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. The ornate three-story Baker Block was completed around 1877 by Colonel Robert S. Baker. For a number of years, the building housed offices, shops, and apartments. Goodwill Industries of Southern California purchased it in 1919. Despite plans to relocate the structure for another purpose, the city purchased the Baker Block from Goodwill in 1941 and demolished the building a year later. U.S. Route 101 now runs beneath where these buildings once stood. Looking across N. Main Street (foreground) towards the French Second Empire style Baker Block, on the southeast corner at Arcadia Street (lower left), and the Grand Central Hotel (right).
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;11 x 15 cm. Photographic prints
Baker Block (Los Angeles, Calif.) Grand Central Hotel (Los Angeles, Calif.) Goodwill Industries of Southern California Charitable organizations--United States Commercial buildings--California--Los Angeles Office buildings--California--Los Angeles Hotels--California--Los Angeles Architecture--California--Los Angeles--French influences Lost architecture--California--Los Angeles Main Street (Los Angeles, Calif.) Downtown Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.) Schultheis Collection photographs
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