Bellehurst 1898

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Bellehurst Ranch in 1898 -West (H. H.) Collection

 

Henry Hebard West (1872-1958) was a Los Angeles resident, Southern Pacific Railroad employee, and a fine candid photographer. His archive, housed in the UCLA Library Special Collection, contains several dozen photographs of Glendale's Bellehurst Ranch, providing a rare look at the geography, agriculture, architecture, hydrology, labor, clothing, and hair styles of the period on this tract of land we all call home. They are remarkable pictures in their quality and sense of humor, giving life to history in the transitional period between the Spanish Rancho and modern development.

 

Bellehurst Ranch, belonged to then Mayor of Los Angeles, C.E. Thom, a co-founder of the town of Glendale (1887). Like many early Los Angeles pioneers, Cameron Erskine Thom was a son of the South - a product of his family's Virginia plantation. He was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson for his participation in the Confederacy, allowing him to practice law in the state of California. According to his biography at L.A. City Hall,his legal skills and an acumen for real estate speculation, imbued Thom with the ability to exploit the financial ruin of the once land-rich Mexican and Spanish gentry. In Bellehurst Ranch's case, that would be the Verdugo family, who once owned large swaths of the valley. 

 

Thom was also known as one of the pioneers of the California citrus industry as well as President of the Verdugo Springs Water Company which provided Glendale with much of its water at the time, further solidifying his power.

 

When we work to create a Historic District, we are working both to protect and preserve the architectural history of a place, but also the story of how that place came to be - the positive as well as the negative.  H.H. West's photographs give us a look at the positive.

 

Photographs courtesy West (H. H.) Collection, Photographers' Collection (Collection 98). Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.