of RANCHO MALIBU, the lost empire of Mrs. May K. Rindge, a widow who
resisted the penetration of public roads into her inherited ranch-barony for
more than three decades with firearms, law books, and a large fortune.

High wire fences on both sides of the highway remain as reminders of the
dispute. Sheets of cardboard attached to the fence posts carry an announce-
ment that the United States Federal District Court in June 1938 approved
removing Mrs. Rindge from control of the estate and placing it in receivership.
She retains only a life interest in unfinished Rindge Castle and 60 acres sur-
rounding it, and title to three beach properties and the family homestead
in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

In 1804 parts of three Spanish grants, Topanga, Malibu, and Sequit, were
awarded to Jose Tapia by Jose Arrillaga, military governor of the Californias;
Tapia was a soldado de cuera (soldier of leather), one of the leather-jacketed
men of the Spanish garrison at Santa Barbara and the grant was a substitute
for "back pay" owed by the Crown. The property passed through successive
owners until 1892, when 16,000 acres were purchased by Frederick H. Rindge
at $10 an acre. Rindge, of a wealthy Massachusetts manufacturing family,
had come to California with his bride in that year and had envisioned a
Riviera on this coast. By later purchases Rindge increased his holdings to
24,000 acres. During his lifetime, great herds of long-horns and bands of
sheep roamed the hills and valleys. The undivided Malibu (Ind. deer) grant
outlived all others of the Spanish-Mexican period and became known as the
"last of the ranches." Rindge died in 1905 before his dream of a Riviera
had materialized, leaving an estate valued at $54,000,000 to Mrs. Rindge
and his three children. After her husband's death the single passion of Mrs.
Rindge, who became somewhat of a recluse, was to keep the great rancho
intact. She spent a fortune in the attempt; she sued for libel, trespass, and
defamation of character to oust squatters, and to close public roads: she con-
tinually sought injunctions to prevent road-building. One trial lasted 120 days;
another series of lawsuits lasted 10 years. She in turn was sued by others,
once by her own son, Samuel Rindge, who charged she was dissipating the
estate at the rate of more than $1,000,000 a year. In the course of her fight
on a county-built road (1918-19), Mrs. Rindge sent droves of hogs onto it,
and once ordered the roadbed plowed under and planted with alfalfa. In
1925 state employees who were surveying the new right-of-way were driven
off by armed guards. Construction could proceed only after court injunctions
were obtained against her. In 1925 the Superior Court handed down a de-
cision granting the state authority to construct what is now US lOiA through
the property. A decade later Mrs. Rindge played an entirely different role
in court: unsecured creditors filed a petition in bankruptcy against the Marble-
head Land Company the name that Rindge had applied to his venture.
Faced with some $10,000,000 in obligations, Mrs. Rindge countered with a
voluntary petition for reorganization. In 1938 the Federal District Court
ordered the reorganization, and Mrs. Rindge now lives in her West Adams
Boulevard home in Los Angeles.

US loiA spans MALIBU LAGOON, 5.9 m., a multitentacled arm of the sea run-
ning a short distance inland. On the spray-washed rocks at the lagoon entrance
(L) seals sun themselves.

Crowning a truncated promontory (R), about one mile inland, is the 45-room



386 LOS ANGELES

RINDGE CASTLE (private), the uncompleted stronghold built by Mrs. Rindge.
Constructed of reinforced concrete and designed in the Spanish-Mediterranean
style, the mansion was never occupied. Mrs. Rindge, more than 60 when
she began building the castle, could not complete construction because she ran
out of cash.

It has been estimated a quarter of a million dollars would be needed to
complete it as designed.

Northwest of Malibu Lagoon US loiA, turning slightly inland, forms the
northern border of MALIBU BEACH COLONY, 6.1 m. which occupies a
sand-spit extending to the sea. It consists of a mile of beach houses belonging
to film celebrities, artists, writers, and musicians. The community (unin-
corporated) is closed to the public. A wire fence, frequent "Private Prop-
erty" signs, and chains across the motor approach, policed by the uniformed
Malibu Seashore Patrol guard the privacy of those who can afford to buy
their way into this area of the elect.

From the Malibu Rd.-Topanga Canyon Rd. junction, the main
tour route goes southeast (L) on US loiA, between the sea and the
precipitously rising mountain scarp.

CASTELLAMMARE, 37.6 m., is a seaside area with a private
beach (R) and a residential section (L) on terraces carved from the
mountain, which here drops sharply to the highway's edge. The ter-
raced slopes have stone revetments and are planted with Lipia grass.

At 38 m. is the junction with Sunset Blvd.

