"Joseph Jacinto “Jo” Mora. How does one begin to summarize such an enormous life?
Jo Mora, Renaissance Man of the West, is the phrase I come upon most, that and Jo Mora, cowboy cartographer. This man is also a writer, a painter, illustrator and muralist, sculptor and photographer, and a cartoonist and comic artist, which will come as no surprise to fans of his cartes. He even designs a 1925 half dollar coin for the US Mint commemorating the state of California’s 75th anniversary.
During an insurgency in 1877, the Mora family flees Uruguay. Jo is a year old at the time; his brother Luis is three. They go first to Barcelona, finally arriving in the US in 1880, where they settle in the greater New York area. Both boys are already deep into the making of art; at the ages of eight and ten respectively, they consider creating a twenty- foot mural of the Iroquois Indian wars, though there’s no record of them actually doing so.
Their father Domingo is an accomplished sculptor. Jo and Luis attend primary school in Perth Amboy and grammar school in Allston, Massachusetts. At 15, Jo completes the Boston Latin School, and graduates from the Pingry Academy in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1894. Both study sculpture under their father, who teaches art in Perth Amboy, Boston and New York City.
By 1895 Jo’s studying at the Art Students League, the Chase School of Art in New York and the Cowles Art School in Boston – and, at 19, has already produced poster murals for the Clermont Skating Rink in Brooklyn. Returning to Boston, Jo goes to work first for the Boston Traveler and then becomes a member of the Boston Herald art staff for the next four years, illustrating articles plus various books.
In 1903, he takes a trip west, working as a cowpuncher on a ranch in Solvang near the Mission Santa Ines, which inspires him to travel the entire Camino Real and sketch the Missions he saw. In 1904 he travels by mule-drawn wagon across Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia National Park and the Mojave Desert to Needles on his way to the Hopi mesas in Arizona. In Arizona, he is permitted to witness the Hopi Snake Dance, then sets to both photographing and producing detailed artwork of the ceremonies of the Hopi and Navaho tribes he’s gotten to know over two years of living among them.
Upon settling back in California he will marry Grace Needham, of San Jose, CA., at the Mission San Gabriel in 1907 and start to raise his soon to be born children Jo, Jr. and patty.
Mora publishes twelve of his iconic cartes over his lifetime. The first, Monterey Peninsula, his second, The 17 Mile Drive, and the first version of California all come out in 1927. San Diego appears in 1928. The three national parks, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, all come out in 1931. Grace Line Fleet to the Old Spanish Main and Evolution of the Cowboy: Levi’s Round-Up of Cowboy Lore are published in 1933; the latter is a poster rather than a map, as is his Indians of North America in 1936. Carmel-by- the-Sea and Los Angeles are both issued in 1942. A second, smaller version of California will be his last, in 1945. An unfinished pencil rendering of a map of Catalina is found after his death.
But cartes are hardly all Jo Mora does. This man’s work is as varied as it is prolific. Starting out collaborating with his father, he finds himself working on huge architectural projects. In Los Angeles, at least four buildings include his work, including the Palace Theatre; he is assisting his father on four sculpted allegorical panels representing song, dance, music and drama when his father dies while this commission is still in progress. Mora completes it.
In San Jose, Mora creates two heroic male sphinx figures for the Scottish Rite Temple [today the San Jose Athletic Club], plus bas-reliefs over its entrance and throughout the building. He provides decorative elements for the Monterey County Courthouse, as well as numerous detailed panels for the King City High School auditorium. In Carmel, he sculpts Father Junipero Serra’s cenotaph, an altar and a cross.
He creates pediments and bas-relief panels for four buildings in San Francisco; his Miguel de Cervantes looks down on his Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the Golden Gate Park. A marble bench with sculpted bears by Mora sits in front of the Sather Tower on the UC Berkeley campus. He creates the main entrance doorway and sculptures of bears to support fountains for the Union Wool Building in Boston. He designs a number of homes himself.
Architectural work is just one facet of Mora’s endless creativity. He designs everything from ordinary scale sculptures, many of cowboys breaking broncs, to “heroic” (larger than life) sculptures, to bronze plaques and vast murals. He creates fifteen or more dioramas, thirteen for the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma.
One diorama, exhibited at the California State Building at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, is a one-hundred-foot-long depiction of the 1769 Portolá Expedition. Tragically, it is destroyed in a fire six months after the opening of the fair.
