The city has been a fixture in American nostalgia since it’s beginnings in the late 19th century. Luring eager migrants beyond the western frontier to the southern Pacific coast where the notion of untarnished opportunity awaited those determined enough to venture there. The Los Angeles area is recognized approximately by the four hundred and fifty square miles of territory that is marked to the north near Santa Barbara and then continuing south almost into the county limits of San Diego.

The geological nature of the area is a unique feature that has long contributed to LA’s identity. The Tehachapi mountain range exists at the most northern extreme of this Southern California region, cordoning itself off from the upper plains of the Great Central Valley. To the east are the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Ranges, marking an important boundary that helps offer a more suitable character of warm climate for the area. The range’s serve to capture ocean moisture that abundantly rises over the seaboard, adding cloud coverage to cool an otherwise arid zone that just beyond the valleys to the east become the parched Mojave region.

The lure of this warm weather climate has always promoted great adoration and was a formidable attribute that attracted many of the earliest inhabitants to the area.

With America making it’s expansion westward during the mid nineteenth century, California made it’s first major debut as a destination for austere miners and toughened settlers particularly after the discovery of gold in 1849. The Gold Rush was the force that popularized the lore of this new land but not for another thirty years would Southern California begin to experience anything in the way of a population boom. Rather it was the central and northern sections of the state that experienced migration en masse leading to major civic developments and modernization. San Francisco would within about two decade’s time grow to become a highly developed city after California’s statehood was proclaimed in 1850.

The post Civil War years of 1865 despite the sufferable numbers of causalities back east, offered new engineering methods that had been advanced during the four year struggle to preserve the union. Efforts began to heed greater visions for a manifest destiny of western expansion on the continent, shaping a dream for a country that would prove to exhibit her splendor.

Soon came the vision for a transcontinental railroad to connect the already established system of eastern transport with central hubs like New York, D.C, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, and many other stops between all the way to the Pacific Coast.

Owing to several industrialists of the day such as Carnegie, Vanderbilt, countless other ingenious minds and tireless workers it would soon come reality to see one of the country’s greatest feats for joining two lines of tracks that ran west to Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada’s, Promontory Point in Utah, the Great Platte of Nebraska, from points east beginning in Missouri. In 1868, rail travel became accessible all the way to the west coast, enticing tens of thousands of Americans to discover the coastal terrain that had previously been merely an extension of the Spanish conquests of Mexico.

For centuries, the first indigenous people to have predominated over many regions of California consisted of native Americans and Mexicans which later followed by the arrival of Spanish settlers. Beginning around the 17th century, the European colonization in South and Central America by Spanish conquistadors would have dramatic effects on the societal structure and culture of the land which stretched up the Pacific Coast.

The Mission system was established by groups of Franciscan Priests who voraciously promoted strict principals of Catholicism by forcing the conversion of natives. The construction of missions occurred throughout much of Mexico and spread into southern and even northern regions of California. Of these fortified land communes where residences, religion, schools, agriculture and ranching were elements to life, the most recognized in Southern California included Mission San Capistrano, San Luis Obispo, San Gabriel, San Buenaventura and others. The Spanish’s treatment particularly of native Americans, who were viewed as untamed savages, and the indigenous Mexicans was often sufferable. The Colonial priests often forced harsh labor conditions and offered inadequate provisions to these groups of locals for their efforts in sustaining the settlements.

Following the War of Mexican Independence in 1822, a new system known as ‘the hacienda’ came to account for developing the ancillary northern Hispanic region in Southern California. The concept of rancheros was premised more on a mercantile structure rather than the religious influence associated with the missions. Secularization became standard after independence and the injustices brought upon by the order of Franciscan priests throughout much of the Mexican territory greatly diminished. Nonetheless a social divide of status remained where the European descendants who were referred to as ‘gente de razon’ became the landowners with an abundance of financing through their ties to old world sources.

