rich transportation history in these last three journals. He also edits the quarterly newsletter for the California Council for the Promotion of History and serves on the Council’s Board of Directors.  His paper tonight owes its beginnings to a fascination with rail transportation formed in his Hollywood childhood, when riding the Red Car downtown was an adventure.

Click here to view photos from the event.

Jim Macklin
Deputy Sheriff

Roundup Photos: December 11, 2013

2013 Sheriff Joe Cavallo hands off badge to 2014 Sheriff Larry L. Boerio.

Roundup: January 8, 2014

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Speaker: A. C. W. Bethel, Ph.D. 
Subject:  Los Angeles Transit Planning in the 1920s

Corral member Walt Bethel will speak on a topic that still affects each of us who live in the Los Angeles area on a daily basis.  Early in the 20th century a network of fast, electric interurban railway lines, the Pacific Electric, linked most towns and cities in the Los Angeles metropolitan area with downtown Los Angeles. By the 1960s, nothing of it remained. Some writers have attributed this to a conspiracy by automobile-centered industries to replace rail transit with diesel buses, but the real explanation lies elsewhere. By the early 1920s Los Angeles was becoming a truly decentralized city, and any adequate transportation system would need to be able to take people from anywhere to anywhere else, not just deposit them in an increasingly irrelevant downtown. But when the Pacific Electric proposed a cross-town subway to connect its eastern and western lines, the City Council looked instead for an ideal urban transit system. The result was an unbuildable proposal, and the PE, sidelined, was never able to link its system together.

Walt taught philosophy for 40 years at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Now retired from teaching, with some regret, Walt has shifted to a new career focusing on California history. He has written articles, reviewed books, and delivered presentations on California’s rich and complex transportation history in several professional venues. Even before retiring from Cal Poly, he had reviewed history books for the Pacific Historical Review, California History, and Southern California Quarterly, in addition to our own Branding Iron. Since then he has published articles on California’s rich transportation history in these last three journals. He also edits the quarterly newsletter for the California Council for the Promotion of History and serves on the Council’s Board of Directors.  His paper tonight owes its beginnings to a fascination with rail transportation formed in his Hollywood childhood, when riding the Red Car downtown was an adventure.

Jim Macklin
Deputy Sheriff

Corral News & Other Subjects

About Dinner Reservations:

Dinner reservations are $35 and the deadline is Friday, January 3, 2014. Late reservations can be accepted, but reservations made on time will assure you the entrée of your choice. Walk-ins are $40.00 for potluck.

Checks are payable to “Westerners, Los Angeles Corral”. Please mail to Jim Macklin, 1221 Greenfield Ave., Arcadia, CA 91006. You may call Jim at 626-233-2579 with questions or for late reservations.

Requesting Historical Articles & Corral Chips for the “Branding Iron”: 

Do you have an interesting subject that you have researched on Western History and wish to share with our organization? The article may be short, longer, or a featured piece. If you are interested in contributing to the Corral in this manner, we welcome and encourage your involvement.  Is there some development in your professional life – research, publications, presentations, honors, etc. – the rest of the Corral would want to know about?  If so, please contact Steve Lech, Publications Editor at 951-686-1476 or rivcokid@gmail.com.

Interesting upcoming local events:

Through January 6, 2014 at the Huntington Library and Gardens.  Junípero Serra and the Legacies of the California Missions – International Exhibit. The life of Junípero Serra (1713–1784)—and his impact on Indian life and California culture through his founding of missions—is the subject of an unprecedented, comprehensive, international loan exhibition exclusively at The Huntington. The exhibit coincides with the 300th anniversary of Serra’s birth and includes about 250 objects from The Huntington’s collections and those of 61 lenders in the United States, Mexico, and Spain.  1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino. Currently open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from noon to 4:30 p.m.; and Saturday, Sunday, and Monday holidays from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission on weekdays: $20 adults, $15 seniors. Admission on weekends: $23 adults, $18 seniors. Members are admitted free. Information: 626-405-2100 or huntington.org.

