All Aboard for L.A. Terminal Collection
By Dan Knapp
In the decades before airplanes and automobiles became the preferred modes of travel, millions of Americans utilized railways for their transcontinental journeys. During the 1930s, due to the pressures exerted by local political and business leaders, the three railroad companies that serviced Los Angeles - the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railways - joined forces and created a central terminus for rail passage: the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, better known as Union Station. The USC Libraries recently acquired a rich collection of rare and historically significant documents that meticulously detail the construction and day-to-day operations of one of the city's most recognizable landmarks. The Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal Collection contains numerous communications - letters, mailgrams and telegrams - which detail the labyrinthine negotiations between the heads of the three railroads in the years before, during and after Union Station's completion. Housed in USC's Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections, the materials provide insight into the conflicts and compromises that arose among the transportation titans.
Designed by architects John and Donald Parkinson and controversially constructed on the site of the original Chinatown, the Union Station facility was the primary gateway to and from Los Angeles in the years prior to highways or LAX. "When people think about the connection between Los Angeles and the railroad system, the story typically ends in the 1880s," said Greg Hise, an associate professor of urban history in the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development. Hise explained that the importance of the rail system to Los Angeles has been overshadowed by the reliance on the automobile and the thousands of miles of freeways and highways throughout Southern California.
"This collection details the history of the railroad system in Los Angeles during a time when the railroad was essentially ignored," he said. "It will reveal the effect railroads had on the local economy and how the system was constructed and managed." An array of legal documents - particularly those pertaining to contractual agreements with suppliers and the extensive construction specifications complement the collection, as well as plans for the railroad infrastructure and detailed architectural drawings for the building. "The archive will support interdisciplinary scholarship in a number of fields, including architecture, urban planning, U.S. history and American studies," said Kevin Mulroy, associate executive director for research collections and services at the USC Libraries. "The collection especially will support the graduate research programs of the USC-Huntington Library Institute on California and the West, directed by professor Bill Deverell." Hise also believes the collection will have a wide appeal to scholars - both at USC and from other educational institutions - who study the often-neglected history behind the post-Depression era Southern California railway system, as well as to those investigators chronicling the rise of Los Angeles. Said Robert Harris, USC emeritus professor and former dean of the USC School of Architecture, "The archives also provide a basis for understanding how the Parkinsons and their clients understood the precedents of great railroad stations around the world and the degree to which they wished not only to rise to international standards, but also to generate a symbol of this new city." Many people consider Union Station to be a quintessential icon of the Southland as much as Hollywood's Capitol Records building, the Beverly Hills Hotel or the Griffith Observatory.
"Architecturally, the Parkinsons created an instant landmark that has had enduring iconic significance," Harris said. "The composition of its principal facade with a great portal and a prominent clock tower, and its primary interior spaces, equally significant with great volume, handsome proportions and engaging detail, provided Los Angeles with one of the most memorable entry places in the United States."
Even those who have never set foot in the station feel as if they know it because of the facility's ubiquitous presence in popular culture. Union Station has been featured prominently in films such as "Silver Streak," "Blade Runner," "Bugsy" and "Pearl Harbor" and on such television programs as "24," "Alias" and "Profiler."
"Union Station has been a Los Angeles landmark since it opened more than six decades ago. It was the last of the great train stations to be built during the heyday of rail travel in the United States," Mulroy said. "Its dedication in 1939 marked the biggest public celebration in the city's history."
Union Station, located at 800 N. Alameda Ave., is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
For more information on the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal Collection, contact Dace Taube at (213) 821-2366 or taube@usc.edu.