Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Still No Answer to the Question - Who Took the Civil War Era Flagpole That Was Standing in Front of the Hall of Justice - And What Did They Do With It?


Mesmer flagpole not long after it was erected in front of the US Hotel on Main Street across from is now City Hall. 

There is still no answer from... anyone... as to who removed the almost 150 year old wooden flagpole that was standing in the heart of the Civic Center from after the Civil War until a few months ago.   After being moved three times, it stood in front of the Temple Street entrance to the Hall of Justice and it had been there for over 60 years.  But it appears that even though a bronze plaque was in front of the flagpole (which described its history) - and even though the County of Los Angeles paid $150,000 to a company to protect the historic aspects of the site - that someone might have torn it down, cut it into at least two pieces and removed it from the site.

And this flagpole was the only standing reminant of of the old civic and business center of Los Angles around the intersection of Main, Temple and Spring.  And now its gone - and nobody can - or will - tell me what has happened to it which makes it seem likely that it has been totally destroyed.  But on the off chance it is still lying in some storage yard - or in some one's back yard - or has been chopped up for fire wood, but not yet burned - I am going public to encourage whoever does know what happened to it - to speak up.

Now I was going to post its history here now, but I can not physically access all my research, so I will be doing that tomorrow.  Meanwhile - here are some early photos.
1869 Photo of flagpole on the upper left hand side of photo.
Later photo of flagpole after US Hotel was rebuilt.
Another photo of flagpole in front of the newer US Hotel.

1 comment:

jenni x said...

Some people will throw away anything.