Cahuenga - Little Hills

The railroad that is featured in these two post cards is a "Dummy Line" that ran between Los Angeles and Hollywood in the late 19th and early 20th centures. A Dummy Line is a term used in railroading to describe railroad tracks that did not connect communities nor seem have any serious direction to them. This Dummy Line was named the Cahuenga Valley Railroad. Cahuenga is the Spanish word for the community of Indigenous Peoples (Tongva and Tataviam) that lived in the area. It means "Little Hills". With the completion of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885 Southern California experienced the fastest growth that had been know up to that time. In about 1883 Harvey Henderson Wilcox moved to Los Angeles from Topeka, Kansas; ultimately founding Hollywood in 1888. Mr. Wilcox made considerable money opening subdivisions but he sold little land in Hollywood to the newcomers. He moved one of his farm houses to Cahuenga Avenue, gave up his ornate Los Angeles home and made the move to Hollywood permanently. Mr. Wilcox was not frightened by the bursting of the boom in 1889. He cut up his 160 acre ranch with avenues and lined his streets with pepper trees.

Wilcox persuaded the Cahuenga Valley Railroad to extend its steam dummy line up Western Avenue and out Prospect Avenue (now Hollywood Boulevard) to Wilcox Avenue. The Cahuenda Valley Railroad was a dummy line that was built to a narrow gauge. Its sole purpose was to move people across the Cahuenga Pass into the Hollywood area. The train shown on the front of this post card belonged to that Railroad. Tourists began to come, and some bought ranches, but not enough to keep the line running. Then E.C. Hurd, a wealthy Colorado miner arrived. He bought acreage at the corner of Wilcox and Prospect and put in an immense lemon orchard, spending $50,000 for water. Hurd bought out the Cahuenga Valley Railroad and extended it to Laurel Canyon.

The train on the front of this post card is shown sitting in front of Mr. Hurd's home. Hurd's purchase and extension of the line was somewhat of a help, but Hollywood was only a fair success. In 1892 Wilcox had died, land poor. Hurd followed him a few years later. In the meantime, the Los Angeles Pacific Electric Railway bought the Cahuenga Valley Railroad, standardized the gauge (1908) and electrified it. Up to 1900 there were not more than 500 people in Hollywood and most of them came only after the electric cars began running through to Santa Monica from Los Angeles. The cars brought tourists, and at Cahuenga Avenue delivered them to C.M. Pierce (later to be the operator and chief tour guide of the Balloon Route Trolley Trip), who drove them around the valley in a tallyho hand gave them a chicken dinner at the Glen-Holl Hotel, all for 75¢. This hotel, a rambling frame structure stood at Ivar and Yucca. After dinner the tourists retook the car on to the beach. The railroad line was abandoned and removed in 1915.

Both of these post cards are published and distributed by the Olde Tyme Photo Cards Bicentennial Station in Los Angeles, California. These two post cards represent 40% of the total of post cards from Olde Tyme Photo Cards. Both were printed between 1963 and 1983. 1963 is when Zip Codes were introduced and 1983 is when the 5-digit zip code had four more digits added to make it a 9-digit zip code.