The once subservient native American members of the missions now found themselves to be scantly compensated laborers on these large land dwellings. Cattle ranching became big business for these mostly Spanish proprietors during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. While northern California by mid century as Anglo-American migration began taking effect in search of gold mining opportunities, the southern, ranchero land was referred to as the cow counties. These Hispanic southern California land owners accounted for all of the wealth in the area and helped attract a small number of early Anglo-American settlers from around New Mexico who possessed sufficient skills in tending farms and livestock. But the majority of the population until about 1880 would remain Hispanic with the privileged hijos del pais, or Spanish descendants maintaining predominate land control with their possession of property being coveted amongst a dozen or so families.

The effect of the California gold rush did cause a significant influx of Mexicans to cross through Southern California en route to the north where mines had begun operations by mid century. These groups known as Sonorans had experience in mining from their scattered origins of western Mexico in towns like Guadalajara, Monterrey and others. Traveling often by mule in large groups of hundreds at a time they journeyed northward in hopes of sharing a stake in the discovery just as Anglos arrived from the east hoping to exploit the riches. The tolerance between Anglo Americans and the Sonorans often wasn’t amicable. As development in the north spread from the mining towns to the advancement of modern urbanization in San Francisco and Sacramento, the Sonorans were forced back down south and many established small communities alongside Spanish-Mexican ranches.

The boom and bust of the gold rush played a directly proportional role to the southern Californian ranchers vitality. The price per head of cattle surged from approximately $4 a head to sometimes as much as $50 at the peak of discovery around 1860. It would soon drop off precipitously though as wealth was squandered by these Spanish land owners. Also the raising of livestock began to occur along the plains closer to the northern mining towns. A sudden fall in demand from the ‘cow counties‘, coupled with a disastrous drought in 1862-1864 wreaked havoc on the southern ranch owners. Insolvency began plaguing the once prosperous proprietors.

Then by around 1880 with the American migration to the mines in the north having taken place for over three decades, this immense population began deviating south and would combine with the other factors to further disrupt the Hispanic civilization in the lower part of the state. Contention among the Anglos and Spanish-Mexicans grew hostile particularly as the Anglo-American migration took full effect and the claim of these once viable farms were subjected to California taxation, forcing the Spanish farmers to sell.

The years of 1872-1874 launched a first modern development plan where the vestiges of ranches and old shanty towns from the mission era were torn down to make way for paved streets, some opulent styles of homes and an urban design in line with the early days of San Francisco. The population of Southern California by 1890 had increased nearly four hundred percent to approximately 200,000 from the previous decade. About one quarter of this population resided in the Los Angeles area.

The Southern Pacific Railroad Company whose lines brought transit to the region played a big part for launching much of the early buzz that prompted national awareness for what the area potentially had to offer. The most emphasized aspect to attract tourists and real estate purchasers was the climatic splendor. The virility of agriculture was explained to be like that of no other place in America. Exaggerated claims of how enormous the harvests grow with limitless varieties of crops from tomatoes, squash, greens, grapes, melons and berries to tobacco and exotic flowers stretched the imagination for what could be cultivated there. Southern California soon became synonymous with a Mediterranean Paradise akin to the most exotic locations of Europe. Yet rather than crossing the Atlantic, it was perceived as truly an American destination. Doctors even touted Southern California as a place immune from diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, typhoid and other illnesses.

But the initial wave of new arrivals would be the first of several periodic boom and bust real estate trends that Southern California would experience as people first were lured by promotional efforts but the disheartening reality of the area’s underdevelopment including a lack of sufficient water resources detracted it‘s popularity.

This newness of activity that was aplomb with excitement for newly arriving people was in stark contrast still to what had been an ongoing development of the northern half of the state. The capital in Sacramento maintained a majority of the legislators from that part of the state, most of whom shared little concern for the burgeoning hype in the south. The civic necessities including lack of available water hindered the boom for those now living there and efforts for governmental assistance were often overturned. The north and the south were often at loggerheads with calls from Southern California to cede and establish it’s own state. While a split was very close to taking place, a temporary miens was reached and an legislative agreement enforced in 1884 to permit the sharing of the more available water resources in the north with the south. It wouldn’t be until 1910 that a major aquifer was completed to provide substantial water needs to the area.

