Live Game Labs

A Thumbnail History of Los Angeles

Los Angeles was founded by the Spanish in 1781 as part of the network of missions and towns the Church and crown were founding up and down the Pacific Coast. By the time Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, Los Angeles had become the region’s main center for trade in cattle.  In 1848, after the Mexican War, California was ceded to the United States, and two years later the territory was granted statehood.  Los Angeles was incorporated as a city in the same year, although its population remained low.  Los Angeles benefited only indirectly from the Gold Rush – Los Angeles ranchers and farmers sold meat and grain to the miners.  It was not until railroad connections linked the city to the transcontinental railroad system in 1876 that the city really began to grow.  The city’s population did not reach 50,000 until 1890.  But it doubled to 100,000 by the turn of the century.  Continued growth, however, was limited by the scarcity of water. 

That changed in 1913, with the construction of the Owens Valley Aqueduct, a 200-mile long waterway that brought water from the Owens Valley in the Sierra Nevadas to Los Angeles.  The aqueduct was opened in 1913, and the city’s population continued to boom.  Between 1910 and 1914 the harbor at San Pedro was constructed, and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 further spurred growth.  Moreover, oil was discovered in the area in 1914 as well, further encouraging the dramatic rise in the city’s population.  By 1910, the city’s population had swelled to 300,000, to 500,00 by 1920, and in 1928, the year of the game, the population was over 1,000,000.

Even in 1928, though, with a new harbor, the oil industry booming, and Hollywood well-established as the film capital of the world, Los Angeles was still primarily an agricultural region.  In contrast to the urban sprawl we know today, Los Angeles in 1928 was a scattering of densely-populated urban centers surrounded by farmland.  Western Avenue was so named because it represented the western boundary of the city.  Wilshire Boulevard was not paved for much of its length, a trip to Santa Monica or Venice Beach took one through orange groves and truck farms, and the San Fernando Valley was almost entirely given over to agriculture, where many of the farm workers were Japanese (Japanese made up a larger share of the city’s population before the relocation programs of WWII).  Many neighborhoods either had a very different character, or did not even exist.  Santa Monica and Venice were quiet beach communities, well-removed from the city.  Hancock Park was a conservative middle-class enclave, as was Pasadena.  Beverly Hills was still somewhat isolated, which made it well-suited for the sometimes wild parties thrown by its movie-star residents.  Overall, it took much longer to get from one place to another.  Cars ran much more slowly, the roads were not as good.  And although cars were becoming more common, light rail bore a significant share of the transport burden, with lines running between Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Pedro, Santa Monica, etc. 

Finally, although the film industry was already very influential and still growing, much of the city was inhabited by conservative migrants from the Midwest.  The tensions between the sometimes wild and outrageous culture of Hollywood (and it was indeed wild, even by contemporary standards!) and the conservative values of Midwestern migrants from Iowa and Indiana represented a tremendous influence in local politics.