Left on Sunset Blvd. to the BERNHEIMER ORIENTAL GARDENS, 0.8 m., (open
8-6; adults 10$, children free; Bernheimer home open on irregular days, adm.
25$), an eight-acre estate on the edge of the Pacific Palisades, overlooking
the sea, scientifically landscaped and beautified in the Oriental manner. From
an Oriental gatehouse (R), a palm-lined private road leads to a hill crowned
by a group of small one-room Japanese houses the home of Adolp Bernheimer,
cotton exporter and designer of the gardens, who in 50 years made 17 trips
to the Orient collecting the treasures in the house and gardens.

To the left of the gatehouse is a reproduction of the stables in the temple
grounds at Nikko, Japan, in the black, mauve, and gold colors characterizing
all the buildings. Beside the stables is a rock-lined lily pool with a bronze
miniature of Lao-tse, Chinese philosopher of the sixth century B.C., mounted on
a horse.

The exceptionally life-like bronze figure of Ten-Jin, ninth-century Japanese
religious teacher, mounted on a representation of a sacred ox, watches over
the entrance to the flower and bronze-lined path which winds to the Bernheimer
home. Each room of the home is a separate house, although the four units
are connected by pergolas. Treasures include color paintings on rice paper
many hundreds of years old, bridal and temple kimonos, fingernail tapestries
woven by specially-grown fingernails; and two pairs of devil-dogs tradi-
tional protectors from evil spirits, the bitch of each pair represented with suck-
ling pups.

More bronzes enhance the downward path to the Sunken Garden, among
them a Burmese Buddha in a "wishing well." At the bottom is a miniature
lake, replete with miniature temples and figures of warriors and elephants.

Bernheimer, a native of New York, began collecting Oriental objects in
1887, came to Los Angeles in 1913, and in 1915 created an Oriental garden
on a hilltop near Hollywood Blvd. and Franklin Ave. (see Hollywood). Work
was begun on the present location in 1925 and completed in 1927. Total
expenditures came to $3,000,000.

The CALIFORNIA STATE BEACH (free), 40.2 m., extending (R)
between W. Channel Rd. and Mayberry Ave., at the northern edge of



TOUR 7 387

Santa Monica is only one of several state-owned beach lands lying be-
tween Santa Monica and Malibu Beach.

Southeast of the state beach, US lOiA skirts the edge of the Santa
Monica Palisades (L) and a half-mile-long row of beach homes (R),
many of which are the seaside residences of film celebrities.

SANTA MONICA, 42.1 m. (100 alt., 53,500 pop.) (see Santa
Monica).

Points of Interest: Clover Field, Douglas Aircraft plant, Yacht Harbor,
Palisades Park, Municipal Aquarium, Municipal Pier, and others.

At 45.4 m. is the junction with Washington Blvd. (see Tour 5).



K&&3&(&^^^^



Tour 7



TO BIG PINES

Los Angeles Burbank San Fernando Palmdale Big Pines San
Bernardino; 146.9 m.; US 6, State 138, Big Pines Rd., US 66.

Southern Pacific R.R. parallels route between Los Angeles and Palmdale;
Union Pacific R.R. and Santa Fe Ry. between junction US 66 and San
Bernardino.

Concrete and asphaltic roadbed entire route; four lanes between Los Angeles
and junction US 99; two wide lanes between junction US 99 and San Ber-
nardino. Snowstorms in winter in Big Pines-Wrightwood area, but highways
kept open all year.

This route circles the San Gabriel Mountains, by way of two large
valleys the San Fernando and the Antelope, which is roughly at the
edge of the Mojave Desert. Topography and climate change con-
stantly as the road leaves the coastal watershed, skirts the Mojave
Desert, and mounts the pine-scented mountain ridges, and runs for 20
miles at an elevation of about 5,000 feet through the Angeles and San
Bernardino National Forests.

From the LOS ANGELES CITY HALL, ist and Main Sts.,
m., west on ist St. to Figueroa St. (US 6) ; R. on Figueroa St. to
Riverside Dr.; L. on Riverside Dr. to Dayton Ave. ; R. on Dayton
Ave. to San Fernando Rd. ; L. on San Fernando Rd. (US 6-99).

GLENDALE, 8 m. (1,200 alt., 82,582 pop.) (see Glendale).

.Points of Interest: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Grand Central Air Ter-
minal, and others.