Through January 5, 2014 at Autry National Center in Griffith Park. Jews in the Los Angeles Mosaic. Explore how a growing Jewish community settled, prospered, and helped shape the economy, politics, and culture of a city—and how the diversity and dynamism of Los Angeles have transformed the local Jewish community for the past 160 years. This groundbreaking exhibition is the story of neighborhoods like Boyle Heights and Fairfax, people like Billy Wilder, Max Factor, and Frank Gehry, and lynchpin industries like the movies and suburban land development. See how Jews helped change the region by recruiting the Brooklyn Dodgers, inventing the Barbie doll, and joining other Angelenos in electing the city’s first African American mayor.  Admission is $10, $6 for seniors. Tuesday–Friday: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. Saturday–Sunday: 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Through April 19, 2014 at the Pasadena Museum of History. The Colorado Street Bridge Centennial Exhibition.  The mystique of the Colorado Street Bridge is undeniable. For nearly a century, the grand landmark has stood as a beacon to all who come to Pasadena. The exhibit pays homage to the people who built and preserved a beloved local landmark: the architects, the engineers, the builders, the civic leaders, and the community organizers who worked tirelessly to make it possible and to preserve it.  Admission is $7, $6 for Seniors.  Wednesdays through Sundays, 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. at 470 West Walnut Street, Pasadena.

Roundup Photos: August 14, 2013

[slideshow post_id=”roundup-photos-august-14-2013″]

Roundup Photos: September 11, 2013

Roundup: December 11, 2013

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00PM
Dinner: 6:00PM

This is our annual Holiday event with Cherries Jubilee dessert!

Speaker: Stuart A. Forsyth
Subject:  “Cajon at War—The San Bernardino Bomb Plant”

Click here to view photos from the event.

Just three months and two days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the Western Stove Co. of Culver City was operating a newly built plant for the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service just northwest of San Bernardino.

What did they make in this top-secret plant, and where did the railroads and the U.S. Navy ship its product?

What did the Day & Night Water Heater Company of Monrovia have to do with this operation? And what did all of this have to do with the most expensive weapon the United States developed and deployed during World War II (no, not the atomic bomb) and that weapon’s role in bringing the war with Japan to an end?

Stuart A. Forsyth will answer these questions this evening with a thoroughly researched, beautifully illustrated and fascinatingly presented talk on the little-known history of this particular Southland contribution to the American victory in World War II.

Stuart retired as Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and now runs his own consulting practice for lawyers and judges as The Legal Futurist. He has had a life-long interest in the railroads of Southern California and World War II. He has served as Secretary and Chairman of the Pacific Coast Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society and was one of the founders of the California State Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento. He has been researching the Cajon Pass area for more than half a century, and this evening’s talk is one of the fruits of that labor.

Click here to view photos from the event.

Larry L. Boerio 
Deputy Sheriff

July 13, 2013 – Santa Barbara Train Trip

Photographs by Larry L. Boerio except where noted.

Click the thumbnails for a larger image. 

August 17, 2013 – Mt. Wilson Observatory

Photographs by Larry L. Boerio.

Click the thumbnails for a larger image. 

Event Photos

2012 – Rendezvous

2011 – Fandango

2013 – Roundups

January 2013

February 2013

March 2013

April 2013

May 2013

June 2013

July 2013

August 2013 & Photos

September 2013 & Photos

October 2013 – No Roundup.

November 2013 & Photos

December 2013 & Photos

2012 – Roundups

August 2012

September 2012

November 2012

December 2012

Los Angeles Corral of Westerners

Roundup: November 13, 2013

Almasor Court – 700 S. Alamansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00PM
Dinner: 6:00PM

This is “Hat Night”- Western, foreign, unusual, or ordinary! 

Speaker: Ann Stalcup
Subject: “Leo Politi, Artist of the Angels”

Click here to view photos from the event.

