Name/Title
A negative of the Nemo's Trip to Slumberland ride at Chutes/Luna Park, Los AngelesEntry/Object ID
2012.381.1.1Description
A negative of the Nemo's Trip to Slumberland ride at Chutes/Luna Park, Los Angeles, 31 December 1911. The image shows two women and a child by a ticket booth in front of the ride, which has the name on a broad arched entrance. There is also at least one person off to the far left. The word "me" is written next to the woman at the right and there is a caption at the bottom, "Taken in Shutts [sic] Park, LA, Calif, Dec 31-1911." The 35-acre parcel was was bounded by Grand, Washington, Main and 21st was bought by David V. Waldron and there had been a hotel there established in 1873 by Joseph Land called the Sulphur Springs Hotel. Waldron developed the land in 1887 for a park called Washington Gardens with access to trolley cars from downtown via a horse-drawn trolley from his park to then city limits. By 1899, the land was held by the Los Angeles Improvement Company, who built a theater, baseball park and rides and Chutes Park was the name from 1900, based on a water chutes ride added there. The park name changed to Luna Park in 1911 and the Nemo ride, a $75,000 investment built by J. D. Thompson (whose name is on the ticket booth), shown here was added then. In September 1912, the park was sold to a syndicate of Los Angeles blacks, who planned a pleasure ground for black residents of the area. A zoo, however, opened instead in 1914.