Lest we forget that the land north of Wilshire Blvd—now home to the La Brea Tar Pits Museum, the Park La Brea housing development, and The Grove shopping mall—was once empty land, here’s a photo of oil well dotting the La Brea Tar Pits in 1910. At this time, there would have been development much further north along Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd but at this time, Wilshire wasn’t even paved over yet. And it would be another 30 years before developer A. W. Ross saw the area’s potential developed Wilshire as a commercial district which he dubbed The Miracle Mile, a name we Angelenos still use today.
I have no idea if this is in any way accurate, but when I saw this tar pit, I wondered if it’s the same one that’s now outside the museum and which we can see in this satellite photo from 2021: