1930 Calkins Pictorial View of Los Angeles and Environs

A charming c. 1930 pictorial bird's-eye view of Los Angeles drawn by W. Calkins for Tanner Motor Tours, the Pacific Electric Railway, and the Catalina Island Company. Geared towards tourists, it displays the region in the era before highways, when it was more a group of somewhat disconnected cities strung together by rail lines than the massive span of unbroken urban sprawl of today.

A Closer Look

The view is oriented towards the north with Catalina Island, Long Beach, and San Pedro in the foreground, Santa Monica and the San Fernando Valley at left, Los Angeles at center, and Pasadena and Mt. Lowe in the background. The routes of Tanner Motor Tours, the Pacific Electric Railway, and the Catalina Island Company are prominently traced in red, as indicated in the legend at bottom-left. Oil fields, golf courses, film studios, hotels, and other features are illustrated and labeled throughout. Photographs of Catalina Island, the view from Mt. Lowe, and a Tanner 'parlor car' appear at right. The illustrated airplane at top-left harkens to Los Angeles' central role in the early history of aviation.

The verso provides further information on the tours and itineraries offered by the companies who published the view, including tours through Hollywood and Beverly Hills, trips to the beaches of Santa Monica, a journey through Pasadena to the heights of Mt. Lowe, and an excursion to (Santa) Catalina Island, which became a playground for actors and other Los Angeles grandees in the years preceding this view's production. The verso also includes text relating to each of the three sponsoring companies, calling Pacific Electric 'the greatest interurban system in the world.'

Publication History and Census

This view was drawn by artist W. Calkins for Tanner Motor Tours, the Pacific Electric Railway, and the Catalina Island Company. It is undated, but a notation on the verso might indicate a date of 1930, which would be consistent with the presentation of the area on the recto. The view was issued in two sizes, with the present example being the larger. In either printing, it is not cataloged among the holdings of any institution.