National Historic Landmark Archives

#212: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House (East Hollywood)

June 8, 2024

Completed in 1921, Hollyhock House was Frank Lloyd Wright's first LA commission, and a departure from the prairie style that made him famous. This was one part of a planned theater complex for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall. And while their grand vision was never carried out, the house still stands as one of Wright's most significant buildings.

#184: Fireboat Ralph J. Scott (San Pedro)

December 14, 2023

Government & Politics

The fireboat Ralph J. Scott served the Port of LA from 1925-2003, making it the longest-serving apparatus in LA Fire Department history.

#125: Los Cerritos Ranch House (Long Beach)

November 6, 2022

Pioneers & Settlers

Built in 1844 by a yankee-turned-Mexican named John Temple, this house in Long Beach was the largest adobe built in southern California during the period when SoCal was controlled by Mexico. Its layered history tells LA’s transition from barren ranch land, to prosperous agricultural paradise, to a network of subdivisions that eventually coalesced into separate cities. You read into its history the story of Los Angeles becoming itself.

#118: Wayfarers Chapel by Lloyd Wright (Palos Verdes)

September 25, 2022

Architecture

Lloyd Wright's shimmering cliffside masterpiece of redwood, glass and stone gets more impressive with each passing year, as nature swallows it up. But Wright almost didn't build it! The story of how the Wayfarers Chapel came to be is almost as amazing as the building itself. Almost.

#115: Upton Sinclair House (Monrovia)

September 5, 2022

Art & Literature

This was the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, labor activist and would-be politician Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle. Sinclair moved to Monrovia from Pasadena after unsuccessfully running for Governor of California, and wrote nearly everything from the last 15 years of his career in the study in the back.

#108: Edwin Hubble House (San Marino)

July 23, 2022

Science

This National Historic Landmark in San Marino was the home of one of the most significant astronomers of the modern era. Edwin Hubble proved conclusively that there were galaxies and nebulae beyond the Milky Way, and that the universe was expanding. After each of his astronomical mic drops, here's where he would lay his head.

#100: The Looff Hippodrome & Carousel (Santa Monica)

June 5, 2022

Recreation

Since 1916, the Looff Hippodrome has housed the famous carousel at the Santa Monica Pier. It's the Pier's oldest surviving attraction, and a link back to a golden age of seaside entertainment.

#97: Pico No. 4, First Successful Oil Well in CA (Newhall)

May 8, 2022

Commerce

Pico No. 4 is one of the most important LA landmarks of them all. This unassuming bit of rusty pipe is the remnant of the first commercially successful oil well in CA, drilled in 1876 and producing oil for 114 years.

#91: The Watts Towers (Watts)

April 13, 2022

Art & Literature

One of the world's great works of folk art, the Watts Towers offer a glittering, enduring testament to the imagination and tenacity of Italian immigrant Simon Rodia.

#40: Little Tokyo Historic District (Downtown)

November 15, 2021

Asians

Once the center of social and commercial life for LA’s huge Japanese community before the internment camps of WWII, Little Tokyo is now a business hub and tourist destination grappling with its difficult history.