Mora illustrates countless books, both his own and for those of others. He designs bookends, trophies, coins and scrip certificates for use in Carmel during the Depression. He sculpts his son Jo Jr. at three years of age, reata in hand, breaking a hobby horse."
David Rumsey
LOS ANGELES
Okay, I see, at least, why I missed LA. The name of the town doesn’t make the map, well, okay, except for the title of the map. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Juan Rodrı́guez Cabrillo claims the area for Spain in 1542, but it isn’t until 1769 when Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespı́ reach the present site of LA. And it will still be another twelve years before the city of Los Angeles is actually founded by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve.
LA becomes a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California are purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and thus become part of the United States. Los Angeles is incorporated as a municipality in 1850, with a population of 1,610, four months before California formally joins the United States. By 1900, the population of Los Angeles is 102,479. By 1940, it’s 1,504,277. [By 2010, it’s 3,792,621.]
By the beginning of the 20th century, the area’s being referred to as Greater Los Angeles, from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino County and Riverside County on the east, with Los Angeles County in the center and Orange County to the southeast, all surrounding the urban core that is Los Angeles. [In 2017, the population of Greater Los Angeles: 18.8 million individuals, all with a story to tell.
LOS ANGELES
Okay, I see, at least, why I missed LA. The name of the town doesn’t make the map, well, okay, except for the title of the map. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Juan Rodrı́guez Cabrillo claims the area for Spain in 1542, but it isn’t until 1769 when Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespı́ reach the present site of LA. And it will still be another twelve years before the city of Los Angeles is actually founded by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve.
LA becomes a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California are purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and thus become part of the United States. Los Angeles is incorporated as a municipality in 1850, with a population of 1,610, four months before California formally joins the United States. By 1900, the population of Los Angeles is 102,479. By 1940, it’s 1,504,277. [By 2010, it’s 3,792,621.]
By the beginning of the 20th century, the area’s being referred to as Greater Los Angeles, from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino County and Riverside County on the east, with Los Angeles County in the center and Orange County to the southeast, all surrounding the urban core that is Los Angeles. [In 2017, the population of Greater Los Angeles: 18.8 million individuals, all with a story to tell.
BISON STUDIOS, Edendale, 1909
Thomas H. Ince is considered the father of the Hollywood studio system. In 1912, he founds the Miller 101 Bison Ranch Studio, aka “Inceville,” in Santa Ynez Canyon, partnering with the Miller brothers of Ponca City, Oklahoma. Leasing their wild west show, which includes 300 cowboys and cowgirls, 600 horses, cattle, etc., plus a tribe of 200 Sioux Indians, Ince becomes known as the father of the Western.
In 1915, Ince, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennet form the Ince-Triangle Studios, then in 1918, Ince goes back on his own as Thomas H. Ince Studios.
Jo Mora would create one of his “heroic” – larger than life – sculptures, this of George Miller, one of the Miller brothers of the 101 Ranch.
See also https://www.bisonarchives.com/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_H._Ince
BISON STUDIOS, Edendale, 1909
Thomas H. Ince is considered the father of the Hollywood studio system. In 1912, he founds the Miller 101 Bison Ranch Studio, aka “Inceville,” in Santa Ynez Canyon, partnering with the Miller brothers of Ponca City, Oklahoma. Leasing their wild west show, which includes 300 cowboys and cowgirls, 600 horses, cattle, etc., plus a tribe of 200 Sioux Indians, Ince becomes known as the father of the Western.
In 1915, Ince, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennet form the Ince-Triangle Studios, then in 1918, Ince goes back on his own as Thomas H. Ince Studios.
Jo Mora would create one of his “heroic” – larger than life – sculptures, this of George Miller, one of the Miller brothers of the 101 Ranch.
See also https://www.bisonarchives.com/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_H._Ince
ESSENAY FILM MANUFACTURING CO., Chicago, 1907; Niles, CA, 1912
Founded by George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, the name utilizes the first letter of the founders’ last names, and Essenay quickly goes on to become a studio of firsts: the first Jesse James movie in 1908; the first pie-in-the-face gag in 1909; some of the world’s very first cartoons in 1915; and the first American Sherlock Holmes film in 1916. During their ten years in business, they turn out more than 1,400 titles.
