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2 LA REINA LOS ANGELES JN THREE CENTURIES

S an Gabriel Mission, mother of Los cAngeles, from a picture taken nearly a half century ago.

LA REINA

Los Angeles in Three Centuries

WO MORE years and Los Angeles will be 150 years old.
This fact will come as a surprise to many
The sesquicentennial year begins on September 4, 1931
and before its close Los Angeles will be the scene of the
Olympic Games. Never before have these historic athletic
contests been held in America.
To those of us who are here now and to those who will
come to the Olympiad, Los Angeles may seem a very young
city to have been chosen for these very old games. Possibly
a more venerable American city should have the honor. The fact that this munici-
pality was founded while Washington and Lafayette were closing in on Cornwallis
and will celebrate its one hundred and fiftieth birthday during the sesquicentennial
year of the famous surrender at Yorktown, does not dissipate the oft-repeated and
generally-held impression that Los Angeles is "the newest city in the world." Even
one of America's most reputable publications says that Los Angeles may be "described
as a city without a past, and as vehemently up-to-date as the latest extra issue of an
evening newspaper."
The reason for all this is not far to seek. Since 1870, with the exception of a
single decennial, the population has doubled without fail every ten years. During
some decades it has done more than that. After every census, therefore, a very old
city finds itself a very young city. Every other person on the street is a new arrival,
unacquainted with Los Angeles' past and living very much in the "here and now "
Ancestor worship is unknown because those with local ancestors are few and far
between. Los Angeles will never be troubled with hardening of the civic arteries.
It always has new blood. •
Another reason for the youth of this old city is the fact that it was not until
about the time Grover Cleveland defeated James G. Blaine for the Presidency that
Southern California captured the imagination of the nation. Before that, few people
knew much about Los Angeles. Some may have recognized the name as having
appeared in the newspapers in connection with the massacre of some Chinamen
shortly after the Chicago fire. Just another frontier town working out its law-and-
order in its own way!