LOS ANGELES 



3503 



LOS ANGELES 



NORTH FROM PERSHING SQUARE 



OS ANGELES, lohs ang' gel es, or 

 los an'jelcs, CAL., according to the census esti- 

 mates of 1916, was in that year the largest city 

 in the United States west of Saint Louis. It- 

 is the county seat of Los Angeles County, and 

 is situated 484 miles southeast of San Fran- 

 cisco and 781 miles southwest of Salt Lake 

 City. The city's growth in population is proof 

 of an unusual combination of natural advan- 

 tages. In 1850 it was a town of 1,610 inhabit- 

 ants. By 1890 the population was 50,395, and 

 during the next ten years it had more than 

 doubled, reaching 104,266. Another decade saw 

 this figure increased to 319,198. In 1914 the 

 United States estimate was 438,914; July 1, 1916, 

 Los Angeles was estimated to have 503,812 in- 

 habitants. It is the largest city in the Union 

 having no saloons; they were voted out in 

 November, 1917. In April, 1918, the city and 

 surrounding country experienced an earthquake 

 shock, without severe loss. 



Situation and Transportation. Los Angeles 

 is in Southern California, fifteen miles directly 

 east of the Pacific Ocean and ten miles south 

 of the Sierra Madre Mountains. The course 

 of the Los Angeles River is through the city, 

 but the stream is dry the greater part of the 

 year. The site of the city is generally level, 

 interrupted by occasional steep hills; the sub- 

 urban residence sections, however, extend into 

 the foothills. A wide strip of land eighteen 

 miles in length connects the main city with its 

 harbor, which is on San Pedro Bay. By the 

 annexation of the ports of Wilmington and 

 San Pedro and other additions, the area has 

 been increased from 106 square miles, as re- 

 ported by the Federal census of 1910, to 287 

 square miles. Chinatown, and a Mexican com- 

 munity about the old Plaza Park, once the 

 center of the town, are now in the north part 

 of the city. 



Los Angeles harbor has a possible water 

 frontage of twenty-one miles. The Federal 



government has expended $3,100,000 upon the 

 construction of a breakwater and in dredging 

 operations, and in 1916 the city applied an 

 additional sum of SI 0,000,000 to the greater de- 

 velopment of the harbor, the building of mu- 

 nicipal wharves and the construction of a broad 

 transportation highway to the cit}^. The Fed- 

 eral government is to construct an extensive 

 system of fortifications on a bluff overlooking 

 the harbor. With the completion of the Pana- 

 ma Canal, Los Angeles became a shipping 

 point and port of call of .first importance. 

 Water commerce is rapidly increasing, and 

 steamship lines operate from Los Angeles to 

 San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and British 

 Columbia, to Honolulu and the Orient, and 

 through the Panama Canal to Atlantic and 

 European ports. 



The overland railroads running to Los An- 

 geles are the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; 

 the Southern Pacific; the San Pedro, Los An- 

 geles & Salt Lake, and the Chicago, Rock 

 Island & Pacific. Perhaps no other American 

 city has developed such an adequate system of 

 street railways and electric interurban lines; 

 the city lines comprise over 400 miles of single 

 track; the interurban lines, double track, and 

 many of them having four tracks, form a net- 

 Avork throughout the country extending to 

 places of interest and to numerous towns, some 1 

 of them sixty miles distant. 



Parks and Resorts. The entire Los Angeles 

 County is really a great park, set between the 

 Pacific and the snow-capped mountains, beauti- 

 fied by a semitropical vegetation, including 

 orange groves, flowering shrubs and plants, pep- 

 per, palm, eucalyptus, acacia, banana and cam- 

 phor trees. The city parks, with a combined 

 area of over 4,000 acres, represent a combina- 

 tion of landscape gardening and this luxuriant 

 natural vegetation. Near the business center, 

 and bordered by prominent buildings, is Per- 

 shing Square, formerly Central Park. Grif- 