Very much a coincidence, Mora’s sculpture Poppy Girl resides in Niles, CA, as did the Essenay film studio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essanay_Studios
ESSENAY FILM MANUFACTURING CO., Chicago, 1907; Niles, CA, 1912
Founded by George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, the name utilizes the first letter of the founders’ last names, and Essenay quickly goes on to become a studio of firsts: the first Jesse James movie in 1908; the first pie-in-the-face gag in 1909; some of the world’s very first cartoons in 1915; and the first American Sherlock Holmes film in 1916. During their ten years in business, they turn out more than 1,400 titles.
Very much a coincidence, Mora’s sculpture Poppy Girl resides in Niles, CA, as did the Essenay film studio.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essanay_Studios
Mission San Fernando Rey de España, in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles, is the 17th of the 21 Spanish missions established in Alta California at the end of the 16th century. Named for Saint Ferdinand, the mission is the namesake of the nearby city of San Fernando and the San Fernando Valley.
The goals of the missions are, first, to spread the message of Christianity and, second, to establish a Spanish colony. Because of the difficulty of delivering supplies by sea, the missions have to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. For that reason, neophytes are taught European style farming, animal husbandry, mechanical arts and domestic crafts.
Founded in 1797 by Father Fermı́n Lasuén, San Fernando is the fourth mission site he himself has established. Ten children are baptized on the first day. Six months later, 13 adults are baptized and the first marriage takes place. At the end of the year, 55 neophytes reside at the mission. By 1800, there are 310 neophytes, and there have been 352 baptisms, and 70 deaths. During the first decade of the 19th century, the neophyte population increases from 310 to 955; there have been 797 deaths, and 1,468 baptisms.
After the Mexican Empire gains independence from Spain in 1821, the Province of Alta California becomes the Mexican Territory of Alta California. The missions continue under the rule of Mexico until 1834. During that period, the neophyte population decreases by less than 100, though the mission remains productive. Then comes secularization. Comisionado Antonio del Valle takes charge of the mission.
In 1842, six years before the California Gold Rush, a brother of the mission mayordomo (foreman) makes the first Alta California gold discovery in the foothills near the mission, though only small quantities of gold dust are found. In 1845, Governor Pı́o Pico declares the mission buildings for sale and, in 1846, makes the Mission San Fernando headquarters as Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. The mission is utilized in a number of ways during the late 19th century: just to its north is the site of the Butterfield Stage Lines’ Lopez Station; it serves as a warehouse for the Porter Land and Water Company; and in 1896, the quadrangle becomes a hog farm.
In 1861 the mission buildings and 75 acres of land are returned to the church, after Charles Fletcher Lummis acts for preservation; the buildings are disintegrating. San Fernando's church becomes a working church again in 1923 when a group of Oblate priests arrive.
Jo Mora created several sketches of the Mission San Fernando during his travels of the Camino Royal in 1903. I suspect he had his sketchbook open in front of him as he eventually drew the Mission for the carte.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Fernando...
Mission San Fernando Rey de España, in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles, is the 17th of the 21 Spanish missions established in Alta California at the end of the 16th century. Named for Saint Ferdinand, the mission is the namesake of the nearby city of San Fernando and the San Fernando Valley.
The goals of the missions are, first, to spread the message of Christianity and, second, to establish a Spanish colony. Because of the difficulty of delivering supplies by sea, the missions have to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. For that reason, neophytes are taught European style farming, animal husbandry, mechanical arts and domestic crafts.
Founded in 1797 by Father Fermı́n Lasuén, San Fernando is the fourth mission site he himself has established. Ten children are baptized on the first day. Six months later, 13 adults are baptized and the first marriage takes place. At the end of the year, 55 neophytes reside at the mission. By 1800, there are 310 neophytes, and there have been 352 baptisms, and 70 deaths. During the first decade of the 19th century, the neophyte population increases from 310 to 955; there have been 797 deaths, and 1,468 baptisms.
After the Mexican Empire gains independence from Spain in 1821, the Province of Alta California becomes the Mexican Territory of Alta California. The missions continue under the rule of Mexico until 1834. During that period, the neophyte population decreases by less than 100, though the mission remains productive. Then comes secularization. Comisionado Antonio del Valle takes charge of the mission.
