Creating advocates for history through the stories of greater Los Angeles.
by Paul R. Spitzzeri On Friday, Governor Brown issued a proclamation proclaiming today as "Admission Day" in California, noting that, in 1976, shortly after beginning his first term of governor, he vetoed legislation to decommission Admission Day as a recognized state holiday. Brown added that, eight years later, Governor George Deukmejian signed a law reassigning... Continue Reading →
by Paul R. Spitzzeri On this day in 1771, Mission San Gabriel was established at the Whittier Narrows area near present South El Monte and Montebello and became the first European settlement in Los Angeles County, predating the founding of the pueblo of Los Angeles by a decade. Though the original site is not known... Continue Reading →
by Paul R. Spitzzeri As other posts on this blog have shown, Walter P. Temple's economic situation changed rapidly after 1925, as revenue from his oil projects, particularly the Temple lease at Montebello, did not keep pace with rising expenses with a raft of real estate projects in the region, including the development of his... Continue Reading →
by Paul R. Spitzzeri In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as currently and in our own recent past, enormous demographic changes were transforming America. Massive waves of immigration from Asia and southern and eastern Europe, in particular, yielded ethnic shifts that fundamentally altered much of the human landscape, especially in larger cities. This... Continue Reading →
by Paul R. Spitzzeri In the late 19th century, the railroad town of Puente, founded adjacent to the Southern Pacific line in 1885, just before the great Boom of the Eighties hit greater Los Angeles, became a popular place for French immigrants, especially those from the Haute (Upper) Alpes engaging in sheep raising. Among the... Continue Reading →
by Paul R. Spitzzeri If you're driving south on the 710 Freeway not far south of Interstate 5 and you blink, you might well miss the second-smallest city (after Hawaiian Gardens) in Los Angeles County. Cudahy, one of a trio of small municipalities, including Bell and Maywood, on the west bank of the Los Angeles... Continue Reading →
by Paul R. Spitzzeri This third and final part of a post concludes the highlighting of a significant report, a copy of which is in the Homestead's collection, by California's military governor Bennet Riley, published on 30 August 1849. It concerned his recent visit to the newly discovered gold fields and was included in an... Continue Reading →
by Paul R. Spitzzeri This second part of a post highlighting a report, dated 30 August 1849 and a copy of which is in the Homestead's collection, from Bennet Riley, California's military governor, concerning a visit to the gold fields of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in summer 1849 and included in an important government report... Continue Reading →
by Paul R. Spitzzeri A rich source of information about California shortly after the United States seized the former Mexican department in the Mexican-American War are the published reports by the federal government dealing mainly with the efforts to establish a form of temporary government, handled by the military. Today's post looks at one report... Continue Reading →