US 6 proceeds along the eastern edge of the San Fernando Valley,
predominantly a fertile agricultural basin that, in spite of its proximity



388 LOS ANGELES

to Los Angeles and increasing industrial activity in its southeastern tip,
has maintained a distinctively rural and suburban character. None the
less, approximately four-fifths of it became part of Los Angeles between
1915 and 1923, after the completion of the Los Angeles-Owens River
Aqueduct (see Pueblo To Metropolis) had prepared the valley for its
conversion from a parched and arid plain to a wide green expanse of
cultivated fields and orchards.

The valley is almost circled by mountains that long isolated it from
the boom developments of Los Angeles. Today, however, two broad
modern highways carry commuters to and from the city, and 500 miles
of paved road gridiron the valley floor.

Clinging to the foothill slopes, attractive residences look down upon
a flat valley that, the year round, presents a scene of constant activity in
fields and orchards. In the valley are three types of farms: predom-
inant are tracts of one to ten acres where vegetables, flowers, and
poultry are produced for the Los Angeles market; next are the large
ranches, where alfalfa and foodstuffs are produced by mass-production
methods; and last are the farm-estates, where cinema executives and
other celebrities in the role of country gentlemen, live in beautiful houses
on landscaped grounds and direct the production of vegetables and
flowers and the breeding of dogs and horses sometimes for the com-
mercial market. The generally equable climate and the protection of
the mountains that ward off fog and humidity have resulted in the
building of many hospitals, health resorts, and sanatoria in the higher
foothills.

In the southeastern section, near the city, population is increasing
rapidly and new subdivisions appear every year, with broad streets
fringed with transplanted palms and acacias.

Early San Fernando V^alley settlers were subsistence farmers depend-
ent upon natural springs, uncertain amounts of rainfall, and the capri-
cious Los Angeles River to aid in the production of grain and fruits.
Now water from the high Sierras, carried more than 200 miles through
mountains and desert, is stored in the San Fernando and Chatsworth
reservoirs for even distribution to perennially thirsty areas by conduits
and channels.

While poultry, dairy products, flowers, and shrubs are produced in
considerable quantities, citrus fruits are the most important valley crop
in point of acreage and value. Walnuts, introduced in 1893, form the
largest single crop acreage. Olives, berries, and fruits, including apples,
peaches, plums, and figs, are also grown in quantities. Approximately
a third of the grapes grown in Los Angeles County are produced in the
eastern foothills of the valley. Though table and raisin grapes are
cultivated, wine grapes of the Zinfandel, Mission, and Eastern Concord
varieties predominate. Carrots are the most valuable of the truck
crops, though all the others are produced.

BURBANK, 11.2 m. (555 alt., 34,337 pop.), has retained its su-
burban and residential flavor in the face of rapid industrial develop-
ment. Motion-picture production and the manufacture of airplanes






TOUR 7 389

and airplane parts are its leading sources of income, though it also
produces soaps, cosmetics, motor trucks, liquor, cement, and processed
foods. Both houses and business buildings exhibit the local predilection
for adaptations of Spanish and Mexican architectural motifs; there are
miles of vari-tinted stucco and imitation adobe houses and courts,
blossom-bowered bungalows, and bright-colored apartment houses.

Burbank came into being in May 1887, when the boom period
Providencia Land, Water and Development Company subdivided the
arid site and named it after Dr. David Burbank, a previous owner of
the Rancho La Providencia, from whom the company bought 9,000
acres. Within a year the town had 30 residences, a $30,000 hotel, a
Southern Pacific Railroad station, a furniture factory, and a horsecar
line one and a half miles long. But the town languished with collapse
of the boom and growth did not begin until after the Pacific Electric
Railway was extended from Los Angeles in 1911 and anticipation of
the arrival of water from Owens Valley shortly afterward. The
Moreland Motor Truck plant was established in 1917; First National
Pictures, now Warner Brothers-First National, opened a motion-pic-
ture studio in town. In time the industrial plants were built, gradu-
ally cutting down the town acreage under cultivation.

The LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION PLANT (adm. by arrange-
ment}, 1705 Victory Blvd., on a 5O-acre tract, produces large quantities
of commercial and military planes. Incorporated in 1926, the company
specialized in the designing and building of single- and twin-motored
speed planes, known as the Lockheed Vega. In the early 1930*5 it
entered the commercial transportation field. Among its developments
were the twin-motored lO-passenger Electra, a plane in wide use among
the smaller air lines, and a I4~passenger transport with a cruising
speed of 253 m.p.h. and top speed of 273 miles providing the fastest
passenger transportation in the world.