In 1842, six years before the California Gold Rush, a brother of the mission mayordomo (foreman) makes the first Alta California gold discovery in the foothills near the mission, though only small quantities of gold dust are found. In 1845, Governor Pı́o Pico declares the mission buildings for sale and, in 1846, makes the Mission San Fernando headquarters as Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. The mission is utilized in a number of ways during the late 19th century: just to its north is the site of the Butterfield Stage Lines’ Lopez Station; it serves as a warehouse for the Porter Land and Water Company; and in 1896, the quadrangle becomes a hog farm.
In 1861 the mission buildings and 75 acres of land are returned to the church, after Charles Fletcher Lummis acts for preservation; the buildings are disintegrating. San Fernando's church becomes a working church again in 1923 when a group of Oblate priests arrive.
Jo Mora created several sketches of the Mission San Fernando during his travels of the Camino Royal in 1903. I suspect he had his sketchbook open in front of him as he eventually drew the Mission for the carte.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Fernando...
MISSION SAN GABRIEL
The fourth in the chain of missions, Mission San Gabriel is founded in 1771 by Father Serra. Named for the Arcángel Gabriel, it sits in the foothills just east of downtown Los Angeles. Positioned at the crossroads of three important trails, the mission serves as a trade center. In 1775, the mission is moved three miles to its present location, to improve conditions for planting and cultivating the fields. Far more productive than any of the other missions in California, San Gabriel provides many of the other missions with the necessities of life from its land. Mission San Gabriel is credited with introducing large scale cultivation of grapes to California.
Architecturally, San Gabriel is distinct among the California missions. Father Antonio Cruzado, the designer, was born in Cordova, Spain. His Moorish style draws directly from the famous cathedral of Cordova, where the side walls feature capped buttresses. Cruzado and his associates finish construction on the church in 1805, using adobe brick and a tiled roof like that of Mission San Antonio. At its peak, the mission reaches nearly 300 feet in length.
The cemetery at San Gabriel is the oldest in Los Angeles County. The walls, rebuilt in 1940, sit on the original foundations. Six thousand Native Americans are buried here. On a lighter note, Jo and Grace Needham will marry here January 6, 1907.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Gabriel_...
MISSION SAN GABRIEL
The fourth in the chain of missions, Mission San Gabriel is founded in 1771 by Father Serra. Named for the Arcángel Gabriel, it sits in the foothills just east of downtown Los Angeles. Positioned at the crossroads of three important trails, the mission serves as a trade center. In 1775, the mission is moved three miles to its present location, to improve conditions for planting and cultivating the fields. Far more productive than any of the other missions in California, San Gabriel provides many of the other missions with the necessities of life from its land. Mission San Gabriel is credited with introducing large scale cultivation of grapes to California.
Architecturally, San Gabriel is distinct among the California missions. Father Antonio Cruzado, the designer, was born in Cordova, Spain. His Moorish style draws directly from the famous cathedral of Cordova, where the side walls feature capped buttresses. Cruzado and his associates finish construction on the church in 1805, using adobe brick and a tiled roof like that of Mission San Antonio. At its peak, the mission reaches nearly 300 feet in length.
The cemetery at San Gabriel is the oldest in Los Angeles County. The walls, rebuilt in 1940, sit on the original foundations. Six thousand Native Americans are buried here. On a lighter note, Jo and Grace Needham will marry here January 6, 1907.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Gabriel_...
LOS ANGELES ATHLETIC CLUB INCORPORATED 1887… THOUGH ORGANIZED IN 1880. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Athletic...
The Los Angeles Athletic Club gets the prize for being LA’s first private club. Founded in 1880, when the population of Los Angeles is only 11,000, back in the day when the preferred mode of travel is still the stagecoach, the LAAC joins a core of downtown businesses that include saloons and shooting galleries. Forty well-known Angelenos, sons of the pioneers, adventurers and athletes all, gather in Frank Gibson’s law office to create an American style club for the “best young men” of the community. Ladies are welcome at social events and exhibitions.
The initial fee is $5; monthly dues are $1. Within a month, they have sixty members. The club includes a gymnasium complete with a trapeze, flying rings, a long horse, Indian clubs and dumbbells, and an outdoors athletic park, including a running track and path for bicycling, a baseball diamond, tennis courts and a grass court for croquet. They also organize a civic football team which plays intercity matches, beginning with San Francisco in 1892.
The club house includes a reading room, and areas for billiards and cards. Its second location, a 12-story Beaux-Arts style edifice on West Seventh Street, sports an indoor pool on the top floor. Anyone you can think of has been a member. And Jo Mora, working with architects John Parkinson and George Bergstrom, designs and creates this sculpture which resides above the front door.
