Earl Millar lived at 301 S. Olive and built an office block at 37/39 S. Fort Street, later 137/39 S. Broadway.
He moved into his home -- which he was to occupy for a third of a century -- at the SW corner of 3rd and Olive in November 1883:
November 7 1883 LA Times
This zoomed photo looks SW from the Nadeau Hotel, which was completed in August 1883. At the SE corner of 3rd and Olive, where in 1886 the Crocker Mansion will be built, is a small house
(to the left of the turreted barn). The Millar home may be hidden behind the two homes at the top of the hill near the center of the photo (the darker, two-story house with the porches,
and the house above and behind it):
USCDL --
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/1761/rec/196
SW corner 3rd and Olive, 1888 Sanborn:
LAPL
Once the Crocker Mansion was built, plenty of photos of the era looked up at it or down from it! But zooming in on this 1898 photo from 3rd and Spring is the best view I could get of the
Millar home, behind and to the left of the Crocker. As in the previous photo, we see the turreted barn, and to the right of the Crocker the dark, two-story patioed home -- apparently
renovated -- plus the house above it:
USCDL -- http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15799coll65/id/3480/rec/18[/url]
In this c. 1905 zoomed view from the Court House, the Millar home is right of center -- opposite the Crocker Mansion -- and seemingly with a white pole sticking out of the middle of it (but
not really of course; it's probably one of the early light masts):
USCDL --
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/co.../id/1227/rec/7
We've seen many photos here showing the top of Angel's Flight, but, again, not the SW corner of 3rd and Olive just across the street! The Millar home appears on the 1921 Baist map,
but zooming in on this February 20, 1963 photo suggests that the home didn't last much longer after 1921 and was replaced by a modest commercial building (we see the rear end of
a green-and-white car parked in front of it):
Huntington Digital Library --
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single...id/7647/rec/40
The Millar Block will be built just north of the NW corner of 2nd and Fort (later Broadway), perhaps starting in late 1885. Here's that intersection in the right foreground, c. 1883-84.
The church in the foreground is the First Presbyterian, completed in April 1883 on the SE corner of 2nd and Fort. Its pastor at this time was J. W. Ellis, of Ellis Vista College:
USCDL --
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/1759/rec/185
The Millar Block was completed in early 1886:
July 2 1886 LA Times
1887 LA City Directory @ Fold3.com
This photo of the two-story Millar Block shows the west/rear side (stepped wall at top with wooden porch attached) and north side, looking SE from 1st and Hill c. 1886-7. In the upper
right corner, below "Organs," is LA's first synagogue, completed on Fort St. in 1873:
USCDL --
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/co...id/898/rec/264
Another c. 1886-87 photo, looking SW from the Nadeau, showing the front of the Millar Block, which I guess is technically three stories if you count the little room in the turret. The building
being built on the SW corner of 2nd and Fort, the California Bank Building, will have a big "1887" high up on the 2nd Street side.
USCDL --
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/1762/rec/188
But Millar wasn't satisfied with his building:
August 7 1887 LA Times
Here is 37-39 S. Fort with four stories (plus an addition in the rear, replacing the wooden porch), taken from City Hall c. 1888-90
(the city ordinance eliminating street numbers below 100 was signed by Mayor Hazard on December 21, 1889). The 1887 California
Bank Building dominates the foreground. See the name on the building at top right? Was "Seymour Johnson" a double-entendre
back then, too?:
USCDL --
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si.../17808/rec/515
Sadly, it was around this time that Mrs. Millar passed away:
February 20, 1888 LA Herald @ LOC --
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...arRange&page=1
Mrs. Millar's brother George D. Rowan went into business with Mr. Millar (and apparently was not the stereotypical lunkhead brother-in-law, given his biographies, which refer to his
father as James, not George B. as in his sister's obit above). George D. Rowan's son, Robert A. Rowan, was Rowan of the Rowan-Bilicke Fireproof Building Company, which built
fireproof buildings that were absolutely fireproof, like the Alexandria Hotel, shown here in 1906:
CA State Library --
http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...I4ED2JCXUE.jpg
Info:
http://books.google.com/books?id=YMU...ngeles&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=j-I...eproof&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=j-I...ngeles&f=false
http://www.rmslusitania.info/people/...lbert-bilicke/
Mr. Millar remarried -- to a Lily -- but in time, Death came for him, too:
Simmon's Spice Mill, December 1916 (Spice Mill Publishing Company, New York) @
http://books.google.com/books?id=l-s...epage&q&f=true
Here are the Millar Block and its neighbors, c. 1904-5. The C. H. Frost Building would later become the Haig M. Prince Building:
USCDL --
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/1745/rec/330
By 1906 the Millar Block had been renamed the Roanoke Building:
1906 Sanborn @ LAPL
You can see the top two stories of 137-139 S. Broadway in this February 23, 1909, photo looking west from 2nd and Spring:
LOC --
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource...a18032/?co=pan (previously posted by
gsjansen: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=1337)
We have to fast-forward to February 24, 1952, for the next good -- and one of the best -- shots of the Millar Block:
Indiana University Archives --
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cush...se&pnum=P05738
But, as you may have already surmised, even with those two lions roaring defiantly out of the facade, time was running out for 137-39 S. Broadway. This photo is dated 1963; note the
lamp post in front of the building:
CA State Library --
http://catalog.library.ca.gov/exlibr...IER3EUP79J.jpg
This photo is dated June 1961 and looks at the NW corner of 2nd and Broadway -- so either it or the previous photo is misdated. At any rate, the Millar Block would have been across
the street from the green flag, behind the lamp post:
Huntington Digital Library --
http://hdl.huntington.org/cdm/single...d/6280/rec/186
And 50 years later, what does the NW corner of 2nd and Broadway look like?
GSV