The Los Angeles Pacific Company’s “Balloon Route” was a streetcar ride that started in downtown Los Angeles and took passengers on a scenic trip around L.A. It was marketed as being for tourists, but in reality was an extended advertisement to encourage people to buy real estate. This service started in 1905, so there would have been puh-lenty of land available and not much competition. (The population of L.A. in 1900 was 102,000.) This photo was taken in 1906 and these people would have ridden the rails of the route that went from Playa del Ray along the coast to Redondo Beach. I believe this photo was taken at the second last stop, Hermosa Beach.
Here’s a map of the Balloon Route. You sure got to see a whole lot of LA!
I’d be wondering why there’s a structure to the left that looks like a tank if they’re in Hermosa. El Segundo seems more like a possibility for that. It’s also interesting to see that the map portrays the uninterupted “Lagoon” stretching all the way from Venice to Playa del Rey before they began to cut it all off and run Ballona Creek straight out to the ocean, draining the wet lands marsh areas that held a natural breeding grounds. Wasn’t there some story of a species of blue butterfly that was last seen around a local ballpark in that area?
If I’m reading the map correctly, there was a Southern Pacific railroad crossing a block or two from my apartment in the Sawtelle area. I have to admit, I’m glad that’s not there anymore! The Soldiers Home that’s on the grounds across Wilshire Boulevard from the Federal Building might be the only notable building that’s still standing, assuming it’s the same Soldiers Home. (It definitely looks old enough to have been here in 1906.)
That “S.P. CROSSING” might be the early part of the Santa Monica Air Line branch that headed to Soldiers Home covered here by ERHA: http://www.erha.org/pewal.htm
It had not yet become an electrified system as it was still under steam until the LA-P fell into the Harriman web. Special 16 and the later reprint should cover the full history of the branch under PERy’s Western Disctrict lines.
Thanks for the information and the link. I didn’t know any of this.