Visual Materials

Balloon Route Excursion Party, Soldiers' Home, Sawtelle, California

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Description: Group portrait of passengers for the Balloon Route Excursion of Los Angeles, a trolley trip run on the lines of the Los Angeles & Pacific Railway Company, and later taken over by the Pacific Electric Railway. The route was roughly in the shape of a balloon, as seen on a map. The adults and children here are standing at one of the stops at the Soldiers' Home, Sawtelle. The driver is the man in the cap at bottom of photograph.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Date: approximately 1900s
Call number: photCL_555_01_316
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Balloon Route Excursion trolley tour photographs and ephemera, (bulk 1900-1910)

Visual Materials

A collection of 36 original photographs and copy prints, mainly of passengers and sights along the Balloon Route Excursion, a popular early-20th century electric trolley tour in Los Angeles, California. There are also 7 pieces of ephemera that include Balloon Route brochures and souvenir ribbons. Photographs include tour manager Charles M. Pierce with passengers and trolleys (or streetcars); artist Paul de Longpre's residence and the Glen-Holly Hotel in Hollywood; one view of veterans at the Soldier's Home in Sawtelle; the auditorium and depot at Playa del Rey; views of Pierce and a group of orphaned children on a trolley outing; people posed on the beach with a dead shark; and a tour guide posed with three Chinese children in Chinatown. Other miscellaneous views include Mirror Lake at Smiley Heights, Redlands; passengers in three Cadillac automobiles; Main Street, Riverside; Cawston Ostrich Farm in South Pasadena; a view from Whitley Heights overlooking Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue (approximately 1900); and a cabinet card portrait of Princess Eulalia of Spain wearing "The Famous Glass Dress," created by the Libbey Glass Company in 1893.

photCL 176

Co. 12 Soldier's Home, Sawtelle, California

Visual Materials

Group portrait of Company No. 12 of [World War I(?)] veterans at the Soldiers' Home (formally called the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers) in Sawtelle, West Los Angeles (location called Santa Monica when first established).

photCL_555_01_1911

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Sawtelle, Soldier's Home

Visual Materials

The collection consists of 3396 black and white photographs (many with corresponding original and copy negatives), 116 unprinted glass plate negatives, memos, correspondence, press releases, and notes related to the Pacific Electric Railway, ca. 1870s-1950s. The collection provides a comprehensive overview of the routes and areas served by the Railway during the years of its operation, and thus a picture of the growth of Southern California during the first half of the twentieth century. The images include views of landscape along, and towns served by, the Pacific Electric routes, including Central Los Angeles; Pacific Electric track and stations; Pacific Electric advertising, publicity, and public relations photographs; Los Angeles and surrounding area parks; Pacific Electric employees and employee activities; construction of Pacific Electric facilities, such as the Hollywood subway, the 6th and Main Street terminal, and the Subway Terminal Building; and Pacific Electric trolley cars and buses.

photCL 91

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Sawtelle, Soldier's Home

Visual Materials

photCL 91

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