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Lost LA
Joshua Tree: How One Woman’s Work Preserved the Desert
The tireless work of Minerva Hamilton Hoyt, who was dedicated to the often-misunderstood delicate desert landscape, was critical in establishing Joshua Tree as a national monument. She paved the way for its continued preservation today.
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Lost LA
The Birth of the Universal Studios Tour
Early Hollywood film production pioneer Carl Laemmle dreamed up a city that’s now become the billion-dollar empire known as Universal Studios. Once doubted as “Laemmle's Folly,” its famous behind-the-scenes studio tours still operate today.
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Lost LA
The Enchanted Nuclear Robots of Disney’s Tiki Room
In the early 1960s, Walt Disney proposed a Polynesian-themed restaurant featuring a musical floor show with trained birds. With technology purchased from the nuclear weapons program, mechanical performers would make his vision a reality.
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Lost LA
A Venice Post Office Mural Preserves the History of Abbot Kinney
The New Deal and a surge in arts funding led to the creation of public works of art throughout the country. In Southern California, muralist Edward Biberman offered an evocative interpretation of Venice with "Abbot Kinney and the Story of Venice."
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Lost LA
Miracles and Mirages: How Curtis Howe Springer Stole the Desert
Former insurance salesman turned radio evangelist Curtis Howe Springer successfully transformed a seemingly barren patch of desert now known as Zzyzx into a bustling business, selling snake oil and salvation. It was his success that led to his downfall.
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Lost LA
Selling the Stoke: Surfing Toward the “The Endless Summer”
“The Endless Summer” grew from a simple idea into a cultural product, a lifestyle available to anyone with the means for a ticket. Filmmaker Bruce Brown set out to sell a documentary film about surfing and, in doing so, he inadvertently sold a dream.
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Lost LA
Yosemite's Firefall: A Waterfall Made of Fire
For decades, visitors to Yosemite witnessed the Firefall, a shimmering curtain of glowing embers and hot coals cascading to the valley floor. The tradition highlights the competition that existed between the state’s earliest entrepreneurs.