Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyingwedge
LAPL has the 1888 and 1894 Sanborn maps available online (with library card). Home access of the database didn't work today (librarians at a loss to explain), so I went to my local branch and looked online at the maps there. The building immediately south of the courthouse was, as MichaelRyerson said, an old jail, and is labeled in some detail on the 1894 map. To me it looks more like a church than a jail.
Here's the New High Street side in c. 1895 (I like that "DRUG" sign at lower left). On the Sanborn map the "church" building is labeled "Off's 1st / D 2nd." Maybe that means "Offices 1st floor" and "Detention 2nd floor"?:
USC Digital Library ( http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...id/2719/rec/28)
It seems to have lost the cross atop the right front corner in this c. 1904 pic:
USC Digital Library ( http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...id/2722/rec/22)
In this c. 1906 shot looking I guess NE, we see the church-like building from the side/rear. The Sanborn map marks the slightly smaller building attached to the rear of the "church" as the actual jail; unseen and attached to the back side of the jail is a workshop.
USC Digital Library ( http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...id/2723/rec/69)
Here are the back of the jail and a little of the workshop building in this c. 1900 pic from the corner of Broadway and Temple:
USC Digital Library ( http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/90118/rec/63)
Looking down Broadway in c. 1906 we see -- along with the shaded courthouse in the upper left quadrant of the photo -- a structure with smokestacks that according to the 1894 Sanborn map was behind (west of) the workshop, although they look to have been two halves of the same building. It housed a compression tank, steam plant, and oil and air pumps (seems like a big power plant just for that jail building; it must have also served the courthouse). Feeding the power plant, in the southwest corner of the courthouse lawn, was a 10,000-gallon crude oil tank with its top even with the ground.
USC Digital Library ( http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...id/1725/rec/36)
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OK, here's the shot I wish I'd found earlier. It's looking SE at the old County Courthouse, possibly from the roof of the WCTU building at Broadway and Temple. To the right you can see the back of the jail and a much clearer view of the workshop/industrial building fronting on Broadway. It looks ugly and out of place there next to the courthouse. Probably smelled and sounded unpleasant as well:
LAPL (
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics17/00018269.jpg)
It's tough to see, but what's that there in the southwest corner of the courthouse lawn? Maybe if we zoom in and lighten the area a bit . . .
Above the blue line, on that narrow flat peninsula of the courthouse grounds, it looks to me like the round top of that 10,000 gallon oil tank that the Sanborn people were concerned about. And could that be a primitive wagon/tank next to it, making a delivery?
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Before we leave the area, here's a shot I don't think we've seen before of the 1902 County Jail at Temple and Buena Vista, and at left the old Hall of Justice just behind it on Buena Vista. Note the tall windows with rounded tops on the back part of the jail:
LAPL (
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics35/00037443.jpg)
Here are those windows again. This is looking east in c. 1921, between the Hall of Justice and the County Jail. That's the old US Post Office across New High Street in the background. The bridge connecting the HOJ and CJ was known as the Bridge of Sighs. I wonder if anyone who crossed it also crossed the one in Venice?
UCLA Digital Collections