Title supplied by cataloger.; Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937. San Gabriel Dam construction began in 1932 and was completed in 1939. The dedication ceremonies in 1937 were broadcast nationwide and 2500 people came to witness the event. The dam, located on the San Gabriel river nine miles north of the city of Azusa in the San Gabriel Mountains, was the largest engineering project in Los Angeles County at that time, took 17 million depression era dollars to complete, and was as high as a 27 story building and the length of four city blocks. At the time of the dedication, the spillway at the west end of the dam had not yet been built. A close look reveals large construction equipment and men working on top of this massive spillway located to the west of the San Gabriel Dam No. 1. The terraced top mimics the dam, and although the long descent has the same basic footprint, these workers have a long way to go before getting the smooth look of the finished version.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;15 x 11 cm. Photographic prints
Dams--California--San Gabriel Canyon--Design and construction Spillways--California--San Gabriel Canyon--Design and construction Construction equipment--California--San Gabriel Canyon Flood control--California--Los Angeles County Canyons--California--Los Angeles County Mountains--California, Southern San Gabriel Dam (Calif.) San Gabriel Canyon (Calif.) Angeles National Forest (Calif.) San Gabriel Mountains (Calif.) Panoramic views Landscape photographs Schultheis Collection photographs
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
