Nathan Masters
Nathan Masters is host and executive producer of Lost L.A., an Emmy Award-winning public television series from KCET and the USC Libraries. The show explores how rare artifacts from Southern California's archives can unlock hidden and often-surprising stories from the region's past. Nathan’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Los Angeles Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. He also helps manage public programs and media initiatives at the USC Libraries, home to the L.A. as Subjectresearch consortium.
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The only ghosts in this episode are the dreams of the past — visions of wealth, of new cities, and of new ways of living that failed. One of our stops was at Zzyzx, where we found multiple layers of history baked under the desert sun.
Before we made this episode, I didn’t realize how far surfing’s influence extended, even to my own childhood. Conversations with surf culture historians Dick Metz and Peter Westwick, and a visit to Muscle Beach, helped to tell the story.
Californians have learned to love their arid eastern lands. Joshua Tree continues to enjoy (or suffer from, depending on your perspective) record visitation. Music and art festivals draw hundreds of thousands more. For many, the desert is home.
Yosemite National Park has become for me — as it has for many Southern Californians — an annual destination.
Twenty thousand years ago, Santarosae Island was an imposing landmass just south of the Santa Barbara coast. Then it disappeared.
Why did this native plant of South America become so popular in California?
Aviators, including Toluca Lake resident Amelia Earhart, have made many milestones in aviation history from this mesa just southeast of Santa Monica.
The proposal by Walt Disney Productions (today, the Walt Disney Company) envisioned an "American Alpine Wonderland" on the floor of Mineral King Valley.
California’s 88 state parks range from the desert badlands of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to the fog-shrouded forests of Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
In 1939, an oil company dressed up one of its steel derricks along Huntington Beach as a giant Christmas tree.
With many of the imported goods sold across the county at deep discount this Black Friday having passed through the twin seaports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, explore the story of Southern California's unlikely harbor -- and how it came to be divided...
The Dodgers then called home the cavernous Coliseum, which seated more than 92,000. They beat the White Sox four games to two.