LOS ANGELES ATHLETIC CLUB INCORPORATED 1887… THOUGH ORGANIZED IN 1880. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Athletic...
The Los Angeles Athletic Club gets the prize for being LA’s first private club. Founded in 1880, when the population of Los Angeles is only 11,000, back in the day when the preferred mode of travel is still the stagecoach, the LAAC joins a core of downtown businesses that include saloons and shooting galleries. Forty well-known Angelenos, sons of the pioneers, adventurers and athletes all, gather in Frank Gibson’s law office to create an American style club for the “best young men” of the community. Ladies are welcome at social events and exhibitions.
The initial fee is $5; monthly dues are $1. Within a month, they have sixty members. The club includes a gymnasium complete with a trapeze, flying rings, a long horse, Indian clubs and dumbbells, and an outdoors athletic park, including a running track and path for bicycling, a baseball diamond, tennis courts and a grass court for croquet. They also organize a civic football team which plays intercity matches, beginning with San Francisco in 1892.
The club house includes a reading room, and areas for billiards and cards. Its second location, a 12-story Beaux-Arts style edifice on West Seventh Street, sports an indoor pool on the top floor. Anyone you can think of has been a member. And Jo Mora, working with architects John Parkinson and George Bergstrom, designs and creates this sculpture which resides above the front door.
Across the bottom of a page in the December 1996 issue of Los Angeles magazine runs partof a timeline of LA history. In 1909, a mayor resigns amidst a red-light district scandal. In 1910, the Los Angeles Times building is bombed and LA annexes Hollywood. In 1911, the first rollercoaster opens on Venice Pier. On February 15, 1912, the first international polo match is played in LA. That’s it – that’s all I can find on this subject. Who plays, who wins – who knows?
Mora’s ability isn’t limited to fine cartoons of gents playing polo. He has no problems creating them in bronze and plaster as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Rogers_Polo_Clu...
http://www.willrogerspolo.org/
Across the bottom of a page in the December 1996 issue of Los Angeles magazine runs partof a timeline of LA history. In 1909, a mayor resigns amidst a red-light district scandal. In 1910, the Los Angeles Times building is bombed and LA annexes Hollywood. In 1911, the first rollercoaster opens on Venice Pier. On February 15, 1912, the first international polo match is played in LA. That’s it – that’s all I can find on this subject. Who plays, who wins – who knows?
Mora’s ability isn’t limited to fine cartoons of gents playing polo. He has no problems creating them in bronze and plaster as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Rogers_Polo_Clu...
http://www.willrogerspolo.org/
SHADES OF WILL ROGERS
One-quarter Cherokee, Will Rogers is born in 1879 on his family’s ranch near Oolagah, a town in the Cherokee Nation in what is known then as Indian Territory (today Oklahoma), and begins riding as soon as he can walk. His first-rate horsemanship and roping skills soon enable him to leave Oolagah for Argentina. His plan: to strike it rich in the cattle business. This doesn’t work out, so he takes a job working on a livestock ship across the South Atlantic, tending animals. Upon arrival in South Africa, he joins Texas Jack's Wild West Circus as a bronc rider and trick roper. He then makes his way to New Zealand, where a reviewer in the Auckland Herald considers Rogers capable of lassoing anything from “a wildly galloping steed to the business end of a flash of lightning.”
Returning for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Rogers quickly finds work in Wild West shows and vaudeville. In 1905, he appears in New York’s Madison Square Garden for the first time, making $20 a week. His blend of shy humor, political commentary, and trick roping enthrall East Coast audiences. In one of his signature tricks, Rogers manages to throw three lariats at one time: the first catching up the horse's head, the second the rider's body, and the third, the horse's legs. Ten years after his arrival in New York, he’s making $750 a week with the Ziegfeld Follies.
By 1918, Hollywood has drawn Will Rogers west. By 1930, he’s making $200,000 per film, appearing with stars like Myrna Loy and Mickey Rooney, usually portraying himself in parts for which he often writes the scripts and ad-libs the dialogue. He makes 50 silent films and 21 talkies. In what is now Pacific Palisades, Rogers builds himself a ranch on 186 acres where he lives with his wife Betty and their three children. The 31-room ranch house, which includes 11 baths and seven fireplaces, is surrounded by a stable, corrals, a riding ring, roping arena, golf course and polo field. He has no use for golf, but lives for polo, though not dressed as most polo players of the day. He prefers overalls and cowboy boots. And you can forget the helmet.