While the north remained awash in the industrial, commercial and population growth that had been ushered in by the fortune of the gold rush, a similar discovery in the form of oil took hold around Los Angeles in 1892. What followed were the first large scale plans for constructing a city which facilitated a network of paved roads, hotels, high rise buildings and inter transit system. A major center of it all was near the Bunker Hill area and Pershing Square, the site of the large Belmont Hotel that people recognized as a premier location for the socially connected class and wealthy tycoons. The neighboring park often was the site for many community gatherings such as the annual La Fiesta de Los Angles where parades would proceed through the downtown district along nearby Wilshire, Figueroa and Broadway Streets.

Many other bandstand events and pavilions attracted nearby residents of Santa Monica, Culver City, Sunset Blvd and those from farther outlying areas like Pasadena and Valencia to convene upon central LA for regular entertainment. The boom time years beginning at the turn of the century ensued in lockstep with the growth in oil production. Over one hundred wells were in operation by 1910 with a concentration of them in the Santa Monica and Hermosa Beach area and then extending southward along the coastal regions of Huntington, Newport and Laguna Beaches. The beach boom soon become a major phenomena for these areas of oil exploration.

Property not far from seaside derricks became water front havens for winter travelers and yearly residences for those finding new wealth from the hotbed of activity being generated with oil and tourism. Venice and Redondo Beach were highly sought destinations for leisurely escapes by any who choose to embark on a short three day train excursion from Anytown, America. Waves of tourists flocked to the area to spend weeks of both winter and summer months occupying themselves in the pleasantries that Southern California provided. Soon an image of young, sun soaked individuals many flaunting a debonair style would became symbolic of the culture that would continue capturing national attention and entice growing numbers of the population to arrive.

The roaring twenties and the birth of the automobile would do so much to accelerate the influx of people coming to Los Angeles intending to take advantage of what had been an ongoing real estate free for all. The population during this decade had grown to over 1.2 million residents within the city, most of whom were located near the center of town while the surrounding hills of Beverly, Hollywood and Glendale were largely mostly just tracts of wooden land. This era offered the early in roads though for the city to establish itself as the motion picture capital soon after the advent of silent films.

The business of utilizing techniques of reproducing still images into a sequenced projection had been experimented by many early pioneers of film work including the Luimere Brothers, Thomas Edison, and Georges Mieles in the late 19th century. But by 1910 as films were reaching a point of mainstream awareness, the business had begun to develop as an industry based mostly out of New York and European cities. But for reasons of contractual dilemmas with the Edison Company there and the discovery of the scenic conduciveness that Southern California provided, several of the early film makers including William Selig relocated to shoot their silent features there.

These early pictures involved an expressionism that was soon lost after the inclusion of sound around 1930.
For the hey day of silent movies, actors and actresses dramatically exaggerated emotions with facial and physical innuendos. The themed caricature regularly seen in western themes had some popular appeal to American audiences. Studios companies soon began opening with Universal Pictures as one of the first to make it’s major debut as a top tier innovator, producer and distributor of movies. Some of the first recognized actors who began to receive salaries for their onscreen performances were Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Clara Bow. These actors made groundbreaking notoriety with roles in such films as The Patsy, Pandora’s Box, The Shiek, and classics such as ‘The Phantom of the Opera‘, ‘Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde‘.

Up until World War I, a lot of films were being made in parts of Europe. But after 1920 the Hollywood notoriety that had surfaced around the world would soon become a mecca of studios which would go on to include Warner Brothers, Century Films, Disney, and Universal. Between 1912 and 1929 over 10,000 silent features were produced in the United States.

