Remembering Lyman Stewart on the centennial of his passing... and announcing Richard's birthday tour of Leo Politi's Los Angeles

Gentle reader,

One hundred years ago tonight, around midnight on September 28, 1923, the oilman and philanthropist Lyman Stewart died aged 83 at his home in the Westlake district.

His was an extraordinary American life, inflamed by a passionate belief that it was the duty of man to use his wits to transform natural resources into worldly wealth, to spread faith and improve the lot of the most vulnerable among us.

Our friend Paul Rood has been working on a biography of Lyman Stewart for more than a decade. We first met Paul in the archives of the Union Rescue Mission, founded by Stewart in 1891 to aid people experiencing homelessness on Skid Row.

The phrase “on the wagon,” describing a period of sobriety after alcoholic excess, refers to the horse-drawn Gospel Wagon that went out on the streets of the city, picking up men who were ready to lay down the bottle and start fresh. This part of URM’s ministry is loosely fictionalized in the fascinating short film Of Scrap and Steel, featuring rare color footage of Main Street in the 1940s.

Kim and a 76 Ball in Silver Lake (Ricardo DeAratanha for the Los Angeles Times)

Even before we started researching early Skid Row history at the URM, we already felt a special affinity with Lyman Stewart, because our first historic preservation advocacy campaign was to stop ConocoPhillips from destroying all of the Union 76 ball gas station signs. Getting a multi-billion dollar corporation to blink was intoxicating, and inspired us to fight for more things that we love.

Although his biography is not yet completed, Paul wanted to honor the life and legacy of Lyman Stewart, and his brother Milton, on this august occasion.

And so on his website you’ll find Remembering Lyman Stewart: Centennial Commemoration, a proof copy of a pamphlet he intends to share at future events and lectures. Also available is a presentation he recently gave at the annual conference of the Petroleum History Institute, Union Oil’s Lyman Stewart: When Faith Meets Ambition on the California Oilfields.

You are invited to download, read and share these links with others who are curious about how a poor young man from Pennsylvania came to raise one of the great early American fortunes in Southern California, and gave most of it away in hopes of improving the world.

If you’d like to know more about how the Union Rescue Mission has been present in Downtown Los Angeles since 1891, this walking tour we gave ten years ago next month with Paul Rood is a stroll through time, from City Hall to the current heart of Skid Row. We ended the walk with a rooftop screening of Of Scrap and Steel, so make it a double feature.

On this centennial of Lyman Stewart’s passing, we are grateful for the good and interesting work that he did in the City of Angels, and especially for the fine friends we have made in the shadow of that work.

We don’t have a tour happening this weekend, but will return next Saturday, October 7 for Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue, a walk that ascends from the historic Sunset Boulevard streetcar line to explore a time capsule neighborhood packed with beauty and mystery. If we’re lucky, the Victorians will have their Hallowe’en finery on by then.

And just announced for Saturday, November 18 is a very special bus tour, Leo Politi Loves Los Angeles. This day-long excursion celebrates the life, work and passions of acclaimed author and illustrator Leo Politi (1908-1996) through visits to time capsule locations that figure in his remarkable Los Angeles story. This tour is also Richard’s rolling birthday celebration, which means we’re pulling out all the stops to make it an experience that will blow your mind.

Leo Politi was born in Fresno and raised in Italy and London. Demonstrating exceptional artistic talent as a small child, he received the benefit of a traditional Italian art apprenticeship. Politi returned to California in 1931, and soon established himself as Olvera Street’s public artist, drawing and painting the historic buildings, colorful characters, and festive events that honored his adopted city’s multi-cultural history and selling portraits to tourists and locals.

Documenting the people, the past, the faiths, the landscape and the built environment of Southern California, and advocating for the preservation of landmarks, would be his life’s work, manifested through more than a dozen illustrated books for children and adults, hundreds of paintings and drawings, and select murals and sculptures installed in public spaces.

The tour will begin at Grand Central Market in Downtown Los Angeles, across the street from Politi’s beloved Angels Flight Railway funicular and the redeveloped Bunker Hill that replaced his lost Victorian neighborhood. We’ll visit Olvera Street and the Plaza, to see the place where he found inspiration and gained fame, returning years later to paint a mural of the Blessing of the Animals. We’ll visit the colorful plazas of New Chinatown, see the Victorian mansions that survive atop Angeleno Heights—including Politi’s own residence—and swing out to South Pasadena’s library, where an original Politi mural and a very personal sculpture welcome children to lose themselves in books. Back Downtown, Central Library’s special collections department is graciously bringing out some of the paintings that Politi donated to the people of Los Angeles after completing his book Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days. Join us as we get to know his beloved city through vintage photos and the drawings, paintings and writings of our guiding star, Leo Politi.

Tour guests include Gordon Pattison, native son of old Bunker Hill, Bunker Hill historian Nathan Marsak, and Leo Politi’s daughter Suzanne Bischof, and attendees will have the opportunity to buy copies of Politi’s books. Coffee, cookies and lunch (choice of turkey, tuna or vegetarian sandwich from Arto’s Broadway Deli is included in the ticket price, plus Richard’s birthday cake.

We hope you’ll join us on this special tour, or for another outing soon.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

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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

• Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Walking Tour (Sat. 10/7) • Eastside Babylon Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 10/14) • The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s Southern California Nightmare Bus Tour (Sat. 10/21) • The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 10/28) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 Walking Tour (Sun. 10/29) • 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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