The UNION AIR TERMINAL, 2627 Hollywood Way, in the north-
western section of town, occupies an irregular rectangle with a five-
fingered, asphalt-paved runway. It is used by Transcontinental and
Western Air., Inc., United Air Lines Transport Corporation, Western
Air Express Corporation, American Airlines, and various operators of
charter ships. There are repair depots, salesrooms, and airplane acces-
sory manufacturing concerns. The field has the usual Federal airfield
services, is a regional U. S. Weather Bureau base, and headquarters of a
branch of the Aerial Forest Fire Patrol. The white concrete Adminis-
tration Building of modern design with arcaded one-story wings branch-
ing from a three-story tile-roofed central unit, houses ticket offices,
waiting rooms, and a cafe. There are six steel and concrete hangars.

The new WALT DISNEY STUDIO (no visitors), 2400 S. Alameda
St., which opened in 1940, houses the Disney animated-cartoon film
plant. With walls of a new earthquake-resistant brick, reinforced by
steel grids, the plant has 14 buildings and elaborate equipment. Largest
structure is the three-story Animation Building; others include an
orchestra, theatre, cutting, process, and painting buildings. There is a



3QO LOS ANGELES

special air-conditioning plant to meet the requirements of the delicate
film coloring processes, which demand controlled humidity.

To produce a standard 75O-foot "short" a staff of 800 must work
about three months. A feature-length film requires a slightly smaller
staff for some 18 months (Snow White was nearly four years in the
making). Production of an animated film involves great cost ($50,000
each for shorts, $1,500,000 for Snow White) and much labor (10,000
to 15,000 sketches for a 75O-foot film). The dialogue, music, and
sound effects are recorded first, each on a separate sound track, and
then synchronized on one final sound track from which a careful timing
graph is prepared for the guidance of the animators in drawing the
sketches for the film; if a character is to speak a word, and the sound
graph indicates that the word is recorded on eight frames of film, the
animator makes eight drawings in which the lips of the character move
to speak the word. Sounds of footsteps, of falling blocks, music, etc.,
are similarly indicated in the graph and followed in the animation. A
staff of 50 senior animators makes the key drawings of each series of
sketches, leaving the "in-betweeners" to follow through with interme-
diate sketches. The last process in the Disney plant is the photograph-
ing of each sketch on a continuous film strip with a multiplane camera.
This is mounted lens downward on a 1 4-foot iron framework con-
taining brackets placed one below another; the animation sketches,
which have been traced, inked and colored on large transparent cellu-
loid squares, are placed one at a time in the uppermost bracket of the
framework to be photographed against intermediate background scenes
painted on celluloids set in the lower brackets, and a final background
scene set in the lowest rack. This process gives an illusion of depth
to the finished film, which then goes to the technicolor plant in Holly-
wood for coloring.

Walt Disney, the guiding hand of this complicated business, no
longer finds time to draw his own pictures, but he still records his
voice in the role of Mickey Mouse, his favorite creation. Disney,
who was interested in drawing and photography while still a boy, was
born in Chicago in 1901. While working at various illustrating jobs,
he experimented at home in making animated films. One short reel
of home-town incidents he sold to local theatres before he was twenty.
In 1923 he went to Hollywood and struggled with various animated
film projects until he made a small beginning with Oswald the Rabbit
cartoons in 1927. Mickey Mouse came into being as a silent film
when the first sound movies were being shown, and was therefore lost
in the excitement; the third Mickey strip, made with sound (1928),
was the first of the phenomenally popular Disney enterprises.

The ANDREW JERGENS COMPANY PLANT (no visitors), 99 S. Ver-
dugo Ave., manufactures approximately 100 varieties of toilet soaps,
cosmetics, creams, lotions, and pastes.

The COLUMBIA RANCH (adm. by special pass only), 3701 S. Oak
St., is the set-lot of the Columbia Pictures Corporation of Hollywood.
Permanent sets include American and foreign street scenes, single






TOUR 7 391

houses each representative of a different architectural style or period,
a complete South American village, and a waterfront. Ocean scenes
are filmed in a tank, containing a steamer and pier, effects being
achieved by the skillful use of mechanical and photographic devices.

WARNER BROTHERS-FIRST NATIONAL STUDIO (adm. by special pass
only), 4000 South Olive Ave., has some 75 scattered buildings and
sound stages in which are annually produced between 60 and 65 feature-
length films and approximately 175 short ones. Dominating the build-
ings on the front lot is the three-story research building, opposite the
one-story red-brick writers' building. In the background are rows of
great sound stages, miscellaneous utility buildings, and acres of stock
and permanent sets. There is an artificial lake for shooting sea scenes.
In October 1927 the studio produced The Jazz Singer, starring Al
Jolson; this was the first all-talking feature picture. Its success in-
spired an expansion program that led to the absorption of the First
National Studios by Warner Brothers, the acquisition of a chain of
theatres, and the construction of this plant in 1929-30.