With the introduction of sound in 1930, popular nostalgia for film became more of a sensational part of life for millions of Americans who would attend regular matinees at the growing number of theaters across the country. Actors such as Gary Cooper, James Cagney, Douglas Fairbanks, Anita Paige, Loretta Young and to name a few were a new breed of celebrity that had not ever before been so popularly recognized by many ordinary Americans. This concept of famed notoriety galvanized greater attention for the movie industry as more silver screen starlets were made and aspirants seeking such an opportunity were moving in droves to LA. By 1940 the population was 1.5 million.

Those stalwarts of the production business who ran the studios often lacked restraint for subduing the wealth that business was generating for them in the 1940’s. This era marked the golden days for this first generation of studio executives who had reshaped the industry from it‘s simpler beginnings. The competition against the original big three including First National, Paramount and MGM was advancing as major financing and mergers created a change in landscape for others to enter the market. One of the most notorious of Hollywood producers was Jack Warner who with his brother Harry started achieving success in their self branded company around 1918. Ten years later, the opportunity transpired for them to buy First National and despite economic setbacks from the depression, soon their company was gaining near limitless success. Louis B Mayer who’s studio was bought by the then well established Metro-Goldwyn company in 1924 added his name to make MGM Studios. Under Mayer’s direction, the company grew into one if not the most profitable up until his retirement in 1951. Individuals such as Bill Goetz added new dimensions to movie distribution by making Universal Pictures, the oldest of America’s studios, into an international success.

The egos and lifestyles for these owners and their cadre of management cohorts were often overwhelming.
Residences being built among a torrid housing market often exceeded beyond belief what many would normally consider to be a wonderfully spacious home. The estate of Jack Warner exemplified the most opulent of all in emerging architecture from this first generation of movie moguls. Situated on ten acres, a 13,000 sq. ft Spanish style home with all the ground facilities one might imagine included tennis courts, a golf course, stables, and numerous guest cottages. The rise of mansions for the noveau wealthy spawned the development of the hillside neighborhoods of Beverly, Holmby and Belair among others. Joe Schnek of United Artists resided among the grandest of homes also in the area.

The office headquarters of these and other production execs were located in the Hollywood neighborhood, near downtown and just to the west of these notorious communities of opulence. Working close but just far enough away from home provided a reclusive escape from the rigor of activity consuming the actors, directors and legions of personnel around the sets. For the eager exec to commute to his office was likely a fifteen minute ride away in the era when white gloved chauffeurs dignifiedly shuttled their employers to circular carports in front of the studios.

The Santa Monica beach front in close proximity also didn’t lag in attracting the grandest of visions for enormous homes. Some of the early Malibu properties to go up included those of Marion Davis’s built in the early thirties that resembled an ocean front country club with others like it nearby. Darryl Zanuck who ran 20th Century Fox from 1932-1961 had his Malibu residence, the house where his son Richard who would go on to take over the company until 1982 was raised. In the 1950’s the costs of maintaining these immaculate beachfront estates became prohibitive and many were leveled to be replaced by a modern more simple architecture. That trend in austerity though is entirely undetectable today as the nation’s most affluent of beach home owners began flocking to the community about twenty five years ago to erect new behemoth properties.

Great wealth was unveiling itself across the southwestern seaboard not only for the studio dons but for many of those that had an active part in perpetuating it’s existence. Of course the carping from the actors, actresses and other studio personnel who felt that they were at times taken advantage of was not uncommon. Famous actor James Cagney whose example in this case may be trite for the fact that he was incredibly successful as a fixture in Warner Brother’s film’s during the thirties and forties nonetheless often complained of swindling by the studios. An egregious story on a larger scale is that of Jack Warner who conferred with his brother Harry about a plan for them to mutually sell their shares after having shared roughly four decades together as partners in the studio. Harry agreed and both disposed of their holdings but only a few days later Jack repurchased nearly the whole stake at an previously agreed upon bargain of a price. Such scruple wasn’t just seldom and to make it in the business, it has always been understood that one must watch their back and be relentless in their endeavors to achieve their aspirations.

