Homestead Museum

Through the Viewfinder: Lookout Mountain Inn, Los Angeles, 1912

by Paul R. Spitzzeri In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, resorts for locals and tourists were very popular throughout greater Los Angeles, whether they be along the coast on the many miles of beautiful beaches in the area or in the mountains, such as the San Gabriel and Santa Monica ranges.  This coincided... Continue Reading →

Working the Land with “The California Horticulturist and Floral Magazine,” July 1872

by Paul R. Spitzzeri In the early 1870s, when the San Francisco-based magazine, The California Horticulturist and Floral Magazine, the state’s agricultural industry was quickly on the rise while the cattle industry, a backbone of the the economy, especially in Southern California, was declining. William Workman, on his share of Rancho La Puente, experienced this seismic... Continue Reading →

On This Day: A Celebration Dinner for the Tweedy Park Subdivision, South Gate, 9 June 1924

by Paul R. Spitzzeri The first years of the 1920s included another one of those major development booms that characterized the growth of greater Los Angeles from the late 1860s onward.  During the early part that decade, there was major development in downtown Los Angeles’ commercial and industrial districts, while suburban growth spread in all... Continue Reading →

From Point A to Point B: A Pacific Electric Railway Pocket Time Table, June 1929

by Paul R. Spitzzeri One of the many transformations in greater Los Angeles touched upon in my remarks yesterday to the Homestead’s Non-Fiction Book Club was about the massive changes in transportation that took place during the time period covered in the club’s most recent book, Jackson Lears’ Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern... Continue Reading →