Fascinated by aviation, Rogers is friends with Charles Lindbergh, and in 1935 takes a fateful flight into Alaska with Wiley Post, a fellow Oklahoman and the first aviator to fly solo the 15,474 miles it takes to circumnavigate the world. Post has cobbled together a plane for this trip with longer wings than originally built, intended to accommodate floats for water landings. Tragically, the engine fails on a takeoff.
At the time of his death in 1935, Rogers is the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and probably the most famous man in America. The New York Times devotes four pages to the story of the Rogers-Post crash.
For the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, Jo Mora will sculpt numerous small figures of Will Rogers and others to replicate scenes from Rogers’ life, a montage of 13 detailed miniature dioramas, from Rogers’ birthplace, to his times on the range and with the Zeigfeld Follies, to his work on radio and as a journalist, to his days in Hollywood, to his death off the coast of Alaska.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Rogers
SHADES OF WILL ROGERS
One-quarter Cherokee, Will Rogers is born in 1879 on his family’s ranch near Oolagah, a town in the Cherokee Nation in what is known then as Indian Territory (today Oklahoma), and begins riding as soon as he can walk. His first-rate horsemanship and roping skills soon enable him to leave Oolagah for Argentina. His plan: to strike it rich in the cattle business. This doesn’t work out, so he takes a job working on a livestock ship across the South Atlantic, tending animals. Upon arrival in South Africa, he joins Texas Jack's Wild West Circus as a bronc rider and trick roper. He then makes his way to New Zealand, where a reviewer in the Auckland Herald considers Rogers capable of lassoing anything from “a wildly galloping steed to the business end of a flash of lightning.”
Returning for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Rogers quickly finds work in Wild West shows and vaudeville. In 1905, he appears in New York’s Madison Square Garden for the first time, making $20 a week. His blend of shy humor, political commentary, and trick roping enthrall East Coast audiences. In one of his signature tricks, Rogers manages to throw three lariats at one time: the first catching up the horse's head, the second the rider's body, and the third, the horse's legs. Ten years after his arrival in New York, he’s making $750 a week with the Ziegfeld Follies.
By 1918, Hollywood has drawn Will Rogers west. By 1930, he’s making $200,000 per film, appearing with stars like Myrna Loy and Mickey Rooney, usually portraying himself in parts for which he often writes the scripts and ad-libs the dialogue. He makes 50 silent films and 21 talkies. In what is now Pacific Palisades, Rogers builds himself a ranch on 186 acres where he lives with his wife Betty and their three children. The 31-room ranch house, which includes 11 baths and seven fireplaces, is surrounded by a stable, corrals, a riding ring, roping arena, golf course and polo field. He has no use for golf, but lives for polo, though not dressed as most polo players of the day. He prefers overalls and cowboy boots. And you can forget the helmet.
Fascinated by aviation, Rogers is friends with Charles Lindbergh, and in 1935 takes a fateful flight into Alaska with Wiley Post, a fellow Oklahoman and the first aviator to fly solo the 15,474 miles it takes to circumnavigate the world. Post has cobbled together a plane for this trip with longer wings than originally built, intended to accommodate floats for water landings. Tragically, the engine fails on a takeoff.
At the time of his death in 1935, Rogers is the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and probably the most famous man in America. The New York Times devotes four pages to the story of the Rogers-Post crash.
For the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, Jo Mora will sculpt numerous small figures of Will Rogers and others to replicate scenes from Rogers’ life, a montage of 13 detailed miniature dioramas, from Rogers’ birthplace, to his times on the range and with the Zeigfeld Follies, to his work on radio and as a journalist, to his days in Hollywood, to his death off the coast of Alaska.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Rogers
SHADES OF CHAS. R. LUMMIS – S.W. MUSEUM – EL ALISAL
I have read about him (American Character: The Curious Life of Charles Fletcher Lummis and The Rediscovery of the Southwest, by Mark Thompson), and I’ve read A Tramp Across the Continent, by Lummis himself, as well as articles too numerous to count on the Internet. Where do you start?
