Ventura Boulevard - History

History

Due to natural springs, one of the first inhabited areas of the San Fernando Valley was the land around what is now known as Los Encinos State Historic Park, at the corner of Balboa and Ventura Boulevards, which was inhabited by the Tongva Indians possibly for thousands of years. This five acre (2 hm²) park now includes the original nine-room De La Osa Adobe (built in 1849) and a reservoir shaped like a Spanish guitar that collects the spring water.

The Valley's first golf course opened at the corner of Ventura and Coldwater Canyon in 1922 (now this is site of the Sportsmens Lodge).

Also in 1922, around the area of Canoga Avenue south of Ventura Boulevard, Victor Girard purchased 2,886 acres (12 km²) of land and planted over 120,000 pepper, sycamore, and eucalyptus trees, later resulting in the appropriately named Woodland Hills.

In 1928, just a couple blocks east of Laurel Canyon, Mack Sennett created his 38 acre (15.4 hm²) Keystone Studios, which produced silent movies with stars such as Fatty Arbuckle, W.C. Fields, Stan Laurel, and the Keystone Kops. After talkies, Keystone became Republic Pictures, and then in 1963 CBS Studio Center. Although closed to the public, this complex, which is located only a few blocks away from Ventura Boulevard, probably makes more TV sitcoms than any other studio.

Read more about this topic:  Ventura Boulevard

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.
    Thomas Mann (1875–1955)

    Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.
    Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)