It’s a coffee table book the size of a coffee table. That is one way of describing the 1,000-page history of Los Angeles, an ambitious chronicle of the city’s development that will make a little history of its own today when it is turned over to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and members of the City Council reports the Los Angeles Times.
A panel of historians spent nine years studying handwritten documents in the records vaults downtown to write “The Development of Los Angeles City Government — An Institutional History 1850-2000.”
The two-volume set actually traces the city’s roots to 1769, when Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola’s expedition reached the area, only to be greeted by a strong earthquake.
It concludes with an intriguing peek at what government may become in the 21st century. The book suggests that the coming period will become the region’s “Progressive Era” — a time when “functional mergers” of city and county services take place.
The project was organized by former city record-keeper Hynda L. Rudd, who was shocked to find how casually official files were maintained when she served as the city’s first designated archivist between 1980 and 1985.
She had come to Los Angeles in 1978 from Salt Lake City, where she worked in the pristine and orderly University of Utah records and archives section.
She was doing personal research on early Los Angeles leader Herman Silver, for whom Silver Lake is named, when she visited the old municipal records room on the third floor of City Hall.
Read it here: History of Los Angeles