Saturday's tour is a time travel trip of Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights
Gentle reader,
When we started giving walking tours eleven months ago, the first one was Evergreen Cemetery, 1877.
This wasn’t random. Our last research project before Covid struck was to begin an assessment of the cemetery’s founding documents. And because they were thick with dust, we bought a box of respirator masks—something we were glad to have on hand when those things became more precious than saffron!
In lockdown, we had time to develop a narrative of the Evergreen’s founding, the physical changes to the grounds over generations, and the fascinating characters who helped ensure that Boyle Heights would have a grand community memorial park nearly 150 years later.
Evergreen is an amazing place, and every time we visit, we learn something new. And after all that rain, the grounds are full of life, and the roses are blooming.
While the landscape looks a little different today, and we don’t expect you’ll arrive by horsedrawn carriage, we hope you’ll join us in Boyle Heights tomorrow morning for a walk back through time. On the tour, you’ll meet circus stars and cat whisperers, a tragic pioneer aviator and a political zombie, the forgotten victims of a railroad horror and a dead man walking, the lonely lady in the ivy and the stony lizard, a cult leader and a legal lion, and many other fascinating L.A. characters who can’t wait to live again in your imaginations!
yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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. Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sat. 5/27) • Highland Park Arroyo Walk (Sat. 6/10) • Bunker Hill’s Modernist Marvels with Nathan Marsak Walk (Sat. 6/17) • The Real Black Dahlia Bus Tour (Sat. 6/24) • Echo Park Book of the Dead Bus Tour (Sat. 7/1) • New! The Run: Gay Downtown History Walk (Sat. 7/8) •Westlake Park Walk (Sat. 7/15) • Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles Bus Tour (Sat. 7/22) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Walk (Sat. 8/5) • Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles Bus Tour (Sat. 8/12)