They Called it Grasshopper Street
In the early 1870s, Figueroa Street was identified as El Camino Real and Calle de las Chapules, or Grasshopper Street. It was the westernmost street in Los Angeles for several decades in the 19th
century, running through an agricultural area. In some years, especially those experiencing drought, grasshopper plagues would decimate crops here.

A Mustard Field that Wasn’t
The area surrounding the eventual location of USC, called West Los Angeles at the time, was occupied by cattle ranches, farms and orchards of varying sizes. Among these was a Chinese produce farm at the current location of the Shrine Auditorium. The plot of land on which USC would be founded in 1880 was part of a vacant mustard field that had not been successfully cultivated.

Ozro William Childs, one of the landowners, had attempted to raise tobacco in part of the area, but failed. Alverda Brode, in her 1922 MA thesis, describes the area as follows: “The land lay vacant, covered with tall mustard, and the neighboring ranchers pastured their cows on this section. In the evening children could be seen riding horseback or walking, listening to the bells on their cows that were roaming over what is now the University Section.”

The Trojan Family Steps Up
The first 30 lots were sold in the summer of 1880 to fund the construction of the first building, now known as Widney Alumni House. Although the market value of the lots was $50, friends of the university purchased them for $200 each. In addition to the lots, owners of adjoining property donated 37.5 acres to the future university.

Horse-drawn Cars from Downtown
A map drawn at the time shows a “street railway” that used horse-drawn cars. Originating in downtown Los Angeles, it passed the campus on Wesley Avenue and extended to Agricultural Park (later Exposition Park) south of the campus. The railway was owned by Childs and John Gatley Downey (one of the original three owners of the land that is now the University Park campus), along with John M. Baldwin. Within a decade, virtually all horse-drawn cars would be replaced by electric trolleys.

A Well-Traveled Building
Widney Hall opened on Oct. 6, 1880. It cost approximately $5,060 to construct, with $1,200 spent on furnishings. The building was moved in 1907, 1955 and 1997, and is now called Widney Alumni House. In the 1930s, Lawrence Test made it into a “colonial style” building by painting the building white and adding green shutters. In 1976, the architecture firm Gin D. Wong Associates restored the building. In the original building, classrooms were on the first floor and a chapel on the second. There community church services were held for four years before the University Methodist Episcopal Church was completed nearby. The building has been the home of the School of Fine Arts, the School of Music and now houses the USC Alumni Association offices and boardrooms.

An Ingenious Invention from Mexico
An 1890s photo shows the Zanja ditch running parallel to the sidewalk on the west side of Figueroa, looking south from 23rd Street toward the Stimson House (now part of Mount St. Mary’s College), which is obscured by vegetation. A network of Zanjas comprised an irrigation system created in Mexican Los Angeles to distribute water from the Los Angeles River. American planners later expanded the system outward from downtown, including this extension south along Figueroa.

Blending Old and New
The Forthmann House at Hoover and 28th Streets is said to be the sixth oldest house in Los Angeles. Originally constructed at 629 West 18th Street, where today’s Los Angeles Convention Center is located, it was built in 1889 by John A. Forthmann, a German immigrant who became president of the Los Angeles Soap Company. After Forthmann’s death in 1922, the house was converted into an apartment building. To accommodate the expansion of the convention center, the building was donated to USC in 1987, and then moved to the Hoover location, just north of the University Park campus. Today it is called the USC Community House, home to USC Civic and Community Relations, which coordinates and documents a variety of programs that link the university to its surrounding neighborhoods.

Excerpted from A University and a Neighborhood: University of Southern California in Los Angeles, 1880-1984
by Curtis C. Roseman, Ruth Wallach, Dace Taube, Linda McCann, Geoffrey DeVerteuil and Claude Zachary
(2006, Figueroa Press).