In the 1950’s, the enormous breakthrough of home entertainment with the commodization of the television created more studio activity with Burbank, just north of Hollywood soon becoming a major area for the broadcasting offices. Population growth exponential zed as more folks relocated to southern California with visions of one day becoming a recognizable starlet, an off camera director, writer or any of the other supporting technical roles. Agents, advertisers and PR representatives, soon satisfied a demand for their services in the area. Notables like Lew Wasserman and Charles Feldman gained lucrative success by managing talent and striking contracts for such stars as Jack Warner, Bette Davis, Ronald Reagan, Marlon Brando and others.

LA’s commercialization with tourism and professional services was riding the wave of activity that many millions in entertainment profits helped to support. A vision of Hollywood grew to incredible proportions in mainstream society as the baby boomers carried a standard much less rigid than that of their parents. Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Kathryn Hepburn and the Kennedy’s to name a few personified a photogenic illustriousness that was being mimicked by many across the nation.

The sixties and seventies witnessed a liberalism that gravitated the city’s culture into a more relaxed beach style way of life for many of it‘s residents. The sport of surfing became popularized by groups of locals. Additionally the masses of youth across the nation were becoming hooked on the cool electric sound of the Beach Boys, sensational films like Endless Summer and a healthy array of broadcasts making their way out of this cultural paradise. Inner urban regions of Southern California grew as myriad beach communities became more populated leading to development of the map lined coastal neighborhoods that today range from expensive enclaves to less exclusive conglomerates of colorfully stacked duplexes.

Amidst all of the stardom and splendor to have affected a large part of LA’s history, it would be naïve not to mention some of the problematic aspects that the city has experienced. Over the last several decades the worst of the city’s detrimental qualities has been the severe gap in social class. This polemic has certainly had a major segregating effect upon the demographics. No other example can best represent this fact than the violence that erupted during the 1989 riots. The inner urban districts had since the sixties due to population overgrowth and neglected efforts to stabilize many repressed neighborhoods perpetuated an environment crime. The nation’s worst gangs particularly during the eighties, nineties and still today are known to inhabit districts such as East LA, Long Beach and Compton. The immense economic gap between the social stratus’ exacerbated the segregation, forcing many minorities to reside among despairing neighborhoods.

The alarming wake up call of the riots that lasted seven days prompted strong action from politicians and citizens to find ways of ameliorating the affliction. For many years thereafter it remained a problem and still today the problem exists but in a more resolvable manner than was the case twenty years ago. Similar that of most other major cities such as Chicago and New York, LA being the nation’s second largest required an enormous amount of vigilant effort from stewards of change to ease the despair. Today, LA has improved. It’s once most troubled urban communities benefited from major actions in rehabilitating residential units, increasing uniformed task forces and awareness programs emphasizing education.

The in population of LA’s metro area now stands at approximately four million while the greater regional area that stretches twenty miles north and south of downtown adds an additional thirteen million people. Many of the most modern facilities for business operations exist with six of the top Fortune 500 Companies including natural energy giant Occidental Petroleum having headquarters there. Gentrification in several of the newly re-popularized neighborhoods include West Hollywood, Pac Heights, Santa Monica. But city’s use of land availability which has induced development of many different communities over time continues to offer it’s citizens with unique options to call home.

The work of city officials and investors on various developments have strengthened it’s excitement. Downtown with the several acre entertainment complex called LA Live which is home to a handful of arenas, restaurants and attractions has provided a big boost to what the city has to offer. Plans on expanding the district have been in the works eventually to begin construction for the return of an NFL team. Locating a new stadium next to the home of the Lakers and Kings hockey team with expansion plans for it’s already popular convention space would surely place LA on the map as a premier international destination.