Jo Mora's Carte of Los Angeles - 1942
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Seen here is Jo Mora's sculpture above the entrance of the Pacific Mutual Building at 6th and Grand in downtown Los Angeles. The tenent company was founded by Leland Stanford - note the redwood rising through the center of the sculpture. The Stanford Tree is the universities mascot.
This carved bas-relief mantlepiece with a medieval theme was crafted by Jo for Earl C. Anthony and his estate in the Los Feliz Hills area of Los Angeles. Their paths originally crossed as members of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco.
The highly decorated Million Dollar Theater at 3rd and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles was one of Jo Mora's masterpieces. The decorative elements celebrate various cultures including the American west. The building can be seen briefly in the opening shots of the vintage movie The Crimson Kimono.
The figures seen here, are part of a project Jo worked on with his father Domingo, the Palace Theater at 630 South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. The decorative elements feature four figures (the literary arts and performing arts are seen here) that celebrate the fine arts.
Jo Mora would begin his map making in pencil and next define the image in black ink as seen here. His sure hand and maticilious planning led to few mistakes - which would have been covered with china white paint - the old version of correcting fluid.
Several copies of the carte were originally printed on light brown paper most likely as a proof before the final print run. Notice the Los Angeles title script, eventually to be included in the top center, has yet to be added.
E116 - Pacific Mutual Building
Seen here is Jo Mora's sculpture above the entrance of the Pacific Mutual Building at 6th and Grand in downtown Los Angeles. The tenent company was founded by Leland Stanford - note the redwood rising through the center of the sculpture. The Stanford Tree is the universities mascot.
E116 - Anthony Estate
This carved bas-relief mantlepiece with a medieval theme was crafted by Jo for Earl C. Anthony and his estate in the Los Feliz Hills area of Los Angeles. Their paths originally crossed as members of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco.
E116 - Million Dollar Theater
The highly decorated Million Dollar Theater at 3rd and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles was one of Jo Mora's masterpieces. The decorative elements celebrate various cultures including the American west. The building can be seen briefly in the opening shots of the vintage movie The Crimson Kimono.
E116 - The Palace Theater
The figures seen here, are part of a project Jo worked on with his father Domingo, the Palace Theater at 630 South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. The decorative elements feature four figures (the literary arts and performing arts are seen here) that celebrate the fine arts.
E116 - Jo Mora Los Angeles - no color - 1942
Jo Mora would begin his map making in pencil and next define the image in black ink as seen here. His sure hand and maticilious planning led to few mistakes - which would have been covered with china white paint - the old version of correcting fluid.
E116 - Jo Mora Los Angeles - color - no LA top middle - 1942
Several copies of the carte were originally printed on light brown paper most likely as a proof before the final print run. Notice the Los Angeles title script, eventually to be included in the top center, has yet to be added.
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LOS ANGELES
Okay, I see, at least, why I missed LA. The name of the town doesn’t make the map, well, okay, except for the title of the map. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Juan Rodrı́guez Cabrillo claims the area for Spain in 1542, but it isn’t until 1769 when Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespı́ reach the present site of LA. And it will still be another twelve years before the city of Los Angeles is actually founded by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve.
LA becomes a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California are purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and thus become part of the United States. Los Angeles is incorporated as a municipality in 1850, with a population of 1,610, four months before California formally joins the United States. By 1900, the population of Los Angeles is 102,479. By 1940, it’s 1,504,277. [By 2010, it’s 3,792,621.]
By the beginning of the 20th century, the area’s being referred to as Greater Los Angeles, from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino County and Riverside County on the east, with Los Angeles County in the center and Orange County to the southeast, all surrounding the urban core that is Los Angeles. [In 2017, the population of Greater Los Angeles: 18.8 million individuals, all with a story to tell.
BISON STUDIOS, Edendale, 1909
Thomas H. Ince is considered the father of the Hollywood studio system. In 1912, he founds the Miller 101 Bison Ranch Studio, aka “Inceville,” in Santa Ynez Canyon, partnering with the Miller brothers of Ponca City, Oklahoma. Leasing their wild west show, which includes 300 cowboys and cowgirls, 600 horses, cattle, etc., plus a tribe of 200 Sioux Indians, Ince becomes known as the father of the Western.
In 1915, Ince, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennet form the Ince-Triangle Studios, then in 1918, Ince goes back on his own as Thomas H. Ince Studios.
