From the Los Angeles Examiner June 18, 1905

STATE HAS BAD ROADS
FOR MONEY INVESTED.

City’s Streets Have Cost Thousands of Dollars and Are Not as Good as the County Roads.

How can the automobile people make out country roads better?

That is the question at present most important here in California. We have the bad roads, and our very best roads are not first class; the money is being spent for building and repairing roads, but the improvement in our roads . . . is slight. . . .

In Los Angeles there is an automobile club of one hundred and fifty members, which was organized partly for this object of improving country roads; and this club, “The Automobile Club of Southern California,” has conducted two race meets and been interested in another, in which there was considerable profit, and the money made by these race meets was to be used in improving the country roads. The amount that was to be used this way has been variously estimated at between $5,000 and $10,000.

There is also another automobile club, which has done but little for over a year, and its membership is small.

The dealers of this city have an organization known as the “Automobile Dealers of Southern California.” While their primary object is to regulate and benefit the automobile trade, every member is interested in good roads and is willing to help, even from his own pocketbook, if necessary, to make our roads better.

Another power for good is “The

 Camino Real Association,” which has local branches in all the large towns of Southern California, and a State organization.

All members of the Camino Real Association pay $2 a year dues, to be used for perfecting a continuous road across the state. . . .

Sunset Boulevard, the much-praised avenue leading from this city to Hollywood, is about the roughest piece of road to be found in fifty miles, unless Wilshire Boulevard, near Westlake [now MacArthur] Park, is worse.

How is it possible for Los Angeles city, with its army of real estate men, to tolerate such horrible roads right where tourists and visitors travel the most is strange to understand.

Have we no civic pride to remedy this eyesore? Wilshire Boulevard has never been a good road; it looks now as though it never would be a good road; and yet lots of money has been spent upon it. Who is to blame for this state of affairs?

Sunset Boulevard is said to have already cost $375,000; the city has paid $100,000 on one contract in building this scenic avenue.

There is good road-building material all along Sunset Boulevard. A few hard-working farmers with shovels and picks and a farm roller ought to put Sunset Boulevard in very good condition, at least for a quarter of its width, if no more. . . .
Should L.A.’s auto drivers be tested? One city councilman thinks so.
Click here for the story.

An interesting story about the Auto Vehicle Company of Los Angeles is on this page of the Los Angeles Fire Department historical archive.

To see a photo of two Tourists fording Big Tujunga Creek, click here.
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From the Los Angeles Examiner June 20, 1905

THEATER SPRINKLER IMPRACTICAL, THEY SAY.

Managers of the Mason, Grand and Burbank theaters reported to the City Council yesterday that they have complied with all the provisions of the new building ordinance, excepting that in reference to automatic sprinklers.

The theater managers said the sprinklers are impracticable and asked non-enforcement of that portion of the ordinance.

A communication was received from the Civic Federation asking that garbage collection be made at night and calling attention to a similar communication sent to the Council some months ago. Attention was also called to the fact that physicians favor night collections. . . .

 Lawrence Holmes and other petitioners asked that a tunnel by constructed on West Second Street from Hill to Figueroa, agreeing to bear the expenses of construction. . . .

Ordinances regulating salaries of street department and park department employes and chain- gang guards were presented and referred.

If adopted, these ordinances will increase the pay of laborers in the park department to $2.25 per day. Sewer flushers and gutter layers will receive $3 per day, and the chain-gang guards will each secure on increase of $15 per month.
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From the Los Angeles Examiner, June 18, 1905
SPANISH COMEDY TO CELEBRATE BIRTHDAY

A Spanish comedy, put on the boards by local Mexican amateur talent, will be the feature of a novel entertainment planned for Saturday next by the Sons of Montezuma, in honor of Rev. Father J. Caballeria, of the Mission Church.

Saturday, June 24, is the birthday of Father Caballeria.

The play selected is a classical Spanish comedy entitled “Mosca Muerta,” which in English means “The Dead Fly.” It will be produced in Historical Hall. . . .

There are about 1,500 parishioners in the church, and 1,000 of those are Mexicans. A large number of the more prominent ones will take part in the play.
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Illustrations From a Broadway Department Store ad in the Los Angeles Examiner, June 18, 1905
(Compare the illustration above with the postcard photo below, of a slightly different date, courtesy of the Brent C. Dickerson Web site.)
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For a personal look at Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s, click for a new book by George Garrigues
He Usually Lived With a Female: The Life of a California Newspaperman
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