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Palms-Southern Pacific Railroad Depot

Former Southern Pacific Railroad stations in CaliforniaLos Angeles Historic-Cultural MonumentsMontecito Heights, Los AngelesRailway stations closed in 1953Railway stations in Los Angeles
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1888Westside (Los Angeles County)
Palms Southern Pacific Railroad Depot
Palms Southern Pacific Railroad Depot

Palms-Southern Pacific Railroad Depot is a historic railroad depot built between 1886 and 1888 in what is now the Palms section of Los Angeles, California. The two-story wood depot was originally located at the corner of National Boulevard and Vinton Avenue.In 1928, an “old-timer” told the Los Angeles Times that decades before the Palms station had been known as “Grasshopper Station” because at the time “grasshoppers were present in veritable clouds.” The Southern Pacific later changed the station's name to “The Palms”, and the surrounding community adopted the name. As one of only two depots on the fifteen-mile route between Los Angeles and Santa Monica (the other being the Ivy station in Culver City), the Palms Depot served as the hub of a growing agricultural community.From the 1920s to the 1940s, the motion picture business became the dominant business in the Palms-Culver City area, and movie stars, including Clark Gable, could be seen getting off the Red Cars on their way to work at the nearby studios.In 1953, the Red Car line was shut down, and the depot was abandoned. As the surrounding area became a suburban residential community, the depot became “a symbol of another day and reflective of what has happened to Palms”.In the early 1960s, the Culver-Palms Boy Scout Troop 49 undertook a beautification of the depot building and used it as a meeting place. The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board declared the building to be a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1963; it was the 22nd structure to receive the historic monument designation. Despite the designation, the depot remained vacant, was victimized by vandals and graffiti, and fell into serious disrepair in the early 1970s. The Los Angeles Fire Department ultimately condemned the structure, but preservationists sought to save it from demolition. In 1976, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Foundation raised funds to move the structure to Heritage Square Museum in Montecito Heights. The depot presently sits at the entrance to Heritage Square and houses the museum gift shop.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Palms-Southern Pacific Railroad Depot (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Palms-Southern Pacific Railroad Depot
Homer Street, Los Angeles Montecito Heights

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 34.088194444444 ° E -118.20791666667 °
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Address

Hale House

Homer Street
90065 Los Angeles, Montecito Heights
California, United States
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Palms Southern Pacific Railroad Depot
Palms Southern Pacific Railroad Depot
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Los Angeles and Mount Washington Railway
Los Angeles and Mount Washington Railway

The Los Angeles and Mount Washington Railway Company was an early 20th Century incline railway which once operated in what is today known as the Mount Washington and Highland Park neighborhoods north of Downtown Los Angeles in the Northeast LA area. Inspired by nearby Angels Flight on Hill Street in Downtown Los Angeles, the railway entered service in May 1909 as a means to promote the area as a hillside suburb. Built by developer Robert Marsh, the "L.A. & Mt. Washington Ry. Co." consisted of a pair of electrically powered, counterbalanced trolley-style cars connected to an underground steel cable loop running the length of Avenue 43 - then a dirt road - to Marsh's Mount Washington Hotel at the 940 ft summit. The rail cars' speed was 4 mph (6.4 km/h). At the top of the railway, visitors enjoyed at that time an as yet-unspoiled vista of the surrounding landscape, stretching east from the nearby San Gabriel Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean. The ride proved to be a popular one, with the railway operating until midnight on weekends. Unfortunately, worn equipment and concerns over safety led to its final closure in 1919. By 1930, Avenue 43 was paved into a street for automobiles and the railway tracks and equipment had long since been removed. The Mount Washington Hotel remains, having been purchased by the Self-Realization Fellowship in 1925. It was declared Historic Monument #845 by the City of Los Angeles on August 16, 2006. The base station of the LA&MWRC is also still standing. Currently located at 200 W Avenue 43, Los Angeles, CA 90065, the cable car station overlooks the Metro A Line just south of the Southwest Museum stop in the Highland Park neighborhood of Northeast LA. The base station on Avenue 43 was declared Historic Monument #269 in 1983.