Inside Tinsel TownBeyond what you see on the big and small screens, Los Angeles really is a lot of bright lights and red carpets, but also real people, real crimes, and even real ghosts.
The United States gained Los Angeles and its surrounding California territory as part of the 1848 Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo, which brought an end to the Mexican American War of 1846-1848. For a few decades, the newly acquired Southern California territory was a rustic outpost of the US; however, as these photos of Los Angeles in the 1910s illustrate, by the turn of the 20th century, LA was well on its way to becoming the oil-rich Tinseltown of the modern age. In 1910s Los Angeles, silent film stars mixed with daring aviators, and rustic dirt roads led to blooming boulevards.
From Calbraith P. Rogers's tragic plane crash in the waters off Long Beach in 1912 to Helen Keller christening ships in 1918 to the creation of the United Artists Corporation in 1919, images of 1910s Los Angeles exist at the crossroads of glamor and the pastoral.Â
Photo: Library of Congress / Getty Images
D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, And Their Attorneys Sign The Papers Officially Creating The United Artists Corporation, April 17, 1919
Photo: Sunset Boulevard / Getty Images
Helen Keller Christens A Ship Docked In Los Angeles, 1918
Photo: CORBIS / Getty Images
Actress Myrtle Linds Holding A Kodak Graflex Camera At The Beach In Los Angeles, 1919
Photo: Library of Congress / Getty Images
Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, And Friends At The Sidney Chaplin 'Aeroplane Field' In Los Angeles
Photo: George Rinhart / Getty Images
Immigrants' Luggage Upon Arriving To Los Angeles, 1910
Photo: Library of Congress / Getty Images
Beachgoers Crowd The Beach In Venice, California, 1917
