Historic and Present-Day Maps of Los Angeles

In this 1902 map of western Los Angeles, the city (lower right) is just beginning to expand beyond downtown, Burbank (top) is a small ranching town of a couple hundred people, and Hollywood (center) is a mere crossroads at the foot of its eponymous Hills.




(Historic map from the Los Angeles Fire Department's historical archive)

This historic map covers a pretty huge area, and it reveals some fascinating changes that have taken place in the Los Angeles basin during the past century. I'll be devoting two more posts this week to two details in this map: the transformation of the Los Angeles River (which curves around the northeastern edge of the Hollywood Hills in these maps) and the disappearance of Las Cienegas, "the wetlands," which show up west of downtown in the 1902 map.

As with previous historical maps posted here, the KML overlay file for viewing in Google Earth is available here.