Culling from numerous sources, I can describe Charles Lummis - “Lum” or “Charlie” to his friends – as a writer, poet and journalist, a publisher, a photographer, a prolific correspondent, an anthropologist, ethnographer and collector, a City Librarian of the LA Public Library, a lifetime student of indigenous and regional Southwestern history and culture, and an activist for American Indian rights, a man of insatiable curiosity – the ultimate bon vivant and Renaissance man. This is the correspondent who walks from Chillicothe, Ohio, to Los Angeles in 1884, posting articles weekly to the Chillicothe Leader that get picked up and republished nationwide. When he arrives in LA, the job of city editor of the Los Angeles Times is waiting for him.
In 1903, Lummis founds the Southwest Society, the western branch of the Archaeological Institute of America, and in 1914 he opens the city’s first museum, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, housing an extensive collection of pre-Hispanic Native American art and artifacts, much of which come from his own collections.
El Alisal, above the banks of the Arroyo Seco, is Lummis’s rustic three-acre estate. In those white overalls he’s wearing on the carte and with some hired help, it takes him 13 years to build his 4,000-square-foot home and three guest houses, or “casitas,” of stone brought up from the riverbed below. Once finished, he entertains there constantly, throwing what he refers to as “noises,” and keeps “housebooks” over the years with signatures of all those who attend, names like Clarence Darrow, Will Rogers, John Philip Sousa, John Muir – and of course, Jo Mora.
In 1905, Lummis creates the Arroyo Seco Foundation, to promote recreational use and preserve the habitat of the arroyo he loves. Dying in 1928, at least he’s spared the sight of LA’s first freeway, the 1940 Arroyo Seco Parkway, as it passes between El Alisal and the concrete-paved flood control channel that once was the Arroyo Seco. All of which brings us back to the dedication on the carte:
“This carte I dedicate to the memory of a loyal Angelino and a bien amigo – the late Charles F. Lummis. In 1903 his prophetic vision outlined to me a spectacular growth for the old Pueblo into a gay Metropolis as exotic, in its way, as was his own personality.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fletcher_Lum...
SHADES OF CHAS. R. LUMMIS – S.W. MUSEUM – EL ALISAL
I have read about him (American Character: The Curious Life of Charles Fletcher Lummis and The Rediscovery of the Southwest, by Mark Thompson), and I’ve read A Tramp Across the Continent, by Lummis himself, as well as articles too numerous to count on the Internet. Where do you start?
Culling from numerous sources, I can describe Charles Lummis - “Lum” or “Charlie” to his friends – as a writer, poet and journalist, a publisher, a photographer, a prolific correspondent, an anthropologist, ethnographer and collector, a City Librarian of the LA Public Library, a lifetime student of indigenous and regional Southwestern history and culture, and an activist for American Indian rights, a man of insatiable curiosity – the ultimate bon vivant and Renaissance man. This is the correspondent who walks from Chillicothe, Ohio, to Los Angeles in 1884, posting articles weekly to the Chillicothe Leader that get picked up and republished nationwide. When he arrives in LA, the job of city editor of the Los Angeles Times is waiting for him.
In 1903, Lummis founds the Southwest Society, the western branch of the Archaeological Institute of America, and in 1914 he opens the city’s first museum, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, housing an extensive collection of pre-Hispanic Native American art and artifacts, much of which come from his own collections.
El Alisal, above the banks of the Arroyo Seco, is Lummis’s rustic three-acre estate. In those white overalls he’s wearing on the carte and with some hired help, it takes him 13 years to build his 4,000-square-foot home and three guest houses, or “casitas,” of stone brought up from the riverbed below. Once finished, he entertains there constantly, throwing what he refers to as “noises,” and keeps “housebooks” over the years with signatures of all those who attend, names like Clarence Darrow, Will Rogers, John Philip Sousa, John Muir – and of course, Jo Mora.
In 1905, Lummis creates the Arroyo Seco Foundation, to promote recreational use and preserve the habitat of the arroyo he loves. Dying in 1928, at least he’s spared the sight of LA’s first freeway, the 1940 Arroyo Seco Parkway, as it passes between El Alisal and the concrete-paved flood control channel that once was the Arroyo Seco. All of which brings us back to the dedication on the carte:
“This carte I dedicate to the memory of a loyal Angelino and a bien amigo – the late Charles F. Lummis. In 1903 his prophetic vision outlined to me a spectacular growth for the old Pueblo into a gay Metropolis as exotic, in its way, as was his own personality.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fletcher_Lum...