Art Rogers/L.A. Times
From the Archives:
The Hareport Chronicles
Nov. 19, 1946: Early morning view of scores of jackrabbits watching activities at Los Angeles Municipal Airport, slated to open to major airlines on December 9, 1946.(Art Rogers / Los Angeles Times)
While taking this image, former Los Angeles Times staff photographer Art Rogers remembers “someone was using a jackhammer and suddenly stopped and all the rabbit ears went up.”
This photo ran the width of the page across the top of the daily L.A. Times picture page. It was well-received by editors and readers everywhere — except at City Hall.
Los Angeles Times columnist Gene Sherman explained Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron’s reaction in 1948:
About two years ago you may recall the startling picture taken by Times Photographer Art Rogers. It showed Los Angeles Airport framed above a row of bunnies alert along the east end, ears aloft. For some peculiar reason the picture created quite a stir…
… Setting some kind of precedent, Mayor Bowron categorically denied the photograph. When the picture later appeared in a national magazine, the mayor again challenged the integrity of photographic plate and flash bulb and informed the world that the idea of jackrabbits on the airport was pure poppycock…
.… From time to time passengers in giant air liners are amused when giant jacks race the plane on take-off. Until now, none of the rabbits has left the ground. … A week later Mayor Bowron capitulated and visited Sherman at The Times office. Bowron presented Sherman with a real airport bunny. Sherman named the rabbit “Poppycock.”
The rabbits were such a feature of the early days that they became nationally famous through the prize-winning picture made by Times photographer Art Rogers, who crept up on the airfield one day at dawn and caught hundred of them flocking around a couple of DC-3s.
Much to the consternation of former Mayor Bowron, the place thereafter was referred to as International Hareport.
The jackrabbit photo by Art Rogers was published as a double-page spread in the Dec. 2, 1946, edition of Life magazine.
[Which you can see
HERE, pages 36-37.]