ROSCOE, 16.2 772. (850 alt.), is a trade center of poultry raisers
and small farmers.

PACOIMA, 20.7 777. (1,013 alt.), is a scattered community of
ranchers.

SAN FERNANDO, 22.6 m. (1,076 alt., 9,094 pop.), in the heart
of a prosperous area producing citrus fruits, olives, and vegetables, was
founded in 1874 by George K. Porter but, like other communities
established at the period, was very small until water arrived. It is
primarily a trading center but does fruit packing and canning. The
city is modern in appearance, with the usual tree-bordered streets.

The UNITED STATES VETERANS' HOSPITAL (open daily 3-5:30),
in the foothills at the head of Sayre St., was established as a sanatorium
for tubercular ex-service men in 1924. It now provides general medi-
cal service for women war workers, as well as veterans. The institu-
tion, on a foothill of the Santa Monica Mountains, has beautifully
landscaped grounds.

Since 1920 OLIVE VIEW SANATORIUM (open Wed.-Sun. 3-5), NE.
corner Foothill Blvd. and Olive View Dr., has been operated by Los
Angeles County for the treatment of the tubercular, and has approxi-
mately 1,000 beds in nearly two hundred one-story bungalows built
along narrow avenues that overlook hillside olive groves.

The Pico ADOBE (adm. by permission of occupant), 10940 Se-
pulveda Blvd., entrance from Columbia Ave., is a reconstruction of a
building erected by mission Indians in 1834 and acquired by Andres
and Romolo Pico, brother and nephew, respectively, of Pio Pico, Cali-
fornia's last Mexican governor. The first building was much en-
larged through the years, but was in ruins in 1930 when it came into
possession of the Southwest Museum. The adobe has been carefully
restored along the original lines and forms a two-story U-shaped
hacienda with low porch running the full length of the east side. In
the patio are climbing vines and burnt-tile walks.



392 LOS ANGELES

Left from San Fernando on State 118 to the restored MISSION SAN FER-
NANDO REY DE ESPANA, 1.6 m. (open 9:30-5:30; adm. 25$}, NW. corner Mission
Blvd. and Columbia Ave., i7th of the chain of 21 Franciscan missions founded
in California. It was established September 9, 1797, under the supervision of
Padres Fermin Lasuen and Francisco Dumetz and named in honor of the
canonized King of Castile, Saint Ferdinand III. The first church, completed
in 1806, was so severely damaged by earthquakes that a new one was built
in 1818. Of the first only a crumbling adobe wall remains. Of the second
structure, the corwento has survived and has been restored a picturesque
adobe building parallel with Mission Boulevard. Along the facade is a long
loggia, with 19 semicircular arches supported on massive square pillars. The
old tile floor beneath the archway is worn into deep hollows. The work of
the Indian blacksmiths is still seen in the hand-wrought ironwork of mouldings
around the doors and windows. The east room, remodeled into a chapel,
contains old paintings and relics. Visitors are shown the kitchens and dining
room, where they climb a crude open stairway to the huge low guest dormi-
tories under the sloping roof, and descend to the cellars, where are old wine
vats and the receptacles in which the Indians tramped out the juice of grapes.
Narrow deeply embrasured windows open into dank high-ceilinged chambers,
now unfurnished, in which the padres and their assistants lived. Northwest
of the- convento is the ancient graveyard where 2,000 Indians are buried.
The convento and a few acres of land surrounding it, including the burial
ground, the ruins of the first chapel, and the crumbling walls of the Indian
quarters now are the property of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

BRAND PARK, NE. corner Mission Blvd. and Columbus Ave., was presented
to the city of Los Angeles in 1920 by a group of persons headed by Leslie C.
Brand. Part of the park has been made a Memorial Garden, modeled after a
garden at Santa Barbara Mission. Flanking a STATUE OF FRA JUNIPERO SERRA,
founder of California missions, near the main entrance, stands a massive stone
fountain, a copy of one in Cordova, Spain. Built in 1812-14, the fountain for-
merly stood in the courtyard of San Fernando Mission. Another relic of
mission days is a stone vat with two great ovens, which are used for roasting
meats and rendering fats.

US 6 ascends sharply between the sparsely grown chaparral slopes
of the San Gabriel Mountains (R) and the more verdant flanks of the
Santa Susana Mountains (L).

Across a deep arroyo (R) paralleling the highway at 29.1 m. is a
boulder monument at the entrance to narrow FREMONT PASS, named