Victorian Los Angeles' monster-sized guest registry is on eBay... will it find a home in a local library or vanish again?

Gentle reader,

We’ve got a sickness we just can’t (and don’t want to) shake: a pathological obsession with Los Angeles history.

Since 2005, when Kim started blogging a crime a day on the original 1947project, we’ve dedicated ourselves to digging out the unexpected scraps of local lore with which to stitch a different L.A. story, one that could only exist as the sum of our research, our friendships with fellow Angeles-o-philes, and the weird coincidences that sometimes send us right down the rabbit hole and up again with a treasure to share.

Over the years, reading old newspapers, books and magazines, we’ve occasionally spotted photos of neat stuff that is otherwise elusive. As material is digitized and more people launch local history blogs and social media channels, some of these lost gems return to the light.

And sometimes they appear on the open market.

Listed on eBay right now, with an auction ending on Friday, November 3 at 9:00pm Pacific Time, is the great white whale of Los Angeles book lore, and we’re putting this message in the virtual bottle and tossing it onto the metaphoric waves confident that somebody who reads this post will do what must be done to ensure this unique and important 500 pound, $500 (opening bid) volume is safely installed in a local library or archive, where it belongs.

So, what is it? Only the enormous guest registry that the Neuner Company printed and bound circa 1895 for the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, then headquartered in the Mason Building at 4th and Broadway, and soon to move onto Neuner’s block at 1st and Broadway, kitty-korner to the old Los Angeles Times.

Today, the Chamber is a lobbying organization, but in 1896 it was the city’s top booster, exhibiting spectacular displays of fruits, nuts, wines, plants and handicrafts, and producing publicity material meant to sell visitors on the possibilities of doing business, setting roots or simply visiting the City of Angels.

And should you visit the Chamber of Commerce, before exploring the wonders on display, an attendant would urge you to take up a pen and inscribe your name and home town in the massive guest book, which like much on view was rare, big and impressive.

Since first coming upon the unpublished photographs of the bookish young lady sitting on and leafing through some of the dozen guest registers that, the caption noted, had been found in the Chamber basement and contained 25,000 names each, we’ve idly wondered if any of these books survive. If they do, each one would be a unique record of Southern California tourism at a pivotal time, and could potentially place notable people in the city on specific dates.

But we never found evidence that the big guest books survive. There is one much later guest register in a box at the California Historical Society collection at USC, but nothing like the elephantine tomes that these little people posed with circa 1925.

And yet, here one apparently is, testing the weight limit of a laminate wood floor in the city of Corona, with what looks to be a brand new binding (sorry, Neuner), filled with vintage display ads flanking the signature lines. Where have you been, o L.A. superbook, and what have you seen?

In any case, we think it would be a tragedy if this record of early Los Angeles was not accessioned into a public collection where it could be studied and reveal its secrets. If a special collections librarian is reading this, or a civic minded collector, you know what to do!

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

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Update 11/5/2023: If you read the comments on this newsletter soon after it was published, you know the auction ended early, because the seller graciously agreed to honor the bid of Cal Poly Pomona history professor Eileen Wallis, so that the big book’s new home could be in a local Special Collections library. This photo of the guest register on the move was shared this morning on Prof. Wallis’ histgrrl Instagram account. Yay!

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Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

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UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 11/4) • Downtown L.A. is for Book Lovers Walking Tour (Sat. 11/11) • Special Event: Leo Politi Loves Los Angeles Bus Tour (11/18) • Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Walking Tour (Sat. 11/25) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 12/2) • Highland Park Arroyo Walking Tour (Sat. 12/9) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness Walking Tour (Sun. 12/17) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Walking Tour (Tues. 12/26)

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esotouric

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We wish a journalist would pick this up. From trolling Airbnb message boards, the trivial fines are considered a minor cost of doing business. We’re terrified to think that Los Angeles won't clean up its housing abuse act until a lot of middle class people are hurt or killed in an illegal Airbnb, as happened in Montreal.

Do you have problems with illegal or obnoxious Airbnbs in your neighborhood or building? The home share industry is packing public comment on this City Council motion, so click NEW and tell them what's really happening in Los Angeles!

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