County Courthouse panorama, ca.1898
Stitched together three images from William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) from
about 1898. I'm guessing the date here based on the fact the Broadway
tunnel is still missing but the road grade for California Street has been
lowered. I'm thinking the tunnel is a year or two away. It opened for business
in 1901. Starting on the far left, we have the Poundcake Hill High School
building (medium greyish with the single belfry) resting now just off of
California Street west of Hill Street. It has been here since 1882 when it was
moved to make way for the 1888 County Courthouse upon which Mr. Jackson
has perched with his camera. These images predate the more widely known
C.C. Pierce photographs which are so similar. The missing tunnel is the tell-
tale difference. To the right of the Poundcake schoolhouse is the second Los
Angeles High School building on Hill Street with it's four stories and clock
tower. An additional wing of the high school will be built to the right (or north
side) of this building but that hasn't happened yet either, so we have a clear
view of the J.W. Robinson Mansion above Sunset (likely still Bellevue here)
Boulevard. Now we can come down here to the lower left corner of the image
and find the WCTU building on the NW corner of Broadway and Temple Street.
It stretches to it's full five stories but will ultimately give up the top three
floors to the tightening earthquake regulations and finally be torn down in
1956 or '57. At the head of lower Broadway is the unimproved shale face of
what will soon become the south portal of the Broadway tunnel carrying the
roadbed through Fort Moore Hill to Sunset Boulevard. Above this shale face is
the upper Broadway roadbed with Hancock Banning's house on the right with
the lone horse in the corral. The center of the image is dominated by Buena
Vista (or Justicia) running from Temple Street (out-of-frame at the bottom) to
it's crest at Fort Moore Place before it goes out-of-sight over and around the
shoulder of Fort Moore Hill to Sunset Boulevard. In the distance we can see
the San Fernando Hotel at Ord and N. Spring Street although the Sunset
Hotel, it's neighbor, is hidden by tree branches. Temple Street emerges on the
right running diagonally across the lower right corner of the image past New
High Street, a hard-to-see Spring Street and finally to Main Street. Aliso
Street runs directly away from the camera in the upper right quadrant and on
Main Street we can pick out the Baker Block, the Masonic Lodge, the Merced
Theater and the Pico House. The Hip roof and three cupolas of the Lugo House
face a still largely empty Plaza.
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