Los Angeles Public Library history

Former City Librarian Charles F. Lummis approached the Library Board of Directors in October of 1905 and recommended that a system of collecting autographs be put in place:

By 1910, the population had grown to 7,000, and Hollywood and East Hollywood were being annexed to Los Angeles.

The school (UCLA’s predecessor) had been moved in 1914 and a group of local businessmen purchased the site and transferred ownership to the city via a multi-year, option-to-buy deal.

Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson: Panama California Exposition site, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA, 1915

The new library was opened on a cold, rainy Monday, December 4, 1916.

Throughout the 1920’s, the neighborhood became more built up.

With an agreement on location finally possible, a $2.5 million bond measure passed in 1921 with $1.5 million designated for the central library.

Considering that Los Angeles taxpayers were to vote some $6 million in 1923 for a new city hall, this was a slim sum indeed But the city had the luck to hire in Bertram Goodhue an architect who with limited resources produced a remarkable building.

Sadly Goodhue’s early death in 1924 at age fifty-four cut short this crowning phase of his career.

But what should have been an exciting next phase of creative design work was tragically cut short when Bertram Goodhue died of a heart attack on April 24. It was left to his longtime associate Carleton Winslow to bring the project to completion some two years later in June of 1926.

The library formally opened on April 29, 1930.

Patrons, spearheaded by the editor of the local Pico Post newspaper, pushed for the construction of a branch facility, and in 1951 a lot was purchased for a building.

With the 1960’s, more rapid changes began to occur in the composition of the neighborhood.

In the early 1970’s, the library began to change its image.