Driving west on Wilshire Boulevard towards La Brea in 1938, Los Angeles, California


This is one of the beautiful photos that I find on the Duke University site. My interest is history, architecture, and classic cars, and theirs is advertising. They've scanned in a lot of old photos just because of the billboards. And the photo was originally taken for that reason, to prove to the companies paying for billboard space that their billboards were up, and visible. This is Wilshire Boulevard looking west towards La Brea in 1938. The tall building up there, which is still there, is the E. Clem Wilson Building. Let's take a drive!

And if you're wondering how I'm so certain that it's 1938, just take a look at the billboard for the Oldsmobile with the new "Rhythmic Ride" - that's a '38. Of course, they start advertising cars the year before they come out, so this actually could be in 1937. But when I see this I err on the side of caution, and go with the year of the car. By the way, it doesn't look like "see-through" billboards became popular, and I can understand why - look at that ad for Examiner Want Ads. And I just love those old Wilshire street lights!


Ya gotta love the old cars! I really don't know when cars went from "A-Ooogah!" to "honk", but my best guess was that it was about this time. If you know, please tell me and I'll update this post.

And for those of you who have ever visited the La Brea Tar Pits, you know that the tar oozes up from the ground, and I'd imagine that that empty lot there on the right was tarry and smelly! When I would walk on the grass around the tar pits, my shoes would get tarry on the bottom, and the smell would stick, too! It must have taken some getting used to, living around that smell, before all of the buildings replaced it.

And there's the E. Clem Wilson Building. Beautiful Art Deco design, and it must have been very imposing in 1938. No doubt as to where the Miracle Mile was! Nowadays it has a blue rectangle on it that says "Samsung", which looks ridiculous to me, but I'm sure they meant well.


Thank you for driving on Wilshire Boulevard in LA with me in 1938!

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