Los Angeles Pacific Railroad Balloon Route “Scenes Seen From An Electric Car” Brochure
From the brochure:
The Lines of this Company form a far more important railway system than can be judged from the number of trains arriving at and leaving Los Angeles each day. From a single track line of 18 miles in 1896 the Los Angeles-Pacific Railroad has grown to a double track system with a total of 185 miles of electric road, of which about ten miles are in Los Angeles.
Connections are made at Los Angeles with railroads diverging; at Sawtelle with Southern Pacific Company, at Inglewood with Santa Fe Railroad, at Hollywood with daily stage for Tolucca (sic), and at Redondo with Los Angeles & Redondo Railway, and with steamers for San Francisco and Coast points.
In addition to numerous intermediate points, the Company’s service reaches Hollywood, Colegrove, Sherman, Sawtelle, National Soldiers’ Home, Santa Monica, Ocean Park, Venice, Playa del Rey, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa and Redondo.
Nowhere are the elements conducive to expansion more pronounced. But the far-sighted management has not been slow in taking advantage of every point of strategic importance; so that any hope of successful competition in their territory must meet with failure.
Special Round Trip Tickets, taking in all these points, good for 10 days, and good to stop off at any or all of them, 80 cents.
Michael Patris Collection
Michael Patris Collection
Michael Patris Collection
Michael Patris Collection
Michael Patris Collection
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Mention of last ties for Santa Fe delivered at Redondo Beach (1911)…no more tie-ships after this: https://books.google.com/books?id=xjgxAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA60&lpg=RA1-PA60&dq=z.w.+white+Seattle+1910&source=bl&ots=ZJuyUS8jX8&sig=PI2F9t0Uq8AAa-G79x-MQaXTbjo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvnZTm7bPeAhUWIDQIHXuoC4UQ6AEwGnoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=z.w.%20white%20Seattle%201910&f=false
1905 Engineering news discussing electrical equipment and installations of Los Angeles-Pacific (very detailed): https://books.google.com/books?id=ADNKAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA192&lpg=RA1-PA192&dq=news+new+hotel+alexandria+los+angeles+1905&source=bl&ots=4bD5_fAgRd&sig=LtKnVTapaW_Ao8wDBPK-aBulzoI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_gu61zNTeAhWHi1QKHcDGBbM4ChDoATABegQICBAB#v=onepage&q=news%20new%20hotel%20alexandria%20los%20angeles%201905&f=false
1906–LA-P accident and other streetcar news including Huntington’s planned push to Inland Empire: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042462/1906-04-15/ed-1/seq-17/
Note even the manager of the new Hotel Alexandria demanding more service!
1905 news relating to lagoon at Playa del Rey (scan down list to Playa Del Rey Incline for whole article): http://www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccmiscnpart.html
Oh, BTW…That Hotel Arcadia was built and managed by the previous owner of the early Santa Monica Hotel, but Pacific Improvement Company (Crocker controlled ) is essentially the financial backer and owner. The bluff was at the end of the Southern Pacific’s reserve where the station sat atop with the original line running down the buttonhook/shoefly line to the first wharf. Later, a new wharf was built just north and the whole SP line shifted. When built, the hotel was connected to that station by a crazy elevated switchback railroad scheme. Later, the SP station was pushed back across the the electric road coastal alignments to about where the freight station had been, and the line itself rebuilt to reach up the coast to the newer wharf that became known as “Long Wharf” (this was all the real Los Angeles Harbor before San Pedro/Long Beach). Finally this all became the PE’s Air Line. For a while, Frank Miller of the Mission Inn (another Huntington ally) took over running the Arcadia. (There seems to be little in known artifacts beyond paper and brick, but I’m currently trying to identify an Arcadia (script) quadruple silverplated covered bowl that could be a match for 1880’s-1910 era.) The hotel was closed and gone around 1904-06. One might argue that, for a while at least, this hotel was the true terminus of the Sunset Route…but that’s all point of view.