Jo Mora would create one of his “heroic” – larger than life – sculptures, this of George Miller, one of the Miller brothers of the 101 Ranch.
ESSENAY FILM MANUFACTURING CO., Chicago, 1907; Niles, CA, 1912
Founded by George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, the name utilizes the first letter of the founders’ last names, and Essenay quickly goes on to become a studio of firsts: the first Jesse James movie in 1908; the first pie-in-the-face gag in 1909; some of the world’s very first cartoons in 1915; and the first American Sherlock Holmes film in 1916. During their ten years in business, they turn out more than 1,400 titles.
Very much a coincidence, Mora’s sculpture Poppy Girl resides in Niles, CA, as did the Essenay film studio.
Mission San Fernando Rey de España, in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles, is the 17th of the 21 Spanish missions established in Alta California at the end of the 16th century. Named for Saint Ferdinand, the mission is the namesake of the nearby city of San Fernando and the San Fernando Valley.
The goals of the missions are, first, to spread the message of Christianity and, second, to establish a Spanish colony. Because of the difficulty of delivering supplies by sea, the missions have to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. For that reason, neophytes are taught European style farming, animal husbandry, mechanical arts and domestic crafts.
Founded in 1797 by Father Fermı́n Lasuén, San Fernando is the fourth mission site he himself has established. Ten children are baptized on the first day. Six months later, 13 adults are baptized and the first marriage takes place. At the end of the year, 55 neophytes reside at the mission. By 1800, there are 310 neophytes, and there have been 352 baptisms, and 70 deaths. During the first decade of the 19th century, the neophyte population increases from 310 to 955; there have been 797 deaths, and 1,468 baptisms.
After the Mexican Empire gains independence from Spain in 1821, the Province of Alta California becomes the Mexican Territory of Alta California. The missions continue under the rule of Mexico until 1834. During that period, the neophyte population decreases by less than 100, though the mission remains productive. Then comes secularization. Comisionado Antonio del Valle takes charge of the mission.
In 1842, six years before the California Gold Rush, a brother of the mission mayordomo (foreman) makes the first Alta California gold discovery in the foothills near the mission, though only small quantities of gold dust are found. In 1845, Governor Pı́o Pico declares the mission buildings for sale and, in 1846, makes the Mission San Fernando headquarters as Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. The mission is utilized in a number of ways during the late 19th century: just to its north is the site of the Butterfield Stage Lines’ Lopez Station; it serves as a warehouse for the Porter Land and Water Company; and in 1896, the quadrangle becomes a hog farm.
In 1861 the mission buildings and 75 acres of land are returned to the church, after Charles Fletcher Lummis acts for preservation; the buildings are disintegrating. San Fernando's church becomes a working church again in 1923 when a group of Oblate priests arrive.
Jo Mora created several sketches of the Mission San Fernando during his travels of the Camino Royal in 1903. I suspect he had his sketchbook open in front of him as he eventually drew the Mission for the carte.
MISSION SAN GABRIEL
The fourth in the chain of missions, Mission San Gabriel is founded in 1771 by Father Serra. Named for the Arcángel Gabriel, it sits in the foothills just east of downtown Los Angeles. Positioned at the crossroads of three important trails, the mission serves as a trade center. In 1775, the mission is moved three miles to its present location, to improve conditions for planting and cultivating the fields. Far more productive than any of the other missions in California, San Gabriel provides many of the other missions with the necessities of life from its land. Mission San Gabriel is credited with introducing large scale cultivation of grapes to California.
Architecturally, San Gabriel is distinct among the California missions. Father Antonio Cruzado, the designer, was born in Cordova, Spain. His Moorish style draws directly from the famous cathedral of Cordova, where the side walls feature capped buttresses. Cruzado and his associates finish construction on the church in 1805, using adobe brick and a tiled roof like that of Mission San Antonio. At its peak, the mission reaches nearly 300 feet in length.
The cemetery at San Gabriel is the oldest in Los Angeles County. The walls, rebuilt in 1940, sit on the original foundations. Six thousand Native Americans are buried here. On a lighter note, Jo and Grace Needham will marry here January 6, 1907.
LOS ANGELES ATHLETIC CLUB INCORPORATED 1887… THOUGH ORGANIZED IN 1880. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Athletic...
