The folks behind KCET’s web series ‘LA as Subject’ have been busy putting together a collection of stories that provide deep dives into the rich history of very specific places in our City. Hosted by the USC Libraries, LA Historian and manager of academic events and programming communications for the USC Libraries, Nathan Masters, beautifully uses the resources of his institution and other participating collections to bring the past to life.
Last week ‘LA as Subject’ profiled the corner of Wilshire and Western. The story is ‘From Wool Ranch to the Wiltern: A Brief History of Wilshire and Western’Â and Masters puts together a neat history of the corner starting in 1880s and running through current day. Here’s a taste…
The Los Angeles city limits lay less than two miles away, but standing at the lonely crossroads then it might have seemed more like two hundred.
Not to Germain Pellissier. In 1882, the 33-year-old immigrant from the French Alps purchased the Southern Pacific’s 156-acre tract on the intersection’s southeast corner for $3,200. At first Pellissier opened a sheep ranch on his new property, but he was less interested in the land for wool production than as a long-term investment; the foresighted Pellissier believed that a growing Los Angeles would soon spill over its city limits and reach his quarter-section of wilderness.
In 1931, Pellissier’s grandon Henry de Roulet developed the corner closer to being what we know it to be today – erecting the Stiles O Clements art-deco complex and the Warner Western Theater.
We all know the corner as it exists today…a beautiful, classic art-deco building housing the Wiltern Theater – a vintage movie house that always attracts some of the best musical tours of the day. Thanks to the LA Conservancy and one of our own, Hancock Park resident and developer Wayne Ratkovich, the building was saved from demolition and renovated in the ’80s.
The corner has a rich history…head on over to KCET.org and take it all in.
Read more:
KCET.org ‘LA as Subject’ –Â From Wool Ranch to the Wiltern: A Brief History of Wilshire and Western
