In 1905, just two years after the first flight of the Kitty Hawk, these curious Angelenos gathered on the grounds of the Raymond Hotel in Pasadena to feast their eyes on something they wouldn’t have seen before: a dirigible. They were probably curious because it belonged to a fellow by the name of Roy Knabenshue who was an aeronautical engineer who had made the first dirigible flight over New York City that year. I don’t know if this was for display only or if he was offering rides, but if he was, some of the people in this photo would have the first to see Los Angeles from the air.
The Raymond Hotel was a fancy residence for wealthy Easterners looking to escape brutal winters.
Too bad the Raymond Hotel is gone. I’m surprised how similar it is in appearnace to the Hotel Green (a couple of blocks away). Fortunately, the Hotel Green is still around.
There is a caretaker’s cottage that survived when the hotel was demolished, and it’s now the Raymond Restaurant. It’s a cool building and good food!
I second the recommendation of the Raymond Restaurant.
The Raymond Hotel was like other establishments in Southern California at that time. They were all inclusive resorts meant for the wealthy to, usually, winter a “season”. Like most of the others, a grand wood structure with no smoke detectors, sprinklers, etc., burned to the ground after only 9 years of operation (1886-1895). The rebuilt replacement was finished off & demolished by the depression.
The first thing I thought of when viewing this photo was the volume of extremely explosive hydrogen gas the dirigible must have been filled with…… Hydrogen was only replaced by Helium after the Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, NJ in the late ’30s. Thank God not many people smoked then.
Another example of a vanished resort hotel at the time:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/The_Hotel_Redondo%2C_ca.1900_%28CHS-2131%29.jpg/360px-The_Hotel_Redondo%2C_ca.1900_%28CHS-2131%29.jpg
Thanks, Matt. I’ve never seen any photos of the Hotel Redondo.