Wednesday, August 2, 1769. As he accompanied Captain Gaspar de Portolà, Fray Juan Crespi made the following observations in his diary:
After traveling about a league and a half through a pass between low hills, we entered a very spacious valley, well grown with cottonwoods and alders, among which ran a beautiful river from the north-northwest, and then, doubling the point of a steep hill, it went on afterwards to the south. Toward the north-northeast, there is another riverbed that forms a spacious watercourse, but we found it dry.
Read MoreThespians had few acting opportunities during Los Angeles’s early years. Few plays were performed between 1781, when the first settlers arrived, and 1846, the end of the Mexican era. Plays that were performed were religious, featured the Christmas story and starred the local Franciscan missionaries. Stagings took place on the pueblo’s streets – without the benefit of a stage.
L.A.’s first, semi-permanent stage wasn’t built until 1848. I
Read MoreOverlooking the San Fernando Valley, Mulholland Drive snakes along the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains and separates “The Valley” from the part of Los Angeles that is broadly referred to as “The Westside.” Beginning at Hollywood’s Cahuenga Pass, site of the 1847 “Capitulation of Cahuenga” that ended the Mexican – American War for California, Mulholland Drive gains elevation and winds past the upper entrance to Runyon Canyon. From there it continues west looking down on, in turn, Universal City, Studio City and Sherman Oaks.
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