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Old Santa Monica Forestry Station

1887 establishments in CaliforniaCalifornia Historical LandmarksPacific Palisades, Los Angeles
Eucalyptus occidentalis from
Eucalyptus occidentalis from "Eucalypts cultivated in the United States" (1902) (14596637437)

The Old Santa Monica Forestry Station is the nation's first experimental forestry station, built in 1887. The Old Santa Monica Forestry Station was designated a California Historic Landmark (No.840) on March 20, 1970. Old Santa Monica Forestry Station is located at Rustic Canyon in Los Angeles in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California in Los Angeles County. The site is south of what is now called Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. In 1971 the state placed a marker near the entrance of the Rustic Canyon Recreation Center at the NW corner of Latimer and Hilltree Roads, at 601 Latimer Road, Los Angeles, CA 90402. This location is in what is now called Pacific Palisades. The hills and canyons around the Santa Monica Canyon were a land boom in the late 1880s. Abbot Kinney (1850-1920), from New Jersey, was a land developer and a conservationist. Kinney is best known for his "Venice of America" development in Los Angeles. Kinney was appointed to a three-year position as chairman of the California Board of Forestry. Kinney established the nation's first forestry station in Rustic Canyon on 6 acres (24,000 m2) of land donated by Santa Monica co-founder John P. Jones (also a U.S. Senator from Nevada), and Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker. One of the station's projects was a study of the newly introduced eucalyptus trees. Located one mile inland from Pacific Ocean's Santa Monica Bay, Rustic Canyon was a good place for the new experimental forestry station. The station tested exotic trees to see if they were good for planting in California. The station started plantations, management studies, and grew plants for scientific and conservation studies. In 1893 the station turned over operation to the University of California, which ran the station till 1923. Abbot Kinney published two books from the work done at the Old Santa Monica Forestry Station: a 1895 book tilted Eucalyptus, B.R. Baumgardt & Co., ISBN 1-4086-6309-0, 334 pages, 2008) and in 1900 the book titled Forest and Water, The Post publishing Company. The eucalyptus groves in Rustic Canyon, the site of the Old Santa Monica Forestry Station, still stand today. A state plaque was dedicated on August 18, 1971 next to the eucalyptus groves.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Old Santa Monica Forestry Station (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Old Santa Monica Forestry Station
Latimer Road, Los Angeles Pacific Palisades

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Latitude Longitude
N 34.037041666667 ° E -118.51500833333 °
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Latimer Road 566
90402 Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades
California, United States
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Eucalyptus occidentalis from "Eucalypts cultivated in the United States" (1902) (14596637437)
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Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery
Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery

The Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery, located in Santa Monica Canyon, is the family burial ground of one of the original grantees of the Rancho Boca de Santa Monica. “This is not only one of the original pioneer settlements, but one of the last which survives in the midst of modern developments.”“The cemetery grounds consist of a rectangular lot surrounded by a masonry and stucco wall built in 1926 by architect John Byers. Belonging to the Marquez family, this private family cemetery dates to the 1840s and formed part of the 6,656-acre (26,940,000 m2) Rancho Boca de Santa Monica, a Mexican land grant given to Francisco Marquez in 1839. The cemetery is…the oldest private family cemetery in Los Angeles.”The cemetery and a separate piece of property owned by descendant Rosemary Marquez Romero Miano are the last remnants of the original ranch to be still owned by the Marquez family. The rancho originally extended along the beach from Topanga Road to Montana Avenue and then east. “The Marquez and Reyes families lived…in the Canyon, under the flags of three countries: Spain, Mexico, and the United States, without ever leaving their Rancho homes.”The first burials in the cemetery were infants of rancho grantee Francisco Marquez and his wife Roque Valenzuela; Marquez buried the babies just outside his home in the canyon. The couple had 11 children altogether but only five survived to adulthood. In 1916, the final burial on the land was Pascual Marquez, Francisco’s youngest son.Burials are now marked with contemporary crosses in various artistic styles made by Pascual Marquez’s grandson Ernest Marquez. A photo from the 1890s shows a few wooden crosses placed on graves, “all of them [now] long gone.” Ground-penetrating radar provided by UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and search dogs trained in “historical human remains detection” were used to find the lost locations of the graves.Dorothy Gillis Loomis, daughter of the owner of Santa Monica Land & Water Company, which bought most of the rancho land in the early 20th century, was the first protector of the cemetery from outside of the family. She convinced her father not to develop the cemetery land, provided for the construction of the adobe wall, and donated the statue of San Lorenzo, which is from Mexico and carved out of a whole tree trunk. The cemetery was photographed by the Works Progress Administration on July 21, 1937. The landscaping of the San Lorenzo shrine at that time was opuntia and cholla. The original wooden crosses are already gone from the burial ground. One grave marker or footstone is visible in the center. The San Lorenzo Garden, or Santuario San Lorenzo, in front of the burial ground was a subject of legal disputes over historic easements. In 2011, the owners of the “garden” property, Fred Marcus and Davida Rochlin, sold the land (then said to be valued at $127,500 and likely worth many millions at current Palisades residential real estate prices) for $35,000, so that the cemetery would always be accessible to descendants and students of history.The sanctuary garden and burial ground are closed to the public but the descendants occasionally offer guided tours, including to students from the local Canyon Elementary School.

Entenza House

The Entenza House, also known as Case Study House #9, is a single occupancy residential building in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. The address is 205 Chautauqua Boulevard, Los Angeles California, 90272. It was designed by industrial designer Charles Eames, and architect Eero Saarinen for John Entenza as part of the Case Study House Program. The house was designed between 1945 and 1949 and construction was completed in 1950. Named accordingly, Entenza wanted to use the Case Study House #9 for himself as his private residence. He lived within the home for five years before selling it.The Case Study Houses program, included 36 prototypes, and was led by John Entenza in 1945 to 1966 after the Weißenhof-siedlung exposition in an effort to study “economic, easy-to build houses” in regards to residential purposes following the Second World War. As the ninth house to be built for the Case Study Houses project, the Entenza House started construction in 1945 and was completed in 1949 in the Modern style, and later added to until 1962. The new materials of concrete, plywood panels, metal, and glass were used to showcase the technological advances of the time, exemplifying the new automotive era. These materials allowed for a flexible and adaptable design with open concepts that proved to be both comfortable and functional. Due to a recovering economy from the Second World War, these materials were also considered to be low-cost and budget friendly. The Entenza House later went on to receive a place on the list for the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.