The Los Angeles Athletic Club gets the prize for being LA’s first private club. Founded in 1880, when the population of Los Angeles is only 11,000, back in the day when the preferred mode of travel is still the stagecoach, the LAAC joins a core of downtown businesses that include saloons and shooting galleries. Forty well-known Angelenos, sons of the pioneers, adventurers and athletes all, gather in Frank Gibson’s law office to create an American style club for the “best young men” of the community. Ladies are welcome at social events and exhibitions.
The initial fee is $5; monthly dues are $1. Within a month, they have sixty members. The club includes a gymnasium complete with a trapeze, flying rings, a long horse, Indian clubs and dumbbells, and an outdoors athletic park, including a running track and path for bicycling, a baseball diamond, tennis courts and a grass court for croquet. They also organize a civic football team which plays intercity matches, beginning with San Francisco in 1892.
The club house includes a reading room, and areas for billiards and cards. Its second location, a 12-story Beaux-Arts style edifice on West Seventh Street, sports an indoor pool on the top floor. Anyone you can think of has been a member. And Jo Mora, working with architects John Parkinson and George Bergstrom, designs and creates this sculpture which resides above the front door.
FIRST INTERNATIONAL POLO MATCH, 1912.
Across the bottom of a page in the December 1996 issue of Los Angeles magazine runs partof a timeline of LA history. In 1909, a mayor resigns amidst a red-light district scandal. In 1910, the Los Angeles Times building is bombed and LA annexes Hollywood. In 1911, the first rollercoaster opens on Venice Pier. On February 15, 1912, the first international polo match is played in LA. That’s it – that’s all I can find on this subject. Who plays, who wins – who knows?
Mora’s ability isn’t limited to fine cartoons of gents playing polo. He has no problems creating them in bronze and plaster as well.
SHADES OF WILL ROGERS
One-quarter Cherokee, Will Rogers is born in 1879 on his family’s ranch near Oolagah, a town in the Cherokee Nation in what is known then as Indian Territory (today Oklahoma), and begins riding as soon as he can walk. His first-rate horsemanship and roping skills soon enable him to leave Oolagah for Argentina. His plan: to strike it rich in the cattle business. This doesn’t work out, so he takes a job working on a livestock ship across the South Atlantic, tending animals. Upon arrival in South Africa, he joins Texas Jack's Wild West Circus as a bronc rider and trick roper. He then makes his way to New Zealand, where a reviewer in the Auckland Herald considers Rogers capable of lassoing anything from “a wildly galloping steed to the business end of a flash of lightning.”
Returning for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Rogers quickly finds work in Wild West shows and vaudeville. In 1905, he appears in New York’s Madison Square Garden for the first time, making $20 a week. His blend of shy humor, political commentary, and trick roping enthrall East Coast audiences. In one of his signature tricks, Rogers manages to throw three lariats at one time: the first catching up the horse's head, the second the rider's body, and the third, the horse's legs. Ten years after his arrival in New York, he’s making $750 a week with the Ziegfeld Follies.
By 1918, Hollywood has drawn Will Rogers west. By 1930, he’s making $200,000 per film, appearing with stars like Myrna Loy and Mickey Rooney, usually portraying himself in parts for which he often writes the scripts and ad-libs the dialogue. He makes 50 silent films and 21 talkies. In what is now Pacific Palisades, Rogers builds himself a ranch on 186 acres where he lives with his wife Betty and their three children. The 31-room ranch house, which includes 11 baths and seven fireplaces, is surrounded by a stable, corrals, a riding ring, roping arena, golf course and polo field. He has no use for golf, but lives for polo, though not dressed as most polo players of the day. He prefers overalls and cowboy boots. And you can forget the helmet.
Fascinated by aviation, Rogers is friends with Charles Lindbergh, and in 1935 takes a fateful flight into Alaska with Wiley Post, a fellow Oklahoman and the first aviator to fly solo the 15,474 miles it takes to circumnavigate the world. Post has cobbled together a plane for this trip with longer wings than originally built, intended to accommodate floats for water landings. Tragically, the engine fails on a takeoff.
At the time of his death in 1935, Rogers is the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and probably the most famous man in America. The New York Times devotes four pages to the story of the Rogers-Post crash.
For the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, Jo Mora will sculpt numerous small figures of Will Rogers and others to replicate scenes from Rogers’ life, a montage of 13 detailed miniature dioramas, from Rogers’ birthplace, to his times on the range and with the Zeigfeld Follies, to his work on radio and as a journalist, to his days in Hollywood, to his death off the coast of Alaska.
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