Leo Politi grew up in Fresno, California and Italy. At age 21, he settled in downtown Los Angeles where, quite by chance, he began a highly successful career as a children’s writer and illustrator. Later, as Los Angeles began losing its character with the demolition of areas such as the Victorian homes on Bunker Hill, Politi began “preserving” the homes, parks, and festivals of the city he loved through his art and writing. Leo was a unique, somewhat eccentric personality. He loved children, the “angels” of Los Angeles. His importance as a writer, artist, and initiator developed because he was the first person to feature minority children and their culture in his stories, mainly those in the Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese communities. He gave them a sense of importance they had never experienced, a feeling that lasted throughout their lives. He was a true innovator. He is a Los Angeles treasure and icon. His talent should neither be underestimated nor forgotten. His painting, “Blessing of the Animals” in the Plaza/Olvera Street area, is a famous icon of the annual Easter event of the same name.

On exhibit this evening, thanks to the efforts of our own Dr. Richard Doyle, will be over fifteen of Leo Politi’s paintings and posters for your enjoyment before and after the meeting.

Ann Stalcup is a prolific author with eclectic interests. Her books range from “Three Who Survived”, based on compelling stories of three child survivors of World War ll, to six books on world crafts in Mexico, Guatemala, and Brazil. Her talk this evening is based upon her book, “Leo Politi: Artist of the Angels”. Ann grew up in England. She moved to the United States as an adult when she married a teacher she had met in Greece. She taught in England, Canada, and California and today works as both a volunteer and employee at Leo Politi School. She began writing many years ago, but it was not until 1998 that her first work was published – in one year, seven children’s books and a number of magazine articles. She discovered that her strength was nonfiction writing. She now has sixteen published children’s books in addition to magazine and educational work for both adults and children.

Click here to view photos from the event.

Larry L. Boerio 
Deputy Sheriff

http://www.lawesterners.org/2013/12/02/november-13-2013-hat-night/

Roundup: October 2013

No Roundup.  See the Events & Outings page for our Annual Rendezvous – October 19, 2013.

August 2013 Round Up — Dave Jurasevich and Mt Wilson

Roundup: September 11, 2013

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA
Social Hour: 5:00PM
Dinner: 6:00PM

Speaker: David Kipen
Subject: “Union Station: The WPA’s Guide vs. Raymond Chandler’s Guide”

Click here to view photos from the event.

In this evening’s program, David Kipen will weave together and compare the story of Los Angeles in the 1930’s as outlined in the WPA’s guidebook on Los Angeles, as stylized by the famous noir writers of the time, and as exemplified by the city’s extraordinary gift to itself, Union Station.

Los Angeles has usually needed water far too much to worry about what was in it. With regard to the late 1930s, though, the question becomes impossible to avoid: What was in the water? Raymond Chandler was stripping his pulp stories for parts to build his first novel, “The Big Sleep”. John Fante was mining his misery for “Ask the Dust”.  F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to stay on the wagon in Encino and mapping out “The Last Tycoon”. In addition, Nathanael West was inventing film noir by day hacking away at RKO B pictures like “The Stranger on the Third Floor” and only writing his masterpiece, “The Day of the Locust”, at night.

If only there were some record, some almanac of what it was like to walk those laughably walkable boulevards in Los Angeles, to breathe that ludicrously perfumed air. If only some benevolent patron had stepped in and commissioned a panorama of pre-war Los Angeles, so that future generations could enjoy it vicariously — maybe even try to replicate the freakish atmospheric conditions that made those masterworks possible. In other words, if only there existed “Los Angeles: A Guide to the City and Its Environs” (1941), an historical and current survey of LA in the late 1930s, written by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration.

Two descriptions of another publicly funded masterpiece, the Union Passenger Terminal, completed in 1939, frame the pivotal years in LA between 1939 and 1958. Bookended by these admiring but modest accounts, the first in the WPA guide, the second in Raymond Chandler’s novel “Playback”, a picture emerges of LA and her on-again, off-again, literally back-on-again love affair with travel by train.

Mr. Kipen has written the introductions to UC Press’s reissues of the WPA guides to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and the State of California. He is the founder of Libros Schmibros, a nonprofit lending library and bookshop in Boyle Heights. He has been book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and director of literature for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is a Getty/Annenberg/USC Fellow in Journalism this fall. He was born in Los Angeles and indicates that he will always live here. 

Larry L. Boerio
Deputy Sheriff

Click here to view photos from the event.